Category Archives: business

Your Resilience Plan – Waste and Recycling

March 6, 2021business, Environment, recycling, resilience, Sustainability, transportlocal business, Resilience Plan, The Handbook of Practical ResilienceElizabeth J Walker

The energy cost of waste is another factor of modern life which is subsidised by cheap fossil fuels. Goods have to be manufactured, transported and disposed of. Closing the loop to cut out the transport is the resilient way forward. Ultimately, we need to buy local and recycle locally.

Much of the waste generated by a household is packaging. You are in control of this. Consider that glass, cardboard and metal could be reprocessed in a small factory nearby. Plastic requires more specialised equipment and generates harsher pollutants, so still needs to be transported to a larger, more expensive facility.

bag from cat pouches — There are inventive ways of repurposing plastic waste!

Keeping this in mind, take steps to reduce the amount of potential waste coming into your house. Find out if you can get milk delivered in glass bottles. I buy my fruit juice from the tractor shop now, as they sell locally made apple juice in glass, not imported juice in tetrapax. Where there’s no alternative, rinse out plastic bottles before recycling. Removing organic waste helps the process and cuts costs.

During your shopping trips, study the recycling symbols on packaging and learn what they mean. If the manufacturer claims something is recyclable, is this really practical? Will your doorstep collection accept it? Where else could you take it? Can you recycle things that aren’t collected? Do some research. If the label is just ‘greenwash’, buy something else. Write to the manufacturer and tell them why you’re doing this.

Another area of everyday life where you can change your habits is the use of disposable products. Buy refillables instead. They often start more expensive, so you have to look after them to reap the cost benefits. Cultivate a new habit, that of buying quality goods and taking care of them so they last. Pens, razors, lighters, batteries – change them all over! Look for ease of repair in larger purchases. Are they fixable? Or just another disposable product at the end of the day.

Now consider the actual need for packaging. Is there anything you can buy in bulk and transfer to your own containers? Some shops allow you to refill bottles, mainly for their own eco-friendly cleaning products. Others sell dry goods in large bins, from which you weigh what you need into a paper bag and transfer it to a more robust container at home. Cut out the middle-man entirely and organise a local buying group.

Once a few people are involved in waste control, it’s worth considering local reprocessing. How could that work? Could enough people commit to buying locally made preserving jars, or animal bedding made from shredded cardboard, to provide a stable customer base? What are the barriers here?

Adapt to working from home by using those precious hours, previously wasted in a senseless commute, for community building. Organise a tour of a modern recycling plant, or other such facility, to understand the waste stream better. Form a research group, consider a business plan, talk to entrepreneurs. Recyclate is a valuable resource, especially if the supply and demand are stabilised in a circular, locally based, system.

Learn more about taking control of your environment in easy but relentless stages with The Handbook of Practical Resilience!

Don’t forget food security, for which you’ll need Recipes for Resilience.

Why was ‘Brexit’ such a surprise?

June 27, 2016business, resiliencelocal food, preparing for emergencies, Resilience HandbookElizabeth J Walker

Could it be possible that a significant number of voters lied to opinion polls all along? If you admitted to voting Leave, you could expect your friends to turn on you and call you a stupid racist – an expectation justified by present events. Why risk it when the result might go their way in any case? It’s a secret ballot. Lying to pollsters was a win-win situation.

The finance markets, going with these potentially distorted polls, speculated on a Remain result, only to have the rug pulled out from underneath them during the night. For an entertaining analysis of this, watch the Max Keiser show, episode 932. Complacent in the projected result, no-one made a plan to cover the details of leaving.

No-one? Of course there are plans. The Treasury has a plan, the civil service have plans, the EU has a plan. Things that work will continue, until the politicians regroup and interfere.

Which politicians? The opposition parties are in total disarray. Refusal to abandon an open borders policy has cost them the rest of their agenda. Green Party rallying posts on Facebook are deluged with comments from their supporters denouncing their refusal to accept that Britain is overcrowded. It’s a serious situation. Exceeding the carrying capacity of your environment always ends badly for the species concerned. If anyone should be leading on this difficult issue it should be the Greens.

Instead they are talking about an alliance with the Liberal Democrats. Really? I remember the wave of adulation which swept this party into government. In the enthusiasm, one small voice stood out for me. An elder statesman wondered if they had the experience to lead, being so long in opposition.

Turns out they didn’t. Aware of the Lib Dem’s huge youth following, the Conservatives’ opening shot was raising university tuition fees. Expecting Nick Clegg to respond ‘not on your nelly, what else have you got?’ they must have fallen over backwards with surprise when he caved in.

