Holiday!

youcanarguewithstupid is on holiday for a couple of weeks... back soon with plenty of great new ideas, campaigns and products happening around the world!

Little shop... big idea...

Unpackaged is a shop in East London London with a big mission. This quote from their website summarises their philosophy:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” (Buckminster Fuller)

Catherine Conway in her beautiful shop

Catherine Conway set up Unpackaged in 2006, starting off as a market stall and moving to premises in 2007. 

She had a simple but brilliant idea - so brilliant in fact that this year it's been listed as a Timeout London Best Shop and tours and study groups go there to see it.

So what's the idea?

She wanted a way to reuse containers and refill them when she went shopping for groceries. Before I tell you more about Unpackaged itself, I want to pause and talk about why using less packaging is so important.

But can't we just recycle?

Recycling is great. It's a green industry and it saves stuff from going to our nearly-full landfills or into polluting incinerators. 



this man just loves recycling bottles

But recycling is 'after the fact'. It's like sticking a plaster on something that's broken, rather than fixing it. 

Recycling in India

Recycling uses huge amounts of fuel/energy (both in the actual processes and the transport of much of our UK recyclables abroad, for example to India and China), adding to pollution and climate change.


Not only that, but recycling is often not actually recycling. It's downcycling. 

This means that rather than a product being turned into another similar product (a plastic bottle into a plastic bottle) it is turned into a lower grade material or a secondary product (a plastic bottle into carpet backing) and then so on, down the chain. That's not to mention the huge volume of recyclables that end up contaminated (from food for example)and are discarded as soon as they reach the recycling plant. 

As Annie Leonard says in her book The Story of Stuff, "There's a reason recycling comes third in the eco mantra 'reduce, reuse, recycle'". It's part of the solution but not the whole solution. If you've got a few minutes now, watch Annie's video on youtube here to find out a bit more about how your stuff is made and why you need to care about it.

So this is where being 'unpackaged' comes in. 

Having less packaging in the first place uses less resources from start to finish - less water, fuel and materials to make the packaging, less burden on waste disposal and recycling facilities.

There's also another clever element to buying unpackaged. You can buy the amount you actually want rather than how much is in the packaging. Do you actually want twelve satsumas, or would you rather have 5? We throw away an average of £420/year per household, which costs the country £12 BILLION a year in disposal costs. Surely reducing that, especially in the face of our economic situation, rates pine fresh on the Commonsense Sniff-o-meter. Have a look at this page of the LoveFoodHateWaste site to find out more about why wasting less food matters.

Obviously, some packaging is good. You can't just put meat and fish straight into your bag, and some products need protection in transit to the shop and home. But many products don't - your apples don't actually need to come in a little tray which is then wrapped in clingfilm. 

Unpackaged takes this a step further. You go along with empty containers - anything you like, it could be Kath Kidston tins or old water bottles - and you fill them up at the shop. The foods are frequently replenished so produce is kept fresh and you use scoops so it's all hygienic. No need for packaging! It's also cheaper because you're not paying for the packaging and labelling - costs which, believe it or not, are factored into the price you pay. Do you really want to be paying for that random plastic bag inside your cornflakes box? Or the plastic bag that your potatoes come in when you're going to wash and peel them anyway?!

This isn't a new idea. I remember going to a health food shop in Dorset as a child with my step-grandmother and being surprised as she proceeded to fill a large jar up with oats, sultanas, raisins, dried apple and wheat flakes, making her own, tailored muesli. And going back even further, it used to be standard practice to take a shopping basket or bag out with you when you did your food shop and you'd just pop your purchases straight in there.

The international chain Wholefoods also sells many foods unpackaged, from fruit and veg to bulk by pasta and lentils. Here's what they say:
Reusing means you're not only using stuff again, it means less energy is being used to make more stuff. And that means you are keeping waste out of our landfills, less energy from being processed and less resources from being consumed — all from bringing a reusable lunch bag. Talk about not taking much to make quite an impact.
Now, keep thinking with us. You're using that lunch bag again and again. Know what else you're doing? Saving money. That's right! A penny saved is a penny earned and you just proved it. Reusing is an eco-nomical thing to do too.

 
 Unpackaged are great not only because of how their shop sells but because they also offer consultancy to companies of all sizes on how to go 'unpackaged'. This way, they're not just sticking to their own premises but helping spread the word and the methods. 


