5 things I have done today to help the planet… [Day 009 – 23 May ’19]

It's been a green, green day today.

The insects have been bitten, the electric cars are charging and the fashion is sustaining.

Here are five more for the planet...

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1. I voted Green

In Britain today we had the European Elections.

The elections in the UK were little more than a pseudo second referendum on Brexit.

As well as opposing Brexit the Green Party do have a full set of planet considerate policies that I support. Some many streets ahead of the other party.

I voted for the Green Party.

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2. Experimenting with Insects

You may recall a few days back, in response to a comment by @mattockfs, I placed an online order with Crunchy Critters for a selection of edible insects.

They have now arrived and today we tried them.

We opened the tasting session with the soft option of 'Belgian Milk Chocolate Covered Crickets'. Not the most endearing chocolate confectionery I have ever had but perfectly passable.

Next up the snack tree were the Cheese & Onion Crickets. I was expecting something akin to Cheese & Onion crisps. But these were just plain unpleasant - and bordering on inedible.

We thought it might be poor quality cheese and onion flavouring, but when we later tasted the plain crickets we realised it was the crickets.

Our final selections were the plain dried Crickets, Locusts, Buffalo Worms and Mealworms.

The crickets really were not good at all and will be heading to the chickens tomorrow.

The other three were not massively tasty, but weren't unpleasant at all and were perfectly edible.

I am certainly not going to be in any rush to order these again. But if I could rear these sorts of insects myself I would definitely look to include them in our diet - maybe in soups or stir-frys as an additional low impact protein source.

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3. Update on Electric Cars and Charging Points

As well as the very good response from Tesco about installing electric car charging points, I have also had positive, although non time committal replies from Marks & Spencer and from Morrisons.

Morrisons said...

Thanks for getting in touch in regards to our plans for electrical charging ports.

At the moment we are still working on the plans for getting these charging points in place, and it is likely the stores you have mentioned [Aberystwyth & Carmarthen] will have the facilities next year.

Marks & Spencer said...

All of our stores eventually will have the charging facilities available but at the moment, we are making sure our larger newer developments are equipped with them. It's something we are definitely putting in to place, but no date of the change and I hope you can appreciate things like this do take time to change.

I have also had a reply from my local Town Council. They have just committed funds to install two charging points in the main central car park in town.

So the charging points are coming. In the next couple of years I think the availability of charging points will no longer be an issue even in rural Wales. But we will keep pushing.

On the electric car front I am going to see, and hopefully test drive, the Renault Zoe at the weekend.

This will be electric car viewing number 2. We hope to look at five before we make a decision.

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4. Backing a Sustainable Fashion event for Wales

Yesterday I mentioned that I had found out via Twitter about a Sustainable Fashion event being planned in Wales.

The organiser Helen O'Sullivan of Sustainable Fashion Wales has taken her inspiration from the global campaign Fashion Revolution.

Helen has set up a Kickstarter to raise funds to put on the event.

Kickstarter : Sustainable Fashion Design Showcase & Education

I have made a small pledge as it looks a good event to get sustainability issues to a younger audience interested in fashion.

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5. The Daily Donation - The Green Party

I have been a supporter of the Green Party on and off for all my adult life.

It kicked off when I went to a talk by Jonathon Porritt when I was 18 back in the '70's.

I was just becoming aware of politics and environmental activism. Jonathon's "show me the dead bodies" references in his speech really got me ignited. The rest, as they say, is my history.

Today, the Green Party took part in the European Elections. Elections that were not supposed to take place in Britain because of Brexit.

But Brexit hasn't happened and the Elections have.

The Green Party opposes Brexit.

I voted for the Green Party.

They do politics but their politics are the closest to being planet positive of any party.

My £10 donation today goes to support those planet-positive politics.

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Five more in the bag.

Anyone want to join with doing five dailies?

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[ images, in order, from unsplash.com, @pennsif ]