Every Christmas in the UK millions of advent calendars are sold. A large majority of these come with a ridiculous amount of plastic packaging. So what can we do to buy more sustainable advent calendars? The most sustainable option would be to get a reusable advent calendar that you can fill yourself. This way you can get joy from them year after year and it can even become part of your Christmas tradition.   The Range has a few really good options, which include a festive truck, train and a LED lit up Christmas scene. Wayfair has an extensive range of over 150 calendars. Next has the Mel ..read more

With the Christmas season approaching it’s worth thinking about how we can make it a more ethical, sustainable Christmas. Whilst for some it’s a religious festival, for others, it’s a chance to spend some much needed time with families. However, for most of us, it’s also a time of excess and waste. For example in the UK we will use roughly 40 million rolls of sticky tape, we will also throw away an equivalent of 108 million rolls of wrapping paper, 54 million platefuls of food and almost 100 million bin bags of packaging from toys and other presents according to research by onepoll.com. It is ..read more

Below are my top 5 most ethical supermarkets and online food companies. From organic-only supermarkets to supermarkets that help in the community.   Waitrose Waitrose is a member of the John Lewis partnership and as such, it is owned by its employees(called partners). The majority of any profits are paid out in bonuses to these partners, which results in great customer service as the employees have a sense of ownership. Environmentally they are working very hard at reducing plastic waste. See the below extract from their website. ‘Making sure our packaging works and is fit for purpose is ..read more

It is extremely difficult to determine what brands are actually cruelty-free and to a large extent, it also depends on what level you, as an individual are satisfied. For example, a brand that itself is cruelty-free might belong to a parent organisation that has other brands that are tested on animals. For example, Schmidt’s Naturals is a personal care brand that on the face of it is ethical and cruelty-free. However, it has recently purchased by conglomerate Unilever. Unilever in itself has hundreds of brands, many of which aren’t cruelty-free.  So would you still consider Schmidt’s a c ..read more

The war on plastic is, potentially, one of the most important fights we have at the moment. The amount of plastic in our environment is causing real problems that are only getting worse. In a recent BBC documentary, some worrying facts were revealed. Firstly collectively in our households, there are 19,500,000,000 pieces of single-use plastic. This ranges from milk cartons to shampoo bottles and butter tubs to toothbrushes. Secondly, every minute of every day a truckload of plastic is finding its way into our oceans. A large part of these are microplastics which end up in the food chain poison ..read more

Top 5 most ethical recipe boxes. Getting food delivered directly to your door is a growing trend. It used to be home deliveries of supermarket staples from the likes of Ocado and Tesco. However more recently there has been a growing trend for the delivery of high quality, single meal boxes from the likes of Hellofresh and Boxfresh. Now countless others have joined the throng, but how ecofriendly are these boxes? There’s a reasonably large carbon footprint to send single meals by courier and some boxes come with lots of individually plastic-wrapped ingredients. However, I believe there are some ..read more

Natural collection is an online ethical department store. They operate in a wide variety of categories from fashion and homewares to beauty and groceries. All brands and products at this ethical department store have been vetted and must operate in one or more of the following segments. • Fair Trade • Organic • Eco Friendly • Health and Wellness promotion • Education and awareness building • Locally Produced • Charity It is possible to search by the ethics that are dearest to your heart at this page www.Naturalcollection.com/tags. You can choose from a range including animal welfare, fair tra ..read more

Some studies suggest traditional spray deodorants and even roll on deodorants can be harmful to your health. Nuud aims to provide a healthy alternative. Experts have warned that over-using spray deodorants can lead to the inhalation of chemicals from the aerosols. These chemical can cause allergic skin reactions, asthma and breathing difficulties. In extreme cases the overuse of spray deodorant can even cause death as the gasses in the can can attack the lungs. There are also other, unsubstantiated rumours I have to admit, that toxins in traditional deodorants can cause diseases such as cancer ..read more

My Vegan is a UK based company that provides vegan, plant based nutrition products. They have a large range of products available from protein powders to supplements and snacks. As they have their own production facilities they can be confident of the make up of their products and can ensure the highest quality in plant based nutrition products.   They are certified to Organic standard by the soil association, as well as having accreditation from the Vegan Society and the Vegetarian Society. As such you can be confident that you are getting excellent vegan plant based nutrition products ..read more

One of the most environmentally friendly things you can do is to reuse/recycle products.   You can do this in by selling unwanted goods on sites such as Ebay, Music Magpie, SHpock, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, etc. This stops products going into landfill and you might even earn some money. Alternatively if this seems too time consuming then charity shops are always looking for donations. You can also look to buy second hand items through these channels, this dramatically reduces the carbon footprint compared to new products. In addition to the sites above some charity shops have online ..read more