Ethics Trading

Guest article by Suzan St Maur.

Not only do weddings represent substantial expenditure (the average spend in the UK is around £19,000) but also they can involve huge amounts of waste that can have a crippling, rippling effect across the environment and into far-flung communities which are anything but “fair-trade.” Here Suzan St Maur, author of “How To Get Married In Green,” gives us her 12 top tips on how to make a wedding much greener – without compromising on style.

1.       Rings. If buying a new diamond, ensure it was mined in Canada or other fairtrade location. Consider a man-made gemstone instead. For wedding rings, buy secondhand or have new ones made from recycled gold. You can even have wedding rings made from reclaimed wood!

2.       Hen and stag celebrations. Organise your party as close to home as possible, and if you are travelling abroad choose overland transport rather than flying. Avoid activities that involve burning fuel or other forms of pollution.

3.       Location. Choose a location that involves a minimum of travel for you and guests, and a reception venue that has a decent recycling policy. If you’re having a civil wedding, have the ceremony and reception in the same place.

4.       Communications. Do as much communication as you can by email / a wedding website, and ensure that what printed material you use is done by green printing techniques on recycled or sustainable- source paper.

5.       Wedding dress. Don’t buy a brand new dress before checking out hire, buying secondhand, borrowing, etc. Ensure all wedding outfits, if bought, can be used again afterwards, and choose natural, washable fabrics to avoid the pollution of dry cleaning.

6.       Wedding gifts. Ask for gifts made from recycled and/or ethical sources, and remember that money may not be PC but is actually quite green! If you don’t need gifts ask guests to make donations to a charity or eco-activity instead.

7.       Flowers and floral decorations. Avoid commercial floristry that uses flowers from non-fairtrade countries, imported by air. Try to use organic, locally produced flowers and greenery. Consider potted plants, topiary, dried or fake arrangements instead of cut flowers.

8.       Reception. Have yours in daylight hours to cut back on energy used for lighting. Avoid disposable crockery and cutlery – china and metal are greener. Make sure your wedding favours are “green” in nature – e.g. small potted plants – and ensure as much as possible afterwards is properly recycled.

9.       Food and drinks. Choose organic and/or locally produced ingredients for your wedding food wherever possible, preferably using only fresh foods that are in season. Choose organic, fairtrade, sustainable, biodynamic and British-produced drinks. Ensure your tea and coffee are fair-trade, too.

10.   Photography. Ensure your photographer uses digital systems as traditional film involves harsh chemicals. Do not offer guests disposable cameras at your reception. Keep prints to a minimum; choose online viewing of your pictures wherever possible.

11.   Transport. Avoid gas-guzzling cars to transport the wedding party, and try to minimise motor vehicle use amongst guests. Consider horse drawn transport or pedal power, but don’t sacrifice clothes, hair makeup etc. just to save a few litres of fuel!

12.   Honeymoon. Remember that the closer to home you honeymoon, in general the greener it will be. If you must go abroad, use a reputable carbon offset scheme and consider a location of eco-tourism. At all costs avoid cruise ships which normally are very “dirty.”

Excerpted from “How To Get Married In Green” by Suzan St Maur, published by

How To Books, £8.99.

From all good bookshops and on Amazon - link on right!

All great tips there, and I’m sure some are adaptable, it’s all about looking at things in a different way!

Huge thanks to Suzan, who has hinted that she may be back with more for us! 

Yes, in green. Or rather in a greener way.

How to get Married in Green by Suzan St Maur landed through the letterbox about a week ago, just begging to be passed around some friends, drooled over and then reviewed.

As the whole "green" subject becomes more and more complex - combining environmental, ethical and organic issues, some of which can be conflicting - it’s getting progressively harder to work out how to make your wedding eco-friendly without ending up with a glorified mudbath. Yet, quite rightly, many couples now want their weddings designed to help keep our planet, environment, agriculture and employment ethics as healthy as possible …without compromising on style, glamour, quality and, of course, fun. A tall order? Not now, with "How to Get Married in Green."

