It has been a long time, and I guess most of you might have given up on hearing from me again, an update is certainly long overdue, but we are still going strong in phase 2 of being green, lazy and out of money.
When the first 12 months had been completed I wondered what would happen to the project. I was keen to continue the green efforts, but frankly there was a part of me wondering if it would change anything that I was no longer committed to telling the world about our efforts. Thankfully I don't think it has, at least we haven't been going back the way, but I think the steps we are taking have become smaller.
We still put in a good effort on many fronts: energy saving, minimising waste, recycling, travelling better (even in the colder weather), eating local and attempting to grow our own stuff, but I have realised that we have now reached a stage where efforts might need to be focussed on something specific.
Phase 1 was about the steps more or less everybody can do with a bit of determination. We didn't invent something amazing, we didn't change the world, we didn't set any records - we simply followed some of all the advice out there and became greener. So now every time I read another list of '10 ways to save the planet' I can usually tick at least 9 boxes. Anybody can do that!
Phase 2 is harder. I struggle now to find advice on things to do or improvements to make that doesn't involve a fair bit of investment (I still really want to fit a woodburning stove and solar panels) or a big amount of effort. E.g. part of phase one was to not leave appliances on standby. The main element required to achieve this is to actually remember to flick the switch - not time consuming. On the other hand a phase 2 target could be to become self sufficient in fruit and veg. It would mean a huge investment, partly of equipment and trees etc, but mainly of time.
I recently read about a family who had reduced their waste so much that in one year they had only put their bin out for collection once. Very impressive! It makes our achievement of only having half full bins to put out look like nothing. But to achieve that level of waste reduction would mean a lot of work. You would need to think every action of the day through from a waste point of view, and I can't help thinking that these people made a tremendous effort on the waste front, but maybe they are behind me on the transport front or the grow your own front... (or maybe they are superhuman and do everything)
And there is my dilemma at the moment. There is only 24 hours in a day and there is only so many things we can do in that amount of time. Ideally I would like to take all areas of green living to a higher level - but I can't! There is simply not enough time to keep making progress in all areas. I mean I wish I had the time to learn lots of new cooking skills so that I could cook fabulous food from local produce, but I don't if I am also at the same time trying to drop my car, reduce my waste to zero, pruning trees and planting carrots, making Christmas cards out of recycled newspaper and knitting sweaters to stay warm in our less heated house. So after a few months in phase 2 I have had to face the fact that I need to prioritise.
If I want to take big steps in any area it is likely to mean that other areas will become stagnant. Either that or I need to accept that the steps we take become smaller. Hmm, not sure what the best way forward is. So many things to try, so many ideas, so many opportunities. Maybe that is part of being green as well, knowing your limits and having a lifestyle that is sustainable from a wellbeing point as well. Anyway I guess as long as we are going forward, not back - we are still doing OK.
Wednesday 3 November 2010
Friday 27 August 2010
Over and out (almost)
This is it - we have now spent 12 months trying to become a green household. Funnily enough I expected this blog to be a nice little round up of all the stuff we have achieved - but I don't know if somebody is trying to send me a message. I usually do my updates in the beginning of the week and it is now Friday and despite several attempts this one just doesn't seem to happen, latest issue was the almost completed entry that just disappeared! 12 months I have been doing this and that has never happened before.
I am now wondering if I am being told that it is not time to close this project?
So I have decided to take a different view: phase 1 is over, phase 2 can begin. Phase 2 consists of continually going forwards! We can't go backwards on all the good work we have managed during phase 1.
Phase 1, the original challenge has been good and fun and educational, but it has also been annoying, tiresome and sometimes blooming awful. But that is how it works with lifestyle changes, they don't happen overnight. They happen gradually and that way they become set as new habits and routines, and that is the real change.
Being green is definitely a scale, we started somewhere on the very light green side and we have moved a fair bit towards the more shiny green side, but there is a long way before we would be completely green. We haven't ditched the car, we haven't installed solar panels and we generally still live like a pretty ordinary family. Nobody is going to enter our home and think 'wow, they are certainly green' (they are probably more likely to think 'has the hoover broken...), and that I think is good. Because I didn't set out to change our lives completely, I wanted to find out if it is possible to follow some of all that advice out there and still have a happy family life. I think the answer is yes.
What I didn't realise was the profound effect this would have on the way we think. We might not have moved a lot from an outside point of view, but I do believe we have changed our thinking - the environment has taken a much higher priority in the way we live.
So to check if we have actually achieved something or if I am just happily imagining stuff, I decided to calculate our carbon footprint again. I did this in the beginning of the challenge using the Governments Act on CO2 website and we had a footprint of 12.88tonnes per year. When I calculated it again on the same website earlier this week our footprint had been reduced to 9.57 tonnes per year. I think that is pretty good. We have shaved 3 tonnes of CO2 of our footprint in one year and that is without investing hardly any money in it. Imagine what it would look like if we had spare cash to install solar PV or a wood burning stove or super insulate our house etc.
Obviously the carbon footprint doesn't say everything (I have on several occasions ranted about the uselessness of this measure), but on this occasion I will take is as proof that we have actually achieved something.
Not that long ago my brother suggested to me that going green is a bit like raising kids, they change little by little and all of a sudden you look back and realise how big they have become. That is exactly what we have been doing this year. Little by little we have changed habits and looking back I actually think it adds up to a rather big step. But just like children never stop changing and learning, green living is a continued process and honestly from that angle we probably haven't even reached school age...
But before we embark on green living phase 2 I will leave it to my 3 year old to sum up this experience. At the dinner table I asked how everybody thought we had done throughout the challenge and he very promptly shouted 'goood'.
May the green work long continue.
I am now wondering if I am being told that it is not time to close this project?
So I have decided to take a different view: phase 1 is over, phase 2 can begin. Phase 2 consists of continually going forwards! We can't go backwards on all the good work we have managed during phase 1.
Phase 1, the original challenge has been good and fun and educational, but it has also been annoying, tiresome and sometimes blooming awful. But that is how it works with lifestyle changes, they don't happen overnight. They happen gradually and that way they become set as new habits and routines, and that is the real change.
Being green is definitely a scale, we started somewhere on the very light green side and we have moved a fair bit towards the more shiny green side, but there is a long way before we would be completely green. We haven't ditched the car, we haven't installed solar panels and we generally still live like a pretty ordinary family. Nobody is going to enter our home and think 'wow, they are certainly green' (they are probably more likely to think 'has the hoover broken...), and that I think is good. Because I didn't set out to change our lives completely, I wanted to find out if it is possible to follow some of all that advice out there and still have a happy family life. I think the answer is yes.
What I didn't realise was the profound effect this would have on the way we think. We might not have moved a lot from an outside point of view, but I do believe we have changed our thinking - the environment has taken a much higher priority in the way we live.
So to check if we have actually achieved something or if I am just happily imagining stuff, I decided to calculate our carbon footprint again. I did this in the beginning of the challenge using the Governments Act on CO2 website and we had a footprint of 12.88tonnes per year. When I calculated it again on the same website earlier this week our footprint had been reduced to 9.57 tonnes per year. I think that is pretty good. We have shaved 3 tonnes of CO2 of our footprint in one year and that is without investing hardly any money in it. Imagine what it would look like if we had spare cash to install solar PV or a wood burning stove or super insulate our house etc.
Obviously the carbon footprint doesn't say everything (I have on several occasions ranted about the uselessness of this measure), but on this occasion I will take is as proof that we have actually achieved something.
Not that long ago my brother suggested to me that going green is a bit like raising kids, they change little by little and all of a sudden you look back and realise how big they have become. That is exactly what we have been doing this year. Little by little we have changed habits and looking back I actually think it adds up to a rather big step. But just like children never stop changing and learning, green living is a continued process and honestly from that angle we probably haven't even reached school age...
But before we embark on green living phase 2 I will leave it to my 3 year old to sum up this experience. At the dinner table I asked how everybody thought we had done throughout the challenge and he very promptly shouted 'goood'.
May the green work long continue.
Monday 16 August 2010
Green is good
Before I start on some long winded philosophical saga on green living, I thought it would be time to answer a question several people have asked lately: are you going to continue writing when the 12 months are up?
The fact is in 2 weeks time me and my family will have spent a year trying to become green and that will be the end of the challenge, but it will not necessarily be the end of this blog. There will however be changes. First of all - 'Green, Lazy and Out of Money' is now as well as a blog the title of a talk. This means that anybody in the Central Belt of Scotland can book me to come along and do a little talk on the ups and downs of going green. I decided that some of all the experience and information we have gathered over the last 12 months just might be helpful to other people - and so far it has been well received. Anybody wanting more information is very welcome to send me an email - see details on the right.
The blog itself is probably going to continue, but on a less regular basis. This is partly due to time constraints but also because it just might end up getting boring! There are only so many energy saving tips or natural beauty products you can try without repeating yourself and somehow I don't think it will be interesting for anybody to continually hear about gardening failures or smart meters or especially read yet another rant about government policy, supermarkets, public transport or any other of my pet complaints... So I have promised myself to only write if I actually have something valuable to say! (Weekly updates therefore impossible...)
I still have a couple of weeks however before this rule applies, so I have decided to share some thoughts with everybody on green living. A few days ago I read an article about how the Government and environmentalist are actually hindering the progress of more sustainable lifestyles. This is not on purpose, but the images connected to greening up life are mostly about giving up things or missing out, e.g. giving up the car, avoiding imported food etc and therefore people are put off. It is not attractive!
For progress to be made focus needs to be changed to the aspects of life that are actually better with a green lifestyle. So here we go, this is my top 10 of stuff that has improved over the last 12 months:
1. We have saved money on the electricity and gas bill, simply by paying attention to our usage. We haven't really missed out on anything, we are just not wasting energy.
2. We are fitter. None of us are super athletes and we never will be, walking and cycling more has made an improvement. Yesterday both my kids walked into town and back, 30 min each way with a play in between and neither of them complained, because they are used to getting around in that fashion.
3. We have saved money on petrol and maintenance of the car.
4. We eat tastier food by getting more local supplies in stead of supermarket stuff. It hasn't really been more expensive, but trust me a burger from the local butcher is better than a plastic wrapped one from the supermarket.
5. We generally eat better. We eat more vegetables and less meat and very importantly we eat less additives and strange chemicals - just by being aware. We have even become more adventurous and tried new things.
6. We have learned a lot about gardening, and had the joy of eating stuff we grew ourselves.
7. We have been outside more. This is a point my daughter wanted included in the list, she said it was nice going out in the fresh air walking or cycling, being in the garden and especially camping. You can't really argue with that.
8. We know more people locally because we have been getting involved in local environmental groups. This has been particularly great because we are new in town and our network has grown quickly.
9. We have wasted a lot less of everything and saved money along the way. We have even received some stuff for free through freecycle and other waste conscious routes.
10. Last but not least we have had the chance to feel that we are achieving something. This might all sound cheesy, and it probably is, but never the less the feel good factor shouldn't be ignored, and going green definitely haven't made us feel bad.
So there you go - being green is good!
The fact is in 2 weeks time me and my family will have spent a year trying to become green and that will be the end of the challenge, but it will not necessarily be the end of this blog. There will however be changes. First of all - 'Green, Lazy and Out of Money' is now as well as a blog the title of a talk. This means that anybody in the Central Belt of Scotland can book me to come along and do a little talk on the ups and downs of going green. I decided that some of all the experience and information we have gathered over the last 12 months just might be helpful to other people - and so far it has been well received. Anybody wanting more information is very welcome to send me an email - see details on the right.
The blog itself is probably going to continue, but on a less regular basis. This is partly due to time constraints but also because it just might end up getting boring! There are only so many energy saving tips or natural beauty products you can try without repeating yourself and somehow I don't think it will be interesting for anybody to continually hear about gardening failures or smart meters or especially read yet another rant about government policy, supermarkets, public transport or any other of my pet complaints... So I have promised myself to only write if I actually have something valuable to say! (Weekly updates therefore impossible...)
I still have a couple of weeks however before this rule applies, so I have decided to share some thoughts with everybody on green living. A few days ago I read an article about how the Government and environmentalist are actually hindering the progress of more sustainable lifestyles. This is not on purpose, but the images connected to greening up life are mostly about giving up things or missing out, e.g. giving up the car, avoiding imported food etc and therefore people are put off. It is not attractive!
For progress to be made focus needs to be changed to the aspects of life that are actually better with a green lifestyle. So here we go, this is my top 10 of stuff that has improved over the last 12 months:
1. We have saved money on the electricity and gas bill, simply by paying attention to our usage. We haven't really missed out on anything, we are just not wasting energy.
2. We are fitter. None of us are super athletes and we never will be, walking and cycling more has made an improvement. Yesterday both my kids walked into town and back, 30 min each way with a play in between and neither of them complained, because they are used to getting around in that fashion.
3. We have saved money on petrol and maintenance of the car.
4. We eat tastier food by getting more local supplies in stead of supermarket stuff. It hasn't really been more expensive, but trust me a burger from the local butcher is better than a plastic wrapped one from the supermarket.
5. We generally eat better. We eat more vegetables and less meat and very importantly we eat less additives and strange chemicals - just by being aware. We have even become more adventurous and tried new things.
6. We have learned a lot about gardening, and had the joy of eating stuff we grew ourselves.
7. We have been outside more. This is a point my daughter wanted included in the list, she said it was nice going out in the fresh air walking or cycling, being in the garden and especially camping. You can't really argue with that.
8. We know more people locally because we have been getting involved in local environmental groups. This has been particularly great because we are new in town and our network has grown quickly.
9. We have wasted a lot less of everything and saved money along the way. We have even received some stuff for free through freecycle and other waste conscious routes.
10. Last but not least we have had the chance to feel that we are achieving something. This might all sound cheesy, and it probably is, but never the less the feel good factor shouldn't be ignored, and going green definitely haven't made us feel bad.
So there you go - being green is good!
Monday 9 August 2010
Green beauty
Is is possible to be green and beautiful? Well, OK beautiful might be stretching matters a bit on the personal front, but there is the issue of all the products we tend to use to make ourselves look better. I am by no means obsessive about grooming - I have never set foot in a beauty salon, but like most other people I sometimes feel the need to improve things slightly.
Several months ago I started changing my creams, shampoo and other stuff for primarily organic versions (surprisingly it is not necessarily more expensive), but even then the lists of ingredients can look a bit scary sometimes. So the other day I decided to have a look for something even more natural.
It turned out that making your own is not completely straight forward. Some things like body lotions require you to have a base of some sort either beeswax or various other options that you can get from a pharmacy - but not really anything you are likely to have hanging about the house. That immediately put a dampener on my spirits - I didn't really want to go out spending loads of money on this experiment.
Thankfully the web is filled with weird and wonderful ideas, so there were still several things for me to try:
Some were a bit strange, like make your own lipstick by mixing Vaseline with food colouring. I can see the fun side of this, you could have blue or yellow lips, but considering what is normally in food colouring, that didn't seem like a chemical free option to me.
Or how about this recipe for gorgeous hair:
1 mango, 1 apricot, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 small pot of natural yogurt, 1 tbsp of sugar free muesli.
Blend together, apply to your hair in a thick layer, leave for 30 mins, rinse out.
I am sorry, but sitting around with a breakfast smoothie in my hair just doesn't sound appealing - I would rather have it in my tummy.
But other things I did give a go.
Like the egg and beer hair treatment. To be fair I am probably not the best person to try hair treatments, my hair is short and no amount of eggs will turn it into long luscious locks, but hey, we all like the idea of lovely shiny hair. For this I beat 1 egg (the suggestion was 2, beaten separately and then mixed, but as mentioned my hair is short) and rubbed it gently in my hair. It was a slightly funny feeling and the egg is rather slippery, but not horrible. This then needs rinsed with tepid water. Beware tepid is the key here, apparently if the water is too hot you will end up with a scrambled egg hairdo... Finish off rinsing with either lemon juice or beer.I did consider lemon juice, but when I started thinking about how many lemons I would need to squeeze to have enough juice to rinse my hair I opted for the beer suggestion. Funnily enough I remember as a teenager my mum talking about rinsing her hair in beer and me as a typical teenage chemical lover finding this disgusting. Anyway I managed to sneak a beer past my husband and happily poured it over my hair (word of warning - avoid beers straight out of the fridge, it freezes your brain...). The instructions didn't say anything about rinsing your hair again in water, but the smell of pub was so strong I simply had to. Was it worth it? Well, even the following day my hair was surprisingly soft and had more volume than normal, so not a bad result.
Then there was the tea bag treatment for dark circles round your eyes. Very simple - stick your used teabags in the fridge over night, when you wake up in the morning feeling all puffy eyed - place the cold teabags over your eyes for a bit and hey presto all is better. It was OK, my eyes possibly looked better, but I have to admit that having to go downstairs to get the stuff out of the fridge before then having to lie down again was a bit off putting - I certainly wouldn't do that every morning. Too much effort!
It did remind me however of another trick I learned when I was younger and still able to party later than midnight: Take some cotton wool, wet it with cold water (tap water is fine, it gets pretty cold) and then wipe underneath your eyes. It always worked for me, if nothing else it wakes you up and it kind of shocks the body and makes the skin freeze up for a bit...
