Last Friday our blacksmith Conan Sturdy came in to put the hinges he had made on to our garden gate. Some of the parts for the hinges came from an RSJ that would otherwise have been thrown away which is good because it is in keeping with our reuse and recycle policy.

 

 

Due to bad weather, we had to cancel our compost bin building day on Saturday as it would have been very unpleasant working in the pouring rain. We will reschedule the day though, and compost bin building will probably take place at the same time as tree planting which is happening on 8th and 9th December. Watch this space for further updates!

Since I can’t easily measure power consumption I will have to figure out the energy use of the production lines by analysis and calculation instead. This can be done relatively easily in unit 1. I can easily tell how much energy goes on lighting because I know the power consumption of all the lights and I know how many of them there are. All heating in the factory comes from electric heaters so I can measure the current drawn by each using the Megger MMC 850 and calculate the energy used on heating. I can do the same for office equipment, kitchen equipment and the compressor in unit 1. The forklift chargers are generally the only equipment that is left on over night so if I take a meter reading at the start and end of every day I will know how much energy they use overnight.

 

I have also found that I can get a general idea of the site power consumption by watching the meter as it goes round. There is a metal disc inside the meter that spins at a rate that is proportional to the energy consumption. Each meter will say on it somewhere how many disc revolutions are the equivalent of 1 kWh – on our meters it is 30 revolutions for each kWh. So by measuring the time taken for 30 revolutions, you can find out the site electricity consumption at that particular time. This means that if I take measurements when the production line is on and then again when it is off, the difference between the 2 values will tell me the energy usage of the equipment on that production line. You can do the same exercise on a domestic electricity meter if you want to find out what uses most electricity in your home.

 

Using a combination of these techniques I should be able to get a fairly accurate idea of where most of our energy is going and why it doesn’t vary with the amount of muesli produced. It should be fairly straightforward for unit 1 as there is only one production line but more difficult for unit 2 as there are several different lines to consider.

 

It turns out that none of the power meters that BSRIA Instrument Solutions have suggested are really suitable for doing the job I want them to do. Our equipment is a mixture of 3 phase and some that plug into a normal 13A socket. Since I am not an electrician and we don’t have one available on site, I wanted a power meter that I could just clamp around the insulation on the cables to each machine that would either tell me power in kW or current in Amps. However, in order to do this the Elcomponents Energy Pro and the Lem 2050 Analyst require access to a single phase and a 3 phase bus bar – neither of which I can get to without the aid of an electrician! In addition, the Megger MMC 850 is only suitable for measuring current in equipment that you would normally plug into a normak 13A socket – so it’s fine for things like heaters, kettles and computer equipment but not much else. I’ll have to think of another way of taking measurements…

 

I have been taking our electricity meter readings every day for the last few months to find out our daily and weekly electricity usage. The original idea was to relate the energy usage to the amount of muesli packed every day, however it soon became apparent that the two values do not relate to each other. This could be because we have a very high base load, so variations in production rates don’t significantly affect the energy usage, or it could be that a lot of energy is wasted.

 

In order to find out which of those two scenarios is occurring, I decided that it would be good to know exactly how much energy each piece of equipment uses. This would tell us what percentage of daily usage goes on production and what goes on lighting, heating and office equipment. It should also highlight any areas where energy is being wasted and the potential savings that could be made.

To take accurate measurements I would need a power meter that would tell me the electricity consumption of each machine so I spoke to the hire department at BSRIA Instrument Solutions who suggested the Elcomponents Energy Pro, the Megger MMC 850 and the LEM 2050 Analyst.

One of our aims at Alara is to reduce the amount of packaging used on our products to minimize their impact on the environment. In addition to helping the environment, reducing packaging will also save the company money in terms of lower material costs and a smaller recovery and recycling obligation under the Packaging Regulations. The Packaging Regulations are new laws that mean that businesses who make, supply, fill or sell to the final user, packaging in any form are responsible for making sure that the packaging gets recovered and recycled. More details about Packaging Regulations can be found here.

