Smoke on the water: eco-friendly barbecues
Friday, June 22nd, 2007 by Nigel
This time of year, an extraordinary fog descends on Hove seafront, south of the Nigel’s Eco Store nerve centre. In the evenings, if you walk along the beach, the sun descends behind a thin, smoggy haze.
This is the season of the barbecue.
People in Brighton love the sea. Most of us are refugees here from a land-locked life and relish any chance to hang out with friends at the seaside. One thing I really like about this place is that if you take a walk along the front on a sunny evening you’ll inevitably bump into people you know, sitting down and enjoying the noise of the sea on the shingle, drinking a glass of wine, sharing some food.
It’s a terrible downside of being in the eco-product business, or just being conscious of the issues, but these days you see even the most innocent act of enjoyment through the dreaded pair of un-rose-tinted eco-specs.
We’re all tempted to used them, because it’s so easy, but obviously there’s nothing much good about disposable barbies. Half the people who do seem unendearingly dim about putting them straight on the grass of Hove lawns, so that by the end of the summer the grass is dotted with small, arid rectangles, and looks a bit like a tattered dishcloth, full of burn-holes.
But grass grows back. The grimmer fact is nearly all lumpwood charcoal comes from dubious sources. It’s imported by the tonne from up to 12,000 miles away, and the increasing demand for it is leading to wide-scale illegal logging. It’s worth checking on the bag before you buy it to check that it has Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) labels.
Though some argue their smoke is less tasty, briquettes are probably better. They’re generally made from sawdust, so at least they’re recycling waste material. But they use chemical binders. Who knows what is in them…
There was a good article about some of this in the Telegraph a while back.
Of course you could try the much trumpeted solar-powered barbecue:
However I think, looking out of the window this morning as the rainclouds drift in, you’d have to be a bit of an optimist to spend 125 quid on one of those. Today, I fear, we’ll be needing one the size of a basketball court.
Fact of the day: the word barbecue is thought to derive from Carribbean Taino Indian word barabicu.
Brighton beach barbie shot by WordRidden
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