Bin it, don't block it

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

If there's one kitchen waste product that nobody likes dealing with, it's the fat and oil left over from cooking. It might help you make amazingly tasty Sunday roasts but, if you don't dispose of it straight away, it starts to smell, it's horrible to look at, and then you have to find some way of getting rid of its nasty congealed greasiness. Which is probably why so many of us just end up tipping it straight down the sink.

The problem with doing that is, while it may be out of sight, it only stays out of mind for so long because once it's down there in your drain it cools and sets hard, and no amount of hot water and washing-up liquid will wash it away. Eventually enough fat deposits could build up to block your drain completely and because all the pipes in your home are connected, it's not just your sinks that will get backed up ...

With reports in the news of 40-meter 'fatbergs' clogging the sewers of the UK, and 44% of households experiencing a blocked pipe or drain in the past 5 years", it's not surprising that various water boards have launched initiatives to raise public awareness, such as Thames Water's Bin It, Don't Block It campaign. Remember: Your household pipes are only 10cm wide and even olive oil can clog a drain.

During World War Two – in Britain at least – people were encouraged, it was more or less demanded even, to collect all the kitchen grease, oil, drippings, etc., as it was used in the making of munitions. Don't ask me how it was used but it was collected and used. While we may not wish to encourage the making of munitions I am certain that there would be uses for it even today.

At Lakeland you can now purchase the so-called Absorb Bin designed to be capable of taking this fat and oil and making it easy to later dispose off it. Housed in a sleek white container, Absorb Bin's patent-pending, fat-trapping insert is made from a biodegradable material that soaks up used cooking oil and fat.

Once the oil has cooled a little, just pour it into the middle of the insert and the specially designed pattern will evenly disperse the liquid. As the insert is so super absorbent, it can be topped up with fat from several meals before being thrown safely into the bin at the end of the week.

While the Absorb Bin is not expensive and neither are the inserts there are other ways to collect and thus prevent such oil and fat getting into the drain.

What did the people in the war do to collect the oil and fat in order to hand it over to be used for munitions? It used to go into reused glass jar to be then collected for reprocessing.

It is also possible to, I am sure, use some sort of container, with a lid, and then use those pulp trays for drinking cups that are left around from fast food stores as liner to trap the oils and grease. An alternative to a DIY version would be to use some sort of small metal bucket – they can even be quite decorative – filled with some kitty litter. Should work.

With the above I am not trying to say don't buy an Absorb Bin. What I am saying is that we should have a look whether there are other ways to achieve the same result and maybe even ways of making use of the waste oil and grease rather than tossing it out. The important thing is not to pour it down the drain.

© 2016

Bramwells Real Mayonnaise (Aldi) – Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Normally I do not indulge in such reviews but this one does have to be done, period.

In an advert Adli sort of claimed that its Bramwells Real Mayonnaise was about as good as Hellman's Mayonnaise but that is not the case; it is better, much better. That, at least, is my opinion, and I have use Hellman's mayonnaise for almost as long as I can remember.

While Hellman's has a slight salt and also a slight vinegar tang neither of this is found in Bramwells Real Mayonnaise and it is also much creamier. In addition to that Bramwells Real Mayonnaise is made with free range eggs and states this. Whether Hellman's Mayonnaise uses free range eggs or not we do not know as nothing is mentioned either way. This fact, already, makes Bramwells Mayonnaise, in my opinion, better than the competition, and we don't even want to mention the point that Bramwells Mayonnaise is only about a third of the price of the other one.

All points thus considered there is absolutely no contest. Bramwells Mayonnaise wins hands down for quality and price. It is not always the case of “you get what you pay for” though in many cases it is.

© 2016

Der Feind

von Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Arbeiter! Euer Feind ist nicht der Arbeiter aus Polen, Litauen oder Romänien. Euer Feind ist der globale wie auch der nationale Kapitalismus.

Nicht nur ist der Kapitalist, ist der Kapitalismus, euer Feind. Der Kapitalist und der Kapitalismus sind auch der Feind aller anderen Werktaetigen und was noch schlimmer ist, sie sind auch der Erzfeind des Weltfriedens.

Der Kapitalismus trägt in sich den Krieg wie die Wolken den Regen. Das kapitalistische System is unfähig ohne den dauernd fortwährenden Krieg, in der einen Form oder der anderen, zu funktioniern. Krieg gegen die Arbeiterklasse daheim und in Ausland, Krieg gegen andere Länder und Menschen im Streben nach Quellen für Rohmaterialien und Märkte und was die Nazis “Lebensraum” nannten und das Haupttriebwerk der kapitalistischen Wirtschaft ist der militärisch-industrielle Komplex.