And this is really the key. Shops that sell unpackaged are rarely mainstream. We need the big supermarkets and the manufacturers they use to move into the 21st Century and start reducing from the top - it would save us all time, fuel and money.

youcanarguewithstupid

Further reading/sources:
Lovefoodhatewaste - for tons of great info on how to waste less food
WRAP - Waste and Resources Action Programme, works on reducing waste and increasing sustainability

Daily Mail article on sending our recycling to India here 

The Telegraph on the volume of household waste we throw away here

The forefront of a fairer society... the Islington Fairness Commission

As logos go, this isn't the most
thrilling - but the Commission is
worth reading about

Andy Hull

At the My Fair London launch that I wrote about here one of the speakers was Andy Hull who is the co-chair of the Islington Fairness Commission (IFC).

He spoke a bit about what the IFC has been doing, and it was so impressive that I'm dedicating a post to it.

It serves as an example to boroughs everywhere of what can be achieved, moving towards a more equal society where residents are healthier, better educated, in employment and less divided from one another.

The IFC was the first fairness commission, but now Blackpool, York, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield have all started their own up. If you live in a borough without one, why not write a letter/email to your council asking them if they know about the IFC and whether they might set one up themselves?

It was set up in June 2010, inspired by The Spirit Level book which explained how societies with more inequality are overall worse off that societies with less. On its board are a selection of councillors, academic experts and representatives from various sectors such as the NHS and the police.

Islington is a very mixed borough - it has wealthy areas, such as Upper Street which is full of delis and boutiques, and it also has areas of dire poverty and disengagement. Here are some stats about Islington that really hit home why something needed to be done. It has the:

• lowest male life expectancy in London

• 3rd highest crime rate in London

• 2nd highest rate of child poverty in the country

• unemployment among its black and minority ethnic residents is twice that of its white residents

Through a series of meetings using evidence from academics and residents, it reported to Islington Council and made practical recommendations on how to improve life for people living in Islington.

In October 2011, the Council started implementing the recommendations made by the Commission.

In that short amount of time, they have done or have set the ball rolling to do so much good stuff - stuff like moving 186 severely overcrowded households to larger properties, promoting volunteering or residents, helping find affordable childcare, negotiating with TfL to get the Bike Hire scheme extended to Islington, vigorously campaigning for Islington companies to be more socially responsible and trying to limit the number of fast food outlets near schools. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen this piece of music video genius, then you need to.


Below I've given a little more detail on what they're doing about pay inequality, debt, employment, green spaces and crime, just to give you an idea of how they're going about it. You can read the full reports on the IFC's webpage at www.islington.gov.uk/fairness.

PAY

by David G Kline from www.nytimes.com

The IFC wants to reduce the pay ratio in Islington. I wrote about what pay ratio is on my earlier post here - it means making the gap between the top and the bottom earners smaller.

To do this in Islington they have:

• reduced the pay of the incoming Chief Executive by £50,000 in comparison to the pay of his predecessor
• brought in the London Living Wage for all Council staff - they're currently working on extending that to all contracted staff too
• they will be meeting with the 100 largest employers in Islington to encourage them to reduce their pay differentials if they are very high, and to publish their pay differentials on a council-run website

DEBT

I wrote a bit about the debt problem we have in the UK in this post. To help residents in debt, Islington is/has:

• helping people with multiple debts consolidate them into one payment so it is more manageable and less stressful
• established a Citizens Advice Bureau locally, giving out free debt advice
• sent mystery shoppers to payday loans companies to check they are operating legally - that is, not giving out loans to people with no ability to pay them back, and not aggressively targeting vulnerable customers.

EMPLOYMENT

We all know that unemployment is a massive problem in the UK right now. The economic downturn has put many people out of work and prevented many young people from getting into it. Islington has the amibitious and impressive target of having no young people who are not in education, employment or training by 2015 (commonly called NEETs). To kickstart this, Islington has:

• placed 119 residents into work and 40 into apprenticeships through its 'Single Employer Face'
• piloted a scheme offering 14 to 16 year olds paid local work experience
• started 'Business Works' - a mentoring, development and paid work experience scheme. It helps young people leaving care by pairing them up with a mentor for regular meetings. They help them with skills such as interview technique, confidence on public transport and much more

GREEN SPACES

From www.katiebacon.co.uk

Islington have recognised that in a built up city area, green spaces are very important. They create a public area where people can meet and cross the divides between demographics, they create opportunities for exercise, amongst many other benefits.