My favourite experiment was the body scrub. According to beauty experts you really should exfoliate regularly, but for some reason it is one of those things I always forget to buy. Now I can make my own: 1 part oil mixed with one part sugar, stir it round, scrub your body with it and rinse off - all done. Fab! Apparently it is best to use sweet almond oil or grape seed oil or any massage kind of oil, but stay clear of olive oil unless you want to smell like a Mediterranean salad... You can also use salt instead of sugar, but sugar is supposedly kinder to the skin. My only comment is that you might want to wash with soap afterwards as it can be a bit greasy.
There was one final thing I wanted to try, but just haven't got round to yet. Apparently oats are very good for all sorts of things, and seemingly you can moisturise your face by soaking oats in cold water for 30min, sieve and squeeze the oats and then apply the white liquid with cotton wool. I will keep you posted if I manage to try it.
Throughout it all one thing kept popping into my head: is this really a good use of resources? Should I be using perfectly good eggs to fluff my hair, when I could have been eating them? What kind of carbon footprint is attached to a sugar and sweet almond oil mixture? Actually my question probably should be whether beauty products are a good use of resources all together?
And the answer: it is a pointless question.
I doubt anybody would give up on their looks solely for the reason of being green? And in that case I believe it is greener (and more fun) to use an egg in your hair rather than some chemical concoction. Mixing stuff and pulling things out of cupboards certainly made me much more aware of what we are actually doing for the sake of our vanity.
So I will continue my search for natural beauty, you never know what hidden qualities there might be in potatoes or brussel sprouts. Or maybe this is where I am supposed to say that real beauty comes from within...
Several months ago I started changing my creams, shampoo and other stuff for primarily organic versions (surprisingly it is not necessarily more expensive), but even then the lists of ingredients can look a bit scary sometimes. So the other day I decided to have a look for something even more natural.
It turned out that making your own is not completely straight forward. Some things like body lotions require you to have a base of some sort either beeswax or various other options that you can get from a pharmacy - but not really anything you are likely to have hanging about the house. That immediately put a dampener on my spirits - I didn't really want to go out spending loads of money on this experiment.
Thankfully the web is filled with weird and wonderful ideas, so there were still several things for me to try:
Some were a bit strange, like make your own lipstick by mixing Vaseline with food colouring. I can see the fun side of this, you could have blue or yellow lips, but considering what is normally in food colouring, that didn't seem like a chemical free option to me.
Or how about this recipe for gorgeous hair:
1 mango, 1 apricot, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 small pot of natural yogurt, 1 tbsp of sugar free muesli.
Blend together, apply to your hair in a thick layer, leave for 30 mins, rinse out.
I am sorry, but sitting around with a breakfast smoothie in my hair just doesn't sound appealing - I would rather have it in my tummy.
But other things I did give a go.
Like the egg and beer hair treatment. To be fair I am probably not the best person to try hair treatments, my hair is short and no amount of eggs will turn it into long luscious locks, but hey, we all like the idea of lovely shiny hair. For this I beat 1 egg (the suggestion was 2, beaten separately and then mixed, but as mentioned my hair is short) and rubbed it gently in my hair. It was a slightly funny feeling and the egg is rather slippery, but not horrible. This then needs rinsed with tepid water. Beware tepid is the key here, apparently if the water is too hot you will end up with a scrambled egg hairdo... Finish off rinsing with either lemon juice or beer.I did consider lemon juice, but when I started thinking about how many lemons I would need to squeeze to have enough juice to rinse my hair I opted for the beer suggestion. Funnily enough I remember as a teenager my mum talking about rinsing her hair in beer and me as a typical teenage chemical lover finding this disgusting. Anyway I managed to sneak a beer past my husband and happily poured it over my hair (word of warning - avoid beers straight out of the fridge, it freezes your brain...). The instructions didn't say anything about rinsing your hair again in water, but the smell of pub was so strong I simply had to. Was it worth it? Well, even the following day my hair was surprisingly soft and had more volume than normal, so not a bad result.
Then there was the tea bag treatment for dark circles round your eyes. Very simple - stick your used teabags in the fridge over night, when you wake up in the morning feeling all puffy eyed - place the cold teabags over your eyes for a bit and hey presto all is better. It was OK, my eyes possibly looked better, but I have to admit that having to go downstairs to get the stuff out of the fridge before then having to lie down again was a bit off putting - I certainly wouldn't do that every morning. Too much effort!
It did remind me however of another trick I learned when I was younger and still able to party later than midnight: Take some cotton wool, wet it with cold water (tap water is fine, it gets pretty cold) and then wipe underneath your eyes. It always worked for me, if nothing else it wakes you up and it kind of shocks the body and makes the skin freeze up for a bit...
My favourite experiment was the body scrub. According to beauty experts you really should exfoliate regularly, but for some reason it is one of those things I always forget to buy. Now I can make my own: 1 part oil mixed with one part sugar, stir it round, scrub your body with it and rinse off - all done. Fab! Apparently it is best to use sweet almond oil or grape seed oil or any massage kind of oil, but stay clear of olive oil unless you want to smell like a Mediterranean salad... You can also use salt instead of sugar, but sugar is supposedly kinder to the skin. My only comment is that you might want to wash with soap afterwards as it can be a bit greasy.
There was one final thing I wanted to try, but just haven't got round to yet. Apparently oats are very good for all sorts of things, and seemingly you can moisturise your face by soaking oats in cold water for 30min, sieve and squeeze the oats and then apply the white liquid with cotton wool. I will keep you posted if I manage to try it.
Throughout it all one thing kept popping into my head: is this really a good use of resources? Should I be using perfectly good eggs to fluff my hair, when I could have been eating them? What kind of carbon footprint is attached to a sugar and sweet almond oil mixture? Actually my question probably should be whether beauty products are a good use of resources all together?
And the answer: it is a pointless question.
I doubt anybody would give up on their looks solely for the reason of being green? And in that case I believe it is greener (and more fun) to use an egg in your hair rather than some chemical concoction. Mixing stuff and pulling things out of cupboards certainly made me much more aware of what we are actually doing for the sake of our vanity.
So I will continue my search for natural beauty, you never know what hidden qualities there might be in potatoes or brussel sprouts. Or maybe this is where I am supposed to say that real beauty comes from within...
Monday 2 August 2010
The veg thing (again)
Good news! I managed to overcome my veg box phobia and have now already had 3 deliveries - and what do I think about it? Well, if you had asked me after the first delivery I wouldn't have sounded too impressed. Not only did it contain kale, which is something I really struggle to eat, but it also made me realise that I might have to rethink my food planning. I usually try to plan the meals for the week at the weekend - longtime readers of this blog might remember that I took part in a food waste project in November that reminded me how useful it is to plan your meals and your shopping in advance, so I have stuck with this routine as much as possible. Problem was that the veg box gets delivered on a Wednesday, so getting an unknown quantity of unknown fruit and veg in the middle of carefully planned week made things a bit awkward. I was having visions of lots of food wasted - not good.
But a few weeks down the line I am quite beginning to like this. Now I probably should admit that I am playing safe and the size of box we are getting at the moment is far from enough to keep the whole family going for a week, it is kind of a top up, but it has brought a bit of excitement to the whole food/shopping thing.
It has been a rediscovery of certain foods. Turns out that without really realising I had got into the habit of primarily buying stuff I knew the kids would eat. 4 weeks ago the chances of finding a pink grapefruit in our house would have been approx nil, but last week we had one delivered - and it was a nice change from the usual. Likewise I rarely buy melons, they can be rather heavy and bulky to fit in the backpack, but my son suddenly got the chance to totally indulge in it. We have even had several different varieties of apples over the last weeks - amazing how set we can become in our habits.
It has also reminded me what food really can taste like. On top of our box I have ordered potatoes on a weekly basis, and I don't want to sound like some fanatic foodie, but honestly they do taste better than the ones from the supermarket.
Finally I think it has forced me to remember dishes I haven't done for some time or at least to think the other way round, so rather than decide what we want to eat and then shop, I look at what we have and then think about what we can make with that. It is refreshing! I have even managed to postpone some of my food planning, so that I wait and see what the box will bring.
Amazingly my fear of strange green leafy things have been taken care of as well. It turns out you can tell them if there is stuff you really don't want, so I have now added Kale to my list, and that shouldn't show up in my box again. Great!
All in all the veg box is a success, which is good, because my homegrown stuff isn't doing well. Turns out you actually have to look after the things... OK, I knew that, but I obviously haven't been doing enough, because the garden is a rather poor sight. 4 weeks ago everything was looking great. We were eating the first peas, we had overload of lettuce, we had handfuls of strawberries, everything was sprouting and looking green. Now however the remaining peas have gone yellow, because I really should have picked them a bit sooner, the spinach grew to a height of an inch and died, the parsley is light brown instead of green, the carrots have just withered away, the pumpkin plant has given up growing and the radishes have bolted. All rather pathetic and my visions of meals made from homegrown ingredients are very quickly fading. Sigh...
Funnily enough the plants that seem to be doing really well are the ones everybody told me couldn't grown in Scotland - tomatoes. One of the blackberry bushes is also happily producing, which is great although they only seem to ripen 4-5 at the time, so kind of hard to get enough together to actually make something. I also have a couple of beetroots that might turn into real veg and there is still hope for the onions and the potatoes, so not all is lost. And the remarkable thing is that I still want to do the garden thing. I still want to extend the vegetable plot and start all over again next year. I just want to be slightly smarter about the whole thing.
I am going to get more low maintenance stuff. More soft fruit, maybe another tree or two. Yes of course you need to pick and prepare the fruit when the time comes, but there is less weeding involved and the stuff you get is primarily for puddings - best incentive in the world.
Yes, one day I will get that meal made from homegrown produce, one day in the future - until then I will hang on to my new veg box.
But a few weeks down the line I am quite beginning to like this. Now I probably should admit that I am playing safe and the size of box we are getting at the moment is far from enough to keep the whole family going for a week, it is kind of a top up, but it has brought a bit of excitement to the whole food/shopping thing.
It has been a rediscovery of certain foods. Turns out that without really realising I had got into the habit of primarily buying stuff I knew the kids would eat. 4 weeks ago the chances of finding a pink grapefruit in our house would have been approx nil, but last week we had one delivered - and it was a nice change from the usual. Likewise I rarely buy melons, they can be rather heavy and bulky to fit in the backpack, but my son suddenly got the chance to totally indulge in it. We have even had several different varieties of apples over the last weeks - amazing how set we can become in our habits.
It has also reminded me what food really can taste like. On top of our box I have ordered potatoes on a weekly basis, and I don't want to sound like some fanatic foodie, but honestly they do taste better than the ones from the supermarket.
Finally I think it has forced me to remember dishes I haven't done for some time or at least to think the other way round, so rather than decide what we want to eat and then shop, I look at what we have and then think about what we can make with that. It is refreshing! I have even managed to postpone some of my food planning, so that I wait and see what the box will bring.
Amazingly my fear of strange green leafy things have been taken care of as well. It turns out you can tell them if there is stuff you really don't want, so I have now added Kale to my list, and that shouldn't show up in my box again. Great!
All in all the veg box is a success, which is good, because my homegrown stuff isn't doing well. Turns out you actually have to look after the things... OK, I knew that, but I obviously haven't been doing enough, because the garden is a rather poor sight. 4 weeks ago everything was looking great. We were eating the first peas, we had overload of lettuce, we had handfuls of strawberries, everything was sprouting and looking green. Now however the remaining peas have gone yellow, because I really should have picked them a bit sooner, the spinach grew to a height of an inch and died, the parsley is light brown instead of green, the carrots have just withered away, the pumpkin plant has given up growing and the radishes have bolted. All rather pathetic and my visions of meals made from homegrown ingredients are very quickly fading. Sigh...
Funnily enough the plants that seem to be doing really well are the ones everybody told me couldn't grown in Scotland - tomatoes. One of the blackberry bushes is also happily producing, which is great although they only seem to ripen 4-5 at the time, so kind of hard to get enough together to actually make something. I also have a couple of beetroots that might turn into real veg and there is still hope for the onions and the potatoes, so not all is lost. And the remarkable thing is that I still want to do the garden thing. I still want to extend the vegetable plot and start all over again next year. I just want to be slightly smarter about the whole thing.
I am going to get more low maintenance stuff. More soft fruit, maybe another tree or two. Yes of course you need to pick and prepare the fruit when the time comes, but there is less weeding involved and the stuff you get is primarily for puddings - best incentive in the world.
Yes, one day I will get that meal made from homegrown produce, one day in the future - until then I will hang on to my new veg box.
Monday 26 July 2010
Why
Earlier today I asked my husband what I should write a blog about. 'BP' was his answer. Oh, I thought, America's biggest ever oil disaster is quite an issue but not exactly one that affects our lives at the moment - what could I possibly say about it. Not anything constructive probably, but it did get me thinking: when did we completely loose touch with the planet we live on? Why are we so desperate for oil that BP is willing to risk drilling for oil in ridiculous places? How did we become so detached from the essentials in life?
Don't worry I am not planning a big rant here, I just feel the urge to share some of the strange things that I have realised during this green project.
The other day I was in the supermarket doing some shopping and as always ended up passing the biscuit and cake section. I have quite a thing for cakes and can happily eat large quantities, but that day I ended up reading the list of ingredients - bad move. How come I can happily munch away on something that contains at least 5 ingredients I have no idea what is??? Who in their right mind would stuff their face with some chemical concoction that for all that they know could be poison? I made myself a promise to make my own stuff in the future, a promise that lasted just till my next shopping trip and the hypnotic calls from the cake aisle (Yes, I am sure I can hear them calling my name!)
And unfortunately this isn't just the case for cakes, it includes a large amount of the food we eat. Next time you go shopping have a look at the ingredients of sausages or bread or almost anything and you will see how the producers always manage to sneak in at least one bizarre ingredient that you would definitely never find in your own kitchen cupboard. (Don't do it with Coca cola however - just seeing the list of ingredients could make you sick)
Or what about the car thing. Why do we find it so hard to use it less - our legs are meant for walking. When we take the car for a short journey we know it would be better for our health and better for the environment if we didn't - yet the car keys seem to have a hypnotic power over us. Myself included - I still jump in the car sometimes for journeys that I could easily walk or cycle.
Then there is my rather hypocritical attitude to eating meat. We eat it every week, yet I cannot cope with the idea at all of the animals being slaughtered. I prefer all meat to be minced or chopped into pieces in a way that they are completely unrecognisable as animals. That is ridiculous! I should either take the full step and become vegetarian or at least admit to what I am eating. The attitude of 'I will eat meat as long as I don't have to think about where it came from' is not natural - it is the approach of somebody who doesn't really live in touch with the life cycles on this planet.
And the obsession we seem to have with getting everything wrapped in several layers is another one. Today I went and bought a sandwich. The woman in the sandwich shop put it in a box for me, which was good as I wasn't eating it straight away, but then she was also going to put the box in a paper bag. Why, it was completely unnecessary. Lots of things we buy are double wrapped or even triple wrapped and most of the time we don't even think about it, we just peel of the layers. I remember when going shopping at Christmas time I had taken 2 bags to carry my purchases in, yet I still came home with a huge amount of plastic bags, because either I would forget to say I didn't want them or the shop assistants would still put my stuff in plastic bags out of habit. Total waste.
I really think we are strange creatures - we seem to have some kind of self destructive side and our instinct for survival only appears to work in a short term crisis. We live rather unnaturally, we eat food that is completely artificial, we use excessive amounts of stuff without even thinking about it, we drill for oil in dangerous places because oil is more important than sea life. What is going on - we must all be mad! Hmm, time for a cup of tea and some cake while I mull that one over...
Don't worry I am not planning a big rant here, I just feel the urge to share some of the strange things that I have realised during this green project.
The other day I was in the supermarket doing some shopping and as always ended up passing the biscuit and cake section. I have quite a thing for cakes and can happily eat large quantities, but that day I ended up reading the list of ingredients - bad move. How come I can happily munch away on something that contains at least 5 ingredients I have no idea what is??? Who in their right mind would stuff their face with some chemical concoction that for all that they know could be poison? I made myself a promise to make my own stuff in the future, a promise that lasted just till my next shopping trip and the hypnotic calls from the cake aisle (Yes, I am sure I can hear them calling my name!)
And unfortunately this isn't just the case for cakes, it includes a large amount of the food we eat. Next time you go shopping have a look at the ingredients of sausages or bread or almost anything and you will see how the producers always manage to sneak in at least one bizarre ingredient that you would definitely never find in your own kitchen cupboard. (Don't do it with Coca cola however - just seeing the list of ingredients could make you sick)
Or what about the car thing. Why do we find it so hard to use it less - our legs are meant for walking. When we take the car for a short journey we know it would be better for our health and better for the environment if we didn't - yet the car keys seem to have a hypnotic power over us. Myself included - I still jump in the car sometimes for journeys that I could easily walk or cycle.
