Uni survival
- Kick the microwaves habit. Chip in with housemates to order a weekly box full of fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables and save cash. To find your local box-scheme, click here.
- To make the most of your box, keep the basics on hand
- Feeling adventurous? Grow your own herbs or veg in a box in halls.
What's so great about a box scheme?
- Reduce climate change - air-freighted fruit and veg contribute 33 times more CO2 than UK-sourced produce. Box-scheme food is typically grown within 50 miles of where you live.
- Real value for money - A 'value added' £1.99 vegetable and past bake would cost you only 40p to make with box-scheme produce - and would be much healthier.
- Unadulterated salad leaves - Those 'convenient' pre-packed supermarket salads are doused in chlorine then preserved in bags with lowered oxygen levels, depleting vital nutrients.
- Stem the 'splurchases' - staggering 60 per cent of a weekly supermarket shop is now brought on impulse. Box schemes stop you frittering your money away.
- Support local economies - £10 spent on a local organic box scheme can generate £25 for the local economy. Supermarket profits are channelled into the bank balances of distant shareholders.
- Lighten your load - weekly fruit and beg delivery means no more missions back from the supermarket, laden with heavy plastic bags.
- Reduce waste - more than 40 per cent of household rubbish that goes to landfill is supermarket packaging. Unpackaged box-scheme food is naked naturally.
- Stop the beauty parade - apples that don't fit a supermarket's exact colour specifications are 'graded out'. Box schemes don't reject food on looks.
This article first appeared in the Ecologist September 2007
For ethical and sustainable suppliers of Food and Drink goods and services check out the Ecologist Green Directory here
