How I got here
11 minute read
Harriet, outsider her shop
When I think about how we got here, it would be refreshing to think I was simply wondering about the climate crisis. But sadly I am not. I wonder about food, about healthcare, plastics, chemicals, water, clothing, travel, energy….
Of course I realise all these separate components all contribute to the ever-nearing tipping point of our climate emergency. But it isn’t until you realise that being interested in sustainability, means so many different things to different people. Their gateway into the change that is needed, will most likely be a different interest to yours.
I qualified as an Adult Nurse in 2009. I was delighted – something to be really proud of. I enjoyed the job; I enjoyed leaving the job at work, I moaned about long hours and having a bad back. That was the first 5 years.
It wasn’t until I starting working in the Operating Theatres, that I realise I was immensely unhappy with what I was seeing and what I was doing - all in the name of healthcare. The plastics involved with operating were overwhelming. Overwhelming visually, financially and its’ contribution to the waste streams. These discoveries created a rather unhealthy obsession with plastic, cutting down plastic, hating plastic, saying nasty things about plastic and becoming hell-bent on ‘doing something about it’. What I didn’t realise initially, is that so much of the plastic used in the Operating Theatre is completely necessary to perform the life-saving works that goes on there in order to ensure a sterile environment. This is a non-negotiable for operating theatre practice.
This took me into thinking more about the life cycle of plastic in healthcare and how much of it was truly needed. And how much was being used for convenience and to keep costs low etc. The plastic spoon for example. The process of taking a raw material, fuelling a factory to produce that spoon, having workers quality check it, pack it in packaging, drive it to a ship, ship it to another country, drive it to a hospital and have Nurse Jackie make Mr Smith a cuppa with it (most likely in a polystyrene cup too) seems all rather confusing to me. Why were we allowing healthcare professionals to contribute towards the destruction of our planet, all for the need of an item that could easily be reusable?! How was it OK to risk the health and wellbeing of future generations, because we can’t be bothered now?
Note: I still haven’t found an answer!
This conundrum led me to becoming an NHS England Sustainability Ambassador and it enabled me to voluntarily enrol onto a course where I met many others like me. My eyes were opening to the world that wasn’t unsustainable healthcare, but Sustainability in Healthcare and Sustainable Development. It helped me to understand that there is a vast amount of work being done to progress to a more sustainable way of delivering healthcare and gave the OK, for me to go forward to start projects, create groups, organise events and pull sustainability into every part of my nursing practice. To be known as a ‘Green Nurse’.
However, something was still didn’t feel right.
There is a complex and quite frankly incomprehensible system in the NHS, one that a theatres’ nurse like myself finds too difficult to understand. To make big decisions and changes, you need a role in top management. A role with leverage, expertise and experience. And even though I have been working on a project team to have the Trust I work for implement a Sustainable Development Management Plan (this was a BIG deal), it is hard to have your view heard in such a massive institution.
I woke from having quite an unusual and vivid dream in August 2018. My partner and I had just completed Plastic Free July and the journey was clearly still fresh in my sub-conscious mind. I told him I had just had dream in which we ran a plastic free shop, on said street, called Harriet’s of Hove. His immediate reply was ‘Let’s do it’.
12 weeks later, ‘Mr Harriet’ and I opened the doors to a plastic free refills store, in which customers would bring in their own containers and on the whole eradicate plastic from their shopping baskets. A local business, that would take people’s money and put it back into the pockets of new staff members, local suppliers and ethical wholesalers. As you can see, plastic was our main nagging issue of the time, but this zero plastics style of shopping acted as a real Trojan horse into an array of other sustainability issues. This is the part of the business I find the most exciting. I finally felt I could engage with people and talk about sustainable living, by finding out what mattered most to them. Conversations about climate change would always appear somewhere, but how we got there would differ from person to person. Again, whether it food, healthcare, plastics, chemicals, water, clothing, travel, energy that people were concerned about, the shop become a lively hub and safe space for people to air their concerns without judgement. When this happens, change happens. In general, people just want to be listened to, or advised by someone that isn’t ‘greenwashing’ or have their own incentives in regards to climate matters.
