Consumer Choice – Do You Really Have One in Today’s Climate of Austerity?

I wrote this over 4 years ago. The problem we have as we did 4 years ago is that so many more people have been forced into poverty around the world that making the right choices in what we consume is nigh on impossible for those on the budgets they have so they are forced to consume the most planet damaging products.

Some of us remember the good old days. Must be I’m getting old. When did buying soap involve it being wrapped in plastic that then finds its way into the oceans and we end up eating it because it is now in the salt, tuna and the anchovies that for some reason we feed to chickens and pigs?

The environment isn’t the only thing that is screwed. Why is it cheaper to end up eating plastic then to buy the soap unwrapped? Because this is the way that multinational corporates do business. I always thought that they were no good for us and how much proof do we need.

We did buy this soap at Planet Organic on Saturday. How did we get it home? I put it in my backpack. It made it smell nice but I suppose with a bit of thought I could have taken a bag with me to stop that happening. Unfortunately, Faith in Nature is quite expensive compared to the corporately wrapped soap in the corporate supermarket. You can see where I’m going with this. So for all those people just about scraping by they have to purchase the soap in the supermarket and eventually they and their children will be eating the wrapping. What great progress we have made as a species.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton T-shirts and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

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OK, so let’s try in 2023

Plastic soup. In 2021 let’s start getting rid of the plastic in our lives

First published in January 2021. As consumers we need to stop buying stuff in plastic even if it makes our lives a little less convenient.

Soup, at least in the UK, is sold in various packaging but this has to be the worst. Tin cans may require energy to be melted down to become cans again but at least they won’t end up as microplastic and nanoplastic particles in our bodies like the breakdown products of this plastic soup container might. We don’t know what these small plastic pieces will do to us health wise but on their journey they can pick up toxins and pathogens so it would be best if we were not consuming them. They are already in every part of our environment so if we want to stop that happening we have to use our consumer power as one way of making that change. So if you are buying soup leave this sort of soup on the shelves. If enough of us did it we might get the retailers to wonder why their products are not selling.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

This plastic madness of wrapping vegetables has to stop

First posed 31st December 2021. Are we reducing the amount of unnecessary plastic wrapping and use? it doesn’t seem like it.

Once again the only choice of buying cauliflower was to buy one all wrapped up in plastic poison and pollution. We must stop this as it is a danger to all life on this planet. Dramatic? Not really when you know the facts. Maybe not this plastic but some other piece of plastic’s breakdown products could cause you harm. Few of us know where the plastic will end up. Maybe it will be burnt locally causing the release of toxic particles. Maybe it will be exported to some poorer country and will end up poisoning their environment. Except it’s not their environment, it’s our environment and microplastic and nanoplastic particles have been found from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches and on into the human placenta. Wrapping vegetables in plastic has polluted the whole planet so why do it and why accept it. 2021 has to be the year where we say no more and we start demanding change.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Baby food – really?

Published originally in December 2020. Two years later and we’re still no nearer to the drastic changes needed in the way we live, work, travel and consume.

Homo sapiens, 7 million years in the making yet somehow we now have to feed babies with packaging from trees that died way back before our branch of evolution started growing. Could be it’s more about convenience rather than actually the only way to live our lives. Let’s face it there’s a certain laziness and like of convenience in all of us but this packaging is an environmental disaster. The companies making this stuff are going to want to grow the market and produce more plastic pollution. Let’s join the dots again here. This packaging or some like it will find it’s way into the environment where it will be broken down into microplastics. From there it will find it’s way into the placentas of women and into the younger brothers and sisters of the babies and young children currently enjoying this plastic wrapped convenience food. Would you really do this to a future generation of unborn children? No, then don’t. Change how you feed your kids.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Christmas wrapping and packaging – make sure it’s properly disposed of

First posted in December 2020. Time to remember that the tiny bits of plastic from Christmas’s past are still out there and polluting the environment and ourselves. They are very real “ghosts” so try and be a little less plastic this Christmas even if it’s a little less “pretty”.

There will be literally mountains of wrapping and packaging waste associated with today. Try and make sure that it is properly disposed of. It’s in your interest as well as everyone else’s as just like a boomerang some of it might come back to you and you will be eating it or breathing it in as microplastic and nanoplastic particles. We live in a soup of this stuff already so don’t make it worse. We’ve already messed this planet up enough as it is.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Christmas chocolates – what’s not to like?

