Could fridge revamps and bolt-on food waste businesses help solve our waste problem?
Samphire and putting the sea into seasonal
Many of my most memorable meals seem to take place outside. There was the fresh squid cooked on a disposable barbeque unloaded carefully on a riverbank after kayaking out of the centre of Lincoln. Any number of lazy and extended dinners eaten in the garden at home on one of this summer’s balmy evenings, with …
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The Best UK Getaways You Don’t Know About
The summer heatwave may have disappeared for the time being, but just in case it makes a comeback, here is the ultimate list of UK holidays you may not have thought of. I know too many people who rarely venture outside of London and seem to think Scotland classes as the only valid holiday destination …
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Attenborough’s Blue Planet sparks packaging revolution
The David Attenborough-fronted Blue Planet II series may have ended in 2017 but its influence in highlighting the issues around plastic packaging is still being felt. One seed and pulse supplier said it has seen a huge increase in the number of enquiries from zero waste shops since the BBC One programme aired last year, …
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A new era of food alliances?
Imagine a world that was set up so your food came directly from farmers or co-operatives ensuring a fair price to the producer, perhaps via a zero waste locally-owned supermarket. Any household waste is collected by a state-run system that distributes it to community fridges, where anyone is free to collect extras or deposit their …
The women behind Costa Rica’s low-carbon coffee
As a young girl growing up in rural Costa Rica, Giselle Solis watched her father working as a hunter and decided she would grow up to be different. “When I was little I wanted to be a park ranger,” she says. “My dad was a hunter, and I was never really okay with the activity that …
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In praise of ‘non-towns’
Ordering a second coffee, I sit back and survey San Vito’s high street, striking only in its lack of anything striking. There is a steady stream of teatime traffic, schoolchildren, and coffee trucks. The atmosphere is busy and conspicuously boring as people go about ordinary lives doing ordinary things. As I watch, I realise how …
Freedom and blue sea: Sailing to Panama
Sitting on the roof under a bright white sail, body finally reconciled to the huge up and down motion of the boat, I feel an unexpected sense of freedom. The sea is a deep electric blue and there is no land in sight, gazing sleepily at the horizon (the main side effect of seasickness tablets …
Avocados and Colombia’s peace process
Sitting in a hospital waiting room, Valentina* was disoriented and groggy from her severe migraine, but she noticed an injured man sitting close by. “What was he there for?” she asked, and he gave an unlikely story about being “caught” while running in a field. But what was he running from? The neutral setting …
Putting Pijao on the map
“We are proud that people know that Pijao exists. Now the town is on the map,” says Flavio, the rosy-cheeked and smiley owner of the Bar Social, centre of the town’s coffee culture and billiards hall. In the background, old Colombianos are bent over their cues, and the bar’s yellow-painted doors open onto a typical …
Nina Pullman 