Jedoch die grosse Masse der Arbeiterklasse selbst haben solch eine Gehirnwäsche untergangen das sie als den Feind die Arbeitern in und auch aus anderen Ländern sehen. Dies ist aber kein neues Phänomen denn bereits Robert Tressell beschrieb dieses in seinem Buch “Die Philantropisten ind den Zerissenen Hosen” (ein Buch das jedoch leider nie in der deutschen Sprache erschien), in dem er auslegte das Fremde, Arbeiter in und aus anderen Ländern, oder auch Händler von dort, nicht der Feind der Arbeiterklasse daheim sind, wie es geglaubt und auch leidenschaftlich behauptet wurde von Anderen.

Der Feind der Arbeiter und der Arbeiterklasse ist und bleibt das Kapital, der Kapitalismus und die Kapitalisten und nicht Arbeiter in und aus anderen Ländern. Nur weil diese ausländischen Arbeiter bereit sind, unglücklicherweise, oft für neiderige Löhne zu arbeiten als die Norm ist, weil sie den offerierten Lohn als höher ansehen als was sie in ihrem Land gewohnt sind verdienen koennen, sind sie noch lange nicht der Feind.

So jedoch werden Arbeiter aus anderen Ländern bei der Arbeiterklasse in unserem Land (und “unser Land” kann hier genaso fuer die USA oder Deutschland stehen wie für Grossbritannien) auf Grund von der Gehirnwäsche der sie unterzogen wurden durch bestimmte Medien, Medien die nicht auf der Seite der Arbeiter sondern auf der Seite der Ausbeuter stehen. Und das trifft leider für den grössten Teil der Medien zu in unseren respektiven Ländern denn, trotz den vielen Titel sind sie alle im Besitz von nur einer Handvoll von Personen weltweit, und alle von denen sind von Herzen Faschisten.

Sie sind der Feind der Arbeiterklasse und nicht die Arbeiter aus und in anderen Ländern der Welt, und unsere Regierungen sind auch der Feind. Die, welche öffentliche Dienste mehr und mehr beschneiden, wie besonders in Grossbritannien in der zweiten Dekade des 21ten Jahrhunderts, und alles in Richtung Privatisierung drängen, inklusive Parks, Krankenhäuser und medizinische Versorgung, usw. Die das Familiensilber verkaufen und all das zerstören das einst durch harte Kämpfe erwonnen wurde.

© 2016

Substituting edible weeds for other vegetables

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Some people, and gardeners especially, often just see them as weeds but in many cultures and traditions wild edibles are very common.

I have found that the Asians in Britain who cannot import the seeds of their traditional spinach varieties for use in the different kinds of curries substitute Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) for one kind and the leaves of the Amaranth for another, and also they use Fat Hen (which is an Amaranth relation after all) for the same purpose.

Every gardener is “plagued” often with invasions of chickweed – and no, my chickens turn their beaks up at the stuff so the more for me – and that makes a great substitute for pot herbs and also for the likes of salad cress in egg & cress sandwiches, for instance, and in my opinion it tastes better than salad cress.

So, don't always be tempted to immediately pull up something because it is a weed, that is to say, something growing in a place where it should not be growing, as far as the gardener mind is concerned. It may just be a treasure waiting to be discovered. If it is not thee is still time to pull it out before later, before it sets seed.

There are time when we are far too quick to see all that we have to sown as undesirable but many wild edibles, from which many of our domesticated vegetables spring after all, have much higher nutritional values that do the domesticated versions.

Sorrel (Rumes acetosa) could be called a cut and come again spinach and is, more or less, a wild spinach and the best thing as regards to this and other wild edibles is that they happily grow where domesticated varieties – even of the same kind – will not. In fact many edible weeds thrive much better in poor soil than in soil that is regularly fed with compost, manure, and such.

Dandelion, the bane of the lawn care person, is another one of those wild edibles or edible weeds that we often overlook as a possible food source and it is, in fact, one of he few milky sap plants that are edible and this one in its entirety. Even the stems, those tubular things that hold the milky sap, can be used much like chives, chopped or cut up, though they do not have the same taste.

