A rubbish post

I've got conflicting emotions about this story.

On one hand the fine seems a little petty, and out of proportion. But on the other hand the man lives in a house with a reasonable sized garden, and has been warned- several times. It seems he doesn't want to think about his rubbish beyon making sure it goes in the bin.

I don't think it's too much to ask people to think about what waste they produce when they buy their food, to be honest. Am I being too Marie Antionnette here? I don't think so. In times past we would be creative with our food. We would eat everything on our plate because it would be rude not to, and we would save and reheat the left overs. We'd be creative with our cooking. Now we just throw out anything that's 5 seconds past the useby date, and don't do anything to avoid it.

It's true our supermarket culture sells a lot of over packaged goods. Recently a columnist tried to live a plastic-free lifestyl. But there are alternatives- even in the supermarket. Meat can be bought in a simple plastic bag with a sticker. You can buy some of your veg loose and despite having a plastic window, a mushroom bag takes up less room in the rubbish to a box.

We have a very good stystem in our street. We have a fortnightly recycling collection, with which you can recycle almost everything reclcylable but only 1 in 10 houses in our street use it. It seems too much effort and something needs to be done to snap people out of their complacency.

Yes there are circumstances where fortnightly collection won't work, in high rise blocks in inner cities you have no storage space for example. But because a system doesn't work in one area doesn't mean it is universally useless. In some areas food waste is recycled weekly- putting the pressure on people to think about how much of everything else they use without causing a health hazard.

In short the man should have been fined. About £30 would have been sensible.

Fairtrade Fortnight

Just a quick nudge. Fairtrade fortnight starts today. As well as being able to buy from fairtrade shops both online and physical, you will be able to get some products alongside your regular groceries at your local supermarket.

Co-op fairtrade wine is particularly good, as is their policy of sourcing only Fairtrade coffee and chocolate for their own brand.

Keep a look out when you are shopping, because last year many supermarkets trialed several new fairtrade lines at discount prices. Not only are these new lines a fair deal for both producer and consumer, seeing these lines snapped up will encourage more responsible buying by those who have power to make as much of a difference as the great British buying public.

A goat's not just for christmas

There's been a bit of a furore over Charity gifts recently. In particular two organisations Animal Aid and the World Land Trust have both been campaigning on the message that gifts of animals provide unsustainable assistance as in the long term they cause more problems than they solve. Their messages have been partially discredited, Animal Aid are not, as their name implies, an aid charity, but animal rights campaigners ideologically opposed to the use of animals in… well anything. The World Land trust have their own charity gift scheme, in competition with .

I have yet to find out any independent analysis of the goat giving phenomenon, that isn't either repeating the received wisdom of the two organisations above, anecdotal reportage in a lower quality Sunday newspaper, or on the lines of "well they would say that, wouldn't they, they have a vested interest". However I would still not be that pleased with a charity goat as it would show the giver didn't even bother to look at the catalogue and find something less ubiquitous!

From the publicity you would think goats were the be all and end all of charity gifts. Oxfam unwrapped list loads of different types of gift, most of which lead to projects that don't involve animals in any way shape or form. However isn't the charity gift just clever marketing, a way of packaging up what is really just a simple charity donation? Oxfam Unwrapped are quite clear, open and honest about the fact that your money doesn't actually directly buy the thing that represents the gift. For example if you buy someone some exercise books, your money may not actually buy exercise books, but something from a list of things relating to education. So if I was a vegan, giving my charity catalog gift, how sure could I be that my gift of a school desk wouldn't fund the purchase of livestock? I've no problem with my gift of an Aids education session turning into condom kits, but if it turns into something totally unrelated I may as well have just avoided the expensive marketing and just put the money in the collecting tin.

Certain charities do ring fence your money, and what you pay for is actually bought. However, I'm not sure I'd really want to be so fussy as not to trust my chosen charity with any flexibility over what they did with my gift. I also have an image in my mind, probably erroneous, of the charity telling the recipient of the nice person from England who paid for the gift, and I'm not sure I'm so comfortable with that!