Green thoughts for Christmas

A few seasonal snippets from the Institute of Engineering and Technology magazine ...

UK Christmas dinners have the same carbon footprint as 6000 laps of the planet by car, with Cranberry sauce accounting for 50% of the food miles, say researchers at Manchester University.

The UK uses more non rechargeable batteries than anywhere else in Europe. 40% of them are bought in December, and only 2% are recycled (2009 figure). 30% of people claim not to know that they can be recycled.

There is no mechanical method of recycling flat screen TV's and monitors with cold cathode backlights; neither is it safe to manually recycle them because of the mercury content - so they become hazardous waste. LED backlights should reduce the problem.

The biogas from brewing 600 pints of beer is enough to heat one home on Christmas day, say Adnams. Do your bit

Wow, interesting stuff

Makes me glad that my cranberries come from the cranberry farm up the road.

I'm sure I heard on the radio yesterday that it is possible to grow cranberries in England and this is being started. Am resolved only to buy one packet of cranberries this year and not be seduced by an offer on two as the second packet sat in my fridge for weeks.

Being a real pleb I'm quite happy to have redcurrant jelly with turkey, which doesn't have to many airmiles.

We never have turkey, but duck instead. And I've never eaten cranberries in any form. We always had apple sauce at home as kids, and I have carried on that tradition (made with a little lemon zest added, and not too sweet - mmm). It's good with the meat, but more importantly, takes away the vile taste of the token brussels sprout.

So, no air miles there then, as the apples come from the garden.

Jaded Green wrote:I'm sure I heard on the radio yesterday that it is possible to grow cranberries in England and this is being started.

I've seen cranberry bushes on sale in the UK (Dobies and Thompson and Morgan have them), they are sold as a container / hanging basket plant, presumably because like blueberries they need and acid soil. I wonder how well they do in a basket - sounds quite pretty.

For cranberries to be truly productive, they must be in a bog. They need a cycle of flooding as I understand it. Or, it could just be that they're flooded for harvest, since they "shake" them as you might a nut tree, albeit underwater, then skim the berries from the top. Not sure if it's ecology or economics that drives that bit.

Anyway, I'm not fond of cranberries in any form. MIL makes a fab cranberry chutney, gorgeous color, festive zest of a whole orange, light nut meats, etc. Still don't like cranberries though. I'll have to side with FreeBird on the applesauce!!

We shall be having a multi-bird roast this year. A snipe inside a pigeon in a teal in a partridge (I may omit the partridge actually) in a pheasant in a mallard in a chicken in a reared duck in a goose. Total food miles - about 5.

--in a turkey, in an emu, in an ostrich.... ad infinitum!!!

It's class Aves all the way down, my boy!!

Until I get on to the camel

I use recurrant jelly, fab taste

polgara wrote:I use recurrant jelly, fab taste

tends to repeat on you though. LOL

Not on me!!

It was a pun, Pol. You missed out the 'd'.