Plastics Pledge

Shockingly, only 5-7% of nearly 300 million tonnes of plastic used annually is currently recycled, while almost 8 million tonnes (3%) of it ends up in our oceans causing problems for ocean wildlife.

The Plastics Pledge aims to spread awareness that plastics can be recycled and to demand the increased use of post-consumer recycled plastic by manufacturers. The ultimate goal is to fast-forward the UK Plastics Pact (WRAP) target of 30% recycled content in all plastic packaging by 2025. 

You can sign up to the pledge here.

Part of the awareness raising element of the Plastics Pledge is the Eco-Turtle Project, which was developed with a group of primary school children who created the logo design and chose the project name.

In the run-up to Recycling Week (23-27 September), Plastics Pledge will support an initiative to encourage the UK Government to make it mandatory to label the recycled content on all plastic packaging.

To help bring the Government’s attention to this campaign, Plastics Pledge plans to fly an Eco Turtle blimp (a turtle swimming in a sea of plastic) across Parliament Square at the Climate Change Rally on 20^th September, The blimp will be made from recycled Oxford nylon and will be used at several events across the country. If you want to support this initiative you can add your support to the crowdfunder. All money raised will go to creating and launching the blimp in various locations during this campaign. 

The pledge has been launched by Delphis Eco who make their containers from recycled milk bottles and aim to eventually have refill stations for their products. 

Boxed In Theatre Company at the Greenhouse at Edinburgh Fringe

The Greenhouse venue tucked away in a corner of the grounds of Dynamic Earth for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is built entirely from found and recycled materials as are the set and props. After the festival is finished, these materials will be recycled or donated to other artists who will use them for their work.

It is the Edinburgh Fringe home to Boxed In, a young theatre company who are staging nine shows every day plus talks and workshops, all focussed on the human relationship with the environment. They won't be producing tonnes of paper marketing materials either, taking a more digital approach to getting the word out. You can read their environmental mission statement here. They are commited to access for all too as you can read here and tickets for all shows are £5.00 while workshops are free.

Today I went there to see Shellshock, a musical about a young woman, Shelly (Alex Duckworth) who lands what she thinks is her dream job as a environmental intern at a big oil company only to find that what the company wants from her isn't quite what she thought. Can she maintain her own values or will she be sucked into basically greenwashing the company's actions or will she be drawn into sabotage? Very well acted and sung, very entertaining and thought provoking, occasionally silly and featuring an ancient turtle (or is it?).

Well worth seeing, though you may want to take a cushion as the seating isn't entirely comfortable, being wooden benches against a wooden wall. Shellshock is showing every day (except Tuesdays) until 26 August - you can buy tickets here.

After the show I wandered along the wildflower meadows round the Scottish Parliament, which were full of bees and hoverflies

and then I attempted to get home through the centre of town, which is quite another story.

Edinburgh during the Festival period

Every year in August Edinburgh becomes a Festival City and the city centre is taken over by festival goings on and advertisings. I will rant a little in this blogpost, but first to make it clear I'm not anti the festival, I love the chance to go to so many theatre productions and literary events (though I don't go to anywhere near as many events as I used to, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival remains my favourite festival and that has now moved to June).

I also love the West End Craft Fair, which pops up every year during the festival and at Hogmanay

which showcases loads of local and not so local makers selling their wares, including jewellery, paintings and prints, wooden kitchen utensils, decorated bottles filled with glowing LED lights, hats and pottery. If you're looking for a gift, this is a wonderful place to start and every purchase here supports a maker.

This pellucid hoverfly was happily sitting around the fair yesterday

However the various August festivals (primarily the International Festival, Book Festival and the ever expanding Fringe Festival) seem to get bigger and bigger every year and to take over parts of the town. And there are many less than pleasant aspects to that, for example, George Street is one of Edinburgh's most distinctive, historic streets but you'd hardly know that at the moment

it currently looks like a festival shanty town and I'm sure that tourists as much as residents are exasperated by the historic centre of town (which is after all a part of why most people visit Edinburgh, even if, at this time of year they're primarily here for the festivals) being visually ruined like this.

Perhaps you want to wander through Edinburgh's beautiful Princes Street Gardens, the only sizeable public greenspace in the centre of town? Well, hurry now and make sure you're out by 4pm before these PUBLIC gardens are closed to the public for the sake of private ticketed events so no more summertime evening walks (just as these days you can now longer go for your once traditional Christmas Day wander through the park as it is then closed to prepare for Hogmanay)

and whatever time of day access is limited

even flowers are behind bars

and tourists may struggle to get a photo of the iconic Edinburgh Castle without ugly fencing getting in the way

Though at least if you choose the right viewpoint you can still see the beauty of the gardens

I often do feel we have reached peak festival (and peak Air BnB but that's another story) in this beautiful city. There's also a strong sense among many people that Edinburgh City Council cares more about tourists than they do about residents.

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Incidentally I was very pleased to find out today that North Face and Fat Face both accept worn out clothes for recycling, North Face also take worn out shoes (in any condition!).Very useful for those items of clothing that are unrepairable and not good enough to give to a second hand shop.

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Also worth noting that bookings for City of Edinburgh's adult education programme for this autumn are now open - browse the courses and sign up here. 