You might not be able to save the world, not on your own. But if you join the millions of people who are buying locally and plastic free, you will be part of a movement making considerable change. That sounds like a job big enough for most people.
It was like magic!! And certainly a short-term therapy for me. But as wider issues around supply chains, other similar shops opening nearby (which isn’t always a problem as they often offer support rather than competition) and a pandemic surfaced, it made living in a comfortable echo-chamber of an eco-bubble very difficult. COVID-19 hit like a wrecking ball and almost squashed the business flat. Many strange transitions occurred to the way people shopped for food in a very short succession of time. We are still going through the motions of the lifting of lockdown and what that practically means to us. The eco-credentials of our waste streams certainly took a hit, with new and essential items being bought the only way possible – in plastic. But we realised that ears are not so open to discussion about the planet, when the weekly shop was a risk to life.
Now we seem to be coming slowly out the other end of the storm, it feels like a massive time to reflect, re-evaluate and grab onto people’s willingness to try things a bit differently. It is time to look into where our food comes from and if possible, support the small local producers more. It has become reasonably common knowledge, that the smaller independent stores are stocked and accessible during this pandemic. Also, that where you spend your money really matters now. The transparency to how your cash affects people’s livelihoods is very clear. This is sustainability.
Plastic Free July 2020 is just around the corner and I urge you to sign up and take part. I probably wouldn’t recommend opening a plastic free shop to make your impact! (unless that would be your only job of course). But there really are many ways to lower the impact of your living.
I would also say that if you have the money to spend a little more on sustainable products – DO! Money should be used more as a voting method, rather than a means to acquire more belongings. It can be your voice to a future you believe in, one bamboo toothbrush purchase at a time. If you don’t have the money to increase spending, then don’t feel anything other than determination to find other things to change. For too long money has pushed us apart, when it should be the tool to bring us together. After all, it is a language we all speak.
Refills inside Harriet’s of Hove
If this all seems too demanding still, a really simple way to know you are making a difference is to follow (as loosely or strictly as you feel fit) the 7 R’s of sustainable living.
Rethink: This is the start or progression of your sustainable journey. There are always ways to improve. And although not everything is your responsibility, rethinking the norm is exciting, fun and so fulfilling for yourself and valuable for the Planet.
Refuse: Don’t take/buy/use what you don’t need. Say no to disposal when not completely necessary.
Reuse: Make the effort to reuse what you already have. Dust off that reusable cup someone gave you for Christmas 2018 and be proud not to have bought another.
Refill: Find a refills store near you and use it. Even if just for a few swaps. This step takes a bit of planning but is so rewarding. If location is not on your side, search out some options online as there are some exciting and innovating companies out there that could certainly do with some support.
Repair/repurpose: Seemingly a growing and trendy response to our environmental crisis. However, it is an extremely important property of not contributing towards buying new. A great way to support your local repairs shop also! See the gold, in your rubbish. Most things can be made into something else, get creative and have fun.
Recycle: Ranking low down on the scale as sadly recycling is still not a circular process and generates a large amount of waste. Even though UK recycling rates have risen from 11% to around 45% (2001 – 2018), these numbers are deeper than just a superficial success rate. It shows a behavioural change, but the waste is still being created and there is always a linear drop off for materials like plastic.
Rot: Eradicating food waste of all kinds would be the ideal, however when there is inedible waste and peelings etc. – starting your own compost, recycling through a council removal and seeking out community compost is a must. Food in landfills is an extremely unsustainable option, due to the journey it has been on already. But also dangerous as the gases food waste produces, are in time, combustible and cause landfill fires (which then requires landfill sites to have their own water supply).
It’s true that organisations like Extinction Rebellion say that without worldwide, mass political and institutional reform and a recognition that racial inequalities stand in the way of the changes needed. I realise the irony as a trained Extinction Rebellion Speaker, that I present about the pressing need for these mammoth changes, whilst owning a refills store and encouraging people to reuse their shampoo bottle. But my encouragement comes from knowing that, when the world starts to change and the climate crisis realised and acted on (properly)…we will be ready for our newly reformed sustainable normal way of living. Collectively behaviours will have changed and the people educated about what needs to be done by them personally.
Until that time, I will continue to keep talking about it. As I encourage you to do too!