So, they have:

• given funding to local residents groups to maintain 5 sites that were previously maintained by a company contracted by the council - this means local people getting involved in their local area, an excellent plan brought 6 new spaces into public use for gardening and play

CRIME

we all know what crime looks like, so I
thought I'd give you a pretty picture of
some tulips instead, much nicer

Islington has a lot of crime and a lot of 'gang' issues. To help ease these, they have:

• set up a hotline for reporting anti-social behaviour
• been accepted by the Ministry of Justice as one of two pilot areas in London for trialling Neighbourhood Resolution panels which bring victims, perpertrators and criminal justice professionals together for restorative justice
• they have a couple of schemes under way or being created that help people under threat of gang violence or on the fringes of gangs away from those situations 

The really good thing about the IFC is that it's ACTUALLY GETTING STUFF DONE. It's not just another 'talking shop'.

This sort of grassroots, proactive approach is exactly what's needed. I hope it goes from strength to strength, and look forward to finding out more about the other UK fairness commissions too.

Like I said at the start, why not send a quick email to your borough and ask them about setting one up? The time is ripe.

youcanarguewithstupid

Sources/further reading:
www.islington.gov.uk/fairness for the IFC's reports
www.equalitytrust.org.uk for evidence on why equality matters
www.livingwage.org.uk for the Living Wage Foundation - there's also a wikipedia page that explains what it's about

Zipcar...cheaper, greener and cleverer

This post is part of a thread on 'collaborative consumption' - look out for a big feature coming soon on what exactly that means and a review of the book Collaborative Consumption.

Zipcar is genius. It saves you money, time and stress and is a more sustainable choice.

It's a car-sharing company. It's hugely successful and growing every year. In fact, a lot of people out there think that companies like this are at the forefront of a revolution in how we own and use things. In the UK Zipcar is currently in London, Bristol, Cambridge, Maidstone and Oxford... so far. In the US, it is in 13 states and has 650,000 members (as of 2011).

Here are a few insightful quotes from the book Collaborative Consumption to get you thinking about what Zipcar might really be about, other than sharing a car:

• Why is it that we spend so much time teaching children how to share their toys nicely but for adults sharing becomes a loaded concept?

• What you really want is the hole not the drill - Victor Papanek

• When you think about it, there is no rational reason behind the notion that sleeping in a hotel bed or using a towel that hundreds of people used is acceptable, but sharing a vacuum cleaner with neighbours is abnormal

So Zipcar is one example of what are known as PRODUCT SERVICE SYSTEMS. That is, a system that offers you the service which the product provides. Getting to your destination - not owning the car that gets you there.

It's not a new idea at all - think about hotels, libraries, gyms.

But there's a new perspective on it - about how we can expand it and save ourselves space, time, stress and money, and help create a sustainable planet too. It's a pretty good combination.

How does Zipcar work?

Zipcar say that the scheme is for you if you:

• Want to save money
• Mainly take public transport but sometimes need/want a car
• Don't want to hassle of owning a car
• Care about the planet

I don't think Zipcar have this
particular model

If you've ever used one of the shared bicycles in London, this works pretty much exactly the same. You sign up, pay an annual or monthly fee (for example in London an annual subscription for occasional use is £59.50), and then you receive your Zipcard. You are now a Zipster! This card unlocks your chosen car for you. You pay per hour or per day for it; charges are around £5/day.

In return for your fees, you get your fuel, insurance, servicing and MOTs and in London, congestion charge all paid for. All the burdens that come with owning a car - taking it to the garage, pretending you know what the mechanic's talking about, worrying about getting the tax disc done... it's all taken care of, and you can still hop in and get where you need to go.

Nor this

Zipcar say that average car users save an estimated £380/month when they switch to car sharing.

It's not only financial, stress-reducing and sustainbility gains you get from it either. Zipcar have many different makes and models of cars, so you get to try out different ones: one of the slogans they use in the USA is:

 "Today's a BMW day. Or is it a Volvo day?"


To find a car, you can just search online (or on their App) on their map using your postcode. The key to Zipcar's success is that they have plenty of cars, so the likelihood is there are a variety near you. As an experiment, I just searched the map to see what was near me: within 5 minutes walk of my flat there are 4 Zipcars: 3 Volkswagon Golfs and 2 BMW 1 series. I'm even more impressed now! 

Who doesn't want an animal-themed car?

Zipcar's CEO says that "access is more important than ownership" [here] and forecasts growth for sharing models of consumption. Since 2001 his company has won a ridiculous number of awards. Fortune magazine called it "the best new idea in business" in 2009.

If you live in a city and don't need a car every day, this idea is well worth giving serious thought to.

youcanarguewithstupid

Further reading:
Zipcar's site is www.zipcar.com and is really user-friendly
Rachel Botsman, the author of Collaborative Consumption, did a TEDTalk - you can watch it here