Many people do go foraging for such wild foods, and in Greece Horta is a common dish, made from a variety of gathered wild edibles. But why do we want to go foraging when such plants can be grown at home, together with our other vegetables that we grown, in our plots? And, best of all, wild edibles will, more often than not, grow where other vegetables will not, such as in too much shade or on very poor soil on the margins.

In France also, for example, dandelion and sorrel (and there is a commercial version of this vegetable also about referred to as French Sorrel, which is slightly milder then common sorrel) are grown not only in the vegetable gardens of the cottagers and other individuals but even in market gardens for sale in the markets.

© 2016

Old Jack trembled

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

“Old Jack trembled. He tried to answer, but was unable to speak. If he had been a slave and had failed to satisfy his master, the latter might have tied him up somewhere and thrashed him. Hunter could not do that; he could only take his food away.”

This is taken from “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Robert Trussel.

Old Jack is in fear of losing his job, as all the workers are, not just in the book but also in real life, and that almost all of the time. And the author is pointing out, as he frequently does, that even slaves have some level of security. That a slave master buys his slaves and therefore has some concern as to whether they live or die. If you just pay by the hour, and there are plenty out of work, you don't care if they live or die. You can always replace one with another.

This is, I am afraid to say, the way the cookie crumbles in capitalism and only a change of system will ever change this. Though this must a change of system where workers truly own the means of production and not where the means of production end up in the hands of the state.

In the latter event, as it was done under Stalin and later, only means that the workers exchange one slave master for another and still remain slaves. Only when the means of production are in the hands of the workers is the reward for their labor truly theirs and it is such a system that we must create if we ever want to get away from inequality.

This new kind of system, as it has been envisaged by many so-called Utopians, such as Robert Owen, for example, is possible and everyone can have enough work, enough to eat, a place to live, but enough and not that having not enough and others too much.

However big your house, your car, your TV, etc., our graves, in general, are all the same size (well, almost) and they are all about six foot down. The last shirt – translated from German – does not have any pockets and we can take nothing of our wealth over into the afterlife, if there is such a thing as afterlife.

If everyone has enough of everything for life then there is also no need to try and accumulate wealth or other possessions, to pass on to descendents so that they can have a better life, and thus the race to have more, more and still more will be futile.

A system like that can and will only work, however, if all who can work do work and if work is seen as an honor while it is at the same time a requirement, a duty. And where all work is equally valued and regarded in the same standing regardless whether it is manual work or brain work.

He who works with his hands is equally valuable as he who works with his mind though in today's society, unfortunately, the manual worker is regarded as inferior by not just those that work with their intellect but by almost everyone, and manual work is even seen as inferior by those who perform it and this is a shame, a shame on our society as it is at the moment.

We should also take to heart, even though I am not a believer, the statement in the Bible that says “the laborer is worthy of his hire” and also the section where the owner pays everyone the same regardless of how long, in time, they worked for him that day. It can also work in this new society that everyone gets the same pay, the same benefits and can live a good life without needing to fear for his job, health and his life and that of his family.

© 2016

Jeremy Paxman Warns UK at Litter ‘Tipping Point’

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Jeremy Paxman, speaking in Solihull at the FPA annual Environment Seminar, set tone for the litter agenda in 2016 by calling on the whole supply chain to take action to tackle the UK’s litter crisis or face legislative action.

The ex-BBC Newsnight anchor, speaking in his capacity as Patron of the litter campaigning organization Clean Up Britain (CLUB) said that the UK is at a tipping point in attitudes to litter and that businesses need to collaborate to take action and tackle the problem. Litter is rising up the English political agenda and, as politicians like to get on the bandwagon, businesses need to start acting differently to seize the initiative before government forces action through taxes and legislative changes.

Paxman said he, like many citizens, is sick to the back teeth of the state of this country – it makes him depressed and ashamed and it’s time we did something about it. He pointed out that even in an area like Solihull the council spends £10k a year on removing chewing gum.

Addressing the audience of foodservice packaging manufacturers and distributors, foodservice operators such McDonalds, Sodexo and Costa, waste processors and consultants, Paxman said the £1bn spent by the UK each year on cleaning up litter was a waste of everyone’s money. He acknowledged that the foodservice sector is not responsible for litter per se - people drop litter - but he said that if the streets are lined with rubbish with corporate logos on those corporates have a problem that undoubtedly impacts the bottom line by up to 2% according Bradford University School of Management*. Those businesses therefore have a responsibility to get involved with their consumers and take action on litter.