A similar thing has just happened with the Scottish National Party. Instead of dashing off to Europe on the outrage bus, they could have murmured ‘regrettable’ and ‘considering our options’ while having secured a deal for an independent Scotland behind the scenes some time ago. After all, the vote may represent a fear of change rather than a desire for EU membership.

Labour turns on their popular leader and shreds him, expecting this to…do what? Complete the disarray of the opposition and leave the Conservatives to set the agenda? Lose any remaining trust from their voters?

There’s change coming. It was already on its way. Look on this referendum as a defining moment if you like, but it was part of a process sweeping across the globe. A country alone can try out strategies too risky for a complex federation to embrace. You’re going to have to pay attention.

I have a plan. It’s not a quick fix but it’ll work. Get the Resilience Handbook and find out. Meanwhile, buy British. Your continuing prosperity depends on it.

Buy British

June 25, 2016business, economics, Food, resilient communitiesResilience Handbook, solutionsElizabeth J Walker

So…Britain voted to leave the European Union, and what sore losers the Remainers are turning out to be. Despite claiming the compassion corner, the vitriolic hate spewing out from many would do credit to any xenophobe.

In the countryside people are still stunned that their concerns have finally been noticed by city folk. They shouldn’t relax. Already there is talk of ‘not really leaving’ and murmurs of ‘punishing the rebels’.

While this acrimonious debate rages, we’re all still buying food, clothes and gadgets. It’s never been so important to target your spending at British products. Money spent in the country stays in the country and enriches it. Our economy needs that boost from ground level right now.

If you shop in a supermarket, take a little longer and read labels. Find out what we actually make here. Try going for ingredients rather than ready-meals of dubious provenance. Spend a few pence extra to buy local vegetables, meat and dairy. The country of origin is on all packaging.

So is the name of the supplier. When you get home, go online and check out the firms which make your favourite foods. Can you buy a similar product made in Britain? What about clothes? Gadgets and services? Every little helps, they say, and it does.

Seventeen million people voted to leave the EU. If each of them made the effort to spend an extra £10 with locally owned businesses this week, it would add up to well over 2% of the entire weekly turnover of the retail sector. Joined by remainers and non-voters, just a tenner a week each adds up to 6% of this turnover – close on £500 million.

It wasn’t just the European Union who encouraged multinationals to mop up small independent businesses. Your consumer choices also helped shape this situation, and they can act to change it.

Take back your power – bring in strategic spending!

for more about bringing prosperity back to your area, read the Resilience Handbook

This link takes you straight to me at my desk, where I sign the book and send it off. All the money goes straight into my account to be spent in local shops. If you prefer familiar labels, you can buy it at Amazon, where I eventually get some kind of pittance. Your choices certainly matter to me!

May Diary 2016

May 10, 2016business, crafts, resilience, South West England, transport, writingCornwall, Diary post, Resilience Handbook, survival skills, tall shipsElizabeth J Walker

Well, April was something of a disaster! I had to cut my South West trip short as there were problems with my car – it turned out the alternator was slowly dying and communicating its distress to the steering and clutch through the wonders of modern car electronics. At least I got my boots ordered first!

I did manage to explore the fabulous Scilly Isles, ancient haunt of pirates, for the day. I dined on fish at the ‘Admiral Benbow’ on my return – yes, I know it’s not the real one from the book but it had to be done! Penzance Youth Hostel was excellent, one of those with a lively sociable lounge and valuable parking space.

If you go to Cornwall in the summer, don’t take a car! My landscape reading skills tell me that the narrow rocky peninsula is not kind to vehicles. You can get a whole day’s travel on the buses for the price of an hour’s parking. If there’s enough of you to fill a car, check parking on Google Streetview, look for reviews. It’s more of an adventure to go on public transport!

Adventure was the theme at Falmouth Marine Museum. Sailing out into the unfriendly Atlantic in a wooden ship, with no engines to steer you away from the jagged rocks lining this coast – no wonder so many pubs are furnished with the spoils of shipwreck! There was a Viking exhibition featured too, a fascinating insight into the everyday lives of these fearsome reavers.

The deck of a seagoing Viking ship and an explanantion of the reverse osmosis method used for drinking water in Malta — The deck of a seagoing Viking ship and an explanation of the reverse osmosis method used for drinking water in Malta

I had to limp home and forego my visit to Tintagel and the nearby town of Boscastle. The flooding there in 2004 inspired the ‘Strategic National Framework on Community Resilience’ which was an important influence on the Resilience Handbook. Bringing resilience into play, I renavigated my course to the Bristol Survival School weekend camp to go by bus.

