Sustainability Is SO interesting

Today we had a training session with Phil McDonnell about sustainability - and it was so interesting. I have learnt that there are European Packaging regulations that state that you can take your shopping packaging back to the shop - thats great - save me on black bags. But whats more important that i have learnt is that i am not environmentally friendly at all. By travelling to work in my car, or going on holiday, not switching my lights off, leaving my appliances on standby, eating meat and not recycling I am having a very damaging effect on the Earth. There is only one Earth and so many people taking from it, that it is running out of resources. So if we ALL become more aware of how to be more sustainable - the Earth will become a better place to live and last longer!!
There is a conductor used in mobile phones which is obtained from a south American country and to obtain this, it has an effect on gorillas in the jungle. When you buy roses the worker in the poor countries only get about 0.07p wages from a £2.00 bunch. There is SO much to learn about the way our behaviour and lifestyles effect the Earth - its not enough to have a half day session.
The plan is now to invite more professional people to the next session - all you local partners and agencies, so you can become more aware of how to make a difference, so we can all pass this information down onto the community members.
The next session will be organised for sometime in September (after Phil comes back from Peru), and you will be surprised on how VERY interesting all this informtion is. If there is enough interest then, we at the ARC could put on a taster course or even a foundation course. Watch this space for further infomation.