 

To help us minimize our packaging, we’ve recently been talking to TPG Packaging, a packaging consultancy firm. TPG have advised us that they could help us to make savings on our corrugated cardboard boxes in a number of ways, one of which involves reducing the amount of material used per box. This project should result in savings of approximately 18% on our annual corrugated cardboard spend! Another plus point is that TPG will charge us based on the savings that they make to the business, so if they can’t save us money, they don’t get paid.

 

A lot of our trees have been bought from Deacons nursery in the Isle of Wight. They give the following advice on their website about the best way to plant trees…

 

Dig the hole well for the tree – two spades depth and say 18” in diameter. Mix a two gallon bucketful of peat substitute [e.g. coir]with top soil that you take out of the hole and mix a generous handful of sterilised bonemeal. If staking is necessary, thump the stake well in (don’t use creosote). Place the tree in position with the graft clear of the level of the soil. Spread out the roots and replace the top soil over the roots. Tread well in and leave the new hole at a level slightly below the existing soil level – then, in a drought, should ensure it will be easy to apply water to the tree without it flowing away. Remove excess soil to the borders. A general feed of 7:7:7Growmore can be applied after say a month or so. When fruiting commences, Sulphate of Potash (applied in February) will be necessary, in addition to Growmore. Plums may require extra nitrogen and all stone fruits like a proportion of lime. If Ph is 5.8 or less, it is usual to apply lime in late autumn at 4 ozs. per square yard.

 

I’ve been doing some research on where we can buy all the extra ingredients like coir and sterilized bone meal that are recommended in on the Deacon’s website.

 

Coir is a peat substitute that is made from coconut husks. It can be bought from the following websites in dry, compressed blocks, which then need to be soaked in water to generate compost.

- http://www.ferndale-lodge.co.uk/pd_569892.htm

- http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/shop/foundoption.lasso?-session=shopper:5635208B1b6b225A74qJFEC8B1E7

- http://www.gardendirect.co.uk/product.asp?P_ID=4241&strPageHistory=search&strKeywords=coir&numPageStartPosition=1&strSearchCriteria=any&PT_ID=all

 

 

Sterilized bone meal, lime and Growmore can all be found on the following websites in various quantities.

- http://www.gardendirect.co.uk/

- http://www.lbsgardendirect.co.uk/

- http://www.choiceful.com/department.php?deptId=G1

 

 

We also need to buy worms for our wormeries. London CRN have advised us that Eisendia Fetida worms (also called red or tiger worms) are the best composting worm to buy. You can buy composting worms from the following websites.

 

- http://www.vermisell.co.uk/delivery-details.shtml

- http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/

 

Alara Wholefoods is featured on pages 34 and 35 of the November issue of Natural Products! We have a 2-page article all about our plans for becoming a sustainable business. The article also features a picture of one of our new products Goji and Yacon Muesli which will be sold in our new design minimal packaging. Since this article was published we’ve already had 3 wholesalers enquire about our new products so we’re really pleased with the interest that it has generated. You can order a copy of Natural Products from their website which can be found here. 

 

Last week the company we normally use to collect out paper sacks and cardboard boxes for recycling told us that they could no longer collect paper sacks. Apparently the paper mill they normally sell to would no longer take paper sacks, so they asked us to only collect cardboard boxes. This caused a huge problem in our factory, as it meant that paper sacks had to be thrown in the bin again and we get through a lot of paper sacks! One of the major problems was that paper sacks from unit 2 are normally thrown straight in the compactor at the point of generation – now they had to be separated from the cardboard and thrown in the bins which not only ruined the system but caused a lot of disorganisation.

 

Clearly the situation had to be resolved, as we could not operate effectively if we had to go on separating paper from cardboard. So I spoke to another recycling company, Severnside, who told me that they could take our bales of cardboard and paper sacks, they could take our plastic bales and they could provide sacks in which to put our office paper. Severnside will collect once a week and pick up all our material for recycling, regardless of quantity, for a fee of £10 per collection and a further charge of £1 a week to cover all the paperwork. This makes everything much simpler as we’ll only have to deal with one company for our recycling needs and we won’t have to store large numbers of bales on our site so the place should look much tidier! The collections should start in the next couple of weeks.