My goal was to learn to use a fire drill, as featured on ‘The Island’. I achieved that, but also learned that anyone who’s good enough to get a fire going with this method in under ten minutes – and there were a few! – wears a flint and steel around their neck. Fire drilling doesn’t seem to be the preferred method, and it is very difficult.

I continued my work on identifying burdock in its first year stage, which is when the large tasty roots form. I’ve nearly nailed down the differences with the poisonous foxglove. Please don’t go digging up wild plants though, except with the informed permission of the landowner. Use your Resilience Garden space – even if it’s only patio pots – to cultivate your own forage plants. You only need to get to know them, maybe try a few…

Above, the instructor is carving out a fire drill set from raw wood. Below, an ember has been lit from the powdered wood created by the drilling process, and has been transferred to a piece of bark. At this stage you use ’ember extenders’ to nurse it into a larger coal. This is placed in a hank of dried grass and blown into flame, narrowly missing your eyebrows.

Last Bank Standing

March 3, 2016business, economics, resilience, resilient communitiescommunity, Hemp Twine Project, SomersetElizabeth J Walker

I am going to a demonstration in Glastonbury tomorrow, in support of banks. This is deeply ironic, given that our historic finance system remains a major barrier to developing local resilience. However…

…..High Street banks in the UK are mounting a pull out of branches in small towns, citing the expense of running them. NatWest departed Glastonbury High Street some years ago, followed by HSBC. Then both Barclays and Lloyds announced their departure, leaving the town with no banks at all.

As they were taking their cashpoints with them, the Radstock Co-op was swift to install another. Its central location among the crystal shops assuaged fears than tourist income may fall through lack of access to cash. Facilities for the many independent traders, who supply the charm in this undeniably attractive street, are a more serious problem.

Solutions explored always ran up against the cost of cash movement; the very issue the banks were failing to deal with. Petitions to the last two banks fell on deaf ears – especially bitter in the case of Lloyds, who were bailed out by the taxpayer in 2008.

The demonstration in town on Friday is to mark the closure of our Barclays branch. As this is Glastonbury, I’m not there to wave placards, but to hold the belly dancer’s coat while she performs. You can see a couple of amusing short films featuring our last protests on the issue here –

‘Jerusalem‘

‘Last Bank standing – Crazy Horse‘

What to do next, once the dust has settled?

Drive everything online? It would take too long to explain why that is so very far from resilient (read the Resilience Handbook!).

A local currency could take some of the pressure off the cash movement problem. Many sophisticated, user friendly and secure models are running now. Money that can only be spent in a certain area is far less attractive to thieves. Mobile phone transactions can be enabled, as with the Bristol Pound. The concept needs a big player to engage – Mendip District Council accepting local currency as an agreed fraction of Council Tax payments, for example. MDC would then pay local contractors for various tasks, who spend their local pounds in Burns the Bread.

So the money circulates, which is all it ought to be doing. Let it out of your sight though, and it gets up to all sorts of mischief. Just wait till BitCoin brings you the world of Quantum Accounting. You really need to pay your milk bill with something simpler.

And if you are in Glastonbury…you can buy the Resilience Handbook at the locally owned Gothic Image bookshop on the High Street! Save on postage!

Calderdale floods – how to help

December 31, 2015business, Disaster planning, flooding, North England, resilience, Resilience Handbook, resilient communities, writingcommunity, floodsElizabeth J Walker

Campaign to help the independent bookshop flooded out in Hebdon Bridge….

The comic shop took a hit too….

Here’s the donations site for the Community Foundation for Calderdale; monies raised to help with the clean up in general. More news on the Calder Valley Flood Support facebook page.

Hebden Bridge features in the Resilience Handbook as a top example of a town with independent local businesses, and nearby Todmorden (also flooded) is the home of the inspirational Incredible Edible movement…they deserve your support!

Make your Xmas spending count!

December 10, 2015business, events, Food, Resilience HandbookSomersetElizabeth J Walker

It may be hard to summon up the Xmas spirit this year, but your spending power is still a lifeline for independent businesses. Make someone’s day and buy from their small shop or market stall!

Traditional crafts are struggling to stay alive, despite their key role in a resilient society. The few people who persevere have to price their goods at the luxury end of the market to compete with factories. They need your custom more than the supermarkets do, and give far more back. Choose your loyalties.

Half the total Xmas spend is on gifts – in Somerset for example, this amounts to about twice the County budget. Some of these will be specific large items, but a lot will be trinkets, small presents, Secret Santas. Write a list, then go out exploring. See what you can find at craft fairs, visit interesting little shops.

