New bag deal!

Good news:
We heard last week that England will soon adopt a mandatory 5 pence charge for plastic shopping bags, and applauded the news.  I believe most of Europe had already rid itself of free plastic bags (in food stores, at least) some years ago.
Although plasticsindustry.org claims the impact of plastic bags on landfill mass is negligible, less damaging than paper, etc. I know that even in our local area, bags frequently get thrown out by the roadside.  As far as the claim that plastic shopping bags are "100% recyclable," Wikipedia indicates that while HDPE nags (recycling code 2) are useful for post-consumer material, LDPE ones are much less useful.  The latter is used mainly for making plastic bags, so I don't think we can accept that shopping bags are all 100% recyclable, let alone that they are generally getting recycled in practice.
It seems reasonable to expect that paying for these bags will encourage more people to find other ways of carrying groceries, for example the old-fashioned backpack or wheeled trolleys, both of which also carry the weight with less physical stress.
What was strange was seeing the Daily Mail claim that this policy change resulted from a Mail campaign to reduce plastic bag use.  I suppose that end of the political scene does feel invested in protecting the countryside, and we can agree with that.  Shopping bags seem to be another thing that end up largely taken for granted, but were never really needed (a future post on carpeting will be forthcoming, someday).

It's what's for dinner

I realized that in planning a meal, I tend to start with the starch part and build around it, which might not be the best approach.  Not eating meat adds some difficulties, and England doesn't always offer a great range of produce, but wild greens are helping out a lot right now.

Nettles have a lot of protein and grow all over, and they work really well mixed with some other greens, like sprouting tops, broccoli or wild garlic (which takes much less heat to sauté in a pan).

This evening, what I had available for dinner was some pretty sad leftover noodles with corn, out of which I picked the slices of supermarket chorizo, and since the late afternoon was so nice and someone had recently tipped me off to the lime tree leaves growing nearby, I decided to have a heap of salad, mainly, 80% foraged--I also used a bunch of wild garlic flowers and leaves, and some chestnut mushrooms for variety.  It was crunchy and tasty.

The bonus of gathering leaves to eat is also that I've never, ever found them growing packaged in plastic, with some questionable recycling code that might not be accepted, requiring that I stockpile them at home for months (years?) in the hope of finding a legitimate recycling spot.

Sorry for the low-res photos.  I'll be less lazy and use a proper camera next time.

Enviromotional issues

Thinking about the environment can be difficult, because the concept and the stakes involved are vast, but we can't help feeling something about it.