Merry Christmas

from everyone

at

Alara Wholefoods!

Enjoy the festive season!

To show we are serious about becoming sustainable, here is our environmental policy...

At Alara Wholefoods we are committed to making high quality muesli with as little impact on the environment as possible. It is our aim to become a carbon negative and zero-waste manufacturing site by 2010. We will work towards sustainability by continuously improving our environmental management and performance.

 

Alara comply with all relevant environmental legislation and where possible, exceed these requirements. Our main impacts on the environment are the packaging materials that we send out to our customers, the energy used in our factory to mix and pack our muesli products, and the waste arising from our manufacturing site. To minimise our impact on the environment we will:

 

-         Adopt and aim to apply the principles of sustainable development - that is, development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

-         Minimise the amount of packaging sent to our customers by continuously reviewing our packaging materials and embracing new developments like biodegradable packaging

-         Minimise energy consumption by reducing the amount of energy that is wasted in our factory and buying energy efficient equipment

-         Buy electricity from a renewable energy supplier

-         Investigate and invest in methods of on-site electricity generation

-         Purchase recycled, second hand, refurbished or reconditioned materials where possible

-         Minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill by ensuring that all plastic, cardboard and paper is recycled

-         Encourage biodiversity and engage with the local community by planting a Permaculture Forest Garden behind our factory

-         Gain environmental certification through the Green Mark Awards by the end of 2007

-         Review this environmental policy annually and ensure that it is communicated to all employees

Alex Smith

MD

To show we are serious about becoming sustainable, here is our environmental policy...

At Alara Wholefoods we are committed to making high quality muesli with as little impact on the environment as possible. It is our aim to become a carbon negative and zero-waste manufacturing site by 2010. We will work towards sustainability by continuously improving our environmental management and performance.

 

Alara comply with all relevant environmental legislation and where possible, exceed these requirements. Our main impacts on the environment are the packaging materials that we send out to our customers, the energy used in our factory to mix and pack our muesli products, and the waste arising from our manufacturing site. To minimise our impact on the environment we will:

 

-         Adopt and aim to apply the principles of sustainable development - that is, development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

-         Minimise the amount of packaging sent to our customers by continuously reviewing our packaging materials and embracing new developments like biodegradable packaging

-         Minimise energy consumption by reducing the amount of energy that is wasted in our factory and buying energy efficient equipment

-         Buy electricity from a renewable energy supplier

-         Investigate and invest in methods of on-site electricity generation

-         Purchase recycled, second hand, refurbished or reconditioned materials where possible

-         Minimise the amount of waste sent to landfill by ensuring that all plastic, cardboard and paper is recycled

-         Encourage biodiversity and engage with the local community by planting a Permaculture Forest Garden behind our factory

-         Gain environmental certification through the Green Mark Awards by the end of 2007

-         Review this environmental policy annually and ensure that it is communicated to all employees

 

Alex Smith

MD

 

We have recently put in place a purchasing policy to make sure that our purchases are as environmentally friendly as possible, you can read it by following this link

If you take a look under the kitchen sink in the average UK home, you will find a small arsenal of cleaning products designed to bleach, kill germs, remove limescale, tackle grease, get your clothes whiter than white and your dishes sparklingly clean. Businesses are no different – we all need to clean our places of work. But taking a closer look at the labels reveals that most of these consist of a cocktail of chemicals that are derived from petrochemicals, a depleting resource that is not renewable. In addition, most of these chemicals do not biodegrade, so they can build up in the environment and cause harm to animals and humans.

 

We started to make tentative changes to the cleaning products we use, switching to Ecover for a couple of items. However, I am now looking at switching all our cleaning products over to biodegradable ones as standard.

 

Ecover do an extensive range of environmentally friendly products that are available in supermarkets or by mail order. For businesses, there is also a list of wholesalers that stock large quantities of each product.

 

Bio-D also make various cleaning products, all 100 % biodegradable and can be purchased from the places listed on this page.

 

Sonett have a large range of products, again, all biodegradable but they are a little more expensive than Ecover and Bio-D. They can only be purchased online via this online shop.

 

As far as we can tell, biodegradable cleaning agents work just as effectively as normal cleaning products and the range that is now available means that there’s no reason not to make the switch. Another small step to becoming a sustainable business, but an important one I think.

