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Hello and welcome back. I hope you all had a lovely and safe Christmas and New Year. Here is the first newsletter of 2022.
There are several plans for the first part of this year – one of them is to turn a spare room, currently used to store stuff, into a functioning office and workroom for The Project Zen. I have already found a friend who is going to help me empty the room.
I am passionate about TPZ having as small a carbon footprint as possible. Therefore, whenever we can, we will source items we need locally and definitely within Scotland.
We also believe that ''Reuse – Upcycle – Recycle'' should be a major part of how we conduct our business. So it is great news that we have a lovely lady in Aberdeen, Emma of 'Unveiling Magpies', who is going to be using scrap material to make our washable aprons, which will be ready very soon for our 2 pilot projects.
Because of COVID-19 we have had to delay the pilots, fingers crossed we will be able to run them during February. OK, enjoy the newsletter and as always, feel free to comment.
The Woodland Trust
Who are they?
They are a woodland conservation charity.
What do they do?
Their aim is to enhance, establish and conserve the woodlands and trees in all the countries of Britain. You might remember an article last year about Scotland's Rainforests. This charity is working with others to restore these areas.
They also help the business communities to reduce their carbon footprint.
What is a carbon footprint?
We hear this term a lot – but what does it actually mean? It is the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted by an individual, an event, an organisation, a service, or a product. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide and methane.
These are produced by burning fossil fuels, clearing land of forests, the production and consumption of food & manufactured goods and transportation, to name but a few ways.
How do they reduce greenhouse gases?
One of the ways is by creating new woodlands using native trees where possible. They also enthuse and mobilise communities, landowners and volunteers to not only see the importance of trees, but to actually grow more trees. They would like to plant a native tree for every single person in Britain.
Woodlands are the home for many animals. The Woodland Trust wants to protect not just our current trees and wildlife, but also to grow this biodiversity. Currently the United Kingdom has a total of 13% of its land occupied by woodland. In Europe it is 37%. In order to help not only with climate change and biodiversity, but also to improve the health of its occupants – the charity wants to raise this to 19% by the year 2050. 28 years sounds a lot of time, but it will go by very quickly, and action needs to be planned and taken as soon as possible for the hope of 2050 to happen.
Part of the current % is as a result of the Woodland Trust planting around 50 million trees since 1974. That took place over more than 40 years. They have ambitious plans to plant the same amount across the UK over the next 5 years: WOW - I hope they are successful and get a lot of support from everyone.
One area – the north of England – has a lot less woodland than the rest of Britain, just 7.6% of woodland cover in this region. So it is great news for that area and the Island as a whole that there is a 25 year plan to establish a Northern Forest. The Woodland Trust will be working with partners to plant another 50 million trees around the 5 cities: Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Hull.
We will be following both of these projects.
Would You Like A Wormery?
Most, if not all of us generate household waste in the form of peelings, stale bread, and so on. If you have even a small garden or concrete space to put some pots or planters, this might be a little project you would like to get involved with. One that helps with the environment and food waste in its own small way, and produces high-grade fertiliser.
Did you know?
Composting worms can eat up to half their body weight in organic waste every day.
This idea is not a new idea but...
''Using worms to manage organic household waste is happening at scale all over the world, except in the UK'' says Anna de la Vega, man. Director for Urban Worm Communities
She says this sort of small-scale indoor, low cost and low tech process lends itself to the urban environment.
I live in a flat and have a lot of houseplants – just one tablespoon of worm castings per plant would be enough food for the whole year. This could save money on extra nutrient rich fertiliser and use up the left over fruit & vegetable peelings – to me, this is a win-win situation.
A couple of weeks ago, one more wormery was started here in Aberdeen, as I joined the Urban Worm Communities and started my own small one in a bag for life. A DIY worm farm can be made in anything that keeps the light out. If you are interested in looking into this check out these easy to follow videos, which include different sized wormeries – mine is the smallest: https://theurbanworm.co.uk/wormup/#Videos
How does worm farming help the environment?
Rotting food waste releases the greenhouse gases – methane & nitrous oxide – the worms eat it before it has had a chance to rot. I will keep you posted on how mine progresses.
Thank-you for taking time out to read the newsletter and if you like quizzes, check out our Facebook page as we have a new question each day.
Have a good month and we will see you again soon.
Sarina Kosewsky-Griffiths
Email: TheProjectZenAberdeen@gmail.com
Web page: https://sarinakosewsky.wixsite.com/theprojzenlandpg1
FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheProjectZen
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-project-zen/?
Sources:
Rainforest graphic:https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/about-us/where-we-
work/scotland/saving-scotlands-rainforest/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/we-plant-trees/the-northern-
forest/
Northern Forest graphic: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/we-
plant-trees/the-northern-forest/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/09/an-easy-solution-for-our-waste-
diy-worm-farming-hits-uk-homes?
https://theurbanworm.co.uk/
https://theurbanworm.co.uk/wormup/#Videos
https://www.facebook.com/unveilingmagpies
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