June 2018 – Enviro-Mentalist

Avoiding the greenwash of plastic packaging.

I am concerned both at home and at work about the amount of single use plastic in my life. I have ditched the plastic from my milk, reuse all my plastic bags, try not to buy food in plastic wherever possible and refuse to drink out of a single use cup. At work we have slashed the amount of plastic cutlery, got rid of straws and are working on a few obvious quick wins. But, it is not as easy as it should be. In the wake of the recent publicity from Blue Planet 2 packaging companies have been quick to market their green alternatives. These take two forms, one based on plant materials and one with added sparkle (or something or other) to make the polymer degrade faster. Inevitably they tend to cost more than the fossil fuel equivalent.

But, whilst these sound, on the face of it, like a good idea, they are not as green as they would first seem and I have a couple of examples from my workplace to illustrate the conundrum.

Firstly, in our catering department they are keen to try to move away from standard plastics (although arguably less keen to move to reusable items). On their own they replaced their plastic boxes with a corn-starch based material. Now they are considering changing some of the other items for one made from Polylactic acid (PLA). This is also a plant based product that is similar to PET and has the advantage that it is not made from fossil fuels, is compostable and recyclable, and, if it is incinerated it won’t release the toxic chemicals found in many other plastics.

The second type came from elsewhere in the organisation. They had started a trial with a plastic bag that had an added chemical that means it is biodegradable. Again, it is alleged that it can be recycled, but also that it will degrade in landfill.

Both of these solutions to the plastic issue have some fundamental flaws (other than cost):

One of the issues with plastics is that they don’t break down easily, but this gives them a relatively long shelf life. This is not the case if they contain biodegradable plastic, so these greener plastics are less recyclable.
Most food waste in this country goes to anaerobic digestion, for a compostable plastic to be ‘greener’ it would need to go to an industrial composter. I have been told that there is currently only one in the UK.
It is fine that something might break down in landfill, but not that much waste goes to landfill in the UK any more. Usually mixed waste goes to a material recycling facility, this separates out the plastics, metals etc., then sends the rest as energy from waste.

So, whilst these are probably a good idea for a use that cannot be recycled (such as medical devices or packaging that for some reason needs to be incinerated and for which a reusable device is just not practicable or available), or for places where littering may be more of an issue (here I am thinking of the PLA option, not the fossil fuel option with added chemical) for many applications where there are good recycling facilities and where the domestic waste also gets sorted, then these are still not the right answer.

Some firsts for me.

In the last week I have been out and about a bit more getting some time in the great outdoors. This has been aided by some new insect repellant that seems to be working so far.

In the past week I have completed another bumble bee survey – better than last month but only half the number seen last year, spent a happy couple of hours just looking and photographing around Daventry, to be completed on Saturday with a WildSide recording sessions with the fab and enthusiastic Ryan Clark.

I’ve uploaded all of my sightings (or at least those that I can identify or have a semi-decent photo for) either onto iRecord or the local Biodiversity Records Centre, as well as entering my BeeWalk data so I am keeping last week’s resolution.

One of the joys of recording nature is that you are constantly discovering new things. During the BeeWalk this month we found a long-horned beetle that I’d not seen before, last month was my first Mother Shipton moth.

On Monday I was quite excited to discover that there were quite a lot of bee orchids flowering in Daventry (for once the mowers hadn’t done for them) and, quite unexpectedly I found a pyramidal orchid next to them. I am reliably informed that this might be the first record for this in the Daventry area.

Then, during the recording session at Mill Park Nature Reserve in Long Buckby, I found a small magpie moth. Completely new for me, and although quite common in the county, still something to get excited about I think.

And, the more you look, the more you learn and then the more closely you look. A virtuous naturing circle.

My next task is to start making a full list of the species I have seen and then keep it up to date!

New Resolutions

Despite my best intentions, for a nature lover and local organiser of a survey for Butterfly Conservation I am not very good when it comes to recording and submitting my own sightings – whether it is birds or bees, or anything in between. It’s not as if there is a shortage of ways to submit and record data.