Then there is my rather hypocritical attitude to eating meat. We eat it every week, yet I cannot cope with the idea at all of the animals being slaughtered. I prefer all meat to be minced or chopped into pieces in a way that they are completely unrecognisable as animals. That is ridiculous! I should either take the full step and become vegetarian or at least admit to what I am eating. The attitude of 'I will eat meat as long as I don't have to think about where it came from' is not natural - it is the approach of somebody who doesn't really live in touch with the life cycles on this planet.
And the obsession we seem to have with getting everything wrapped in several layers is another one. Today I went and bought a sandwich. The woman in the sandwich shop put it in a box for me, which was good as I wasn't eating it straight away, but then she was also going to put the box in a paper bag. Why, it was completely unnecessary. Lots of things we buy are double wrapped or even triple wrapped and most of the time we don't even think about it, we just peel of the layers. I remember when going shopping at Christmas time I had taken 2 bags to carry my purchases in, yet I still came home with a huge amount of plastic bags, because either I would forget to say I didn't want them or the shop assistants would still put my stuff in plastic bags out of habit. Total waste.
I really think we are strange creatures - we seem to have some kind of self destructive side and our instinct for survival only appears to work in a short term crisis. We live rather unnaturally, we eat food that is completely artificial, we use excessive amounts of stuff without even thinking about it, we drill for oil in dangerous places because oil is more important than sea life. What is going on - we must all be mad! Hmm, time for a cup of tea and some cake while I mull that one over...
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Green holiday
We are in the height of holiday season and I wish I could do a post about some fantastic holiday adventure, but unfortunately this is not the case - we are not planning any exotic time away this summer! There are several reasons for this, but lets just say that being green, lazy and out of money doesn't leave you many holiday choices. Question one to consider is what would make a holiday green?
Flying anywhere is kind of out of the question, so that quickly narrows down the destinations available. We could I guess make it to certain parts of Europe going through the Euro tunnel, but it would mean spending quite a lot of time travelling first down to London and then across the water, and I don't think the South of Italy or somewhere similar would be feasible to do with two young kids.
From that point of view it would make most sense to stay in Britain. I have nothing against Britain, we live in a generally nice place, but unfortunately the weather isn't always great and a bit of sunshine can be one of the important parts of a holiday.
The other thing is the price. I really want to think that it is cheaper to stay closer to home, but unfortunately that doesn't always seem to be the case. A recent survey I saw claimed that 1 week for a family of 4 in Bulgaria, Turkey or Cyprus is cheaper than 1 week in Brighton. OK fair enough I am sure there are all sorts of variations and the figures calculated included car hire, which I guess you are less likely to need if holidaying in Brighton - but never the less it shows that Britain can be just as expensive as going abroad. (Not to mention that psychologically you know instantly how much you are actually paying because you are not doing half hearted currency calculations). From an environmental point of view that is not very good.
There are of course ways to make it cheaper, camping for example should be cheaper than a stay in a hotel, but for me this is where the lazy aspect comes in - I am just not keen. I like the part of the holiday that means comfy bed and not having to think too much about cooking, but camping holidays with all inclusive buffets are just not easy to come by...
Some people have mentioned to me eco tourism. These are usually holidays where you show a bit of respect for the local environment and its people and it usually doesn't entail an all-inclusive holiday park with excess food/drink, swimming pools, loud music and general disregard for the local area, but is more likely to include hill walking or some interesting natural or cultural aspect. From a personal point of view I would prefer an eco holiday anytime to a package deal to Spain, but there are 2 things that make me uncertain about eco holidays. One is the price, despite the fact that I think you generally get good stuff for your money it can be quite pricey because these holiday operators mostly try to give you a good experience and it can costs a bit to arrange knowledgeable guides to take you up a mountain, especially as they can't take tours of 80+ people at the time, because that would go against the principle of respecting the local environment. I am also slightly in doubt about how green these things are. It might work if you are going on a trip to the Scottish highlands learning about the fauna and flora of the glens, because you hopefully wouldn't fly there and are unlikely to cause major upset to the local culture; but what happens when you fly on an eco holiday to Malaysia or somewhere else exotic. While I definitely think these holidays are better than the conventional hotel and swimming pool stays, I don't know if they really are green? I mean if you fly there you have already used up a lot of your CO2 quota.
Anyway eco holidays are definitely not an option for us this year, so I didn't really need to worry about where they sit on the green scale. But that brought me back to the question of a feasible green option and this was when I realised that if I wanted any kind of break this year I would need to defy my lazy side! Which is how I found myself buying a 1/2 price tent I suddenly spotted in a shop. I actually purchased a tent! After years of coming up with excuses and being perfectly content with a split in the household that meant my husband did the camping thing with the guys and I stayed nice and cosy at home, we are now owners of a tent and I am out of reasons to give my daughter when she yet again asks why we never go camping.Help!
I only have one hope left. Yesterday we attempted to put the tent up, but after 1 1/2 hours of trying to decipher the encryption code used when writing the instructions and matching the information with the actual bits in the bag, we had to give up. It just made no sense!So if I am really lucky this tent just might be 'unpitchable'. On the other hand that would be rather silly and knowing my husband he will get this tent up one way or another and me - I will probably hope for a break in the rain, dream of a hotel room, congratulate myself for taking a greener holiday and then hopefully join the kids in having some fun!
Flying anywhere is kind of out of the question, so that quickly narrows down the destinations available. We could I guess make it to certain parts of Europe going through the Euro tunnel, but it would mean spending quite a lot of time travelling first down to London and then across the water, and I don't think the South of Italy or somewhere similar would be feasible to do with two young kids.
From that point of view it would make most sense to stay in Britain. I have nothing against Britain, we live in a generally nice place, but unfortunately the weather isn't always great and a bit of sunshine can be one of the important parts of a holiday.
The other thing is the price. I really want to think that it is cheaper to stay closer to home, but unfortunately that doesn't always seem to be the case. A recent survey I saw claimed that 1 week for a family of 4 in Bulgaria, Turkey or Cyprus is cheaper than 1 week in Brighton. OK fair enough I am sure there are all sorts of variations and the figures calculated included car hire, which I guess you are less likely to need if holidaying in Brighton - but never the less it shows that Britain can be just as expensive as going abroad. (Not to mention that psychologically you know instantly how much you are actually paying because you are not doing half hearted currency calculations). From an environmental point of view that is not very good.
There are of course ways to make it cheaper, camping for example should be cheaper than a stay in a hotel, but for me this is where the lazy aspect comes in - I am just not keen. I like the part of the holiday that means comfy bed and not having to think too much about cooking, but camping holidays with all inclusive buffets are just not easy to come by...
Some people have mentioned to me eco tourism. These are usually holidays where you show a bit of respect for the local environment and its people and it usually doesn't entail an all-inclusive holiday park with excess food/drink, swimming pools, loud music and general disregard for the local area, but is more likely to include hill walking or some interesting natural or cultural aspect. From a personal point of view I would prefer an eco holiday anytime to a package deal to Spain, but there are 2 things that make me uncertain about eco holidays. One is the price, despite the fact that I think you generally get good stuff for your money it can be quite pricey because these holiday operators mostly try to give you a good experience and it can costs a bit to arrange knowledgeable guides to take you up a mountain, especially as they can't take tours of 80+ people at the time, because that would go against the principle of respecting the local environment. I am also slightly in doubt about how green these things are. It might work if you are going on a trip to the Scottish highlands learning about the fauna and flora of the glens, because you hopefully wouldn't fly there and are unlikely to cause major upset to the local culture; but what happens when you fly on an eco holiday to Malaysia or somewhere else exotic. While I definitely think these holidays are better than the conventional hotel and swimming pool stays, I don't know if they really are green? I mean if you fly there you have already used up a lot of your CO2 quota.
Anyway eco holidays are definitely not an option for us this year, so I didn't really need to worry about where they sit on the green scale. But that brought me back to the question of a feasible green option and this was when I realised that if I wanted any kind of break this year I would need to defy my lazy side! Which is how I found myself buying a 1/2 price tent I suddenly spotted in a shop. I actually purchased a tent! After years of coming up with excuses and being perfectly content with a split in the household that meant my husband did the camping thing with the guys and I stayed nice and cosy at home, we are now owners of a tent and I am out of reasons to give my daughter when she yet again asks why we never go camping.Help!
I only have one hope left. Yesterday we attempted to put the tent up, but after 1 1/2 hours of trying to decipher the encryption code used when writing the instructions and matching the information with the actual bits in the bag, we had to give up. It just made no sense!So if I am really lucky this tent just might be 'unpitchable'. On the other hand that would be rather silly and knowing my husband he will get this tent up one way or another and me - I will probably hope for a break in the rain, dream of a hotel room, congratulate myself for taking a greener holiday and then hopefully join the kids in having some fun!
Monday 12 July 2010
Annoyingly green
There is a question I have asked myself several times lately: is it possible to be green without being incredible annoying?!
The fact is that the more you become involved with green living the more you start noticing the behaviour of the people around you and sometimes I need to bite my tongue.
For example today on my way to pick up my daughter from holiday club I walked past a parked car where the driver had just got in. He switched the engine on, but to my amazement he didn't drive off, instead he got out his newspaper and a pie and started reading/eating. When I walked back again 15 mins later they guy was still there engine still running. Why? Why did he have the engine running for more than 15 mins if he wasn't going anywhere? I seriously considered knocking on the window to ask him, but eventually decided against that, especially considering I had 2 children with me.
The question I ask myself now is '12 months ago would I have considered speaking to the guy?' No, definitely not. 'Would I even have noticed that he had his engine on for that amount of time?' Probably not. Then why do I care now? I set the challenge for our family to be greener I didn't suggest going on a mission to save the whole world. Is this what being green does to you: you become this annoying person on a crusade who wants to challenge everybody about their behaviour?
I am not quite sure where to take it from here. The fact is I have never been the missionary type of person and I don't really fancy becoming one, but all the knowledge I have collected in my head about the environment, our planet, our ways of wasting and consuming and lots of other things make it difficult to just stay silent.
Ideally I want to be one of the people who do green things just because that is the most natural thing for them to do. There is one mum that I always meet on the walk to school on rainy days (trust me there are not many of us) and she doesn't make her kids walk due to some green anthem, she just thinks walking is the best way to get there.
I know a family who would definitely live up to the green label on many fronts e.g. they grow lots of there own food (and keep chickens), they often choose the ferry when going abroad rather than the plane, they don't use the car much; but I don't think they see themselves as green - it is just the way they are.
I wonder how things will look for us in 15 years time. Will I then be able to be completely relaxed about our lifestyle and just plod on with my vegetables, bike rides, solar panels and zero waste lifestyle without feeling the urge to challenge everybody about their choices (to which they have every right). Or will I have turned into some green eyed monster that annoys everybody with endless rants about vegetables, bikes rides, solar panels and zero waste. Fingers crossed it will be the first one.
The fact is that the more you become involved with green living the more you start noticing the behaviour of the people around you and sometimes I need to bite my tongue.
For example today on my way to pick up my daughter from holiday club I walked past a parked car where the driver had just got in. He switched the engine on, but to my amazement he didn't drive off, instead he got out his newspaper and a pie and started reading/eating. When I walked back again 15 mins later they guy was still there engine still running. Why? Why did he have the engine running for more than 15 mins if he wasn't going anywhere? I seriously considered knocking on the window to ask him, but eventually decided against that, especially considering I had 2 children with me.
The question I ask myself now is '12 months ago would I have considered speaking to the guy?' No, definitely not. 'Would I even have noticed that he had his engine on for that amount of time?' Probably not. Then why do I care now? I set the challenge for our family to be greener I didn't suggest going on a mission to save the whole world. Is this what being green does to you: you become this annoying person on a crusade who wants to challenge everybody about their behaviour?
I am not quite sure where to take it from here. The fact is I have never been the missionary type of person and I don't really fancy becoming one, but all the knowledge I have collected in my head about the environment, our planet, our ways of wasting and consuming and lots of other things make it difficult to just stay silent.
Ideally I want to be one of the people who do green things just because that is the most natural thing for them to do. There is one mum that I always meet on the walk to school on rainy days (trust me there are not many of us) and she doesn't make her kids walk due to some green anthem, she just thinks walking is the best way to get there.
I know a family who would definitely live up to the green label on many fronts e.g. they grow lots of there own food (and keep chickens), they often choose the ferry when going abroad rather than the plane, they don't use the car much; but I don't think they see themselves as green - it is just the way they are.
I wonder how things will look for us in 15 years time. Will I then be able to be completely relaxed about our lifestyle and just plod on with my vegetables, bike rides, solar panels and zero waste lifestyle without feeling the urge to challenge everybody about their choices (to which they have every right). Or will I have turned into some green eyed monster that annoys everybody with endless rants about vegetables, bikes rides, solar panels and zero waste. Fingers crossed it will be the first one.
Tuesday 6 July 2010
Green inspiration
When I occasionally read a newspaper or surf the net I tend to be drawn towards environmental matters and as such I often pick up little bits of information that I think I could convert into something that would green up our household a little bit more. Usually this is good fun and spurs on all the little things we can do.
The other day I read that more trees in urban areas could be a good help to reducing air pollution and restore biodiversity. OK, we don't exactly live in the inner city, but it still reminded me that parts of the front garden could be used far more effectively than squares of grass and that I really need to think about redesigning it. I am sure we can create something far more friendly to bees and other helpful creatures, and with a bit of thought we should even be able to do it in a way that won't upset the neighbours...
Then there was a blog about somebody giving up supermarket shopping all together - a very interesting idea. I am not quite sure how I would cope with that, especially when it comes to getting stuff for the kids, but I will definitely go back and check how she is getting on, maybe it is feasible? If nothing else it was a strong reminder that I still haven't signed up for a veg box scheme! I wonder why this seem to be such a stumbling block for me - after all it is not exactly rocket science. I have a sneaky suspicion that I am scared I will end up with lots of 'funny' vegetables that I then need to learn to prepare and convince my children to eat... Frankly I am just making bad excuses - this will have to be my challenge for the week: get over the veg box phobia and order one (I think this is what is called cognitive behavioural therapy)
I also saw an article about a man in Brazil who built a solar water heater out of plastic bottles and milk cartons - how is that for doing your bit! I so admire people who actually do something about their ideas rather than just talk about it(no mention of veg boxes here please...)
Then came an article that made my heart sink: a woman wanting to be green should learn to do more DIY. Oh help! I totally support the idea that to be green also involves a higher level of self reliance and ability to sustain yourself - it makes sense, but do I really have to learn to plumb in toilets??? I probably shouldn't say this because it goes against everything I believe in when it comes to green living, equal rights and several other things as well, but frankly I find 90% of DIY exceedingly boring. I have absolutely no desire to learn to fix leaking taps or lay slabs. I don't even want to fix punctures on my bike if I can convince somebody else (read: my husband) to do it. It is not because I am scared of working - I did after all dig the vegetable plot from scratch, neither do I think it is above my abilities, I am sure I could learn - I just find it all so uninteresting. Does that mean I can never be a proper green woman?
Hmm, what to do. For now I think I will start with my veg box challenge, then maybe once I have done all the other things I need to learn as well, like successful gardening, cooking local produce, cycling with a heavy load without getting a heart attack, sewing something more advanced than table covers, making my own paper/candles/soap and turning used bottles into amazing energy saving features just then I might consider learning to fix that toilet.
The other day I read that more trees in urban areas could be a good help to reducing air pollution and restore biodiversity. OK, we don't exactly live in the inner city, but it still reminded me that parts of the front garden could be used far more effectively than squares of grass and that I really need to think about redesigning it. I am sure we can create something far more friendly to bees and other helpful creatures, and with a bit of thought we should even be able to do it in a way that won't upset the neighbours...
Then there was a blog about somebody giving up supermarket shopping all together - a very interesting idea. I am not quite sure how I would cope with that, especially when it comes to getting stuff for the kids, but I will definitely go back and check how she is getting on, maybe it is feasible? If nothing else it was a strong reminder that I still haven't signed up for a veg box scheme! I wonder why this seem to be such a stumbling block for me - after all it is not exactly rocket science. I have a sneaky suspicion that I am scared I will end up with lots of 'funny' vegetables that I then need to learn to prepare and convince my children to eat... Frankly I am just making bad excuses - this will have to be my challenge for the week: get over the veg box phobia and order one (I think this is what is called cognitive behavioural therapy)
I also saw an article about a man in Brazil who built a solar water heater out of plastic bottles and milk cartons - how is that for doing your bit! I so admire people who actually do something about their ideas rather than just talk about it(no mention of veg boxes here please...)
Then came an article that made my heart sink: a woman wanting to be green should learn to do more DIY. Oh help! I totally support the idea that to be green also involves a higher level of self reliance and ability to sustain yourself - it makes sense, but do I really have to learn to plumb in toilets??? I probably shouldn't say this because it goes against everything I believe in when it comes to green living, equal rights and several other things as well, but frankly I find 90% of DIY exceedingly boring. I have absolutely no desire to learn to fix leaking taps or lay slabs. I don't even want to fix punctures on my bike if I can convince somebody else (read: my husband) to do it. It is not because I am scared of working - I did after all dig the vegetable plot from scratch, neither do I think it is above my abilities, I am sure I could learn - I just find it all so uninteresting. Does that mean I can never be a proper green woman?
