Christina Strutt - Green Housekeeping: Recipes and solutions for a cleaner, more sustainable home

Green Housekeeping

Green Housekeeping

RECIPES AND SOLUTIONS FOR A CLEANER, MORE SUSTAINABLE HOME

Christina Strutt OF CABBAGES & ROSES

This edition published in 2019 by CICO Books an imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

2021 Jockeys Fields

London WC1R 4BW

341 E 116th St

New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

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First published in 2008 as Cabbages & Roses Guide to Natural Housekeeping and in 2012 as A Guide to Natural Housekeeping

Text Christina Strutt 2008, 2012, 2019

Design, illustration, and photography CICO Books 2008, 2012, 2019

The authors moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

eISBN: 978-1-78249-907-7

ISBN: 978 1 78249 783 7

Printed in China

Project editors: Marion Paull and Gillian Haslam

Text editor: Samantha Gray

Designer: Christine Wood

Photographer: Lucinda Symons

Illustrators: Trina Dalziel and Michael Hill

In-house editor: Anna Galkina

Art director: Sally Powell

Head of production: David Hearn

Publishing manager: Penny Craig

Publisher: Cindy Richards

Always consult a doctor or qualified herbalist before treating any ailment. While every attempt has been made to ensure the information in this book is entirely safe, correct and up-to-date at the time of publication, the Publishers accept no responsibility for consequences of the advice given herein. The Publishers also accept no responsibility for changes in stockists and locations mentioned herein.

CONTENTS

When I first wrote this book, my thoughts were of preserving a world for my then-imagined grandchildren. It felt imperative. We had to change the habits of our daily domestic lives to counteract the effects of climate change. A decade later, the effect of living beyond our ecological means has raised the status of this imperative to urgent. We musteach of uswork together for the benefit of our planet if we wish our children, let alone our grandchildren, to enjoy a fraction of the Earths bounty and beauty we have known.

Today, this book feels even more personal, since those precious grandchildren no longer exist only in the realm of my imagination. Indeed, for every one of us, this battle must be personal if it is to be won. Planet Earth is a resilient place: as humanitys canvas it has absorbed much and made way for so many of our inventions. Mankind is clevertoo clever, perhaps. Our species has now entered its sixth millennia on the planet, and it is clear that for all our brilliance, wisdom has proved elusiveor is willfully ignored. We cannot continue to think only of convenience and the immediate future. We need to change our ways to make sure that our beautiful planet can support us for many generations to come.

If this sounds a gloomy premise for a book, it is meant neither to depress nor to despair. In fact, I have come back to this book for precisely the opposite reason: to look for the spring shoots of hope, and for ways in which we can all, without difficulty, effect change. Because there is good news. While scientists now talk openly about having passed the point of no return, they also assure us that if we mean business, we can make a difference. Governments need to respond quickly and decisivelythere must be no denial of the facts. But change starts at home and, if we are united, the effect of such change could be dramatic.

The nightly news may seem dismal, but there are chinks of light. I can see that the generation coming of age now really cares. They shall inherit this earth and they have no intention of being meek. I see community projectsthe co-operatively kept hens that feed a neighborhood, the community gardensand I see daily rounds of YouTube videos with ingenious ideas for repurposing the plastic we have consumed. I see the small businesses using compostable materials where plastics were once used, and I see a growing rejection of consumerism. As the owner of a business that sells clothes, you may see a contradiction. Second to oil, the clothing and textile industry is the largest polluter in the world. At present, the market produces too much, and the cheaper clothing is, the less we value it. We are buying four times as many clothes today as we did ten years ago, and we are wearing them for half the amount of time. In 2018 in the UK, we sent 12.5 billion ($16.3 billion) worth of clothing to landfillequating to 300,000 tons of textiles. On average, each person threw away eight items, meaning that each British household wasted clothes with a value of almost 500 ($650). We all need to buy fewer, better pieces; we do not need to constantly replenishrather, we need to buy what we love and love what we buy for a long, long time.

Our aim at Cabbages & Roses is to make clothes that last, that will be loved by at least two, if not three generations, that will be mended, patched, passed on, resold or repurposed. We produce slow clothes; made in the UK in limited quantities and to last a lifetime. We are striving to reduce our carbon footprint wherever possible, aiming to use organic fabrics, and to know the provenance of everything we use. We are finding ways to avoid chemicals, plastics, and waste. Through these pages, I hope to share home- and community-applicable methodsbig and smallto create less waste and to reuse that which we do buy. And since were in the second decade of this century, and almost everyone has use of the Internet, I would love the readers of this book to share their own tips via social media. This is a rallying-cry to adopt ideas for sustainable living, many of which tap into ancient ways and our collective consciousness. I hope that this book assists you in making those switches in every aspect of your domestic life.