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Our involvement with natural products all started a long time ago in sunny South Africa. It was a hot summer's evening and I saddled up my mare to go for a ride. Within minutes of walking out of the yard it became clear that something was severely amiss with my horse as she staggered and became weaker by the second. Minutes before we had waved cheerfully to one of our local equine vets who had driven past. My friend rode back to the yard as fast as she could to put in a call to see if he could get to us as an emergency straight away. I dismounted, unsaddled my horse and led her back to the yard with her leaning drunkenly on me every step of the way. The vet arrived as we did. He carefully checked her over, but could find no obvious cause of her condition. He took some blood samples and suggested that without a positive diagnosis we would have to wait for the results. My mare’s condition was deteriorating before my eyes. I asked him to please go over her one more time before leaving in case something had become more noticeable. As he started to examine her again, one of her hind legs began to swell. As a vet being experienced in the area and the likely risks, he immediately identified it as a poisonous snake bite. He treated her with the necessary drugs to help her cope with a bite that would kill a human in a very short space of time. Unfortunately, before we found the snake responsible, a very large Cape Cobra, which had taken up residence in the yard, another horse was bitten, also on the hind leg. The same treatment was given to the other horse.
 

I was keen to alleviate any suffering and help my horse in any way I could, so I tapped my friends and our vet for any ideas on support that I could give that would help my horse. I tried various things, but tubbing my horses leg with Epsom Salts dissolved with hot water to draw out the inflammation and poison, followed by tubbing with ice water to reduce the local swelling produced good results. It also eased the discomfort. Determined to make a difference to her discomfort over the next week I tubbed as much as she would tolerate. While this was happening the other horse that had received a similar bite was only given the veterinary treatment. A week later my mare won her breed in-hand class at one of our shows. Sadly the other horse was put down a few weeks later as the swelling had subsided very slowly and between the swelling and the poison too much damage had been done to the soft tissue in the leg. Its so seldom that a lay person gets the opportunity to see different treatments happening in parallel on the same problem. While there could be many factors that resulted in this stark contrast in recovery this incident made a lasting impression on me. I came away with the belief that good veterinary treatment can be so much more successful if supported by a dedicated owner and good support of the animal through use of natural products. I have found the same to be true for people.

Over the years I had many similar experiences. When I arrived here with my mare’s son some eight years ago I found that many of the natural products I had used were not easily found or available. Since then awareness seems to have been growing in England with the growth of the complementary health industry. Our interest in both the environment and natural products has grown as we have gone through life's ups and downs.  With long and distinguished careers in IT, we developed other skills too, my husband is talented with Kinesiology and I have studied for my own interest and qualified as an Herbalist and an Animal Aromatics practitioner.   With this company we have set out to use our broad set of skills to make quality natural products available for general and specific use with as little compromise to the environment as is currently possible.

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Quality…

Great care is taken in the sourcing of the product available on our site.  We check all stocks on arrival for the condition of the product and that it matches the quality we want and the samples we were given.  On a personal level these products are used by us and our animals and we have complete faith in their quality.

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Ethical and Environmental Policies…

We are very concerned with the quality of the products that we provide. It is also important to us to understand our supplier’s standards and any restrictions they may be working within. We try to select sources for our products that apply ethical and self-sustaining policies. 

We look for high quality products sourced locally where availability and where quality allows in order to support U.K. producers and reduce pollution from unnecessary transport. 

Alongside all the lofty goals we have set ourselves in sourcing the products we also aim for continuous improvement in our range of products and running of our company.

We believe that every small action taken to ease the strain on the environment and to live and do business sustainably will make a difference.  With a bit of initial effort it is surprising what changes we can make in how we run a company to improve this.  To this end we carry out the following actions:

- Wherever possible our packaging is recycled, recyclable and re-useable. 

- Our stationery is 100% recycled local London waste.

- We recycle everything that we have local facilities for, we were having trouble with plastics, but have recently found out about a local company that is prepared to take it for recycling.  We should now be very close to zero waste.

- We compost organic waste, which we use on the grounds.

- We have an energy saving policy and are always looking at ways to improve our energy efficiency through good insulation and modern products geared to more effective use of energy.  With our move to our new premises we hope to go further and introduce a sustainable source of energy for our needs.

- We use eco-friendly cleaning products, where possible organically sourced.

- We do not buy or use chemicals.  The grounds are maintained with the same policy in mind. 

- We will not knowingly buy products that have been tested on animals or buy products from suppliers that have used animal testing.  We make the effort to question the origins of everything we use.  This takes a bit of up front effort, but only needs to be done once for each product.

- Our air travel where necessary will be done with British Airways who have an environmental policy.  Their approach is to reduce emissions and to offer customers the option of offsetting emissions.  The money raised is used to fund sustainable energy projects that tackle global warming by reducing carbon dioxide levels.  Its not enough, but we will support any moves in a positive direction.

- We support the planting, protection and care of our forests to counteract CO2 emissions caused by our business. We estimate our CO2 emissions yearly and ensure we have sufficient trees on our premises to compensate. In the event we don’t we also contribute to organisations engaged in protection, management and planting of new forests.

- We look outwards and keep an eye out for changes in technology or practices that will bring these improvements.  We look inwards through internal processes of regular review of how we use our resources we aim to keep improving.

If you have an energy or resource saving suggestion or tip from your own good experience please pass it on and let us know at email address enquiries@cosmasorganics.co.uk

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Disabled Access…

COSMAS Organics has tried to design and build its website to be accessible to those with disability. We have given careful consideration to readability and ease of use. Design has been kept simple for future use by ‘speech reader’ products. If you are experiencing difficulty with any part of the site and require assistance or have suggestions for improvements please email customer service: enquiries@cosmasorganics.co.uk or phone: 01600 891108.

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