Hmm, what to do. For now I think I will start with my veg box challenge, then maybe once I have done all the other things I need to learn as well, like successful gardening, cooking local produce, cycling with a heavy load without getting a heart attack, sewing something more advanced than table covers, making my own paper/candles/soap and turning used bottles into amazing energy saving features just then I might consider learning to fix that toilet.
Tuesday 29 June 2010
Busy green bee
First of all my apologies to everybody for the extended silent period. I wish I could say it was due to some extreme green experiment that left me without access to my computer, but the fact is that I have just been extraordinarily busy these last few weeks and struggled a bit to squeeze everything in.
This rather stressful period has however been an interesting study of how well established our new green habits are, because when under pressure you are more likely to return to old ways. I am happy to announce that I think we can still declare ourselves on the green side.
We are continuing to be conscious of energy use - so much so that our energy supplier have just sent us notice that our monthly payments will be reduced by £20, not bad.
Separating all rubbish is now second nature and we don't really seem to think about it as an effort anymore.
Our car usage is still on a downwards trend and this was one of the areas I feared would suffer during busy times. This might have been slightly helped by the extremely nice weather we have been having, but never the less a good result. I surprised myself yesterday when cycling to a meeting in the rain getting rather wet and then realising I was actually enjoying the ride. There are definitely some hidden benefits to attempting a green lifestyle and cycling (and walking) more is one of them. It is great to get some fresh air and save money at the same time.
I should be honest though and admit that there has been some minor lapses as well.
There has been fewer trips to the local shops for food and imported produce has easily found its way into the shopping trolley. I have previously explained some of my issues with changing to more sustainable eating habits and that certainly doesn't get any easier when time is short.
Watering the garden has also been done with a hose a few times over the last weeks, the whole idea of spending double the time doing it with a watering can was more than my stressed out brain could cope with.
In fact the garden might have been the area suffering the most over this period. Although we have been very successful in some areas, e.g. loads of lettuce, handfuls of homegrown strawberries and peas almost ready to be eaten, the current state of the garden tells me that I simply cannot afford to ignore it for 2 weeks. (which also tells me that any degree of self sufficiency will be completely unobtainable for many years!)
When I finally got round to having a look at the garden I realised that a whole row of the potato plants I had been so proud of looked rather odd with brown patches on the leaves. Not good! I googled the issue and realised that some of my potatoes might suffer from blight. Not good at all! Even worse when I read that me using the hose to water the garden could have caused this- apparently you should always water potaoes at the stems rather than getting the leaves wet.
Then something odd happened - with me. I never considered myself a serious gardener, I was just having a bit of green fun, but realising my potato plants were ill turned me into some kind of Mary Knightingale of the veg world, completely ignoring all the other stuff I needed to do. I checked on several websites what action I should take and then immediately set about trying to save my remaining crop. I dug up the row that looked unwell and then proceeded to check every singly plant for signs of dark spots and then snipped and cut like a surgeon trying to save a life. Honestly if any of my old friends from before this green challenge had seen me, they would have thought I had lost plot. (The good part is that this action has given us our first homegrown potatoes - 15 of them, none of them looking like blight sufferers, so should make a tasty addition to tomorrows dinner...)
I am beginning to think that maybe I am much more committed to this green thing than I realised. Maybe the family has moved a lot further than we thought. Maybe, just maybe we will be able to declare this challenge a success...
This rather stressful period has however been an interesting study of how well established our new green habits are, because when under pressure you are more likely to return to old ways. I am happy to announce that I think we can still declare ourselves on the green side.
We are continuing to be conscious of energy use - so much so that our energy supplier have just sent us notice that our monthly payments will be reduced by £20, not bad.
Separating all rubbish is now second nature and we don't really seem to think about it as an effort anymore.
Our car usage is still on a downwards trend and this was one of the areas I feared would suffer during busy times. This might have been slightly helped by the extremely nice weather we have been having, but never the less a good result. I surprised myself yesterday when cycling to a meeting in the rain getting rather wet and then realising I was actually enjoying the ride. There are definitely some hidden benefits to attempting a green lifestyle and cycling (and walking) more is one of them. It is great to get some fresh air and save money at the same time.
I should be honest though and admit that there has been some minor lapses as well.
There has been fewer trips to the local shops for food and imported produce has easily found its way into the shopping trolley. I have previously explained some of my issues with changing to more sustainable eating habits and that certainly doesn't get any easier when time is short.
Watering the garden has also been done with a hose a few times over the last weeks, the whole idea of spending double the time doing it with a watering can was more than my stressed out brain could cope with.
In fact the garden might have been the area suffering the most over this period. Although we have been very successful in some areas, e.g. loads of lettuce, handfuls of homegrown strawberries and peas almost ready to be eaten, the current state of the garden tells me that I simply cannot afford to ignore it for 2 weeks. (which also tells me that any degree of self sufficiency will be completely unobtainable for many years!)
When I finally got round to having a look at the garden I realised that a whole row of the potato plants I had been so proud of looked rather odd with brown patches on the leaves. Not good! I googled the issue and realised that some of my potatoes might suffer from blight. Not good at all! Even worse when I read that me using the hose to water the garden could have caused this- apparently you should always water potaoes at the stems rather than getting the leaves wet.
Then something odd happened - with me. I never considered myself a serious gardener, I was just having a bit of green fun, but realising my potato plants were ill turned me into some kind of Mary Knightingale of the veg world, completely ignoring all the other stuff I needed to do. I checked on several websites what action I should take and then immediately set about trying to save my remaining crop. I dug up the row that looked unwell and then proceeded to check every singly plant for signs of dark spots and then snipped and cut like a surgeon trying to save a life. Honestly if any of my old friends from before this green challenge had seen me, they would have thought I had lost plot. (The good part is that this action has given us our first homegrown potatoes - 15 of them, none of them looking like blight sufferers, so should make a tasty addition to tomorrows dinner...)
I am beginning to think that maybe I am much more committed to this green thing than I realised. Maybe the family has moved a lot further than we thought. Maybe, just maybe we will be able to declare this challenge a success...
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Footprinting
Carbonfoot prints are funny things, I am not quite sure I fully understand them, and I am certainly not convinced by the accuracy of the calculations, but I guess some kind of measurement is better than nothing.
I remember in a previous employment I got tasked with collecting all the information for calculating the organisation's foot print. I was amazed that half of the stuff we used to do to be environmentally friendly, like printing on both sides of the paper, switching everything off and composting teabags, made absolutely no difference, it was simply not considered. Fortunately we still ended up looking extremely good, but that had more to do with the nature of our work (we only worked in Scotland so no flights round the World and we provided services, not goods, so no massive deliveries by articulated lorries), than to do with the measures we had taken. The experience didn't really fill me with confidence in the calculations.
My half hearted approach to carbon footprinting didn't stop me looking however, when I saw an article about a new book calculating the carbon cost of all sorts of activities. Fascinating reading although it did absolutely nothing to convince me that carbon footprinting is useful, but I still feel the urge to share the information.
Apparently one trip by plane has the same carbon foot print as 340.000 disposable carrier bags! That is a lot of bags. I wonder how many shopping trips that is the equivalent off?
The football world cup has a footprint of 2.8 million tonnes CO2, and that is not even including the power used for all those TVs tuned into the matches. I guess that makes watching football a not very green activity. (I might still sneak a match or two though)
I could spend some time texting in stead, but unsurprisingly that has a footprint attached to it as well. An average text that takes 1 minute to write and 1 minute to read means 0.014g of CO2 into the atmosphere. This obviously doesn't take into consideration people like me who are rather slow at texting, so my txts just might cause even more CO2. Of course if you are a teenager it wouldn't take you a minute to write a txt, you could do at least 4 in that time, so that might make up for it. I am secretly fascinated by teenagers and their mobile phone skills, most of them seem to do it automatically without even looking and they do it constantly - what is it they say to each other??? I know of a kid whose parents got him a contract with unlimited texting. It obviously turned out that unlimited wasn't really the correct term, there was indeed a limit and they got hit with quite a bill when their son had sent more than 4000 txts in a month! That would make a mark on your carbon footprint...
So if not watching football and not texting, maybe I should do the washing. Here was a pleasant surprise and confirmation that we made the right decision not to have a tumble drier. If you do a wash at 40 and line dry it it produces 0.7kg of CO2. If you turn the temperature down to 30 degrees the impact goes down to 0.6kg. But if you stick the same wash in a tumble drier the carbon footprint will be 2.4kg. That is quite a difference.
But before getting too pleased with myself I saw the carbon footprint of having children. Apparently the average child will cause 373 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted over the course of their life - I have 2 children, so that makes 746 tonnes. Thankfully it was estimated that a carbon conscious child will only cause 100 tonnes, so hopefully I will manage to bring my kids closer to 100 tonnes rather than 373 tonnes.
So what should I conclude from this - well my washing habits are not too bad, but the World Cup is out (can't really tell my husband that though...), I need to learn to txt faster and we are definitely not having any more children! Guess that is that sorted then...
If anybody is interested the book is called 'How Bad Are Bananas' by Mike Berners-Lee. I got this summary information from the Ecologist:
I remember in a previous employment I got tasked with collecting all the information for calculating the organisation's foot print. I was amazed that half of the stuff we used to do to be environmentally friendly, like printing on both sides of the paper, switching everything off and composting teabags, made absolutely no difference, it was simply not considered. Fortunately we still ended up looking extremely good, but that had more to do with the nature of our work (we only worked in Scotland so no flights round the World and we provided services, not goods, so no massive deliveries by articulated lorries), than to do with the measures we had taken. The experience didn't really fill me with confidence in the calculations.
My half hearted approach to carbon footprinting didn't stop me looking however, when I saw an article about a new book calculating the carbon cost of all sorts of activities. Fascinating reading although it did absolutely nothing to convince me that carbon footprinting is useful, but I still feel the urge to share the information.
Apparently one trip by plane has the same carbon foot print as 340.000 disposable carrier bags! That is a lot of bags. I wonder how many shopping trips that is the equivalent off?
The football world cup has a footprint of 2.8 million tonnes CO2, and that is not even including the power used for all those TVs tuned into the matches. I guess that makes watching football a not very green activity. (I might still sneak a match or two though)
I could spend some time texting in stead, but unsurprisingly that has a footprint attached to it as well. An average text that takes 1 minute to write and 1 minute to read means 0.014g of CO2 into the atmosphere. This obviously doesn't take into consideration people like me who are rather slow at texting, so my txts just might cause even more CO2. Of course if you are a teenager it wouldn't take you a minute to write a txt, you could do at least 4 in that time, so that might make up for it. I am secretly fascinated by teenagers and their mobile phone skills, most of them seem to do it automatically without even looking and they do it constantly - what is it they say to each other??? I know of a kid whose parents got him a contract with unlimited texting. It obviously turned out that unlimited wasn't really the correct term, there was indeed a limit and they got hit with quite a bill when their son had sent more than 4000 txts in a month! That would make a mark on your carbon footprint...
So if not watching football and not texting, maybe I should do the washing. Here was a pleasant surprise and confirmation that we made the right decision not to have a tumble drier. If you do a wash at 40 and line dry it it produces 0.7kg of CO2. If you turn the temperature down to 30 degrees the impact goes down to 0.6kg. But if you stick the same wash in a tumble drier the carbon footprint will be 2.4kg. That is quite a difference.
But before getting too pleased with myself I saw the carbon footprint of having children. Apparently the average child will cause 373 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted over the course of their life - I have 2 children, so that makes 746 tonnes. Thankfully it was estimated that a carbon conscious child will only cause 100 tonnes, so hopefully I will manage to bring my kids closer to 100 tonnes rather than 373 tonnes.
So what should I conclude from this - well my washing habits are not too bad, but the World Cup is out (can't really tell my husband that though...), I need to learn to txt faster and we are definitely not having any more children! Guess that is that sorted then...
If anybody is interested the book is called 'How Bad Are Bananas' by Mike Berners-Lee. I got this summary information from the Ecologist:
Sunday 6 June 2010
Eat green(s)
This weekend we ate the first homegrown produce of the season - fantastic! OK, they were just small lettuce leaves, but they tasted great, even my daughter liked them, and there is something very satisfying about eating stuff you planted yourself. It was nice to get a boost on the food side of being green, because frankly I struggle quite a lot on that front.
We still eat vegetarian at least twice a week and we definitely eat more local produce than before, but I still think we have an awful long way to go to have proper sustainable eating habits.
When I go shopping it keeps churning in my head that we should eat local and in season, but I am not sure how I would feed the family that way. Trying to think of fruit that is in season just now mainly points me to rhubarb, and that wouldn't really work in my daughters snack box for school...
When we started out some things came relatively easy, e.g. saving on energy use - it doesn't take new knowledge or a lot of effort to achieve. Other things have been a bit harder, for example it is only recently that my bike has had proper usage, but we have managed to lower our petrol usage considerably - it mainly takes a bit of effort, no new knowledge required. Food is different!
I feel I need to be completely re-educated. I have spent most of my life being told about the importance of getting your daily fruit and veg, but I don't know how to do that solely on local produce in season? I simply haven't got the required skill set.
On top of that comes the problem that we are all used to eating dishes from all corners of the world, and living primarily on food grown/reared locally would limit choices a lot. I am not suggesting that would necessarily be bad, but it would take quite a lot of getting used to and I am not sure how I would present it to my kids. How would I explain to them that they can't eat bananas like everybody else just because that fruit doesn't grow here - they would definitely answer 'but you can buy them in the shops'. Not to mention they would have the argument that fruit is good for you. Even harder, how would I convince them to eat whatever local alternative I might find to ensure they get their 5 a day, because green or not I still don't want my kids to suffer malnutrion.
I have no doubt that it helps slightly that we are trying to grow stuff in the garden, the kids are fascinated with it, and it should give them some kind of idea about seasons etc, but it would never really convince them to give up bananas, cucumbers and a whole long range of other things. (I am here completely ignoring the fact that my gardening skills are totally insufficient anyway to grow food of a quality and quantity that could feed the family!)
Actually thinking about it all just now, I realise that I have to accept this as a very long term project - that is the only solution. That way I can spend the next 15-20 years improving my gardening and cooking skills, which should then give us a much higher level on the self sufficiency scale and by that time my kids will have left home and I don't need to worry about them having tantrums at the dinner table. Yippee, all solved - who said you can't plan your way out of problems...?
We still eat vegetarian at least twice a week and we definitely eat more local produce than before, but I still think we have an awful long way to go to have proper sustainable eating habits.
When I go shopping it keeps churning in my head that we should eat local and in season, but I am not sure how I would feed the family that way. Trying to think of fruit that is in season just now mainly points me to rhubarb, and that wouldn't really work in my daughters snack box for school...
When we started out some things came relatively easy, e.g. saving on energy use - it doesn't take new knowledge or a lot of effort to achieve. Other things have been a bit harder, for example it is only recently that my bike has had proper usage, but we have managed to lower our petrol usage considerably - it mainly takes a bit of effort, no new knowledge required. Food is different!
I feel I need to be completely re-educated. I have spent most of my life being told about the importance of getting your daily fruit and veg, but I don't know how to do that solely on local produce in season? I simply haven't got the required skill set.
On top of that comes the problem that we are all used to eating dishes from all corners of the world, and living primarily on food grown/reared locally would limit choices a lot. I am not suggesting that would necessarily be bad, but it would take quite a lot of getting used to and I am not sure how I would present it to my kids. How would I explain to them that they can't eat bananas like everybody else just because that fruit doesn't grow here - they would definitely answer 'but you can buy them in the shops'. Not to mention they would have the argument that fruit is good for you. Even harder, how would I convince them to eat whatever local alternative I might find to ensure they get their 5 a day, because green or not I still don't want my kids to suffer malnutrion.
I have no doubt that it helps slightly that we are trying to grow stuff in the garden, the kids are fascinated with it, and it should give them some kind of idea about seasons etc, but it would never really convince them to give up bananas, cucumbers and a whole long range of other things. (I am here completely ignoring the fact that my gardening skills are totally insufficient anyway to grow food of a quality and quantity that could feed the family!)
Actually thinking about it all just now, I realise that I have to accept this as a very long term project - that is the only solution. That way I can spend the next 15-20 years improving my gardening and cooking skills, which should then give us a much higher level on the self sufficiency scale and by that time my kids will have left home and I don't need to worry about them having tantrums at the dinner table. Yippee, all solved - who said you can't plan your way out of problems...?
Sunday 30 May 2010
Success!
I quite often wonder if our change to a greener lifestyle is failing. Like when I once again show up at the supermarket having forgotten my own shopping bags at home, or when my husband brings home an extra large container of chemical weed kill, or I stay in the shower just that bit longer than it really takes to wash my hair or I put Argentinian blueberries in the shopping basket or I do jump in the car for a short journey or I yet again forget to switch the modem off or ...
These are the times when I need to remind myself of the progress we have made, and this week actually gave me a few hints that we are going in the right direction.