In this book, Suzan St Maur (also author of "Wedding Speeches For Women" and "The A to Z of Wedding Worries and how to put them right") neatly unravels the increasingly tangled web of green issues relating to weddings; so that you can: choose from a range of options depending on how far you want to pursue your green approach; see how these options work across all key areas of your wedding; get some clever, effective ideas on transport, decorations, clothes, catering, entertainment and more; learn how to make those ideas work for you with style and panache; understand just what an appreciable difference these measures will make to our planet and wellbeing; and, enjoy your wedding (and its planning) even more, because you know you’re making a difference.

That’s the synopsis from Amazon.  

Despite the emphasis on getting married, this book is just plain brilliant for organising any large gathering! From clothing to makeup, shoes to stationary, food and flowers - whatever you might need for your wedding, Suzan has found a greener alternative. But you can still have a white dress, you don’t actually have to get married in green …… However, you can get married (or do a civil ceremony, blessing, handfasting, or any other ceremony you prefer) in lots of style, with huge impact but with little harm done to the environment. You can have a fantastic day and feel even better at the end because of all the differences you made. It’s a shame I’m single really, but I’ll definitely be dipping into it for ideas when it comes to book launches and parties in the future.

I’d love to see a book in this series for general party planning, maybe eco-friendly kids parties?  What do you think Suzan?

Following on from Linda’s tips there are Ethics Trading’s best seller, the Soap Nut.

Essentially you can do ALL your cleaning using soap nuts. Yes, ALL.  It’s perfectly possible to clean your home, your laundry, car, curtains, children, floors, windows, patio, garden furniture, well everything really. If it gets cleaned with some sort of wet detergent, or detergent and water then soap nuts can do it.

If you need a Soap Nut Solution then the instructions for making one can be found as part of the Soap Nut Information PDF file.

They’re also good in the garden, not only for cleaning your patio and garden furniture, but as an insect repellent. Plants sprayed with a mild soap nut solution have much less green and black fly and don’t get eaten by slugs and snails. In fact, soap nut solution kills slugs and snails while it drives away the greenfly.

How much more versatile can you get?

Soap nuts, the Ultimate in renewable resources, versatile and contributing to the carbon cycle too! 

Having written a number of articles about the benefit to both the environment and ourselves in buying organic cotton. I feel that some of the benefits are negated if for the remainder of the garments life it is washed in detergents and chemicals which may be almost as damaging. So I would like to share with you some of the eco friendly non toxic methods of stain removal I have researched. Some may have been well known to your grandmother and she may have passed it on but some will be new. But please I would urge you to check labels and use your own judgment before you proceed willy nilly with some of these suggestions. One important tip to remember if you have treated a stain and put it through the wash is to check if it’s worked before you dry it. Once it has been dried it will be almost impossible to remove
For the removal of oil or fat stains even tomato sauce if it is dry try cornflour rubbed into the stain and left for about 20 minutes then brushed off with a soft cloth or brush. This may need several applications for a good result. Speed up the process if you wish by placing a paper towel above and below the treated stain and running a hot steam iron over it. Stains from fruit including wine and tomato sauce disappear when boiling water is poured over them in a bowl. Ball point ink stains can be tricky but soak in milk it may take a while and need a top up but it does work. Apparently this also works on chocolate and even blood. Rust stains can be cleared with application of a layer of salt and lemon juice squeezed over the top and then rubbed in.
Vinegar is the tops when it comes to multiple uses. For wine spots on cotton treat within 24 hours with white distilled vinegar applied directly to the stain and rubbed. Then clean in accordance with instructions on the label.
This next is not exactly stain removal but it is a good tip. To freshen baby clothes add one cup of white distilled vinegar to each load of baby clothes during the rinse cycle, it will naturally break down uric acid and soapy residue and leave the clothes soft and fresh. This treatment helps any clothes to rinse better it does not harm the fabric but will dissolve alkaline in soaps and detergents. To remove chewing gum pour straight vinegar over it to saturate this works even better if you heat the vinegar first. Another suggestion is to use basic hair shampoo (without inbuilt conditioner) on stains on washable materials, work it well into the fibres, but carefully if it’s delicate. Follow up with your usual wash. Of course one thing which is great for nappies and whites is natural sunlight which helps to bleach out stains but this is a summertime only solution here in the United Kingdom. I hope that you will find some of these tips helpful.