 

In the news yesterday it was anounced that plans for the largest offshore wind farm in the world have been given the go ahead. The wind farm will be sited in the Thames Estuary, 12 miles offshore and will consist of 341 wind turbines. It is hoped that the wind farms will provide enough energy for 1 million homes. Further announcements about plans for more UK offshore wind farms are expected in the future. You can read the full story on the BBC website or on the Guardian website.

This is great news for the UK as it means that we are finally taking advantage of a huge resource. The UK has the windiest coastline in Europe, it has a long stretch of coastline and shallow waters making it ideal for large scale off shore wind turbines, yet we are lagging behind other counties in Europe for installing wind capacity. The installed wind capacity of the UK is only 1.3 GW compared to 17 GW in Germany and 10 GW in Spain.

Hopefully this new announcement and the ones still to come will help us to catch up with the rest of Europe!

I came across a company called The Green Stationery Company this week. Their website can be found here. Absolutely everything they sell has either been made from 100 % recycled materials or is 100 % biodegradable. They do a full range of stationery, from recycled paper and envelopes to recycled pens, scissors, post it notes and staplers. They even do environmentally friendly correction fluid that contains no trichloroethylene, and recycled marker pens with non toxic inks. The prices are a little more expensive than normal, but they are by no means extortionate.

It seems to be getting easier and easier to buy sustainable products these days which is great because it means that there is a growing market for environmentally friendly products...we are moving in the right direction!

There was an article in the Camden Gazette published yesterday about the tree planting days that took place here last weekend. Here is a link to the article. And here is a picture of the Mayor of Camden, Jill Fraser, planting a mulberry tree in the garden!

A few weeks ago we noticed that when it rained, the water was running off the roof of a neighbouring building and falling into our garden in a kind of waterfall. We decided to make use of this free water supply by making a very simple rainwater harvester. We had an old wheelie bin in our yard that we don't use anymore, so we put it in the garden and put a plastic liner inside it - the sort that you might put in a pond. Then we positioned it in the garden under the waterfall. It is already doing it's job very well and is slowly filling up with water every time it rains! You can see a picture of it below.

 

 

 

 

1.) First we built a base out of bricks that we had lying around. You could use paving slabs instead if you have them. The idea is that there is a solid base for the wormeries to sit on so that the worms cannot esacpe into the ground but the liquid generated is allowed to run out of the wormery.

       

2.) Whilst the base was being built we stuffed all the old car tyres with scrunched up newspaper. This will eventually become a nice bedding for the worms and also acts as good insulation against the cold. You need to pack in newspaper until you really can't put in any more.

3.) Next we decided that we wanted to collect any liquid produced by the worms as this is very rich in nutrients and is a very good plant feed. We happened to have a piece of steel sheet with holes in it lying around, so we proped this up on the base with some bricks to create a platform. The holes in the steel sheet were quite large, so to prevent any worms falling out or any mice getting in, we put a piece of fine wire mesh on top of the steel sheet and put the tyres on top of that.

4.) Finally we introduced the worms into their new home and gave them some food!

I think the wormery will need a small modification as it's currently not that easy to harvest the compost once it has been made. Since the good compost will be at the bottom of the wormery (as that material was put in first), we'd have to take the whole thing apart and empty out the tyres onto a plastic sheet. The worms would then burrow to the bottom of the pile because they don't like the light leaving you free to scrape away the compost from the top.

This method of harvesting sounds like hard work to me so I will probably put a wire mesh at the bottom of each tyre so that each one can be lifted off separately like a tray, in a similar way to the commercial wormeries. That way, the bottom tyre which contains all the nutrient rich compost can be removed easily, emptied and then put back on the top of the pile.

Our tree planting days took place last Friday and Saturday and were a great success! A very big “thank you” goes to all those people who volunteered and braved the rain, wind and cold to help us get our garden planted. All the trees are now in and are enjoying their new home – they are getting another thorough watering today thanks to the weather. We also successfully built our wormeries over the weekend – more about those tomorrow…

 

On Saturday the Mayor of Camden, Jill Fraser, came to plant a tree in the garden – a mulberry bush, (which will be known as the Mayor’s Mulberry from now on!). Hopefully I’ll be able to post a photo of this in a couple of days. Our thanks go to the Mayor for her support of this project.

 

All the pictures taken on the day can be found by clicking here, or by following the link on the left hand side to the “Tree Planting Pics” photo album. Enjoy…