Environmental documentary – MATTER OUT OF PLACE – film review

At first, you wonder what will happen as the film’s carefully considered cinematography draws your attention. Unusually, the imagery, editing and script lack all the cues of contemporary filmmaking. It’s slow. The cameras are static, and there are no close-ups. Yet, these beautiful, thought-provoking landscapes hold your attention. Then abruptly, the reality dawns. This pristine environment you are viewing is full of rubbish. Finally, the narrative is set, and you unexpectedly spend precious time considering something you would rather ignore – and chuck in an instance. Waste! A mesmerising film.

Austrian documentary filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter takes you worldwide on a beautiful, startling expedition. He traces our waste across the earth – from the mountain tops of Switzerland to the shores of Greece and Albania, into an Austrian refuse incinerator and then to Nepal and the Maldives, and finally to the deserts of Nevada – and sheds light on the ongoing grind of people to gain control over rubbish.

In Switzerland, you experience the sanitised, out-of-sight, out-of-mind of waste management of wealthy nations. The striking image of a garbage truck dangling from a cable car looks more like a James Bond film than an environmental documentary. In contrast, Nepal sees the waste collection as a dirty haphazard, dangerous task where physical labour rather than machines rule. Here, the director’s skill is to draw you into the process. Long static shots allow you to watch the transporting, sorting, and dumping of plastic waste. Somehow, this deliberate locked-off view of the world focuses your attention on the realities of those scavaging a living in such horrendous circumstances while highlighting the toxic leaching out of pollutants into the local environment.

The film highlights the impact of waste in marine environments and demonstrates the immensity of the problems. For instance, you see divers in Greece wrestling with extracting seabed garbage, an extraordinary manual task. In Albania, beach clean-up of plastic takes on a monumental task powered by a rickety tractor and enthusiastic recruits.

By contrast, the dystopian world of The Burning Man festival, Nevada, gives you a MadMax conclusion. Leaving without a trace is somewhat challenging for those tech entrepreneurs who have arrived by helicopter!

The Austrian Film Festival, running 23-26 March 2023 at London’s Ciné Lumière. #watchAUT 

What is the Circular Economy?

In a circular economy, resources are kept in use for as long as possible, maximising their lifespan (and therefore their value) before the materials are eventually reused and recycled. Unlike the traditional linear economic model in which raw materials are mined, processed to develop a product and then disposed of, a circular economy has several essential benefits such as reducing waste, preserving resources and driving a more sustainable production process. The short-term consumption associated with the linear model contributes to an unsustainable society where materials are used for one purpose and waste is an inevitability. On the other hand, the cyclical nature of the circular economy allows for longer-term growth and maximisation of value by using resources more efficiently.

In 2019, the European Commission adopted a report on the implementation of the Circular Economy Action Plan, a 54-action package aimed at helping the EU transition to a circular economy. This includes measures such as improved labelling on electrical appliances, encouraging remanufacturing of waste products and economic incentives for innovative product design that enables better recycling opportunities.

Other services such as WRAP are aiming to support organisations in their efforts to improve resource efficiency by providing advice and tools to help businesses make necessary changes.

Counting the cost of clothing – Slow fashion to save the planet – Green Choice’s tips

Waking up to the news that we all need to wake up to the urgency of climate change was unpleasant but not surprising. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) launched a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C. It urges rapid action, yet we all twitter whilst the planet burns!

We know that there are many factors contributing to climate change and the report calls for significant action in the four big areas – energy, land use, cities and industry. So is fashion that much of a problem? Well, yes. In the same way as choosing what to eat ultimately determines land-use – what we wear has an impact too. My first thought when seeing a glossy mag full of models wearing the latest trend of oversized jumpers and coats, was “what an unnecessary waste of materials!” And the disgraceful practice of burning of clothes and products by Burberry and the like to protect their ‘brand integrity’ is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg of environmental impact.