When I do record my data I tend to use either the appropriate survey scheme site (i.e. the Butterfly Conservation site, BTO BirdTrack site, or the Bumblebee Conservation Trust BeeWalk site) or the iRecord site but there are many other recording schemes and apps out there that will automatically plot your position and give a more accurate location.

But, the very first recording I did was with the Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar. This has been going for twenty years now and, with a database of 2.7 million records, has shown the effect of a changing climate on the various events that happen each year in the Natural World. Whether it is the first or last sighting of swifts, your first orange-tip butterfly or when blackberries ripen, there are a host of events to choose. I haven’t logged into Nature’s Calendar for many years, but having just read an article in the British Wildlife Magazine highlighting some recorders with over 2000 records clearly showing the shifts with changing temperatures I am shamed into digging out my password, logging on and making a list of the things I can easily record in expected chronological order – something to do on my day off tomorrow! Perhaps this will encourage me to keep better records – I can feel a new notebook coming on…

Of Cuckoos and Climate Change

I was fortunate enough to tag along a guided walk with the eminent cuckoo expert and behavioural ecologist Nick Davies at Wicken Fen. During an hour and a half’s walk he imparted a wealth of information about cuckoos (and does a fantastic cuckoo call that had me and the cuckoos fooled) and their ‘hosts’ at Wicken Fen, Reed Warblers.

Reed Warblers spend their winters south of the Sahara and then travel back to Europe each spring – they come back to the same spot each year to breed – an amazing bit of navigation! The males will sing and sing until he pairs up. Then his songs become much shorter – one way to tell an unpaired male.

Reed warbler nests are beautifully woven around reed stems, the female starting off by anchoring in some spider silk and then weaving the nest around herself to make perfect fit. She lays one egg per day until she has four eggs. Unless, of course, she is spotted by a cuckoo. The cuckoo, who only lays in the afternoon, waits until the nest is unguarded, swoops down, swallows one of the reed warbler’s eggs and replaces it with her own. All in a matter of seconds. If the cuckoo has missed her chance and the eggs are all there, she will eat all of the eggs to force the reed warblers into starting a second batch, then, she will be watching and waiting for her opportunity. Each cuckoo will only parasitise the one species – at Wicken it is Reed Warblers. The cuckoo’s eggs will be a perfect match for colour and marking, but are almost imperceptibly bigger.

Once the cuckoo hatches of course it will eject the remaining eggs or chicks from the nest. The reed warblers will continue to feed their giant youngster, the colour of the gape and the pitch and sound of the cuckoo begging for food fools them into thinking they are feeding a brood, pushing them to bring more food than they would for one chick alone.

It seems as though all should be well for the cuckoo as there are reed warbler nests every 20 metres or so along the lodes (man made waterways within the fens). But, sadly it isn’t so. Cuckoos have suffered a massive decline in recent decades. Or, at least cuckoos in England have – Scottish cuckoos seem to be doing OK. Wicked has mirrored this decline. Thirty or so years ago there were about 15 female cuckoos laying in the fen, with the result that about 10% of nests were parasitised. Now, it is down to just two cuckoos, with only two or three per cent of nests parasitised. The difference between Scottish and English cuckoos’ success could all be down to climate change. The two sets of birds take different routes to their sub-Saharan wintering grounds. English cuckoos go through Spain, whereas Scottish cuckoos choose a route through the Po valley in Italy. Much of Spain has suffered severe droughts over the last few decades meaning it is more difficult for the cuckoos to feed and put on enough weight to make it over the Sahara. However, this might not be the only reason, and more answers will only be revealed as we learn more about this elusive bird. The future remains uncertain.

For more information about the cuckoo tagging project see the BTO’s website.

If you want to learn more about cuckoos, then please consider buying the excellent book, Cuckoo: Cheating by Nature, by Professor Nick Davies. It contains a wealth of information and is well worth a read.