I’m 100% Organic and Recycled

Badgers are a bit of a theme at the moment. I’ve blogged before about the pesky black-and-white mammals that show up in our garden at night and play havoc with the compost. It’s not that I mind them eating the compost – they’re welcome to it; it’s just that they spread it all over the garden in the process. I’ve tried wire, I’ve tried netting, I’ve tried plastic, I’ve tried spreading male urine around (well, OH has) and nothing works. The urine thing works for a while but then it rains and it doesn’t work. So I’m giving up with the dalek bin (isn’t it interesting how the word dalek has entered the language?) and it will be emptied and consigned to the top of the garden. I just hope the badgers don’t find a way to upend the other bins because that really will be the limit.

Honestly, sometimes it’s so hard to do the right thing. I’ve given up going to sustainability meetings, not because I don’t believe in what they do but because every time I go I find out more and more things that I’m doing wrong. Worse, sometimes I find out that the things I’m trying to do right are actually wrong and in order to put them right I have to either spend more money than I’ve got or do some incredibly complicated process I don’t have time for. Consider biros. They’re an easy thing to refill, right? You just take out the centre bit and replace it, thus reducing needless waste. We have a houseful of these standard bics, and I thought it was time I got some refills so we didn’t keep throwing them away. So I went online and ordered some – but when they came they were much smaller than the ones I wanted. But they were the only ones available. I checked at the Works – no joy – then I went to Smith’s. I asked for biro refills and she pointed me at the ones I already had. ‘No, I want them for that type,’ I said. ‘Oh no, we don’t do them for that type,’ she said as though I’d asked for the moon. ‘You have to throw them away.’

‘Well, I don’t want to throw them away,’ I retorted, and flounced out. I’ve never liked Smith’s anyway, they’re a horrible firm.

But! I can for a while at least feel a righteous glow because I am wearing not one but two items made from reclaimed organic cotton and – ta-da! – recycled plastic bottles. I got them from this site where they do a variety of similar things. My new t-shirt and sweat shirt are incredibly comfortable and the righteous glow they transmit keeps me nice and cosy.

So today I’m 100% organic and recycled.

Kirk out