 

We’ve ordered all the plants for the garden now. They have come from Dulford Nurseries in Devon and Deacon’s Nursery in the Isle of Wight. The list of plants that have been ordered can be found here. In our design we have tried to ensure that there are plenty of good nitrogen fixers in amongst all the other fruit trees so that the soil is continually enriched with nitrogen.

 

A few weeks ago we had a soil analysis done by a company called Field Science to find out the nutrient content of the soil. After sending them a sample, they had it tested and sent us back a report detailing the levels of trace elements that were found. Surprisingly for a site that was filled with rubbish, the results were OK - our soil appears to be in reasonable condition. It is deficient in cobalt, molybdenum, iodine and sodium but all the other nutrients were either present in the correct quantities or in excess. Field Science can also provide an organic dressing, tailor made to restore the balance of nutrients in our particular soil to ensure good conditions for growing fruit. All we have to do is sprinkle the dressing over our soil in the correct quantity and then watch the fruit grow…

 

We’ve decided to build our wormery out of old car tyres, as it is a great way to make use of an otherwise unwanted material. After asking advice from several people on where we could find some old tyres, I decided to contact the Street Environment Services at Camden Council, as they often have to deal with fly tipped rubbish. They were very helpful and have kindly arranged for the contractor that they use to pick up abandoned cars and fly tipped waste to save 8 tyres for us and deliver them to our site next week!

 

A flyer has been sent out today advertising the garden planting and compost bin building. Click here to see it.

The first stage of planting for our permaculture forest garden will take place very soon and we need your help! We are organising 3 volunteer days to kick start the project.

The first will be on Saturday 25th November and on this day we will be building compost bins and wormeries so that we can start composting our food waste.

The second and third days will be on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th December and on these days we will be planting the first set of trees in the garden.

If you'd like to volunteer for one or more of these days, please contact Joanna Southernwood by email on green@alara.co.uk.

Hope to see you there!

The fence and gate enclosing our garden are made of coppiced sweet chestnut timbers. The gate, shown in the picture below, is more than 2 metres tall and is very heavy – we estimate that it weighs around half a tonne!

 

 

We need the gate to be mounted on the side of our factory to make access to the garden much easier however, due to its weight, we couldn’t just use standard hinges. So we have employed a local blacksmith, Conan Sturdy, to make some hinges for us.

 

The first stage of planting for our permaculture forest garden will take place very soon and we need your help! We are organising 3 volunteer days to kick start the project.

 

The first will be on Saturday 25th November and on this day we will be building compost bins and wormeries so that we can start composting our food waste.

 

The second and third days will be on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th December and on these days we will be planting the first set of trees in the garden.

 

If you'd like to volunteer for one or more of these days, please contact Joanna Southernwood by email on joanna@alara.co.uk.

Hope to see you there!

We are arranging a volunteer day on 25^th November to build compost bins and wormeries for our garden. The idea is that once the bins are built all food waste from the factory can be composted and the compost can then be used on the garden. This will eliminate the need to send any biodegradable waste to landfill.

 

The event is being put together with help from London Community Recycling Network (London CRN) who have helped us to apply for grants for the garden, recruit volunteers and have also provided us with a design for our compost bins and wormeries. Volunteers will be recruited through London CRN’s Master Composter Scheme, which provides training on composting issues to individuals so that they can help others in their local community to compost.

 

Once complete, the compost bin should look something like this

 

 

It will be made out of timber from a sustainable source and I’ve had 2 very competitive quotes from Codebuild and North London Timber (020 8808 5388) for the materials needed. The wormeries will be built from old car tyres. You can find instructions on how to build a tyre wormery here. This type of wormery particularly appealed to us as it makes good use of an otherwise unwanted material.

 

If you’d like to volunteer for our compost bin building day on 25^th November or one of our planting days on 8^th and 9^th December, please email Joanna on