Saving Trees, Earning Manpoints

Evening everyone. Apologies for the lateness in writing. On the way to our corporate ‘Finance Funday’ this afternoon, it struck me as quite hilarious that the six of us in Accounts  were driving in six separate cars to the venue a mile up the road (we were all going home in different directions afterwards, promise). Then I came to feel sorry for mother earth as I pondered my size 10 footprint and the wider ramifications of my actions....WO WO WO! Man-up Edwards! (Said my other cerebral hemisphere) You are a Homo Sapien! King of nature; slave to no beast! (Except computers). This dichotomy ran its course in my mind for exactly the length of time that my commute takes. (Funny eh?) Anyway, half an hour later, I listed:

My Top 6 Manly Ways for Saving the Environment

1. Drive a Used Car

Besides the facts that hardly anyone can afford a new car in this day and age, and that you lose 35% of what you’ve just spent when leaving the forecourt, driving a used car is incredibly sound for the environment.  It takes an estimated 39,090 gallons of water to make a car. Which, when you replace the word water with it’s new political title of ‘white gold’ sounds like an incredibly expensive process.This article on Wired.com states that a Prius has to do over 100,000 miles to be more efficient than a used car. (Because the environmental impact in all the excess interior plastic, harvesting the lithium to make the AA batteries and making pure Aluminium out of Bauxite is just horrific.) With that fact in mind, Autotrader.co.uk tells me that only 2% of all available Priuses have done >100k on the clock. Alas, my 1995 BMW is efficient than 98% of all eco-(un)friendly cars. So suck on that Tom Cruise.

2. Use a Cut-Throat Razor

Now then, I’m not encouraging you to all become Sweeney Todd. I would just like to make my male readers aware of the calamitous effect cheap, disposable, plastic products (razors are just the start of it) are having on the oceans and the global bird population. 

This picture should illustrate the point above. Cracked.com, quite possibly the best magazine website available on the Intertubes, published an article entitled ‘6 real islands way more terrifying than the one on Lost’. What’s that got to do with rubbish? Check out the link to the article and be amazed by number two (the others are pretty horrific as well). I urge you to buy less plastic crap and hopefully we can stop this island from becoming the size of the African continent. Cut throats should last a lifetime: Not just two shaves then be disposed of to eventually end up inside an albatross

3. Fold Crisp Packets Into Little Shapes

This may not change the world overnight, but your local council should sure as hell thank you for it. If you have no idea what I mean, click here. Landfills are filling up an ever-increasing amount of land and any space saved is a blessing. Practice your crisp-packet origami when next having a pack o’ cheese n’ onion at the pub and feel good about the result. 

4. Download Music 

Whether legally or as part of a Blackbeard-esque pirating operation, DLing muzak has got to be ecologically sound right? I mean, paper and plastic just to have...for the sake of having, I know it’s the idea of ‘the tangible’ in the age of ‘the digital’? But come on, nobody buys a CD for the li’l book or the poorly hinged polystyrene case. Download it, save it, back it up, move on. Gain environmental superiority complex. Profit.

5. Buy Antique Furniture

This one may not appear to be as manly as the others at first glance. But trust me on this one. Those of you who know me personally will already know that I’m a bit of an art/fashion nerd. I propose to you that in terms of value for money, comfort AND environmental moral highground, one of these: 

in used condition is definitely worth a third of the price of one of these:

British heritage and century-old craftsmanship for £300 or Swedish minimalist crap (which is leading to increased deforestation) for £1000. The choice is obvious. Get into antique furniture, (‘upcycling’ or whatever title hipster yummy mummies have called it) and save some trees whilst impressing your woman with your knowledge of period styles AND turning your flat into a country estate only a Duke would be proud of. Awesome.

6. Drink Organic Cider 

This one’s a give ‘un really. Organic cider means vast expanses of apple trees which means a large open expanse for bees to hang out and get freaky with other bees. The British honeybee has been in decline over the last decade and anything to help its recovery is welcome. Bees pollenating the trees, us humans drinking the delicious 6.8% nectar and the apple remnants feeding local pigs who then fertilise the orchard’s soil. If that isn’t perfect GCSE-level biology, I don’t know what is. So then boys and girls, next time you’re at the supermarket, notice the box of Weston’s Organic that’s not only big in value, but big in environmental prestige.

There you go everyone. Keep these things in mind and maybe you'll keep your conscience clean and show other people you care about the wider world. Girls love that.

Take care. 

x


(All due copyrights go to those who's pictures and content I've borrowed. Thanks very much.)