Words we hear quite a lot....what we do and how we live, shop & wear things on a daily basis becoming increasingly important.
One thing we, as a small business, were 100% sure from the beginning was to be transparent about our suppliers, how good they are with being sustainable or eco-friendly, offer the right payment and environment to all workers, and what kind of materials and processes they use.
(You can read about this on our website under ‘Sustainability’, bottom of our main page)
There are many things we wished we could do last year, due to pandemic, some of them were not possible and instead we hoped our suppliers were true to their words...but sustainability or being eco-friendly doesn't start or stop at how much recycled material our cycling jersey or running shirt has.
What we try to do for our business started a long time ago in our personal lives. We were more and more aware of what we were doing impacting the world. Backpacking opened the eyes to what’s happening to other countries, cultures, landscapes and people. Things we do, have a huge impact not just on our immediate environment but on people, animals and places thousands of miles away from us. We started doing small things at home, at work, studied more about environment and development and tried reducing our impact on this beautiful planet of ours. Most of us are already eco-conscious, but we can perhaps always do with more tips on how to improve even further.
So what kind of things are we talking about? One of our ambassadors, Helene, is actually doing this for a living so there is no better person to ask to help us out on this super important topic. Helene has such great insight and even greater suggestions and recommendations. We only listed 10 here but happy to pass on Helene’s full list (you’d be surprised how many things we haven’t even considered!!), get in touch and let us know! This is our Helene, in her elements...triathlon run training in nature and wearing our t-shirt :-)
These are small steps and the list goes on, but if we all take small steps, they will add up to a huge reduced impact.
Cotton pads – Who else is guilty of using about 4 disposable face pads morning and night as part of their skincare routine? You can now get these reusable bamboo pads to clean make-up or daily dirt built up off of your face. Then instead of throwing them away, you just wash them with your normal laundry and voila, you have clean pads to be used again. Loads of great ones but we like etsy as these are all made by small businesses: Reusable face pads | Etsy
Kitchen foil / cling film– do we actually consider these as bad? It's just a very small thin layer of material we put on container to cover or wrap the food in so we can eat it later...then we throw that little piece away quite quickly and they won’t break down. The beeswax wraps are so good, can buy pre-cut or a roll so you can cut as small or big; use, wash and reuse them for a long time. Again, etsy has many small businesses offering these wraps now: Beeswax wrap | Etsy or the Award winning company: Beeswax Wraps | The Beeswax Wrap Co.
Food shopping / storage bags for loose veg & fruit – instead of taking supermarkets’ plastic bags, get these bags and keep them in your shopping bags. Reuse them for loose items. Fruit & Veg Bags – Reyousable
Cleaning products – we swapped the traditional cleaning bottles to the Ocean Saver products so you only have to buy refill sticks which will then dissolve in water. Done. No more throwing the bottle away after finishing the product and cleaning with unnecessary chemicals that could get into the drains and harm water courses and animals. OceanSaver (ocean-saver.com)
Bike cleaning / wipes – as cyclists, we are often guilty of doing the ‘quick clean’ of our bikes by baby wipes. The BEST solution is to have a reusable and washable microfibre cloth and a multipurpose cleaning product to clean the bike(s). There are plenty of options online but Muc-off is a popular choice and they have a variety of good, eco-friendly products (anything from microfibre cloth to sponge): Shop Bike Cleaner | Bicycle Cleaning | Nano-Tech (muc-off.com)
Chain lube & degreaser - Most degreasers and lubes are toxic and when washing our bikes, they often find themselves down drains and potentially into water courses. When purchasing, look for products that state they are both non-toxic and biodegradable. Green oil, Muck-off Mobi eco but you can also make your own. Citrus is one of the go-to natural ingredients for chain cleaning, so you can just mix together orange peel, lemon juice and dilute as needed – a cheap and completely natural bike chain degreaser! Baking soda and water (50/50 concentration) is also a great natural scrub to remove rust too!
If you really need to use wipes, we found this compostable and biodegradable wipes instead of the traditional ones. It’s still not great but if you lack the space to do a big clean, like we do, then it’s still a better option but you need to make sure that you do have a compost bin. Eco by Naty wipes are great and can often be found in Waitrose stores as well as on this website: Organic Lifestyle, Natural Beauty, Baby & Cleaning Products - Big Green Smile
Plastic deodorant – As sporty people, we do sweat quite a lot or constantly, let’s admit it, so it is always a bit risky for us switching deodorant not knowing if it gives us the right protection. We can confirm that there are really good natural alternatives so we can help the environment AND protect our own health without aluminium entering our bodies with traditional deodorants. There are loads of options on the market now, including cardboard based push up tubes, tins and also refillable sticks. ‘Wild’ is a firm favourite with lots of eco warriors! Sustainable Natural Deodorant That Works | Wild Natural Deodorant – Wild UK (wearewild.com)
Food waste - The UK government estimate that 10 million tonnes of food and drink are wasted every year – 70% of which is from households. A lot of which ends of in landfills which produce methane and contributes towards climate change. But at the touch of a button we can make a difference:
Olio
It allows you to give away food that you don’t want or get unwanted food for free from individuals in your local area. You can even become a food waste hero collect food that would have otherwise gone in the bin from local businesses such as Tesco and distribute them to people in your local community.
Too Good To Go
You can buy surplus food from restaurant and cafes at a super discounted rate, that would otherwise have been thrown away.
Food circle supermarket
They sell surplus health food and drinks, such as energy bars and snacks, at a discounted rate that would have otherwise gone to waste
‘Best before’ date on food products - Confusion over the meaning of dates applied to food products can often mean perfectly good food is thrown away. Sure we have all thought at some point that eating food past its ‘best before’ date is like tempting food poisoning fate, but actually the Food Standards agency has stated that the best before dates are about quality not safety – the food will be safe to eat after this date but may not be at its best – its flavour and texture might not be as good, but they are still perfectly fine to eat! It is the ‘use by’ dates that you need to be really careful about.
Plant-based diet - Industrial meat is the single biggest cause of deforestation globally and its impact on climate change is enormous (meat and dairy specifically accounts for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Industrial fishing has a huge impact on the environment too. The oceans help to regulate our climate and are the world’s largest store of carbon, so with more abundant and healthy marine life it means more carbon is sequestered (locked away), helping tackle climate change.
We are, of course, not saying everyone should turn into vegans but if people would - at least - reduce their meat & dairy intake, the Planet and our health could definitely improve. Netflix has some great documentaries but please note: they may have an agenda with targeting and turning people into vegans but you should watch and take away as much as you want to. No point of forcing yourself into something you don't believe or cannot do. They may just give you more information about the subject and/or tips on what else you can eat or what & how to cook with vegetables.
There are so many brilliant books and people to follow on social media who are vegetarians and vegans and prepare some amazing dishes. You don’t even have to look for or think of coming up with ideas.
Here's two:
Home - BOSH! (@bosh.tv on IG)
Max La Manna Zero Waste Chef (amazing no waste vegan recipes, he is gooood! @maxlamanna on IG)
Just put ‘vegan’ in the search bar on Instagram/Facebook or even Google, there will be thousands of recipes; also a great source for reusable things: https://reyousable.eco/blogs/news/putting-re-use-back-on-the-menu
We would love to know if you have more ideas, tips and recommendations!