It started when I looked at the National Geographic quarterly green supplement. As previous editions it had several articles with various green information from garden advice and seasonal cooking to green celebrities and model towns. After reading it I realised that there was hardly anything new in it for me. This was all stuff I knew about! This might sound boring, but to me that was quite an achievement. Imagine that, I now have so much green knowledge that National Geographic can't teach me anything... Well, that is obviously not the case, I am sure there is still lots for me to learn, but it was good to realise that I do know more now than I did 9 months ago. I am moving up the ranks in the green brigade...
The most encouraging thing however happened during a thoroughly ungreen event. At the weekend we ended up driving(!) to one of these big shopping centres that contains just about every chain store Britain has ever seen, so basically a shrine to modern consumerism and the exact opposite of sustainable living. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often,(I think it is the first time we have been there since Christmas), but we had various reasons for going - it wasn't just random shopping.
It made me feel rather sad to see all this money being spent seemingly without any regard for real needs, resources, waste etc. Lunchtime however cheered me up - not because it was a spectacular meal, but because my kids made me proud.
In true shopping centre style we were in one of the chain restaurants and they always give out some kind of activity pack to entertain the kids. It seems that even these businesses are beginning to catch on to the green trend and the theme of this pack was actually recycling. Although I am not convinced about the restaurant's genuine commitment to reduction of waste, I was impressed by the ease with which my children completed the activities. I was very happy that my 5 year old could easily name things that can be recycled, reused, given to charity or cpomposted, it obviously seemed very natural to her to do this. I was even more impressed that my 3 year old knew what should go into the different bins, eg. flowers into garden waste bin, magazines in the paper bin etc - how does he know? I decided to take this as a massive pat on the back. Well done us, we seem to have got some kind of message across to the kids.
This is probably enough self gloating for now, if I don't stop I might start thinking we have successfully become green already! Fact is that we still have quite some way to go - but hey, we might as well celebrate along the way, it makes it all more fun.
These are the times when I need to remind myself of the progress we have made, and this week actually gave me a few hints that we are going in the right direction.
It started when I looked at the National Geographic quarterly green supplement. As previous editions it had several articles with various green information from garden advice and seasonal cooking to green celebrities and model towns. After reading it I realised that there was hardly anything new in it for me. This was all stuff I knew about! This might sound boring, but to me that was quite an achievement. Imagine that, I now have so much green knowledge that National Geographic can't teach me anything... Well, that is obviously not the case, I am sure there is still lots for me to learn, but it was good to realise that I do know more now than I did 9 months ago. I am moving up the ranks in the green brigade...
The most encouraging thing however happened during a thoroughly ungreen event. At the weekend we ended up driving(!) to one of these big shopping centres that contains just about every chain store Britain has ever seen, so basically a shrine to modern consumerism and the exact opposite of sustainable living. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often,(I think it is the first time we have been there since Christmas), but we had various reasons for going - it wasn't just random shopping.
It made me feel rather sad to see all this money being spent seemingly without any regard for real needs, resources, waste etc. Lunchtime however cheered me up - not because it was a spectacular meal, but because my kids made me proud.
In true shopping centre style we were in one of the chain restaurants and they always give out some kind of activity pack to entertain the kids. It seems that even these businesses are beginning to catch on to the green trend and the theme of this pack was actually recycling. Although I am not convinced about the restaurant's genuine commitment to reduction of waste, I was impressed by the ease with which my children completed the activities. I was very happy that my 5 year old could easily name things that can be recycled, reused, given to charity or cpomposted, it obviously seemed very natural to her to do this. I was even more impressed that my 3 year old knew what should go into the different bins, eg. flowers into garden waste bin, magazines in the paper bin etc - how does he know? I decided to take this as a massive pat on the back. Well done us, we seem to have got some kind of message across to the kids.
This is probably enough self gloating for now, if I don't stop I might start thinking we have successfully become green already! Fact is that we still have quite some way to go - but hey, we might as well celebrate along the way, it makes it all more fun.
Sunday 23 May 2010
Ants
A war happened this week in our house! No, not a spectacular marital dispute, not even another stand off with my very stubborn 3 year old - but we had an invasion and I simply had to act. Wednesday morning we came down to the kitchen to find ants crawling everywhere! I was not amused, I have a serious dislike to ants inside the house. It might have to do with growing up in a house with regular ant infestations despite my parents' never ending attempts at keeping the little black creatures outside, but whatever the reason for my dislike I knew these ants had to get out of my kitchen asap.
Not long ago I had read that bicarbonate of soda is a deterrent for ants, so I straight away grabbed a tub from the cleaning cupboard and sprinkled everywhere. It doesn't work! the ants were happily walking all over it!
So I turned to my trusted friend in a crisis: google. As always I ended up with a wealth of information and an uncertainty about how much of it was actually true. Unfortunately one fact seem to be popping up again and again: never kill individual ants inside the house, the ant will release a scent that the fellow ants will pick up and they will all come to the funeral. This was worrying not least because I had frantically been killing ants all morning, what else was I supposed to do, ask them politely to leave? It is concerning that ants apparently have this built in kamikaze instinct - 'my pal just died, so I should definitely head to the same place'. In a war situation that is a frightening enemy.
Anyway I also got a list of various stuff that is supposed to keep ants away, incl. cinnamon, red chili powder, black pepper, vinegar, vaseline, chalk and baby powder. Some of them I quickly dismissed, e.g. the black pepper. I sneeze when I put pepper in to cooking, so sprinkling it all over the kitchen in the middle of hay fever season seemed a bad idea. Chalk didn't seem very convincing either, apparently you can draw a line with chalk and the ants won't cross it - but frankly I found that hard to believe unless it was a really, really thick line.
Vaseline however seemed worth a try, I kind of imagined that to an ant it wouldn't be pleasant to walk in, so I smeared vaseline round the door, on skirting boards, the edge of the floor - more or less everywhere and then I sat down to watch. Somehow I had imagined that the ants would just vanish, but they kept reappearing from other places. So I decided to try something else and chose chili pepper. A few minutes later I had a rather sticky red substance around the kitchen door consisting of vaseline topped with chili. Surely this would do the trick.
I watched the gaps in the door where the ants originally seemed to come in and the numbers there definitely diminished, but every time I looked at the end of the kitchen counter, there were hordes of them there. Where were they coming from?
I looked in all the cupboards under the counter, but no black creepies. I checked for gaps in the floor or the walls, still no success. So when my husband phoned the poor man got a long rant about these mysterious ants appearing out of nowhere.
I spent a long time that day watching the same corner of the kitchen, I even sprayed some vinegar solution in case that worked, but despite my efforts ants were still appearing and I had no idea where from. Desperation was therefore setting in, when my husband appeared with a tub of ant kill. I am sure the prospect of me ranting all night about ants made him think that on this occasion chemicals were needed. I am not proud of it, but I grabbed the small container and sprinkled away.
And then I realised a place I hadn't checked: my 2 tomato plants on the kitchen counter. I lifted them up... and hordes of ants came crawling. I am now guessing that all my mysterious ants probably came from the plant - they were already in the house before I started my vaseline/chili campaign. Hmm - this kind of leaves me with a dilemma, because I am now not sure if that sticky red stuff actually did work to keep ants outs, after all the steady stream of newcomers did slow down dramatically after putting it on, or if it was only thanks to my chemical warfare that the kitchen was ant free the next morning??!
So what have I learned. Well, besides from the fact that Bicarbonate of soda definitely doesn't work as an ant deterrent the main lesson is probably that I need to calm down. To be truly green I cannot run around becoming obsessed with getting rid of ants (or anything else for that matter) instantly - it leads to bad decisions. So next step on the green path: learn to chill!
Not long ago I had read that bicarbonate of soda is a deterrent for ants, so I straight away grabbed a tub from the cleaning cupboard and sprinkled everywhere. It doesn't work! the ants were happily walking all over it!
So I turned to my trusted friend in a crisis: google. As always I ended up with a wealth of information and an uncertainty about how much of it was actually true. Unfortunately one fact seem to be popping up again and again: never kill individual ants inside the house, the ant will release a scent that the fellow ants will pick up and they will all come to the funeral. This was worrying not least because I had frantically been killing ants all morning, what else was I supposed to do, ask them politely to leave? It is concerning that ants apparently have this built in kamikaze instinct - 'my pal just died, so I should definitely head to the same place'. In a war situation that is a frightening enemy.
Anyway I also got a list of various stuff that is supposed to keep ants away, incl. cinnamon, red chili powder, black pepper, vinegar, vaseline, chalk and baby powder. Some of them I quickly dismissed, e.g. the black pepper. I sneeze when I put pepper in to cooking, so sprinkling it all over the kitchen in the middle of hay fever season seemed a bad idea. Chalk didn't seem very convincing either, apparently you can draw a line with chalk and the ants won't cross it - but frankly I found that hard to believe unless it was a really, really thick line.
Vaseline however seemed worth a try, I kind of imagined that to an ant it wouldn't be pleasant to walk in, so I smeared vaseline round the door, on skirting boards, the edge of the floor - more or less everywhere and then I sat down to watch. Somehow I had imagined that the ants would just vanish, but they kept reappearing from other places. So I decided to try something else and chose chili pepper. A few minutes later I had a rather sticky red substance around the kitchen door consisting of vaseline topped with chili. Surely this would do the trick.
I watched the gaps in the door where the ants originally seemed to come in and the numbers there definitely diminished, but every time I looked at the end of the kitchen counter, there were hordes of them there. Where were they coming from?
I looked in all the cupboards under the counter, but no black creepies. I checked for gaps in the floor or the walls, still no success. So when my husband phoned the poor man got a long rant about these mysterious ants appearing out of nowhere.
I spent a long time that day watching the same corner of the kitchen, I even sprayed some vinegar solution in case that worked, but despite my efforts ants were still appearing and I had no idea where from. Desperation was therefore setting in, when my husband appeared with a tub of ant kill. I am sure the prospect of me ranting all night about ants made him think that on this occasion chemicals were needed. I am not proud of it, but I grabbed the small container and sprinkled away.
And then I realised a place I hadn't checked: my 2 tomato plants on the kitchen counter. I lifted them up... and hordes of ants came crawling. I am now guessing that all my mysterious ants probably came from the plant - they were already in the house before I started my vaseline/chili campaign. Hmm - this kind of leaves me with a dilemma, because I am now not sure if that sticky red stuff actually did work to keep ants outs, after all the steady stream of newcomers did slow down dramatically after putting it on, or if it was only thanks to my chemical warfare that the kitchen was ant free the next morning??!
So what have I learned. Well, besides from the fact that Bicarbonate of soda definitely doesn't work as an ant deterrent the main lesson is probably that I need to calm down. To be truly green I cannot run around becoming obsessed with getting rid of ants (or anything else for that matter) instantly - it leads to bad decisions. So next step on the green path: learn to chill!
Sunday 16 May 2010
Birthday cake
As part of the green project we have been trying to cut down on food with incomprehensible lists of ingredients. There is something rather bizarre about eating stuff that you don't actually know what is and I am not talking about exotic fruits or rare sorts of flour, but all the chemicals, additives etc that exist in a lot of food.
I am definitely no Michelin starred chef and as a working mum I often need something quick and easy to feed the family, so I know exactly why a lot of us end up eating fish fingers, beans and other culinary 'delights'. But I have managed to change my track record to some extend and it has brought some surprises with it.
E.g. for years my daughter refused to eat sausages, she said they were horrible; but since we started buying most meat from the local butcher this has completely changed and she will now happily finish a plate - and ask for seconds. Same story goes for burgers - at a visit to an organic farm she suddenly realised that burgers can be very delicious and Daddy ended up with only one bite to himself.
The problem is that we are so used to the chemical substitutes that the alternative can be hard to find, or be rather expensive. I was therefore delighted when my husband brought home an article on homemade food colouring - just in time for my son's 3rd birthday. Children's birthdays usually end up as a rather horrendous cocktail of additives, chemicals and far from natural colours, so this was my chance to show that things can be different.
When making your own food colouring you basically use the juice from cooked fruit or veg and I was all set to go when I came across the first problem. A lot of fruit produces pink juice! That will be great for my daughter's next birthday, but somehow a pink train wasn't really the plan for this birthday party. The article did suggest to make green icing using spinach, but frankly the idea of chocolate cake with spinach icing didn't sound very good to me and probably even worse to my son who hates spinach. So I decided to opt for the darkest fruit I could find and ended up with a small tray of bramble - obviously imported from somewhere, so not exactly local, but sometimes compromises have to be made. And I did manage to create a liquid of a reasonably dark colour - definitely not princess pink. So far so good.
Then it started going down hill. I had opted for plain sugar icing, because it is simple to make and that way I could avoid buying ready made stuff with additives in it. I had however forgotten to check the cocoa level in the cupboard and the tub was empty! My chocolate icing plan was out of the window. This meant I was down to 2 colours: dark pink and white.
I was still optimistic it could be done - one mishap wasn't going to spoil my ambition of a totally natural birthday cake!
So I started spreading the white icing... Which very quickly turned into white icing filled with little brown specks of chocolate cake crumbs. Not good. It all looked rather dirty and not very attractive. I had used up all the red(ish) icing, so couldn't just cover it up and I was very quickly running out of time before the birthday guests arrived. This was the part when my ambition collapsed!
I needed something to attract attention away from the 'dirty' white icing and started rumaging through cupboards. What did I find: a box of mini smarties and some sprinkles. Perfect! Bright and colourful, nobody would notice the brown specks.
And the point of this story is? Maybe that no birthday can be complete without a few chemical additives? Hopefully not! The point is actually that it is not that difficult to make your own food colouring, if I can most people can. The only thing to remember is not to be as unorganised as me, check you cupboard for ingredients before shopping rather than 15min before the guests arrive!
Here is a picture of my efforts - even if I didn't quite succeed!
PS If anybody fancies giving homemade food colouring a go this is the article I worked from:
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/824504-it-s-the-icing-on-the-cake-naturally
I am definitely no Michelin starred chef and as a working mum I often need something quick and easy to feed the family, so I know exactly why a lot of us end up eating fish fingers, beans and other culinary 'delights'. But I have managed to change my track record to some extend and it has brought some surprises with it.
E.g. for years my daughter refused to eat sausages, she said they were horrible; but since we started buying most meat from the local butcher this has completely changed and she will now happily finish a plate - and ask for seconds. Same story goes for burgers - at a visit to an organic farm she suddenly realised that burgers can be very delicious and Daddy ended up with only one bite to himself.
The problem is that we are so used to the chemical substitutes that the alternative can be hard to find, or be rather expensive. I was therefore delighted when my husband brought home an article on homemade food colouring - just in time for my son's 3rd birthday. Children's birthdays usually end up as a rather horrendous cocktail of additives, chemicals and far from natural colours, so this was my chance to show that things can be different.
When making your own food colouring you basically use the juice from cooked fruit or veg and I was all set to go when I came across the first problem. A lot of fruit produces pink juice! That will be great for my daughter's next birthday, but somehow a pink train wasn't really the plan for this birthday party. The article did suggest to make green icing using spinach, but frankly the idea of chocolate cake with spinach icing didn't sound very good to me and probably even worse to my son who hates spinach. So I decided to opt for the darkest fruit I could find and ended up with a small tray of bramble - obviously imported from somewhere, so not exactly local, but sometimes compromises have to be made. And I did manage to create a liquid of a reasonably dark colour - definitely not princess pink. So far so good.
Then it started going down hill. I had opted for plain sugar icing, because it is simple to make and that way I could avoid buying ready made stuff with additives in it. I had however forgotten to check the cocoa level in the cupboard and the tub was empty! My chocolate icing plan was out of the window. This meant I was down to 2 colours: dark pink and white.
I was still optimistic it could be done - one mishap wasn't going to spoil my ambition of a totally natural birthday cake!
So I started spreading the white icing... Which very quickly turned into white icing filled with little brown specks of chocolate cake crumbs. Not good. It all looked rather dirty and not very attractive. I had used up all the red(ish) icing, so couldn't just cover it up and I was very quickly running out of time before the birthday guests arrived. This was the part when my ambition collapsed!
I needed something to attract attention away from the 'dirty' white icing and started rumaging through cupboards. What did I find: a box of mini smarties and some sprinkles. Perfect! Bright and colourful, nobody would notice the brown specks.
And the point of this story is? Maybe that no birthday can be complete without a few chemical additives? Hopefully not! The point is actually that it is not that difficult to make your own food colouring, if I can most people can. The only thing to remember is not to be as unorganised as me, check you cupboard for ingredients before shopping rather than 15min before the guests arrive!
Here is a picture of my efforts - even if I didn't quite succeed!
PS If anybody fancies giving homemade food colouring a go this is the article I worked from:
http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/824504-it-s-the-icing-on-the-cake-naturally
Monday 10 May 2010
Selfish green people
Last week I came across another interesting article in the Ecologist: apparently research suggests that when we act green we do it for selfish reasons and not for the greater good. That got me thinking! Why exactly is it we are doing this and what are we getting out of it. I realised that we probably do get a fair amount self satisfaction out of being green.
When we started I wanted to see if it was possible to live an ordinary family life the green way and I think it is, nobody in the family appears to have suffered serious trauma from this project; but I am wondering if I am becoming a bit smug about the whole thing.