The concept of ‘slow fashion’ takes its inspiration from the ‘slow food movement’ – the antidote to ‘fast food’. ‘Slow fashion’ attempts to make us consider the impact of fashion on the environment and the people employed in the industry. It’s staggering to learn that Fashion is the 2nd most polluting industry in the world, after the oil industry! So what can we, as individuals, do about it? Here are some tips to reduce the impact our clothing has on the environment.

Buy less and buy better quality

I find it staggering that you can buy a T-shirt for the same price as a sandwich! It is tempting to buy more than you need and to easily chuck them away when they disintegrate after a few washes. Go for fewer, better-made items that will stand the test of time, but remember that just because something costs more doesn’t mean that it is made ethically or will last longer. Look at the label, and check out it’s credentials using the app ‘Good on you’.

Buy second hand

Pre-loved, vintage, charity shop or jumble sale – even e-bay – shopping can still be fun, just in a different way. Create your own style and work out what suits you. Did ra ra skirts suit anyone?

Keep classics

Keep any classics in your wardrobe, but give anything not needed to charity shops but be aware that a lot of items can end up in landfill or shipped out to developing countries for them to dispose of.

Natural or man-made?

Both have environmental issues. Cotton production uses a staggering amount of water and pesticides, according to WWF cotton accounts for 11% of worldwide pesticide sales and 24% of global insecticide sales. Polyester has another problem in that it sheds microfibers when washed which enter our water systems – so it goes on polluting. Dyeing fabric has implications for workers and for the environment. Organic natural cotton is better but it still requires a lot of water for its production.

Make do and mend

Instead of throwing damaged clothes away, check if you can repair them. Or look out for brands such as Nudie Jeans who offer a lifetime guarantee and repair service.

And finally don’t buy – ask yourself do I really need it? Can I make do with what I have?

What are microbeads – is a ban on the way?

What’s the issue with microbeads?

It might only be a small success of President Obama’s reign, but on his checklist of achievements he can include getting microbeads banned from ‘rinse off ‘ cosmetic products. So if the U.S. can do it why can’t we? Well, a UK ban might well be on the way – even if it doesn’t include all our European partners, as the Environment Minister Rory Stewart recently told the Commons “If we cannot get a common position out of the European Union, we are open to the possibility of the UK acting unilaterally.” This will please campaigners such as the Marine Conservation Society who have been urging governments to act, following many years of evidence gathering by themselves and others on the harm caused by microbeads.

What’s the issue with microbeads?

Microbeads – sound a bit cute, they are anything but – they are small bits of plastic added to face washes, body scrubs, toothpaste and the like to help buff and exfoliate our bodies. The problem is that once they are washed down our drains they can’t be filtered out and end up in our seas, rivers and lakes, absorbing toxic pollutants as they go. Looking yummy to fish, they then enter the food chain and potentially we eat plastic! Excellently explained by this video by the Story of Stuff Project.

How can I avoid them?

Check the label – plastics are called many things, and listed in very small print, so if you can read it it’s best to avoid anything listing Polyethylene / Polythene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), – Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), – Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) or Nylon. Alternatively, a handy app has been created see beatthemicrobead.org. You just need to scan the barcode and it tells you if the product contains microbeads. What can I do to help?

What can I do to help?

Vote with your pocket, and choose alternative products that don’t contain plastics, try Fauna & Flora International’s Good Scrub Guide for suggested alternatives and take the Microbeads pledge to stop using them. Greenpeace were successful in their petition calling for David Cameron to ban the use of polluting plastic microbeads in cosmetics. Perhaps the Prime Minister can add it to his ‘Things I’ve achieved list’ like President Obama!

More information on Toiletries & Cosmetics

Climate Change Summit

Here we go again – another summit on Climate Change. This follows a day of action yesterday, The People’s Climate March, that saw street protests in London, New York and a staggering 2,000 locations across the world, all demanding urgent action on climate change. Reportedly attracting hundreds of thousands of marchers.

The UN will host a climate summit at its headquarters in New York with 125 heads of state and government to be present. This is the first summit since the climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, which was not successful in securing progress on a universal agreement on emissions reductions. Let’s hope this time the science is listened to too.