The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock

 

Subtitled Mrs Delany begins her life's work at 72, this is the biography of Mary Delaney who lived a very creative life but only discovered her true calling at 72 by effectively inventing collage as an art form.

I first came across Mary Delaney's collages at the excellent Cut and Paste exhibition (showing at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art until 27 October (you can read my review of the exhibition here).

I was therefore delighted to find this book soon afterwards. It is in part a biography of Mary Delaney, following her early unhappy marriage, her life as a well connected, creative woman, a feminist really well before that term was even thought of and her late, happy marriage and her blooming into her art form. The book is illustrated with several of Delaney's collages, which are truly beautiful, exquisitely observed portraits of flowers made from cut out paper and sometimes incorporating parts of the actual plant.

I found it annoying though how much Molly Peacock wrote about herself in this book, sure, fair enough to detail the research involved in finding out about Mr Delaney but the sections about Peacock's own life detracted from the concept of biography. I also thought she imposed too much of her own interpretations into the presentation of the collages, with far too much use of metaphor to try to relate each picture to some aspect of Mary Delaney's life.

However overall I am glad I read the book, Mrs Delaney was a fascinating woman and it's great to read about someone who so successfully reinvented herself at such an advanced age! And the collages are amazing.

You can see a selection of Mrs Delaney's collages on the British Museum website. 

The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock published by Bloomsbury.

Pollinators in a Pictorial Meadow

The pictorial meadow in Spylaw Park looks wonderful at the moment

and although there aren't perhaps as many insects in there as you might hope for on a sunny day there were a good number of hoverflies including this marmalade hoverfly

I also saw two large white butterflies and a painted lady butterfly which I will add to my records for the Big Butterfly Count which is running until 11 August. You can find out more about the Big Butterfly Count here.

A pictorial meadow is one made by using a seed mix that maximises colour all year round and also offers benefits for pollinators. The mix of flowers in this type of meadow doesn't reflect the mix you would find in a true wildflower meadow or that would spring up if you or the local council just stopped mowing your lawns.

A Summer Walk along the River Almond

One of our favourite summer walks is to go along the River Almond towards the airport. Yesterday was very hot and promised to be an ideal day for this walk, which offers a nice mix of shady woodland and sunnier areas where butterflies and other insects like to bask.

The walk starts in shady woodland

with beautiful views of the river from the bridge

and then opens out

very few people walk this far along the path and that, combined with the hot and often wet weather we've had recently means that the path is very overgrown, with a rich selection of wildflowers and insects - though not as many butterflies as we had hoped to see (nor as many as we've seen in the past). We didn't see a single painted lady on this walk, which astonished us, as currently you can barely walk down a street in Edinburgh without seeing at least a couple of painted ladies!

We did see this beautiful peacock butterfly though

and hoverflies everywhere including this handsome Volucella pellucens

and the closely related Volucella bombylans (with the white tail)

and this Syrphus sp which wanted to be on the wrong side of the camera

We had lunch in our usual favourite picnic spot

with these mute swans gliding by

and the water full of young fish

on the way back we were delighted to see this banded demoiselle damselfly

and then we visited the Shetland ponies

one of which was looking distinctly grumpy

It's a lovely walk to escape the heat and crowds of Festival City Edinburgh.

Thanks Crafty Green Boyfriend for the photos of the insects, swans and fish. 

Pollinators Workshop at Saughton Park

I attended an excellent pollinators workshop today at Saughton Park. Lead by Anthony McCluskey of Butterfly Conservation Trust it focussed on identifying pollinators (particiularly common butterflies and bumblebees) and managing orchards to benefit pollinators.


The morning sessions took place indoors which was good as it was raining this morning. By the afternoon the sun had come out and we were taken on a guided tour of the Park, focussing on areas where we might be able to find some pollinators. One of the places we investigated was the Physik Garden

where we not only saw a small white butterfly, but saw these eggs - possibly laid by that very same butterfly

 We also saw many leaves that showed evidence of being eaten by leaf boring larvae - these might be moth caterpillars or hoverfly larvae

apparently moth caterpillars leave smoother, tidier lines when they bore through the leaves, while hoverfly larvae are messy creatures and leave their droppings everywhere in the tunnels! On closer examination Anthony suggested that these leaves had been mined by moth caterpillars

We learned loads of interesting things including how honey bees, though obviously valuable for producing honey, are, in this country at least less valuable pollinators than many native bumblebees and can also provide threats to the health of bumble bees by carrying diseases and competing for food. So the advice seems to be to limit the number of honey bee hives to allow for the bumblebees to prosper.

I was interested to find out that common carder bees nest on the ground and that their name comes from the fact that they gather (or 'card') moss and other vegetation to make their nests.

We found out lots of information about how to make orchards and gardens more pollinator friendly (some of this information can be found on the Butterfly Conservation website here.)

There were lots of bees everywhere including this small solitary bee

and a few hoverflies including this marmalade hoverfly (on the left) and Epistrophe grossularae (on the right)

Saughton Park looks lovely now after the significant award it recently received from the Big Lottery Fund (now the National Lottery Community Fund). You can find out what's happening at the park here.

Butterfly Conservation works across the UK, helping to conserve butterflies and moths and holding events to increase awareness and enjoyment of these insects. You can find out what's on in your local area here.

Read about Protecting Britain's Butterflies on the Upgardener website.