I have never been the preaching type, and I try to not wind up everybody I know by shoving green living up their noses constantly, but maybe I do sometimes think to myself that I am morally on higher ground?
The truth is that in some circles of society there is definitely prestige in living the green life, and maybe gaining some of that prestige is as much a factor in our decisions as actually saving the planet.
I tried to analyse which parts of our green lifestyle has been most successful, and not surprisingly they are the ones that have a direct impact on the here and now. When I run around switching off lights etc to save energy, I do it just as much to save money as to save the planet. When I get on my bike to go to town rather than take the car I do it both for the sense of achievement as for the carbon footprint. When I potter about in the garden trying to grow something edible I feel some kind a connection with nature and the seasons, although that is a load of nonsense, because I would be very miserable if I had to be fully self sufficient and actually survive in Nature's conditions. When I walk the kids to school in the rain I probably like doing imaginary head shaking at all the parents in the cars. When I clean with vinegar I just might be giving myself a pat on the back.
The ones that have been less successful are the ones that cost money or otherwise make life more difficult. I mean we haven't fully given up on the car and we are highly unlikely to do that. We haven't even changed to a smaller more environmentally friendly car, because it is too expensive, and frankly if we were very very serious about being green we should just sell it altogether!
Likewise we don't buy 100% local produce (although we get a fair bit), because we would need to allocate more money to buying food and therefore give up on something else.
So where does that put the future of the Planet if we are really mainly doing it for our own gain? Well that depends, because if we can make it seriously attractive to be green lots of people are likely to do something. If it gave your image a massive boost to have a compost in your garden, lots more people would have them. If it was considered cool to arrive to work on a bike, lots more people would do it. But right now this is not the case and the 'eco brigade' has a lot of work to do to remove the image of treehuggers.
I don't think it matters why people do green stuff, if they do it for the Planet that is great, if they actually do it to achieve a feeling of self satisfaction that is fine as well - as long as it gets done.
So here is my advice to people who wants to be green, but never really get much further than thinking: find some seriously committed people to hang out with! That way you end up doing green stuff to improve your image, while hopefully saving the planet at the same time.
When we started I wanted to see if it was possible to live an ordinary family life the green way and I think it is, nobody in the family appears to have suffered serious trauma from this project; but I am wondering if I am becoming a bit smug about the whole thing.
I have never been the preaching type, and I try to not wind up everybody I know by shoving green living up their noses constantly, but maybe I do sometimes think to myself that I am morally on higher ground?
The truth is that in some circles of society there is definitely prestige in living the green life, and maybe gaining some of that prestige is as much a factor in our decisions as actually saving the planet.
I tried to analyse which parts of our green lifestyle has been most successful, and not surprisingly they are the ones that have a direct impact on the here and now. When I run around switching off lights etc to save energy, I do it just as much to save money as to save the planet. When I get on my bike to go to town rather than take the car I do it both for the sense of achievement as for the carbon footprint. When I potter about in the garden trying to grow something edible I feel some kind a connection with nature and the seasons, although that is a load of nonsense, because I would be very miserable if I had to be fully self sufficient and actually survive in Nature's conditions. When I walk the kids to school in the rain I probably like doing imaginary head shaking at all the parents in the cars. When I clean with vinegar I just might be giving myself a pat on the back.
The ones that have been less successful are the ones that cost money or otherwise make life more difficult. I mean we haven't fully given up on the car and we are highly unlikely to do that. We haven't even changed to a smaller more environmentally friendly car, because it is too expensive, and frankly if we were very very serious about being green we should just sell it altogether!
Likewise we don't buy 100% local produce (although we get a fair bit), because we would need to allocate more money to buying food and therefore give up on something else.
So where does that put the future of the Planet if we are really mainly doing it for our own gain? Well that depends, because if we can make it seriously attractive to be green lots of people are likely to do something. If it gave your image a massive boost to have a compost in your garden, lots more people would have them. If it was considered cool to arrive to work on a bike, lots more people would do it. But right now this is not the case and the 'eco brigade' has a lot of work to do to remove the image of treehuggers.
I don't think it matters why people do green stuff, if they do it for the Planet that is great, if they actually do it to achieve a feeling of self satisfaction that is fine as well - as long as it gets done.
So here is my advice to people who wants to be green, but never really get much further than thinking: find some seriously committed people to hang out with! That way you end up doing green stuff to improve your image, while hopefully saving the planet at the same time.
Sunday 2 May 2010
Green Cleaning 2
Last time I wrote about cleaning was just before Christmas. It is now May and a spring clean is long overdue. Unfortunately this blog isn't really about some fantastic cleaning feat of mine, I am never going to be a domestic goddess - but this weekend I finally managed to take something off my to do list.
One of my pet hates is cleaning the oven. I just find that the most boring and annoying job on the cleaning list, and it always gets left far too long! This time was no exception: the fact is (and I really shouldn't be admitting to this) that until yesterday my oven still had a layer of grease in the bottom from the overflowing Christmas turkey. I know it is quite horrible, but because I am lucky enough to have 2 ovens the 'turkey oven' just kind of got decommissioned, as I could always think of other more important things to take care of. I realise I am not putting myself in a good light here, but I wanted to make the picture clear as to the state of the oven, when I finally got round to tackling it.
As I have more or less cleared the cleaning cupboard of chemicals I expected to have quite a job on my hands. Even after researching my options and choosing to go for the 'soak in bicarbonate of soda layer' option I wasn't fully convinced that sprinkling a layer of the white stuff, spraying it with water and then leaving it overnight was going to rid me of seriously burnt on Christmas dinner. Guess what, it actually did work! I am still amazed. OK, the oven is not 100% stain free, but there is definitely no more turkey grease in there.
Even better it wasn't particularly hard work and the real bonus was avoiding the headache from the intoxicating fumes of standard oven cleaner. Result!
So after this success I decided to have a good look in the new Green Cleaning book I have been given as a present. Fascinating reading - with a tub of bicarbonate of soda, a bottle of vinegar and a few lemons you can clean almost anything, not to mention get rid of weeds, take out splinters easily, remove unwanted perfume and lots of other things.
I found a couple of things I really wanted to try, but it isn't really season right now:
- Apparently it is easy to clean the grill on the BBQ with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar - must remember that after our next barbecue here in 'sunny' Scotland.
- Thankfully the really frosty season should be over for now, but when the winter returns, I will need to try this: spraying the car windscreen with a solution of 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water should keep the windows ice and frost free.
What really grabbed my interest was the suggestions for killing weeds, it seems you can either pour vinegar on them or for patio/path areas you can sprinkle salt. After spending most of a day pulling weeds out of the garden I most definitely have to try that.
Or how about making your own fizzy drink like the Victorians with bicarbonate of soda - that sounds like fun.
I will let you know how I get on...
You might have noticed that most of the suggestions that caught my attention were the ones that didn't really involve cleaning! I think that sums up my attitude rather well, because although I obviously do clean the house, I just can't get exited about it. The fact is that however fascinating I think it is that basically any cleaning job in the house can be done without manufactured chemicals I am unlikely to try it out, because freshening up the grout whether with lemon juice or chemicals will never make it to the top of my priority list.
What I will do though is place my green cleaning book somewhere prominent as a reminder of how easy it can be (even the oven) and maybe one day I just might decide to freshen up the colour in the carpet using vinegar...
One of my pet hates is cleaning the oven. I just find that the most boring and annoying job on the cleaning list, and it always gets left far too long! This time was no exception: the fact is (and I really shouldn't be admitting to this) that until yesterday my oven still had a layer of grease in the bottom from the overflowing Christmas turkey. I know it is quite horrible, but because I am lucky enough to have 2 ovens the 'turkey oven' just kind of got decommissioned, as I could always think of other more important things to take care of. I realise I am not putting myself in a good light here, but I wanted to make the picture clear as to the state of the oven, when I finally got round to tackling it.
As I have more or less cleared the cleaning cupboard of chemicals I expected to have quite a job on my hands. Even after researching my options and choosing to go for the 'soak in bicarbonate of soda layer' option I wasn't fully convinced that sprinkling a layer of the white stuff, spraying it with water and then leaving it overnight was going to rid me of seriously burnt on Christmas dinner. Guess what, it actually did work! I am still amazed. OK, the oven is not 100% stain free, but there is definitely no more turkey grease in there.
Even better it wasn't particularly hard work and the real bonus was avoiding the headache from the intoxicating fumes of standard oven cleaner. Result!
So after this success I decided to have a good look in the new Green Cleaning book I have been given as a present. Fascinating reading - with a tub of bicarbonate of soda, a bottle of vinegar and a few lemons you can clean almost anything, not to mention get rid of weeds, take out splinters easily, remove unwanted perfume and lots of other things.
I found a couple of things I really wanted to try, but it isn't really season right now:
- Apparently it is easy to clean the grill on the BBQ with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar - must remember that after our next barbecue here in 'sunny' Scotland.
- Thankfully the really frosty season should be over for now, but when the winter returns, I will need to try this: spraying the car windscreen with a solution of 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water should keep the windows ice and frost free.
What really grabbed my interest was the suggestions for killing weeds, it seems you can either pour vinegar on them or for patio/path areas you can sprinkle salt. After spending most of a day pulling weeds out of the garden I most definitely have to try that.
Or how about making your own fizzy drink like the Victorians with bicarbonate of soda - that sounds like fun.
I will let you know how I get on...
You might have noticed that most of the suggestions that caught my attention were the ones that didn't really involve cleaning! I think that sums up my attitude rather well, because although I obviously do clean the house, I just can't get exited about it. The fact is that however fascinating I think it is that basically any cleaning job in the house can be done without manufactured chemicals I am unlikely to try it out, because freshening up the grout whether with lemon juice or chemicals will never make it to the top of my priority list.
What I will do though is place my green cleaning book somewhere prominent as a reminder of how easy it can be (even the oven) and maybe one day I just might decide to freshen up the colour in the carpet using vinegar...
Monday 26 April 2010
Chemical house
We have just repainted our bathroom and the usual headache inducing smell is prominent in the upstairs part of the house. It reminded me that I really should have looked into 'green' paint before starting the work, so although too late this time round I decided to have a quick look. I probably shouldn't have done that!
During my search I began to realise how many chemicals and scary things there might be lurking in our house - and I can't do much about it.
Besides from all the paint which I guess we all know is not particularly healthy, there are things like carpets. Apparently synthetic carpets can release formaldehyde for years! We have several synthetic carpets in the house, not through personal choice, but they were here when we moved in and they are far too expensive to replace.Apparently formaldehyde is also present in many cheap furniture and MDF - we might just have some of that around the house as well.
On top of that it is also likely that we have something treated with brominated flame retardants as it has been widely used for all sorts of stuff, including fabrics, computers and plastics. Apparently some of these flame retardants have been proven to be hormone disrupters, including the thyroid hormone - an interesting fact for somebody like me who has taken medication on a daily basis for the last few years because of a thyroid condition...
So while I am running around cleaning with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to avoid chemicals, all sorts of unhealthy things might be oozing out of my house and its contents. Great!
I am not even safe in the garden, for all that I know the fences could have been treated with non-boron based wood preservatives, and they apparently contain nerve poisons. OK, probably only in quantities to get rid of pests, not humans - but still, not exactly eco friendly.
All this brought me back to a dilemma that I have wondered about for some time - what should I do with the stuff from my less green past. It would be rather counterproductive to just get rid of all the things I suspect of containing chemicals, not only because we don't have the money to replace it, but also because it is wrong to waste stuff that is theoretically speaking still good. On the other hand I don't really like the idea of inhaling chemicals non stop.
I am stuck and unable to decide on the best way to proceed. Short term things are easy: if you have a non-organic cucumber in your fridge it is still better to eat it than to throw it out, because otherwise all the energy used in production would be completely wasted - just make sure to buy organic in the future (if organic is your kind of thing of course).
But what about longer term things like light fittings. Trying to be green you want to have energy saving lights, but what do you do with the old ones? It is not right to just throw away a still functioning light fitting, especially not if you consider how much energy was used to produce it and transport it etc; but on the other hand there isn't much you can do with it - giving away an energy intensive light fitting isn't really a great present.
Or what if you realised that the dining table you purchased 2 years ago and planned to keep for at least another 20 actually was treated with some scary chemical. Should you just accept to inhale a few more fumes, or should you get rid of it. Even if you did decide to get rid of it how would you do it? Give it to charity so that somebody else can get poisoned instead? Burn it and release the scary stuff into the air? Clog up a landfill site with something that is in fact in a perfectly usable condition?
Once again I am not sure. Wonder if my brain is clouded from inhaling all this stuff (or maybe I just haven't inhaled enough...) Anyway I would be very happy to receive suggestions. Maybe there is a website somewhere called '10 ways to neutralise chemicals using only lemon juice' or even better 'the definitive answers to all dilemmas'. That would be good!
During my search I began to realise how many chemicals and scary things there might be lurking in our house - and I can't do much about it.
Besides from all the paint which I guess we all know is not particularly healthy, there are things like carpets. Apparently synthetic carpets can release formaldehyde for years! We have several synthetic carpets in the house, not through personal choice, but they were here when we moved in and they are far too expensive to replace.Apparently formaldehyde is also present in many cheap furniture and MDF - we might just have some of that around the house as well.
On top of that it is also likely that we have something treated with brominated flame retardants as it has been widely used for all sorts of stuff, including fabrics, computers and plastics. Apparently some of these flame retardants have been proven to be hormone disrupters, including the thyroid hormone - an interesting fact for somebody like me who has taken medication on a daily basis for the last few years because of a thyroid condition...
So while I am running around cleaning with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to avoid chemicals, all sorts of unhealthy things might be oozing out of my house and its contents. Great!
I am not even safe in the garden, for all that I know the fences could have been treated with non-boron based wood preservatives, and they apparently contain nerve poisons. OK, probably only in quantities to get rid of pests, not humans - but still, not exactly eco friendly.
All this brought me back to a dilemma that I have wondered about for some time - what should I do with the stuff from my less green past. It would be rather counterproductive to just get rid of all the things I suspect of containing chemicals, not only because we don't have the money to replace it, but also because it is wrong to waste stuff that is theoretically speaking still good. On the other hand I don't really like the idea of inhaling chemicals non stop.
I am stuck and unable to decide on the best way to proceed. Short term things are easy: if you have a non-organic cucumber in your fridge it is still better to eat it than to throw it out, because otherwise all the energy used in production would be completely wasted - just make sure to buy organic in the future (if organic is your kind of thing of course).
But what about longer term things like light fittings. Trying to be green you want to have energy saving lights, but what do you do with the old ones? It is not right to just throw away a still functioning light fitting, especially not if you consider how much energy was used to produce it and transport it etc; but on the other hand there isn't much you can do with it - giving away an energy intensive light fitting isn't really a great present.
Or what if you realised that the dining table you purchased 2 years ago and planned to keep for at least another 20 actually was treated with some scary chemical. Should you just accept to inhale a few more fumes, or should you get rid of it. Even if you did decide to get rid of it how would you do it? Give it to charity so that somebody else can get poisoned instead? Burn it and release the scary stuff into the air? Clog up a landfill site with something that is in fact in a perfectly usable condition?
Once again I am not sure. Wonder if my brain is clouded from inhaling all this stuff (or maybe I just haven't inhaled enough...) Anyway I would be very happy to receive suggestions. Maybe there is a website somewhere called '10 ways to neutralise chemicals using only lemon juice' or even better 'the definitive answers to all dilemmas'. That would be good!
Sunday 18 April 2010
To be green and happy
I have an online subscription to 'The Ecologist' - a fantastic source of information on all things environmental. The only problem is that I usually end up being depressed every time I log in. There are so many articles on all the things that are going wrong: global warming, disappearing wildlife, scary farming methods, lack of natural resources, mountains of waste etc, etc.
It always make me wonder if our efforts are in vain, are we actually too late.
After my last visit to the magazine I decided I needed something a bit more uplifting, so I decided to have a look for happy green information - there has to be hope somewhere. It is incredible the amount of informative, uplifting, strange or totally bizarre information you can find, once you start looking.
I found quite a bit of information on the Scottish wave power initiative. I can't really say an awful lot about it, it is not my area of expertise, but it made me happy to know that I live in a country that does take some positive initiatives.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7069742.ece
I also came across an article on Tetra paks (you know, juice cartons etc). They are often named as bad for the environment, because they are a mixed product and therefore difficult to recycle, but according to this Ecologist article, they are in fact much better than tins and cans, because the materials can be split easily and are much easier to recycle. That is good to know.
Then I came across the hydrogen car. A car that is not only powered by a hydrogen fuel cell with hugely reduced carbon emissions, but will also only be available on lease rather than buying it to ensure the company has every incentive to make durable well designed cars. Good thinking!
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/401026/the_opensource_hydrogen_car_set_to_change_the_industry.html
Obviously you would still be better off cycling, because studies show that regular cycling will increase your life expectancy by a few years, even if you are already doing other forms of exercise. That made me feel very smug as I have indeed been on my bike a few times this week...
