- Screen Colours:
- Normal
- Black & Yellow
TOWARDS A GREENER DEDHAM – FOOD
The food we eat, and where it comes from, can have a significant impact on the environment and the area around us. Here at Greener Dedham, a group of local residents keen to share ways for us all to become more mindful of our food consumption, we have developed a few helpful tips to help you reduce carbon emissions (and costs, too!):
- Choosing local food – eating from local suppliers not only supports the local economy, it also helps to reduce mileage associated with transporting food. Did you know, businesses within the village stock produce from local suppliers, including Hall Farm Shop, and Birchwood Farm Shop. In addition, the East of England Co-op Food store in Dedham is proud to stock over 130 products which are sourced from local producers. As a co-operative committed to being a more sustainable business, they’re proud to be working closely with local producers and suppliers in Essex to reduce food mileage. Popular products at the store on High Street in the village include Fairfields potatoes and crisps, as well as apples from Honey Tye, all of which are produced in the county. You can also buy locally-laid eggs around the village too – including from Dedham Animal Therapy Farm.
- Grow your own fruit or veg – whether this be a full-spread of home-grown delights from your garden, or some cress valiantly grown on your windowsill, tending to your own produce not only cuts down on emissions, it is incredibly satisfying too. You could also you could apply to Dedham Allotment Association for your own Allotment Plot to rent for a small fee, currently there are a few plots available!
- Dispose of food waste in an impactful way – you can make fantastic compost from vegetable peelings, doing wonders for your own garden and saving money, too. Disposing of food waste via the Council’s kerbside collection is also a great way for food you no longer use to be turned into useful energy and fertiliser, rather than sitting in landfill.
TOWARDS A GREENER DEDHAM - TRAVEL
How we travel can have a big impact on our own experiences of the journey and the environment around us. Here at Greener Dedham, a group of local residents keen to share ways for us all to become more mindful of our consumption through travel, we have developed a few helpful tips to help you reduce carbon emissions (and costs, too!):
- Choosing to walk and cycle more – here in Dedham, we are incredibly fortunate to have such a rich array of footpaths and cycle paths that link to the local areas around us (such as Manningtree and Flatford). Travelling by foot or bicycle can really help to save on fuel and cut down on emissions at the same time.
- Switch to LED light bulbs – LED lights use a lot less electricity, so are a fantastic investment for the purse-strings. They help the environment by requiring less carbon emissions to be produced to run them, too.
- Reduce your air travel – consider alternatives to travelling, such as by train or by boat. These alternatives also often offer opportunities to take in beautiful scenery along the way, and the ability to stop at multiple destinations along the way, too.
TOWARDS A GREENER DEDHAM - ENERGY
The energy we use, and how it is produced, can greatly impact our local environment and the area around us. Here at Greener Dedham, a group of local residents keen to share ways for us all to become more mindful of our energy consumption, we have developed a few helpful tips to help you reduce carbon emissions (and costs, too!):
- Set your room thermostat at 20C or less – if you are able to, setting your thermostat at a slightly lower temperature can be a fantastic cost-saver and reduces carbon emissions, too. If you’re feeling chilly, reaching for a warm knit (lots of wonderful, great value-for-money items can be found in the Dedham St Helena Hospice shop) can be a great first step before reaching to turn up the thermostat.
- Draught-proof windows and doors to help your home become more energy-efficient. There are lots of great ways that you can get creative with this – such as making your own draught-excluders or using thermal curtains and blinds.
- Consider ways that you can reduce light pollution, such as setting timers on lights or ensuring that outside lights only light specific areas, reducing light ‘spillage’ beyond the intended location. Not only does this save energy and money, it helps to prevent damaging impacts of light pollution on wildlife and helps us to work towards the Dark Skies campaign as a community.
GREENER DEDHAM - HARVEST
Harvest time is known for an abundance of food, but an abundance of food can also pose challenges for how to store it, and how to keep it all fresh. Here are some tips on how to store and preserve your food so that it doesn’t go to waste - saving you money, and of course, doing the planet some good, too.
- Do you have more herbs than you know what to do with? Try preserving them by chopping them up finely and place them in an ice cube tray. Top up the rest of the ice cube tray with water and freeze. Not only have you saved your herbs from going to waste, you now have nice, neat little cubes ready for cooking with.
- Store your leafy greens and herbs upright in air-tight containers (you could even wash out and re-use old coffee tubs or jam jars), with a couple of inches of water at the bottom to keep them crisp and fresh. You can also pop in a paper towel into opened bags of salad leaves to help them last longer, too.
- Wash berries in a solution of 3 cups of water mixed with 1 cup of white vinegar, and dry before storing. Store in an air-tight container with paper towel (to soak up an excess moisture).
- Keep apples and plums by slicing them, shaking them gently with lemon and sugar, and freezing.
- Have you had a particularly bountiful courgette harvest? Slice them, blanch in boiling water for about a minute, dry and freeze.
GREENER DEDHAM - SUSTAINABLE CHRISTMAS GIFTING
The festive period is an excellent opportunity to try out more sustainable practices, particularly being a time of giving, appreciation and care. Here are a selection of our top tips to help you show the planet some love this Christmas:
- Have a go at making your own edible festive treats, such as gingerbread, jam, chutneys and cider. This is also a perfect approach for the person who has everything, and is a great way for more economical gifting, too!
- If you’d like to have a go at making your own goods, but cooking or baking isn’t really your thing, items like bath bombs and candles are surprisingly easy to make (you can even buy at home kits to make the process even simpler). To make the process even more environmentally, friendly, opt for using old jars and ceramic pots (such as old candle containers you already own).
- If you do want to gift something new, consider buying gifts that are re-fillable. There are a wealth of options out there now, including re-fillable makeup and home fragrances.
- How you wrap gifts counts for a lot, too. A lot of wrapping paper (those containing glitter and metallic elements like foil) is unfortunately not recyclable. Consider buying brown paper and decorating with festive accessories like dried oranges and pinecones, or create your own festive prints with paint or stencils. For a swifter wrapping experience, you could use Furoshiki wrapping cloth to make presents beautifully presented, with ease.
Page updated 23/10/2024.
WAVE check. No errors.