Paxman identified the biggest challenge is changing consumer behavior by making dumping litter just as socially unacceptable as drink driving. We now live in an ‘on the move’ society that needs portable food and drink. He said that the reason people throw litter out of car windows is that they don’t want it in their personal space - what they fail to realise is that their actions make our shared spaces filthy.

He urged stakeholders to work together to win the war on litter, organisations working alone will never achieve the step-change required to rid the UK of the scourge of litter. With government resources under pressure, he said that this effort needs to be privately funded and needs to engage with young people fundamentally to change attitudes and behaviors.

Paxman concluded: “It’s our country – but it’s filthy. We need to act quickly and decisively and we at CLUB - and you - need to be prepared to make this is happen.”

Jeremy Paxman is very right when he says the above about the way the majority in this country – and yes, it is not just a minority, it is the majority – just simply litter our streets and countryside. Aside from being unsightly it is also more than that.

Acquaintances of mine from Germany have commented after a visit to London that the city is absolutely filthy and that they would not ever considering revisiting simply because of the litter everywhere. And, I must say, I do not blame them.

Aside from, as I said before, litter being unsightly it can also be an environmental hazard, causing issues for wildlife and for the biosphere in general.

*Source: CLUB

© 2016

SHOWA Biodegradable Multi-Purpose Gardening Gloves

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

SHOWA Biodegradable Multi-Purpose Gardening Glove from Globus

This is the first what is claimed to be biodegradable synthetic gardening glove with a sponge nitrile coating that provides optimal long lasting grip.

Soft, seamless and lightweight (15 gauge) polyester liner for a comfortable wearing experience. Form-fitting and anatomically designed, breathable and washable, elasticated cuffs. Available in sizes S, M, L, XL.

The unique 'biodegradable' characteristic of the glove – please note, it says biodegradable and not compostable – is made possible with innovative Eco Best Technologv'" (EBT) within the liner and sponge nitrile coating.

The EBT organic additive is designed to make the SHOWA 4552 attractive to microbial activity in landfill. Upon consumption of the EBT formulation, micro-organisms excrete enzymes that depolymerise the nitrile. The result is biogases and inert humus.

Normal nitrile takes decades, if not hundreds of years to degrade and break down in landfill whereas the biodegradation rate of the SHOWA 4552 is far more rapid - typically within 24 months (depending on landfill conditions).

Those gloves are not at all dissimilar of the ordinary nitrile covered work gloves that can be found everywhere nowadays and often for little money. The difference is simply that with the ordinary ones the nitrile stays in the biosphere for much longer.

They wear well, allow you too grip things, even in camp and wet conditions, and thus are just what ones needs at times in the garden. They are not suitable, however, for working with thorns and such as they will offer no protection against those.

© 2016

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

Sustainable forests can cut global emissions by half

Politicians should place greater emphasis on the forest as a means of tackling the climate challenges. According to a study conducted by Södra, the sustainable management of the world's production forests could yield a reduction in global emissions of up to 50 percent.

We need to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to avoid potentially irreversible effects on our planet that could put the very existence of our society at risk.

"Many people are unaware of the role the forest plays in the context of climate change. In the forest industry, we have fallen short when it comes to explaining the correlation between the two. Growing, well-managed forest binds carbon dioxide, thus preventing it from entering the atmosphere," says Lena Ek, Chairman of Södra Skogsägarna.

The world's forests contain more than 1,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide - more than all of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, since deforestation is greater than afforestation, the more recent statistics show that approximately 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is lost annually. A study conducted by Södra Skogsägarna shows that if effective forest management practices were adopted in the world's production forests, it would be possible to bind a further 9-17 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This corresponds to 30-50 percent of global emissions.

"We must work together to highlight the potential of the forest to lead society towards a fossil-free future with renewable products that are also reused and recycled," says Lena Ek.

The forest and forest products play a key role in achieving our goal of a fossil-free society. The main advantage is the potential to replace products made from fossil materials with products made from wood. This reduces the emissions from finite materials, at the same time as we manufacture renewable wood products that continue to store carbon dioxide throughout their lifetime. An increasing demand for forests to make renewable products will also result in more growing forest that also absorbs and binds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Source: Södra Pressroom

N.B. This press release is presented without editing for your information only.

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

Wood at Architect@Work London 2016

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This year's London ARCHITECT@WORK had chosen wood as its theme. To honor this beautiful material, London's SCIN GALLERY, Materials Library and Resource, presented a collection of wood curiosities called Growth Rings.

The exhibition examined the species of trees that give us the wood we use in architecture, it looked at the DNA of wood and its physiology.