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1185.html
Apparently it is international downshifting week 24th-30th April. Downshifting is about re evaluating the way you live, slowing down and enjoying life more. Definitely a worthy initiative. Most of the suggestions were quite straight forward like starting a compost heap, cook a seasonal organic meal, switch off the TV and read a book instead - only one suggestion made me jump: cut up a credit card! Help, do I need to give up on my credit card as well to be a proper green...
http://downshiftingweek.wordpress.com/
Well if I can't have a credit card I guess I can't try out some of the countless eco gadgets out there. Isn't there something completely ironic about the wealth of websites dedicated to selling eco products, such as solar powered fairy lights, when in fact it would be much greener if we just stopped consuming so much altogether.
But then there was something very interesting: A study from a Toronto university suggests that green consumers are more likely to steal and cheat. Apparently the theory is that people who take green action feel they have done good already, so they deserve something in return. Hmm, that is quite disturbing, hopefully they will do some more research with a different conclusion.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/are-green-consumers-less-trustworthy/
So how did I feel after my little search, well other than being slightly concerned that I am turning into a thief and a cheat, it did cheer me up. It is good to know that you can be green without drowning yourself in depressing predictions - long live happy news.
It always make me wonder if our efforts are in vain, are we actually too late.
After my last visit to the magazine I decided I needed something a bit more uplifting, so I decided to have a look for happy green information - there has to be hope somewhere. It is incredible the amount of informative, uplifting, strange or totally bizarre information you can find, once you start looking.
I found quite a bit of information on the Scottish wave power initiative. I can't really say an awful lot about it, it is not my area of expertise, but it made me happy to know that I live in a country that does take some positive initiatives.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7069742.ece
I also came across an article on Tetra paks (you know, juice cartons etc). They are often named as bad for the environment, because they are a mixed product and therefore difficult to recycle, but according to this Ecologist article, they are in fact much better than tins and cans, because the materials can be split easily and are much easier to recycle. That is good to know.
Then I came across the hydrogen car. A car that is not only powered by a hydrogen fuel cell with hugely reduced carbon emissions, but will also only be available on lease rather than buying it to ensure the company has every incentive to make durable well designed cars. Good thinking!
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/401026/the_opensource_hydrogen_car_set_to_change_the_industry.html
Obviously you would still be better off cycling, because studies show that regular cycling will increase your life expectancy by a few years, even if you are already doing other forms of exercise. That made me feel very smug as I have indeed been on my bike a few times this week...
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1185.html
Apparently it is international downshifting week 24th-30th April. Downshifting is about re evaluating the way you live, slowing down and enjoying life more. Definitely a worthy initiative. Most of the suggestions were quite straight forward like starting a compost heap, cook a seasonal organic meal, switch off the TV and read a book instead - only one suggestion made me jump: cut up a credit card! Help, do I need to give up on my credit card as well to be a proper green...
http://downshiftingweek.wordpress.com/
Well if I can't have a credit card I guess I can't try out some of the countless eco gadgets out there. Isn't there something completely ironic about the wealth of websites dedicated to selling eco products, such as solar powered fairy lights, when in fact it would be much greener if we just stopped consuming so much altogether.
But then there was something very interesting: A study from a Toronto university suggests that green consumers are more likely to steal and cheat. Apparently the theory is that people who take green action feel they have done good already, so they deserve something in return. Hmm, that is quite disturbing, hopefully they will do some more research with a different conclusion.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/are-green-consumers-less-trustworthy/
So how did I feel after my little search, well other than being slightly concerned that I am turning into a thief and a cheat, it did cheer me up. It is good to know that you can be green without drowning yourself in depressing predictions - long live happy news.
Sunday 11 April 2010
Green visit???
We are now back in Scotland after a great time in Denmark, but the holiday did make me think about the issues that occur when you go visiting - how do you keep up your green ways outside your normal daily life?
Obviously the situation very much depends on the people you are visiting. If you are visiting people with no green tendencies whatsoever you might want to consider how many hints you can drop without damaging the relationship, I can honestly say that I have been in situations where I thought it better to hold my tongue, rather than to go on a green crusade. Thankfully a lot of people actually are concerned about the Planet and are happy to discuss such issues, but even then a bit of normal politeness can be needed - you rarely get results from insulting people, especially in their own home.
Luckily we were staying at my parent's house and as they have already put up with a lot from my side over the years a bit a green badgering didn't really offend them...
So we arrived and although we were on holiday I was determined to not completely slip into old habits (especially since I had the carbon footprint of the flight to make up for). Did we manage?
To some extent yes - we didn't make much use of the car, but we did some cycling and a lot of walking. In fact one of days I don't think I was the most popular person in the world: we had agreed to go for a walk to the local park, a walk of about 20 min with 2 kids in tow. It was looking rather grey and there was a distinct possibility of rain, so the suggestion was made to bring the car in case heavy rain started. I objected furiously, saying that a bit of rain wouldn't harm anybody, and we all agreed to walk. Unfortunately the wetness started already before we had made it to the park, although more of a drizzle than real rain, but on the way back the heavens opened and by the time we reached the house everybody were totally soaked! Nobody said anything, but I am sure that more than one person thought 'I wish we had brought the car'.
The one slightly longer journey we made was done by train - an enjoyable trip, Danish trains are generally very nice; and then we seemed to spend quite a lot of time introducing our daughter to the technique of cycling without stabilisers!Surely that counts for something on the green scale.
But there are other elements of visiting that are slightly more out of your control, e.g. the food you eat. It is rather impolite to demand in season veggie meals and locally sourced meat, when people are in fact trying to cook you some nice food, because they are happy to see you. Just like I didn't complain when my mum made a strawberry and blueberry dessert in the hope that the kids would eat something not made from cocoa beans - that was a very worthy cause, which certainly didn't deserve a lecture on seasonal food (not to mention that it was delicious and the kids did eat it...)If people make an effort for you, I think that should always be appreciated.
I should probably add here as well that my parents are in fact quite conscious when it comes to food and they have been eating primarily organic food for years, so it was far from a complete return to ungreen ways.
So what do you do if there is something you really want mentioned when visiting people? My suggestion: bring a kid - they can get away with all sorts of things.
My daughter proved once again that she has caught on to some of the lifestyle changes when one day at the dinner table she turned to my mum and said "why are the lights on over there when there is nobody sitting there?" Kids can be great for getting a point across, and the lights got swithced off!
So all in all how green was this holiday? Well, flights aside, I don't think we did too badly, it is possible to retain some green habits when you are away. However some concessions will often have to be made, because you are less in control of the details. I think the key question is the attitude of the people you are visiting, so if you don't want to compromise, then I guess you need to pick your friends and family(!) with care.
Obviously the situation very much depends on the people you are visiting. If you are visiting people with no green tendencies whatsoever you might want to consider how many hints you can drop without damaging the relationship, I can honestly say that I have been in situations where I thought it better to hold my tongue, rather than to go on a green crusade. Thankfully a lot of people actually are concerned about the Planet and are happy to discuss such issues, but even then a bit of normal politeness can be needed - you rarely get results from insulting people, especially in their own home.
Luckily we were staying at my parent's house and as they have already put up with a lot from my side over the years a bit a green badgering didn't really offend them...
So we arrived and although we were on holiday I was determined to not completely slip into old habits (especially since I had the carbon footprint of the flight to make up for). Did we manage?
To some extent yes - we didn't make much use of the car, but we did some cycling and a lot of walking. In fact one of days I don't think I was the most popular person in the world: we had agreed to go for a walk to the local park, a walk of about 20 min with 2 kids in tow. It was looking rather grey and there was a distinct possibility of rain, so the suggestion was made to bring the car in case heavy rain started. I objected furiously, saying that a bit of rain wouldn't harm anybody, and we all agreed to walk. Unfortunately the wetness started already before we had made it to the park, although more of a drizzle than real rain, but on the way back the heavens opened and by the time we reached the house everybody were totally soaked! Nobody said anything, but I am sure that more than one person thought 'I wish we had brought the car'.
The one slightly longer journey we made was done by train - an enjoyable trip, Danish trains are generally very nice; and then we seemed to spend quite a lot of time introducing our daughter to the technique of cycling without stabilisers!Surely that counts for something on the green scale.
But there are other elements of visiting that are slightly more out of your control, e.g. the food you eat. It is rather impolite to demand in season veggie meals and locally sourced meat, when people are in fact trying to cook you some nice food, because they are happy to see you. Just like I didn't complain when my mum made a strawberry and blueberry dessert in the hope that the kids would eat something not made from cocoa beans - that was a very worthy cause, which certainly didn't deserve a lecture on seasonal food (not to mention that it was delicious and the kids did eat it...)If people make an effort for you, I think that should always be appreciated.
I should probably add here as well that my parents are in fact quite conscious when it comes to food and they have been eating primarily organic food for years, so it was far from a complete return to ungreen ways.
So what do you do if there is something you really want mentioned when visiting people? My suggestion: bring a kid - they can get away with all sorts of things.
My daughter proved once again that she has caught on to some of the lifestyle changes when one day at the dinner table she turned to my mum and said "why are the lights on over there when there is nobody sitting there?" Kids can be great for getting a point across, and the lights got swithced off!
So all in all how green was this holiday? Well, flights aside, I don't think we did too badly, it is possible to retain some green habits when you are away. However some concessions will often have to be made, because you are less in control of the details. I think the key question is the attitude of the people you are visiting, so if you don't want to compromise, then I guess you need to pick your friends and family(!) with care.
Sunday 4 April 2010
Denmark
I am currently in Denmark. Yes I have increased my carbon footprint for a trip to see the family, but I think I have already said enough about that decision, so this blog has a different theme. This is my first trip back since we started our project and it is interesting to see this Scandinavian country through green glasses.
Denmark generally has a good reputation when it comes to environmental matters, and there are some very obvious differences, e.g. during the 1 hour drive from the airport we saw at least 100 windmills, I have seen loads of people of all ages on bikes and you can buy locally grown veg from little local stalls by the road side; but being here I am realising that even environmental matters are culturally loaded.
I don't think Danish people in general are more clued up on the environment than Scottish people, but there are differences in the lifestyles that make Danish people greener. So can we learn anything from this in Scotland??? Afterall there are similarities between the 2 countries that make them comparable eg. population numbers are in the region of 5 mil in both countries and they both have a rather wet and windy climate.
A few observations:
There are lots of people cycling in Denmark, from schoolkids to business men in suits to elderly ladies going shopping. I have always argued that the reason Danish people cycle more is because the infrastructure for cycling is in place, there are lots of cycling paths, plenty of bike parking and cyclists even have certain priorities over cars in traffic, but this visit has made me realise another major difference: cycling is considered a form of transport, not a sport or anything else.
Danes don't wear special clothes for cycling, they don't wear special shoes, many don't have fancy bikes - they just use them because they are convenient. We don't do anything special if we go to the shops in the car, nor if we are walking - we just get on with it, that is exactly what Danes do with bikes as well. I remember as a student we would get dressed up for a night out, and even if wearing high heels or a skirt, we would still get to the party on our bikes - because it was cheap, fast and convenient transport. You would never see that in Scotland!
Cycling in Scotland is to some extent considered elitist and lots of people think that you can only really go on a bike if you are fully and expensively kitted out including non-flattering lycra. I have no idea how to change this attitude, but I am sure it is one of the keys to a successful cycling culture.
How about the windmills? How come Denmark can have windmills all over without hordes of protesters everywhere? You could argue that it is because windmills are quite important to the economy (Denmark is one of the largest producers of windmills in the world), but if people really objected that would probably never have happened. I think it might all go back to a political decision following a powerful grassroots campaign in the 80's to keep Denmark free of nuclear power. Already then the Danes started thinking about alternative ways to get power, so there has been a long period of getting used to it. The funny thing is that all the problems that protesters bring up in Britain don't seem to appear here. There are no dead birds all over the place or other wildlife problems, the noise (which is primarily a low humming) doesn't seem to bother the neighbours and I think most Danes would get rather upset if anybody claimed their countryside is spoiled. Could this ever be the case in Scotland?
Scotland is in fact even better placed for windmills than Denmark, because the actual size of Scotland is much bigger than Denmark, so much more room for them - yet windmills always seem very controversial. I think we should send some of the protesters on a trip to Denmark (by train and ferry of course...), so they can see for themselves that it is perfectly possible for humans and windmills to live in harmony side by side.
Then there is the issue of bottle recycling. The Danes have been recycling bottles for decades. Just like the brits used to return milk bottles to the milk man, there has been a system in place for returning beer and soft drink bottles to the breweries for a very long time. When you buy beers in shops you always pay a deposit for the bottles and when empty you return the bottles to a special bottle bank and your deposit is returned. The bottles are then taken to the drink producers, washed & cleaned and used again. It works well and a Dane would never dream of throwing a bottle in the bin (or in the street or a river for that matter). I realise that we don't have the infrastructure for such a system in Scotland and it would be too costly and complicated to set one up, but I think the money aspect is worth considering. Wouldn't we be more likely to put stuff in the recycling bin if it meant a rebate in council tax for example?
We have a lot to do if we are to reach a sustainable way of living and I think it is important that we look in all directions for inspiration. So my personal mission when we return to the land of the Scots shall be to bring a bit of Danish inspiration: I shall get on my bike wearing my usual jeans and sweater (no lycra for me thank you very much!) and go somewhere to campaign for some windmills (and I will probably end up in the category of village idiot, but hey I can always blame it on my Danish heritage).
Denmark generally has a good reputation when it comes to environmental matters, and there are some very obvious differences, e.g. during the 1 hour drive from the airport we saw at least 100 windmills, I have seen loads of people of all ages on bikes and you can buy locally grown veg from little local stalls by the road side; but being here I am realising that even environmental matters are culturally loaded.
I don't think Danish people in general are more clued up on the environment than Scottish people, but there are differences in the lifestyles that make Danish people greener. So can we learn anything from this in Scotland??? Afterall there are similarities between the 2 countries that make them comparable eg. population numbers are in the region of 5 mil in both countries and they both have a rather wet and windy climate.
A few observations:
There are lots of people cycling in Denmark, from schoolkids to business men in suits to elderly ladies going shopping. I have always argued that the reason Danish people cycle more is because the infrastructure for cycling is in place, there are lots of cycling paths, plenty of bike parking and cyclists even have certain priorities over cars in traffic, but this visit has made me realise another major difference: cycling is considered a form of transport, not a sport or anything else.
Danes don't wear special clothes for cycling, they don't wear special shoes, many don't have fancy bikes - they just use them because they are convenient. We don't do anything special if we go to the shops in the car, nor if we are walking - we just get on with it, that is exactly what Danes do with bikes as well. I remember as a student we would get dressed up for a night out, and even if wearing high heels or a skirt, we would still get to the party on our bikes - because it was cheap, fast and convenient transport. You would never see that in Scotland!
Cycling in Scotland is to some extent considered elitist and lots of people think that you can only really go on a bike if you are fully and expensively kitted out including non-flattering lycra. I have no idea how to change this attitude, but I am sure it is one of the keys to a successful cycling culture.
How about the windmills? How come Denmark can have windmills all over without hordes of protesters everywhere? You could argue that it is because windmills are quite important to the economy (Denmark is one of the largest producers of windmills in the world), but if people really objected that would probably never have happened. I think it might all go back to a political decision following a powerful grassroots campaign in the 80's to keep Denmark free of nuclear power. Already then the Danes started thinking about alternative ways to get power, so there has been a long period of getting used to it. The funny thing is that all the problems that protesters bring up in Britain don't seem to appear here. There are no dead birds all over the place or other wildlife problems, the noise (which is primarily a low humming) doesn't seem to bother the neighbours and I think most Danes would get rather upset if anybody claimed their countryside is spoiled. Could this ever be the case in Scotland?
Scotland is in fact even better placed for windmills than Denmark, because the actual size of Scotland is much bigger than Denmark, so much more room for them - yet windmills always seem very controversial. I think we should send some of the protesters on a trip to Denmark (by train and ferry of course...), so they can see for themselves that it is perfectly possible for humans and windmills to live in harmony side by side.
Then there is the issue of bottle recycling. The Danes have been recycling bottles for decades. Just like the brits used to return milk bottles to the milk man, there has been a system in place for returning beer and soft drink bottles to the breweries for a very long time. When you buy beers in shops you always pay a deposit for the bottles and when empty you return the bottles to a special bottle bank and your deposit is returned. The bottles are then taken to the drink producers, washed & cleaned and used again. It works well and a Dane would never dream of throwing a bottle in the bin (or in the street or a river for that matter). I realise that we don't have the infrastructure for such a system in Scotland and it would be too costly and complicated to set one up, but I think the money aspect is worth considering. Wouldn't we be more likely to put stuff in the recycling bin if it meant a rebate in council tax for example?
We have a lot to do if we are to reach a sustainable way of living and I think it is important that we look in all directions for inspiration. So my personal mission when we return to the land of the Scots shall be to bring a bit of Danish inspiration: I shall get on my bike wearing my usual jeans and sweater (no lycra for me thank you very much!) and go somewhere to campaign for some windmills (and I will probably end up in the category of village idiot, but hey I can always blame it on my Danish heritage).
Sunday 28 March 2010
Electric power!!!
