I am not a person who needs to have the latest this or that. My house is not a mega modern place of granite worktops & sleek designer furniture. No, in fact it is the exact opposite. It is a tumble down heap of a place that is almost 100 years old. That is why I bought it. Apart from a rather strange alteration in the kitchen to make the back door open onto the garden instead of the side alley, it is exactly as it was when it was built. The builder who built the house lived in it until he died in the 2nd world war. Sadly he died within sight of the house one night, whilst he was on duty as a war reserve police constable, when a bomb fell. His wife & children could no longer afford to live in the house, so moved to a smaller one to the back of the property, but the sight of their old house each day was too much to bear, so they emigrated to Australia. A tale told to me by the people who live at the bottom of my garden. It may or may not be entirely true, but it is known by a few people. When the houses were rebuilt, parts of gardens were bought up, including the bottom of mine & more houses incorporated making quite a mash up of styles. In just the short time I’ve been here, 3 houses have been gutted & completely modernised, but I love mine as it is. It’s collection of small quirky rooms, original fireplaces, north facing pantry, boiler house, picture rail & ceiling cornice mouldings all give it character. For almost 100 years people have sat at a table, as I am now, in the front morning room which gets the early sun to write letters, read letters, exchanged views with family members, drink tea and watche the world go by out of the large low windows. Why change anything? This is permanent, not disposable.

Unfortunately, a lot of things these days are disposable. A lot of purchases made will result in something else being thrown away. Whether it be in a recycling bin, general waste, or something bigger that we chuck in the car & drive to the dump. It’s gone, its out of our lives. We have disposed of it correctly, we give it not another thought, as if it has magically disappeared off the planet. Well it hasn’t. It just gets moved around. Plastic being the worst offender.

Over 1million plastic bottles are bought every minute around the world. Yes, 1million. It is estimated only 7% of these are truly recycled, the rest are left to fester in landfill sites & the oceans, where they take many hundreds of years to breakdown into ever smaller pieces. Never entirely going away. In 2018 we each ate 70,000 pieces of microplastic! How’s that for an eye opening fact? Almost every piece of plastic made since the 1950’s, still exists today. Plastic is not inherently a bad thing, indeed used correctly it can do a good job forever. Take plastic storage boxes and jars. Refilled over and over again. No, it is the single use plastics that do the damage. The drink bottles thrown away, the plastic carrier bags, liquid soap bottles, squeezy sauce bottles all of these things in everyday life, that we all use, but don’t need to.

We need to be more savvy shoppers. We need to stop and think…..do I need that? If the answer is yes, then think whether you could buy a more planet friendly version of it. Glass bottles, bars of soap & shampoo. Using a refillable container, only buying loose fruit & veg. Buying meat & fish from a counter, not purchasing it pre-wrapped in plastic. Buying fizzy drinks in aluminium cans & using a refillable water bottle. Taking your own reusable coffee cup to the coffee shop. Only use paper straws, or buy your own metal one. Most importantly at this time, stop using disposable face masks. Not only do they look nasty, there is no need for them to be used other than by certain industries. Reusable face masks can be purchased everywhere now.

If everyone were to stop & think about what they are buying, just to throw it out a week or so later & sought a planet friendly alternative it would make a big difference. Be content with what you have, think of everything you throw out. Just because it’s been placed in the recycling bins doesn’t mean it has been recycled successfully. It has just been moved to a different place. Maybe even a different country.