Here in the UK we get through around 2.5 BILLION disposable cups a year – 1 million trees are felled just for coffee cups, and a typical cup uses around 05 litre of water in being made.

And sadly, disposable coffee cups are very hard to recycle – a 2017 study found that only around 1:400 are recycled – due to the difficulty in recycling the plastic coated paper, and also I would imagine to the large amount of contamination that must occur when trying to collect them as a waste stream.

The billions of coffee cups that are ending up in landfill every year are responsible for around 152,000 tonnes of CO2 which is equivalent to the emissions of 33, 300 cars.
And it’s only going to get worse – WWF predict that our coffee cup usage will increase by 33% by 2030!

So what’s the answer?
Reusables I hear you cry! Well done, bonus points for you.
And I’m sure that most of us have got at least one reusable cup kicking around at home. But how many of us remember to take them out with us every time. Be honest? Research from environmental charity Hubbub found that while 69% of us own a reusable cup, only around 1 in 6 of them remembered to use it every single time.

Enter the Shrewsbury Cup – a simply brilliant project, the brain child of Ali Thomas and Sophie Peach, who both wanted to do something to reduce single use plastic usage where they live in Shrewsbury, and created this wonderful scheme that has been replicated many times, and if I’m not mistaken, might even be being used at COP26 as we speak

Earth Overshoot Day
Have you heard of it?

You may have seen a post or two on social media telling you that today is Earth Overshoot Day, and you may well be wondering what on earth that is!
Which is a great question.

Here's the official definition:
"Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year."

Any clearer?
Me neither.

Tune in as I explain a little more, about what Earth Overshoot Day is, why it matters, and what we can do about it.

Enjoy!

While we're all hopefully pretty on top of using our own water bottles now, the next step if you're looking to increase your refill repertoire (do you like that?!) is to check out your local refill shop for all kinds of things from washing up liquid and shampoo, through to pasta and chocolate covered raisins (one of my faves).

Which sounds easy peasy - we're all grown ups right?
But I think for lots of us it can feel pretty scary - I know I had a degree of anxiety my 'first time'.
- What if I haven't got the right sized pots?
- Can I take plastic pots into a plastic-free shop?
- What if I spill anything?
- What if it's really quiet and the owner is watching me and it's all really awkward?
- What if I get to the till and I've inadvertently spent £48.76 when my budget was £20?

Please know if you're feeling nervous about visiting a refill shop, you're not alone!
So I thought it might be helpful to share some top tips in this episode of the podcast.

Do let me know if it's helpful and if it's helped you to pluck up the courage to make a visit. And if you've got any of your own top tips to add!

Enjoy!

In this episode I’m chatting to Jo Royle, founder and CEO of Common Seas – an organisation on a mission to quickly and significantly reduce the amount of plastic produced and stop it polluting our rivers and seas.
As a former sailor Jo was very aware of the issues that plastic is causing to our marine environments, and is the world record holder for the longest voyage made out of a boat made from plastic bottles!
As well as being an advocate of personal changes, she’s also focussed on the big system and policy changes we need to see to make it easier for all of us to use less single use plastic, and it's hugely inspiring to hear about the projects that Common Seas are running.

Enjoy.

Plastic free July is a campaign that started in Australia as small, local campaign – the brain child of Rebecca Prince-Ruiz.  Now in it’s 10^th year it is a truly global and hugely impactful campaign, - in July 2020 over 300 million people took part in the challenge from over 170 different countries.  If this doesn’t demonstrate the power of just one person wanting to make a difference, I'm not sure what does.

I wanted to do a little solo episode to kick of Plastic Free July, and was trying to think about what I could do – simply listing off a list of swaps might be vaguely helpful but probably isn’t the most exciting listen.
So what I’m going to do instead is to bust a few of the myths that I think exist around this term plastic-free, in case you’re like me and find it a little off-putting and daunting and like you’re never going to be plastic-free so it all feels a bit pointless even trying.

Enjoy!

I’m still having to pinch myself a little but I got to spend an hour hanging out and having a chinwag with a past winer of the Great British Bake Off! I met Nancy Birtwhistle, the 2014 winner of my very favourite TV show, virtually, for an event we did together for Glasgow's Aye Write Festival earlier on this year. Nancy has got a book out called Clean and Green, and we were paired up for a talk on Eco Tips for your Home and Family.
I wanted to chat more to Nancy about her book, and about all things 'green cleaning' so I pulled on my big girl pants and plucked up the courage to send her an e-mail after the event inviting her on the podcast.
To my surprise and delight, she said yes!

Now I’m very much not one of life’s clean freaks. I find cleaning thoroughly soul destroying and perhaps because of my lacklustre approach to it, my attempts at home made cleaning products have never been resounding successes.
But Nancy’s approach is really refreshing, and even I have been tempted to have another go, and I was more than a little over-excited to whup up a batch of Nancy’s toilet magic at the weekend and have been delightedly spraying it willy nilly around our looks all this week. It was super easy and seems to be coping with my kids spraying something else willy nilly around our loos well.

I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed recording it – do let me know if you’re tempted to have a go at some homemade cleaning products, or if you’re now going to make the switch to an eco version of one your usual products!

As ever, please do leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts – it helps it to climb the charts and more importantly boosts my poor fragile ego no end….

Enjoy!

Yay! The podcast is BACK for series FOUR!!

I intended to only take a short break in the New Year and now suddenly it's March - I'd like to say I have no idea how that happened, but the reality is that it turns out launching a book into the world is quite time consuming, and as ever I massively over-estimated what I'd be able to get done each day...!

Right then, this week's podcast is with the wonderful Lauren Derrett, founder of Wear 'em Out, a new brand of reusable pad.
We chat all things periods, obviously, but also lots of chat around taking the plunge and starting your own product based business, some of the barriers in the way of 'green living' and why lots of us might not necessarily resonate with, or aspire to 'green living' stereotypes.
We recorded this episode way back in October last year, when Lauren had a brand, prototype pads and some great feedback from testers but was waiting for the first delivery of pads. Since that time, their first order arrived, the website crashed with the demand, they sold out, re-stocked and haves sold out again! Lauren posted today on Instagram that they've had 542 orders so far, meaning that over the next three years, 429,264 disposable pads will be saved from landfill (based on the average use of 22 pads per cycle).
WOW!! This is where we quickly and easily see impact of individual action, collectively.

Quick word of warning that Lauren is a self-confessed 'potty mouth' and I think drops the 'f-bomb' at one point - my suggestion would be not to listen to this one with the kids in earshot, or if you're not a fan of the odd expletive, to give this one a miss (although you'll be missing out on a great episode!).

Enjoy!!