The Green Rangers

Last week I returned from holiday to discover I’d won a fruit diffusing water bottle, a very good start back! I was lucky enough to be chosen as a winner of the London Met Water Month Quiz. I’m still not entirely sure of the correct answer to the question 'How many toilets are there are in the Holloway building?' But it turns out my guess must have been close enough! To say I was excited was an understatement (as you can see in the pic above). I have many fruit / water combinations in mind.

It’s great to see the University making such a positive contribution by drawing attention to and changing attitudes towards green issues. Using a reusable water bottle may sound like a small thing, but it’s these little things that will untimely go on to change our planet. It matters because the average UK households use 480 plastic bottles on average every year, and only 270 of them are recycled, meaning 44% are not!*

Thinking about recycling, the launch of the London Met Travel Cups is another thing the Green Rangers are really excited about at the moment. You can buy in campus from Costa and Starbucks Outlets - Moorgate, Blue Met and Learning Centre for a very reasonable £3.50 each. We love them because they mean we can use less paper coffee cups and make a positive contribution to reducing paper waste. Using them also means we get 30p off on all hot drinks, who says going good doesn’t pay!

 *RecycleNow

Ambreen

We visited the Sustainability Team's water stall at The Junction on Tuesday where we took part in a quiz, got some freebies, and made a pledge to save water!

I pledged to finally buy a water butt for the garden. It'll collect rain water from the gutter and store it ready for when I need to water the garden in the summer months. Did you know, a massive 30,000 million litres of water can be saved if every house in the UK used a water butt!

Karl pledged to use the free four-minute shower timer. The Energy Saving Trust have calculated a saving of around £30 in energy and water bills, just by knocking off a minute of your shower time!
What do you pledge to do to save water?

Kara

• It’s amazing what you can freeze - if you haven’t used up fresh fruit or vegetables in a few days, then cut it up and freeze it (prior to this I experimented with freezing whole peppers and bananas, not as easy to defrost). I must thank my dad here who has demonstrated that you can successfully freeze and defrost almost anything – growing up this included bottles of milk, loaves of bread, cooked meat, rice and lots more!

• When eating out, take home any left-over food you can’t finish - and yes I have had some strange looks from waiters when I request they pack a small amount, but the alternative is that it gets thrown away. Also useful are friends with bigger appetites who can help you out :)

• Creative recipes – when you notice an item in your fridge has a danger of being wasted, look up recipes using this ingredient. It’s amazing how this can mix up your meal choices. Granted some of my creative cooking attempts have been better than others, hey you don’t know unless you try! Here are some recipe ideas courtesy of Love Food Hate Waste.

•  Grow your own - this is on my to-do list. I’m sure that apart from tasting better and being organic, when I’ve spent months cultivating something, I will make absolutely sure none of it is wasted!

• Save water – this is an easy one. A shower timer is brilliant, making sure taps don’t leak and you use watering cans instead of hose pipes if you’re lucky enough to have a garden. Take a look at this 1 minute video for inspiration.