Stay organised – find a box to store your purchases. Don’t lose track and buy something twice in the last minute rush!

Soaps, socks and chocolates are good standbys. You can wash your hair with most hand made soaps (unlike factory produced ones); well made socks can be repaired by darning. You can buy chocolates that are like tiny works of art. It’s a gift; it’s the thought that counts, not the weight. Buy quality.

You can use scraps of pretty cloth and handmade cords as wrapping – all reusable!

Another third of the Xmas spend goes on food and drink. Another chance to sample quality produce; treat yourself! Farm shops often sell chutneys, jams and pickles. Christmas cakes keep for weeks and are often on sale at markets. Consider making your own mince pies.

The best way to buy your Xmas dinner is to order fresh locally reared organic meat from the independent butcher. If you’ve never done this before, consider there may be a bit of a queue on collection day. Bring an umbrella, a newspaper, be prepared to chat to people, live a little slower.

Spend your Xmas surrounded by food, drink and gifts which that have meaning, not just labels. Start planning now!

Now the Carnival is Over…

November 22, 2015business, events, resilient communities, transportagriculture, Somerset, stewardsElizabeth J Walker

Crowds gather on the pavements among the chip stalls and candyfloss vendors, along comes the marching band, the radio van, the glittering phalanx of motorcycles decked out in swirls of LEDs.

The sound of music, the river of light reflects on the sky as the waiting pageant powers up along the bypass – and the first great float heaves into view.

Up the narrow High Street they pass – dancing girls and solemn statues, whirling steam punk cogs and horses frozen in mid stride, mighty warriors and young farmers in drag. This is their moment, the pinnacle of preparation!

Who else is crazy enough to hold a Carnival in November? Bracketed by gales and lashing rainstorms, Saturday night was dry but freezing. The huddled spectators make an equal commitment to seeing the event through. Road closures and traffic control mean they cannot easily leave, come wet or cold. You take your chances, and the right equipment – resilience in action!

The Carnival covers several towns, quite far apart. Sometimes, when driving along pitch dark country roads in the hammering rain, one sees the secret movements of these mighty machines. They glide past you in convoy, eerie on running lights alone. A flash of grinning jokers, snarling dragon jaws, giant clocks – they are gone into the night.

And then it’s over. The floats return to their obscure sheds, the costumes are packed away. The coalman is just a coalman again and the tractors return to work. Somerset turns its attention to the next festival on the calendar. The Christmas lights can be safely strung across the streets and the fourth year of our Buy Local for Xmas campaign begins!

Support your local crafters – the community needs to encourage their skills. Make your gifts budget count, they’re relying on you!

How the craft workshops are getting on

March 16, 2015business, crafts, events, resiliencecraft workshops, Hemp Twine Project, Somerset, willowElizabeth J Walker

It occurs to me that people may not be notified of changes to other pages, so I thought I’d just draw your attention to the progress of the free craft workshops. We held the third of these yesterday (15th March), and there’s still another three. Follow the link to read how things are going.

If you’re in the area – Glastonbury or Street – try and drop in. There’s the Bocabar cafe next door; you’re welcome to just sit with a coffee and watch the crafts happening! Although large, the Event Space is warm and there is plenty of parking nearby.

Shop Local for Xmas

November 26, 2014business, crafts, economics, resilient communitieslocal business, local food, solutions, SomersetElizabeth J Walker

It’s beginning to seep into national awareness that independent, locally based businesses might serve their communities better than identikit chain stores with obscure agendas.

With the destructive competition these small enterprises face from multinationals, the few that still populate the High Street need your support. It’s estimated that around £40 billion will be spent on Xmas in the UK this year; over £750 per household.

Spent locally, remaining in your area instead of instantly vanishing into a remote Head Office, this money could bring about a serious increase in prosperity.

Take a long tea break to think about this, and plan your holiday spending. Shopping in the scattered local outlets will take longer than a trolley dash. Spread it over a few weeks. Be organised so you don’t buy something twice in the last minute rush.

Set a budget for presents. See what you can find at craft fairs. Socks, especially good hand made ones, are underrated. Bath products are often welcome. Of course you’ll be able to buy more industrially produced items for the same money. Quality is the point here. It’s a gift; it’s the thought that counts not the weight.

Half of the total Xmas spend is on gifts. In Somerset alone, this comes to over £80 million, the same as a quarter of the annual County budget. Another third is spent on food and drink.

Write a shopping list. There’s plenty of food you could buy well in advance. Farm shops often sell chutneys, jams and pickles. Xmas cakes keep for weeks and are often on sale at markets. Consider making your own mince pies.