Saturday was Earth Hour: switch off your lights for an hour in the evening - so we spent an hour in a candle lit house. It was quite nice, it reminded me of spending time in my grandparents little summerhouse during my childhood. The house had no electricity, and to us kids there was something exiting about lighting petroleum lamps and candles in the evening, on special occasions we even got to light little plastic lanterns with tea lights in them on the patio - a 'beautiful' sight.
This was only in the 70's, not thaaat long ago -yet can anybody imaging having a place with no electricity today. What would my kids think if they had to spend a week in a place with no TV? Could I manage for a week with no Internet? Not to mention warm showers and a fridge. My grandparents had a hole in the floor with a trap door, where they could keep milk and other things cool enough to last for a few days, but it wasn't exactly a fridge.
We are so used to electricity now for all sorts of purposes that most of us would struggle if it became less available. In fact while I was reminiscing about candlelit summer holidays my husband was reminded of his time in Baghdad during the first Gulf War and he will tell you any day that life without electricity is not great! Maybe it is time we started appreciating this power a bit more, and started using it wisely.
Currently we produce a lot of our electricity in ways not very environmentally friendly. I am not going to go into details about coal fired power stations, nuclear power stations or even renewable energy for that matter, because I simply don't know enough about it to say anything intelligent,(and no smart comments about the intelligence of my other entries please...) but I would like to raise a point about the way we just take electricity for granted.
We don't just use it when we need it, we overuse it! Take a walk down any high street and several of the shops will have the lights on outside opening hours. In my own town we have a beautiful old historical palace and lights are shining on it all through the night - why? I know it looks pretty, it definitely does, but is that really what we should be doing with the electricity we produce at such cost to the environment?
What about our own personal actions. We all know that we are supposed to switch the lights off when we leave a room, but what about all the other electrical appliances that we just use without giving it much thought.
I remember in my home economics class in school we were taught that the first thing to do when baking was to switch on the oven; but why should I do that if it is going to take 25 minutes to get the mix ready, and it would take the oven max 10 minutes to reach the required temperature? (yes, it can take 25 minutes to get the mix ready, especially if you have 2 kids involved in the process...)
Not to mention when we buy yet another T-shirt, do we give it any thought at all how much energy was used in the production of just that one garment?
I think we all need to wise up when it comes to electricity, and if we realised that it doesn't just appear by magic, we could save both money and the environment.
I have mentioned several times that I would like to put solar panels on our roof. I am no longer just saying this because I want to increase my green credentials - solar panels are after all quite a symbol of green homes, but also because I really don't want to give up on all my electric comforts. It is not unlikely that prices for electricity will go up in the future - it will follow on from increased oil prices and stricter limits on CO2 emissions, and in that situation I would feel very happy to know that I have access to at least a basic supply. We still wouldn't be able to continue the way we are at the moment, generally domestic solar panels can't really supply that amount of energy, but we would have some power cheaply available.
Anyway time to go and put the kettle on, start the washing machine, get the shopping in the fridge, whisk up a cake, wash my hair, dry my hair, hoover the living room, watch some TV and do some work on my laptop...
This was only in the 70's, not thaaat long ago -yet can anybody imaging having a place with no electricity today. What would my kids think if they had to spend a week in a place with no TV? Could I manage for a week with no Internet? Not to mention warm showers and a fridge. My grandparents had a hole in the floor with a trap door, where they could keep milk and other things cool enough to last for a few days, but it wasn't exactly a fridge.
We are so used to electricity now for all sorts of purposes that most of us would struggle if it became less available. In fact while I was reminiscing about candlelit summer holidays my husband was reminded of his time in Baghdad during the first Gulf War and he will tell you any day that life without electricity is not great! Maybe it is time we started appreciating this power a bit more, and started using it wisely.
Currently we produce a lot of our electricity in ways not very environmentally friendly. I am not going to go into details about coal fired power stations, nuclear power stations or even renewable energy for that matter, because I simply don't know enough about it to say anything intelligent,(and no smart comments about the intelligence of my other entries please...) but I would like to raise a point about the way we just take electricity for granted.
We don't just use it when we need it, we overuse it! Take a walk down any high street and several of the shops will have the lights on outside opening hours. In my own town we have a beautiful old historical palace and lights are shining on it all through the night - why? I know it looks pretty, it definitely does, but is that really what we should be doing with the electricity we produce at such cost to the environment?
What about our own personal actions. We all know that we are supposed to switch the lights off when we leave a room, but what about all the other electrical appliances that we just use without giving it much thought.
I remember in my home economics class in school we were taught that the first thing to do when baking was to switch on the oven; but why should I do that if it is going to take 25 minutes to get the mix ready, and it would take the oven max 10 minutes to reach the required temperature? (yes, it can take 25 minutes to get the mix ready, especially if you have 2 kids involved in the process...)
Not to mention when we buy yet another T-shirt, do we give it any thought at all how much energy was used in the production of just that one garment?
I think we all need to wise up when it comes to electricity, and if we realised that it doesn't just appear by magic, we could save both money and the environment.
I have mentioned several times that I would like to put solar panels on our roof. I am no longer just saying this because I want to increase my green credentials - solar panels are after all quite a symbol of green homes, but also because I really don't want to give up on all my electric comforts. It is not unlikely that prices for electricity will go up in the future - it will follow on from increased oil prices and stricter limits on CO2 emissions, and in that situation I would feel very happy to know that I have access to at least a basic supply. We still wouldn't be able to continue the way we are at the moment, generally domestic solar panels can't really supply that amount of energy, but we would have some power cheaply available.
Anyway time to go and put the kettle on, start the washing machine, get the shopping in the fridge, whisk up a cake, wash my hair, dry my hair, hoover the living room, watch some TV and do some work on my laptop...
Sunday 21 March 2010
Water, water, water
Due to a very generous donation from my mother in law we are currently in discussion with a plumber to get our bathroom sorted. This has flagged up a couple of interesting things to me. We are getting a new suite fitted and looking through the catalogue of various options, we reasonably quickly agreed that an eco suite with built in water saving features would be the best option. It has a shallower bath, but as only the kids use the bathtub, that shouldn't really matter and the toilet uses only a third of the normal average amount of water to flush. Amazingly this suite wasn't even expensive - to me this was a no brainer.
In fact it really made me wonder about the priorities we have in this country. If it is possible to make toilets that flush on minimal water and seemingly without causing a massive price hike, why are all new toilets not like that? How come that when looking through pages and pages of options for toilets and bathtubs, there was only this one if you wanted to reduce water usage? I am amazed - has the toilet producers not realised that water is another resource we need to be careful about. OK, as I have mentioned before water shortages are not really an issue in Scotland - we have plenty of the stuff and it keeps coming; but many other places have issues, including areas in England and I am sure that whoever sells toilets in Scotland also supplies in England, so water consumption should be a concern.
The plumber actually unknowingly confirmed that water saving is not a huge issue for him and probably his fellow workers. On one visit he said to me that he had noticed that we had chosen quite a plain suite, 'if he could get us a different suite for the same price, would we be interested?'. I replied that 'we had chosen the suite because of its water saving features, so unless he could source another one with those credentials, then no thanks'. His jaw almost hit the ground, and he looked as if he had seen a ghost - can it really be that I was the first of his customers to be concerned about water usage??? Just imagine what would have happened if I had asked for a grey water system to be installed...
Anyway it reminded me of some statistics I have come across lately, which I think are quite good to know:
97% of all the water on this planet is sea water and therefore difficult to turn into drinking water. 2% of fresh water is caught in the polar ice caps. That leaves just 1% for the Earths population to live from - that is not a lot for a growing population. (And here in the western world we use it to flush toilets!)
This again led me to think about the issue of drinking water and not least the amount of bottled water we use and the money we spend on it. There are ridiculous examples, such as the '10 Thousand BC Water', which is basically melted glacier ice, costing upto $45 for 750ml, or the nine times purified 'Bling H2O' costing $40-60 per bottle - complete with Swarowski crystals...
But even if you are drinking bottled water from a spring in Scotland you pay mad money: bottled water costs twice as much as petrol, three times as much as milk and 10.000 times more than tap water!
On top of the silly price we are paying for bottled water the environment is also paying a heavy price, in particular concerning all the plastic bottles used. According to a report from WWF from 2001 roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are used every year in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water. That's a lot!
So where does all this leave me. For a starter it has emphasized that buying bottles of water is a complete waste and we really should stop that all together. Secondly it has reminded me that even if it doesn't save me money directly I should get organised about collecting rainwater for use in the garden. Thirdly I have made a mental note to include a greywater system to the longterm priority list, it does make sense to reuse water for flushing toilets etc (and by the time I get organised hopefully the plumber will also have converted to a more water efficient attitude...)
Last but not least all this thinking about water has made me very thirsty, so I shall now go and get a glass and fill it with...juice. Cheers
In fact it really made me wonder about the priorities we have in this country. If it is possible to make toilets that flush on minimal water and seemingly without causing a massive price hike, why are all new toilets not like that? How come that when looking through pages and pages of options for toilets and bathtubs, there was only this one if you wanted to reduce water usage? I am amazed - has the toilet producers not realised that water is another resource we need to be careful about. OK, as I have mentioned before water shortages are not really an issue in Scotland - we have plenty of the stuff and it keeps coming; but many other places have issues, including areas in England and I am sure that whoever sells toilets in Scotland also supplies in England, so water consumption should be a concern.
The plumber actually unknowingly confirmed that water saving is not a huge issue for him and probably his fellow workers. On one visit he said to me that he had noticed that we had chosen quite a plain suite, 'if he could get us a different suite for the same price, would we be interested?'. I replied that 'we had chosen the suite because of its water saving features, so unless he could source another one with those credentials, then no thanks'. His jaw almost hit the ground, and he looked as if he had seen a ghost - can it really be that I was the first of his customers to be concerned about water usage??? Just imagine what would have happened if I had asked for a grey water system to be installed...
Anyway it reminded me of some statistics I have come across lately, which I think are quite good to know:
97% of all the water on this planet is sea water and therefore difficult to turn into drinking water. 2% of fresh water is caught in the polar ice caps. That leaves just 1% for the Earths population to live from - that is not a lot for a growing population. (And here in the western world we use it to flush toilets!)
This again led me to think about the issue of drinking water and not least the amount of bottled water we use and the money we spend on it. There are ridiculous examples, such as the '10 Thousand BC Water', which is basically melted glacier ice, costing upto $45 for 750ml, or the nine times purified 'Bling H2O' costing $40-60 per bottle - complete with Swarowski crystals...
But even if you are drinking bottled water from a spring in Scotland you pay mad money: bottled water costs twice as much as petrol, three times as much as milk and 10.000 times more than tap water!
On top of the silly price we are paying for bottled water the environment is also paying a heavy price, in particular concerning all the plastic bottles used. According to a report from WWF from 2001 roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are used every year in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water. That's a lot!
So where does all this leave me. For a starter it has emphasized that buying bottles of water is a complete waste and we really should stop that all together. Secondly it has reminded me that even if it doesn't save me money directly I should get organised about collecting rainwater for use in the garden. Thirdly I have made a mental note to include a greywater system to the longterm priority list, it does make sense to reuse water for flushing toilets etc (and by the time I get organised hopefully the plumber will also have converted to a more water efficient attitude...)
Last but not least all this thinking about water has made me very thirsty, so I shall now go and get a glass and fill it with...juice. Cheers
Monday 15 March 2010
I am not failing!
Over the last few months I have had a few comments regarding the success -or more precisely lack of success- of our green project. It has even been suggested that I am not helping the green cause by describing the difficulties I sometimes have. I feel the time has come to defend myself!
Changing your lifestyle is a big effort, nobody does that overnight. Changing to a seriously green lifestyle is huge, because it impacts on every single bit of your life! It impacts on what you eat, what you do, how you travel, what you buy, what you use, what you don't use, your energy consumption, what you waste, what you teach your kids - the list could go on. No area of life is safe from environmental dilemmas.
I am going to stick my neck out and make the claim that the main difference between a lot of the people who claim to be serious about the environment and me is that I admit to having gaps in my green lifestyle. (OK, quite a few gaps) I am not saying this to be mean and I most definitely don't want to criticize anybody's efforts, but I think it is important to realise the complexity of the situation - and just because somebody has gaps in other places than me that doesn't necessarily make them greener.
The other argument about not spelling out how difficult it is to become green is to me frankly nonsense. Making everybody believe that turning green is easy and straightforward is not helpful, the truth will very quickly become known and make anybody trying to change feel like a failure.
I recently looked at a model created to show successful lifestyle changes and one of the key elements is 'expect relapses'. If you are changing to healthier eating expect to still have a piece of cake from time to time - it doesn't mean everything is lost. If you are turning towards a more active lifestyle expect to have days when the exercise routine won't get done - but that isn't equal to the end of the project. So when I sometimes end up taking the easy solution, then I am actually just being human (Nice to get that confirmed...)
Another key element of a successful lifestyle change is apparently congratulating yourself on progress - don't dwell on the times things go wrong, focus on the progress that does happen.
So this is where I stand:
This project is not failing just because we own a car and I occasionally drive it to the school.
we are not failing simply on the grounds that my son loves blueberries and I on the odd day give in and buy some in the supermarket imported from Argentina.
It is not a failure just because I admit to disliking public transport.
It is not the end simply because I haven't signed up for a veg box scheme yet
It can still be a success even if we ended up booking flights to go see much missed family
In fact our green family project is succeeding because:
I walk my daughter to school at least nine times out of ten
I am trying to grow my own vegetables
I got on my bike last week and enjoyed it, even if I completely underestimated the route and almost gave myself a heart attack trying to go up a steep hill.
we have reduced our meat intake and saved money in the process
even my friends have accepted and support my changed priorities -one gave me a gardening book as a present
Our energy bills haven't gone through the roof
I recently managed to have a conversation about renewable energy without sounding like an idiot
my daughter switches off the lights to help the polar bears
I do go on public transport sometimes, although not with joy
and most of all:
I have had comments regarding this blog saying that it had actually made people sit up, think and take some form of action.
To me that is success!
It is only just over 6 months since me and my family started the process and there has been a lot to take on board in a short space of time. The most important thing I have learned so far is that being green is very complex. It is like putting a jigsaw of a 1000 pieces together: it takes a long time, some areas you can put together quite easily, others take a lot more effort - but focusing on just one piece or claiming that the right hand corner is more important than the left is pointless, you need the whole picture.
Changing your lifestyle is a big effort, nobody does that overnight. Changing to a seriously green lifestyle is huge, because it impacts on every single bit of your life! It impacts on what you eat, what you do, how you travel, what you buy, what you use, what you don't use, your energy consumption, what you waste, what you teach your kids - the list could go on. No area of life is safe from environmental dilemmas.
I am going to stick my neck out and make the claim that the main difference between a lot of the people who claim to be serious about the environment and me is that I admit to having gaps in my green lifestyle. (OK, quite a few gaps) I am not saying this to be mean and I most definitely don't want to criticize anybody's efforts, but I think it is important to realise the complexity of the situation - and just because somebody has gaps in other places than me that doesn't necessarily make them greener.
The other argument about not spelling out how difficult it is to become green is to me frankly nonsense. Making everybody believe that turning green is easy and straightforward is not helpful, the truth will very quickly become known and make anybody trying to change feel like a failure.
I recently looked at a model created to show successful lifestyle changes and one of the key elements is 'expect relapses'. If you are changing to healthier eating expect to still have a piece of cake from time to time - it doesn't mean everything is lost. If you are turning towards a more active lifestyle expect to have days when the exercise routine won't get done - but that isn't equal to the end of the project. So when I sometimes end up taking the easy solution, then I am actually just being human (Nice to get that confirmed...)
Another key element of a successful lifestyle change is apparently congratulating yourself on progress - don't dwell on the times things go wrong, focus on the progress that does happen.
So this is where I stand:
This project is not failing just because we own a car and I occasionally drive it to the school.
we are not failing simply on the grounds that my son loves blueberries and I on the odd day give in and buy some in the supermarket imported from Argentina.
It is not a failure just because I admit to disliking public transport.
It is not the end simply because I haven't signed up for a veg box scheme yet
It can still be a success even if we ended up booking flights to go see much missed family
In fact our green family project is succeeding because:
I walk my daughter to school at least nine times out of ten
I am trying to grow my own vegetables
I got on my bike last week and enjoyed it, even if I completely underestimated the route and almost gave myself a heart attack trying to go up a steep hill.
we have reduced our meat intake and saved money in the process
even my friends have accepted and support my changed priorities -one gave me a gardening book as a present
Our energy bills haven't gone through the roof
I recently managed to have a conversation about renewable energy without sounding like an idiot
my daughter switches off the lights to help the polar bears
I do go on public transport sometimes, although not with joy
and most of all:
I have had comments regarding this blog saying that it had actually made people sit up, think and take some form of action.
To me that is success!
It is only just over 6 months since me and my family started the process and there has been a lot to take on board in a short space of time. The most important thing I have learned so far is that being green is very complex. It is like putting a jigsaw of a 1000 pieces together: it takes a long time, some areas you can put together quite easily, others take a lot more effort - but focusing on just one piece or claiming that the right hand corner is more important than the left is pointless, you need the whole picture.
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