Of course we would add soap nuts as the gentlest laundry detergent in existence………… 

Reproduced with the kind permission of Linda Sones of Sones UK.  Suppliers of the finest organic cotton baby and children’s clothing, personally selected and endorsed by Linda Sones.

The sun is shining and warm and we’re just waiting for it to dry the grass a bit more so I can go and mow it.

The soap nut solution does seem to be keeping the seedlings safe from slug, snail and greenfly attacks.  So we’ll be sowing more seeds later on today and hopefully we’ll not lose so many this time!

In other news, The Portal Between is now listed all over the interent - well, on a few notable book shop sites, including Tesco.com and WHSmith. This has inspired 2 new pages on the Ethics Trading site.

The Merchandising page features t-shirts, mugs and bags all with the Portal Between cover. These are printed and dispatched by Spreadshirt and although Ethics Trading earns a small commission we are not responsible for quality or dispatch times. Do let us know what you think though as this may affect our continued use of Spreadshirt.

There is now an Amazon shop linked on the Ethics Trading site.  Again, this is an affiliate scheme and Ethics Trading has no responsibility for any item you purchase through that store. However we do control the content, so if you spot anything unpleasant or that you feel shouldn’t be on there please let us know.

Hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine.  

Soap nut juice kills slugs!

It does, it’s true. We’re discovering more and more uses for soap nuts and the liquid all the time.

How does it work?

The detergent properties in the soap nut solution interfere with the slug’s slime and kill the slug as effectively as salt would.

First you’ll need to make some soap nut solution. Put a handful of shells in a big pan with around a litre of water and warm gently - do Not boil! The froth is messy… You can let it simmer gently for about half an hour and then leave it to stand and steep until cool. 

When you have your juice ready, find yourself a spray bottle and fill it a third full with the juice and top up with water. Try to be gentle or it froths up and makes a mess! Only use the liquid, strain out the used shells or they’ll clog your sprayer.

Then spray the plants you want to protect. There will be a bit of foam on the leaves but don’t worry, it keeps greenfly away as well, and blackfly and whitefly. You will need to rinse out the spray part of your sprayer from time to time as the tiny bits of soap nut shell can get trapped in the tubes and filters.

However, Do Not use this on any carnivorous plants or any plant that prefers a water based insecticide. This IS a detergent and could have adverse effects on some plant species. I’d also recommend that you try not to get too much direct on the soil as it can harm earthworms if present in high enough concentrations or if sprayed directly on them.

(first published on Qassia, adapted for this blog) 

Ethics Trading is expanding!

We now have a shop at Climate mall where all our top selling products are listed.  Next phase is to get the essential oils listed on there and then I’d like to find a new product for Ethics Trading, any suggestions?

ClimateMall is an online shopping centre focussed on ethical and green businesses. It’s a one stop shop where you can find a number of retailers, but all sharing the green, ethical and fair trade vision! If you’re a customer then please do wander along for a browse, if you’re a fellow entrepeneur who shares our priorities then please do wander along too, there are plenty of free shops going on there and it looks like being a great place to be.

Also for fellow business owners - I found Quassia recently. If you want to network on Quassia then there’s a sign up button on my page (link above) I look forward to seeing you either on Quassia or in Climate Mall.  

Around the world, businesses, towns, cities and individuals are turning off the lights for an hour. Last year it was on March 31st, this year it’s today, March 29th and it’s at 8pm.

Find out more here: http://www.earthhour.org/about

But why would you? I mean, it’ll be dark right? Does it mean the computer and TV too? Should we turn everything off?

I will be.

In Sydney last year even the harbour bridge and opera house turned off their lights. The estimate that if the effort was sustained over a year it would have the same effect on greenhouse gas emissions as taking over 48,000 cars off the road.

Scary isn’t it? How much do you care? Do you care enough to turn out your lights for just one hour?

This is why I run my business the way I do, this is why I live the way I do. It’s all about small changes making a huge difference. 

*note: First published as intel on Quassia.