I posted this again last Christmas. If we are eating these then we in general will be living cosseted lives. A year later and countless people will not including many just out of our sight as well as far away.

December 2020

Those of us lucky enough will have received or will have bought chocolates for Christmas. So, not that I’m religious, but this is a religious day and there are a lot of people out there going hungry, many this year, in first world countries like the US and the UK, because governments have failed to provide sufficient support in the time of the corona virus. But let’s go back to those of us fortunate enough to have chocolates in our house. I’m old enough to remember when boxes of chocolate weren’t wrapped in non recyclable plastic films. Then inside there’s probably a non recyclable tray and some of the chocolates will be wrapped in non recyclable plastic as well. Since I grew up our demand for chocolate has grown and therefore a lot more land has been turned over to cocoa production. All these years later and there is still child labour involved in its production despite some very rich powerful corporations running most of the show. What else is in the box? Well there might not be much, there could still be some palm oil and since Greenpeace’s 2019 campaign we should all be aware of the problems in that particular industry. Then there’s the milk. Does it all come from happy cows or is there some intensive dairy farming in there? All things to be considered. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t remember all this stuff either when buying chocolates but a note to self is to try to be better informed in my future choices and purchases. We can change the world, we need to change the world and it starts with you and I.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton T-shirts and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Plasticised paper – tomorrow’s pollution

First posted in January last year and we are still producing this unnecessary garbage.

25th January 2021

I was given this small complementary piece of chocolate. First it was wrapped in a piece of what looked like silver foil or paper with a whitish backing paper in contact with the chocolate. Then it was wrapped in this. Will it be burnt ending up polluting somebody’s lungs or will it end up breaking down in the environment and the microplastic particles find there way through the oceans, soil and the food chains until one of us eats it? Modern, convenient life needs to change

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Plastic soup. In (was 2021) 2022 let’s start getting rid of the plastic in our lives

I posted this on the 3rd of January 2021 but in reality we’ve done little or nothing to stop consuming plastic. The detritus of which pollutes every corner of the environment and even ourselves.

3rd January 2021

Soup, at least in the UK, is sold in various packaging but this has to be the worst. Tin cans may require energy to be melted down to become cans again but at least they won’t end up as microplastic and nanoplastic particles in our bodies like the breakdown products of this plastic soup container might. We don’t know what these small plastic pieces will do to us health wise but on their journey they can pick up toxins and pathogens so it would be best if we were not consuming them. They are already in every part of our environment so if we want to stop that happening we have to use our consumer power as one way of making that change. So if you are buying soup leave this sort of soup on the shelves. If enough of us did it we might get the retailers to wonder why their products are not selling.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

Our Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

This plastic madness of wrapping vegetables has to stop

I posted this at the end of 2020 but little if anything has changed in terms of unnecessarily wrapping things in plastic that don’t need to be. n 2021 researchers showed that very small plastic particles could cross the blood brain barrier in mice. This hasn’t been looked for in humans as far as I’m aware but it has serious health implications for us.

31st January 2020

Once again the only choice of buying cauliflower was to buy one all wrapped up in plastic poison and pollution. We must stop this as it is a danger to all life on this planet. Dramatic? Not really when you know the facts. Maybe not this plastic but some other piece of plastic’s breakdown products could cause you harm. Few of us know where the plastic will end up. Maybe it will be burnt locally causing the release of toxic particles. Maybe it will be exported to some poorer country and will end up poisoning their environment. Except it’s not their environment, it’s our environment and microplastic and nanoplastic particles have been found from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches and on into the human placenta. Wrapping vegetables in plastic has polluted the whole planet so why do it and why accept it. 2021 has to be the year where we say no more and we start demanding change.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Baby food – really?

I published this at the end of last year and a year later we’re still polluting ourselves and the environment for convenience.

December 2020

Homo sapiens, 7 million years in the making yet somehow we now have to feed babies with packaging from trees that died way back before our branch of evolution started growing. Could be it’s more about convenience rather than actually the only way to live our lives. Let’s face it there’s a certain laziness and like of convenience in all of us but this packaging is an environmental disaster. The companies making this stuff are going to want to grow the market and produce more plastic pollution. Let’s join the dots again here. This packaging or some like it will find it’s way into the environment where it will be broken down into microplastics. From there it will find it’s way into the placentas of women and into the younger brothers and sisters of the babies and young children currently enjoying this plastic wrapped convenience food. Would you really do this to a future generation of unborn children? No, then don’t. Change how you feed your kids.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton T-shirts and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

Our Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.