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Lucy Siegle
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Homepage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business
Posts by Lucy Siegle
Can I buy underwear and be green?
Mar 14th
Say pants to the pesticides used in manufacturing cotton!
You might be doubtful that your choice of briefs can be a catalyst for global change, but consider the statistics. The UK underwear market was valued at £4.1bn in 2009. Most of that money is spent on multinational-produced pants. Some are constructed from a mixture of oil-based synthetics, including nylon (which results in emissions of nitrous oxide, a poisonous greenhouse gas).
Received wisdom tells us that cotton, the main underwear fibre, is the type of natural material we need in these delicate regions. Received wisdom is wrong. Although cotton covers less than 1% of the earth’s landmass, it soaks up 25% of all pesticides and herbicides. A single pair of cotton pants uses 10ml of pesticides.
In the past year a number of NGOs have got their knickers in a twist about cotton pesticide endosulfan, banned in 62 countries. It is linked to reproductive and developmental damage in animals and humans and is manufactured by pharmaceutical brand Bayer. PantsToPoverty.com, a leader in fairtrade cotton underwear, instigated a “pants amnesty” whereby protestors sent their worst pair of pants to Bayer – which quickly pledged to phase out endosulfan by the end of 2010.
Greenknickers.org offers zero-carbon pants from recycled sources. Whomadeyourpants.co.uk is a workers’ co-operative in Southampton employing women who have been granted asylum but find it difficult to get work. They take knickers seriously (like Alan Greenspan, who has said he looks at sales of men’s underwear to indicate the direction of the economy). Ethical smalls can become a big deal.
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Can I eat out and be green? | Lucy Siegle
Mar 7th
Not all restaurants have your carbon footprint at heart…
Does your favourite restaurant have your carbon footprint at heart? Does it grow its rocket on the roof, source from a local radius or champion organic food with an “intimate connection to the environment”? The latter, slightly troubling phrase comes from America’s National Restaurant Association’s push on green responsibility. Until now the UK has lacked a similar drive: green is on the menu, sometimes, but it tends to mean locally sourced or organic produce.
Food provenance isn’t the full story. “In the developed world, most chefs cook vegetables until they’re almost done, and then stop them cooking using running water or ice,” says Barney Haughton, who runs Bristol’s eco-friendly restaurant and cookery school Bordeaux Quay. “Then they refresh them with boiling water when they’re ready to serve.” Instead of wasting energy and water, Haughton takes his veg out of the pan about 50 seconds before they’re done to carry on cooking and be ready when they reach the table.
Too many kitchens remain eco nightmares, with half-loaded dishwashers and single-use chopsticks (63bn pairs a year are produced in China). The new Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) will audit the social, resource and waste footprints of restaurants that sign up, and award a standard from bronze to gold. Given that the industry wastes 3m tonnes of food a year, the SRA’s first move is to rehabilitate the doggy bag – which should be viewed less as an embarrassment and more as smart eco practice.
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