Can’t see the wood for the trees? – Forestry Commission launches new app

For many of us it’s difficult enough identifying fully grown trees let alone identifying young trees or shrubs in a woodland setting; a problem woodland managers, foresters, ecologists and the like have grabbled with for years – how do you identify which naturally established plants you want to keep and which ones to remove?  Now the Forestry Commission has turned to a technical solution to help in woodland management. It has just launched an app at the Forest Research show. Forestry Commission’s Matt Parratt said ” …..The app allows people to quickly and accurately identify self-set trees and shrubs regardless of their age. They can also record field notes and locations using GPS without a mobile signal. This is always going to be more efficient and helpful than revisiting a site”. So potential carbon savings there too. The app costs £1.49 and can be downloaded from the AppStore and Google Play.

Energy focused social investment fund Ignite announce its ‘Big Energy Idea’ winners

Ignite yesterday announced the names of 10 successful entrepreneurs who they will be working with to tackle energy challenges, and make real, sustainable change in communities. 

  • The Big Energy Idea will provide 10 social entrepreneurs with an individual package of investment readiness support and the potential to access a minimum £50,000 investment over the next year
  • 10 successful ‘Big Energy Ideas’, including local business Sust-it were announced on 30th April, at an event held in Windsor
  • The Big Energy Idea is run by Ignite, a fund that will invest £10 million over 10 years, backed by Centrica

Among the winners is Ross Lammas, founder of Sust-it, a family-run price comparison site that enables consumers to make informed buying choices based on energy usage and running costs of electrical products.

An individual package of support will be provided to the social entrepreneurs, Ross included, helping them gain investment and grow their ventures. The fund has been established by Ignite Social Enterprise, a social investment fund backed by Centrica plc, which is focused on energy-related businesses and enterprises.

As part of the tailored business support on offer (which brings together industry expertise from The Henley Business School, The Good Analyst, UnLtd and confidence coach Peter Nicholas) the primary objective will be to get each venture investment ready in order to grow its social impact.  The businesses will be able to gain access to between £50,000 and £2 million from the Ignite fund.

Ross Lammas of Sust-it, said: “Becoming one of the successful Big Energy Ideas will make a huge difference to us. We’ll get additional expertise from the energy industry to build our future strategy, and hopefully, investment at some point in the next year. This will enable us to help those on low income save money and also to improve everyone’s energy literacy.”

Centrica CEO Sam Laidlaw, who announced the winning ideas, said: “I believe that the answers to society’s challenges do not lie solely with the private sector or the public sector, but with social entrepreneurs, in communities, and in cross-sector partnerships. I am passionate about the potential of each of these business – supported by us – to find some of these answers.”

Ignite is investing time, money and support into energy-related social enterprises, and is aiming to invest a minimum £10 million over 10 years with investments ranging between £50,000 and £2 million. The profits from Ignite’s investments will be reinvested and recycled back to help more social enterprises and ventures grow and scale up their work. Ignite has already committed £3.4 million of the fund across four projects that will be creating social change in the UK.

Free range kids

The sign ‘Free range children’ on the entrance to Glewstone Court, country house hotel, has always made me smile, as does the sign ‘slow children’ – are they just not that bright? Seriously though, it’s good to see the sustainable transport charity Sustran’s new campaign calling for measures to be taken to allow kids to play outside and move around their local area more safely, freely and independently. Specifically, they’re asking for the law to be changed to make 20 miles per hour the maximum speed limits in residential areas across the UK and for further investment in walking and cycling routes, particularly to school.

Thinking back to childhood, the memories that stick are riding your bike, visiting the park on your own and being out and about with friends.  Sustrans claims that of today’s adults 70% experienced most of their adventures outdoors.

Contrast this with today’s children. Top of their list is also playing on their bikes and exploring new and unfamiliar places. But only 29% are experiencing adventures outdoors, often closely supervised by adults. It’s little wonder childhood obesity is growing.