Curator Annabelle Filer said, “We are delighted to have been asked to examine wood in this way. As a natural material it has so much depth to its uses and is so versatile. Our exhibition aims to explore this in an architectural context.”

Another exhibition was ROTUNDA SEROTINA

The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) partnered with designers Kolman Boye and furniture-makers Benchmark to create a towering structure of food plates in a commission for Wallpaper* Handmade 2015 called the Rotunda Serotina.

ARCHITECT@WORK was the UK debut of the three-storey 'general store' and it played very much to the wood theme for this edition. The Danish/Swedish architects Kolman Boye were invited by Wallpaper* to design a candy-store concept piece for serving food during Wallpaper* Handmade in Milan.

Wallpaper* teamed up the designers with Benchmark, a company which has almost unparalleled knowledge of wood, to build the structure in collaboration with the American Hardwood Export Council. The Rotunda is constructed of American cherry and maple.

The vast columns of shelves are arranged in a cylindrical shape so that a single ladder can slide around inside the structure to scale every shelf. Each shelf in the Rotunda holds rows of cherry- wood snack trays that visitors can take home as limited-edition samples from the exhibit.

For visitors not used to seeing the striking pale-pinkish red timber, the emergence of the Rotunda Serotina will be a revelation. Gone are the traditional reddish, highly lacquered connotations of cherry. The contemporary porous appearance of the wood fits in beautifully with the current vogue for raw, rugged timber.

As a forester, and as a journalists, I have somewhat a problem with the statement on their literature which said that the wood used in the structure and for the plates did take just 40 seconds to grow. While this is to indicate that the American forests grow in those 40 seconds that among of the wood the particular wood used would have taken a great deal longer, many decades in fact, to grow. Statements that could be misleading should vest be avoided when trying to teach the public about wood (or anything for that matter).

On the other hand the structure, and the food plates, were rather interesting and the structure very much due to its construction, with wooden pegs, apparently, used.

Another of the exhibitors that caught my attention was Mehling & Wiesmann GmbH from Germany who are making beautiful veneer from spalted, sometimes also called spalded, Beech. This they call Trüffelbuche or Truffle Beech. Spalting, which is the more common spelling, is caused by fungi and thus is a use of almost dead wood, wood that more often than not would, if not left in the forest, where dead wood, or deadwood, has its uses for wildlife, no doubt, be burned on other occasions. A way to realy use most if not all of the wood that comes our way.

Considering, however, that wood, and I would have guessed natural wood, was the theme of this show having only around, as far as I could see, six or, maybe seven, exhibitors out of ninety that actually dealt with this to say that it was slightly misleading would be, in my view, an understatement.

© 2016

The Enemy

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Workers, your enemy is not the worker from Poland, from Lithuania or Romania; your enemy is global and national capitalism.

Not only is the capitalist, is capitalism, your enemy; he and it is also the enemy of the other workers and, worst of all, he and it is the very enemy of peace.

Capitalism carries war within itself like the clouds carry the rain. The capitalist system is incapable of functioning without perpetual war, in one form or the other; war against the working class at home and abroad, and war against other nations and people in the pursuit of sources of raw material or markets or what the Nazis called “Lebensraum” and the main engine of the capitalist economy is the military-industrial complex.

The great majority of the working class, however, allows itself to be brainwashed to believing, and this is not a new phenomenon for already Robert Tressell in “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” explained this, that the foreigners, workers from other countries, or traders, are not the enemy of the working class at home, as was believed and vehemently asserted by others.

The enemy of the worker and the working class is and remains capital, capitalism and the capitalists and not the workers from other lands. Just because they are prepared to, unfortunately, often work for lower wages than is the norm, as to them that money appears to be a great deal more than what they could earn at home, does not make them our enemy. Alas, that is the way they are perceived by the working class of our country (and here the word country can as well refer too the USA or Germany as to the UK) bue to the brainwashing by the wrong kind of media, the media which is not on the side of the workers but on that of the exploiters. This is, alas, the great majority of the media in our respective countries, despite the amount of different titles only owned by a little more than a handful of people worldwide, who are but fascists at heart.

They are the enemy of the working class and not workers from other parts of the world, and also our own governments are our enemy. They, who cut the public services to the bone and further, especially in Britain in the second decade of the 21st century, pushing everything towards privatization, hospitals, street care, parks, etc. and selling off the family silver to destroy everything that once was gained through hard battles fought.

© 2016