Open Spaces still vital

It’s good to see that the Open Spaces Society is still championing the cause of green spaces across England and Wales as it has done since 1865.  With changes to the planning system, it good to see that open spaces aren’t forgotten.  They have just announced the short-list of their first-ever Open Space Award. Four community based projects are in the running for the Award which will be announced at the Open Spaces Society AGM on 10th July. They have launched the accolade to celebrate the grass-roots work being done by many small groups to boost their open spaces for the enjoyment of local people.

The shortlisted entries are:

  • Royd Regeneration in Mytholmroyd, Calderdale:  for its work to refurbish the neglected Mytholmroyd Memorial Garden.
  • The Bishop’s Meadow Trust at Farnham in Surrey: where local people set up a charity to buy an under-threat local meadow and ensure it remained a community asset for generations to come.
  • Full Frontal in, Rochester, Kent: where neighbours united to improve the look of their streets with a community gardening project that began on their doorsteps.
  • Our Green Space Project in Cumbria: where five communities were helped to rejuvenate and protect their green space for the future.

All the projects have been been visited by judges from Open Spaces Society who will decide the winner based on the efforts by communities to enhance and safeguard their local open spaces and to ensure long-lasting benefits for the surrounding communities.

Chairman of Open Spaces Society’s trustees and a member of the judging panel Tim Crowther said: “As judges we were looking for projects which were strongly rooted in securing long term benefits for local communities; were the result of ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top-down’ activity; and of course promote the Open Spaces Society’s objectives.

“All the nominations showed evidence of these criteria to some degree. The schemes we have shortlisted are all very different and we, the judges, really enjoyed visiting the sites and meeting those inspired people who have driven the projects forward.

Mr Crowther added that the task of  deciding the shortlist was a tough one. “The entries we didn’t shortlist were providing real benefits for local communities. There’s a lot of good work going on around the country and we’ll be highlighting these projects and sharing their great stories on our website,” he added.

Vice-chair and fellow trustee Jean Macdonald, came up with the idea and hopes it will become an annual event.  As the default tends to be favouring  a ‘build our way out of recession at all costs” approach the role of champions for Open Spaces has never been more crucial.

Get recycling those plastic bottles

Some staggering news on the amount of plastic bottles used in the UK everyday has come from WRAP, the government funded organisation charged with improving resource efficiency and minimising waste.  15 million plastic bottles in the UK alone from soft drinks and olive oil to shampoo and bleach.

So WRAP are urging us, in all this warm (may not be on Sunday!) weather making us reach for a bottle of something cool and refreshing?  Whether at London’s sporting events, the local Jubilee celebration or watching the spectacles from home, to spare a thought for the humble plastic bottle…

The positive news is that just under half of all of the bottles used (but as many as three quarters of plastic milk bottles) end up making it through the recycling process. This is over 20 times more than we were managing in 2000, but advances in technology now mean that ALL sizes and shapes of bottle can be turned fences, bags, flooring, fleeces…or even more bottles! 

WRAP suggests that as we’re watching Euro 2012 or the Olympics from home this summer, consider this – if each of us in the UK recycled just one extra plastic bottle each year, we could power 71,000 plasma screen TVs from the energy saved.  They want us to get washing, squashing and recycling our plastic bottles today.  Better still avoid buying too many plastic bottles in first place;  try a bar of soap, and water from the tap.  

WRAP have provided the following gems of information:

Plastic Factoids

  1. The first plastic bottle was sold in 1947 – it celebrated its Diamond Jubilee five years before Queen Elizabeth!

  2. Any plastic bottle can be recycled now – just wash & squash them.

  3. The flag planted on the moon by Neil Armstrong in 1969 was made of Nylon.

  4. Plastic is the most used material in the world, and has been for 35 years.

  5. Recycling 1 tonne of plastic bottles saves 1.5 tonnes of carbon emissions.

  6. It only takes 25 two-litre plastic bottles to make an adult-sized fleece.

  7. Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours.

  8. We now recycle 20 times more plastic than we did back in 2000.

  9. Over 90% of our local authorities now offer collection facilities for plastic bottles, either from your kerbside or recycling centres.

  10. If all of us in the UK recycled just one extra plastic bottle every year, we could power over 71,000 plasma screen TVs infinitely using the energy saved.