Green, Lazy and out of Money

Phase 2

2010-11-03T20:21:00.003Z

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.

Over and out (almost)

2010-08-27T09:35:00.004+01:00

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.

Green is good

2010-08-16T22:11:00.007+01:00

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!

Green beauty

2010-08-09T21:12:00.005+01:00

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...

The veg thing (again)

2010-08-02T20:16:00.004+01:00

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.

Why

2010-07-26T22:41:00.004+01:00

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...

Green holiday

2010-07-20T22:54:00.003+01:00

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!

Annoyingly green

2010-07-12T22:07:00.006+01:00

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.

Green inspiration

2010-07-06T06:57:00.008+01:00

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.

Busy green bee

2010-06-29T21:40:00.003+01:00

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...

Footprinting

2010-06-15T21:31:00.003+01:00

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:

Eat green(s)

2010-06-06T22:29:00.005+01:00

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...?

Success!

2010-05-30T21:56:00.004+01:00

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.

Ants

2010-05-23T21:21:00.003+01:00

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!

Birthday cake

2010-05-16T22:18:00.005+01:00

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

Selfish green people

2010-05-10T22:04:00.008+01:00

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.

Green Cleaning 2

2010-05-02T21:23:00.004+01:00

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...

Chemical house

2010-04-26T21:16:00.004+01:00

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!

To be green and happy

2010-04-18T15:50:00.008+01:00

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.

Green visit???

2010-04-11T22:08:00.005+01:00

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.

Denmark

2010-04-04T18:32:00.007+01:00

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).

Electric power!!!

2010-03-28T20:03:00.006+01:00

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...

Water, water, water

2010-03-21T20:47:00.003Z

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

I am not failing!

2010-03-15T11:05:00.006Z

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.

Dilemmas

2010-03-07T21:03:00.003Z

This has been a week of dilemmas - so many answers to find.

First of all there were the personal dilemmas. Like should I be proud that my son is reducing the washing pile, or concerned about how dirty he looks when he yet another day insists on wearing the same Superman T-shirt?

I have been having the school run debate again: The whole family have more or less been ill this week with varying degrees of colds, sore throats etc, and I have to admit being unwell just doesn't help the green progress. So after dragging myself out of bed every morning, I asked the question - can I get away with taking the car to the school? I have to admit we did go the motorised way, more than once. I am not proud of it, but I was just too tired to coax 2 reluctant children to walk.

Tiredness also set in when we were tidying in the kids' rooms. They have an incredible amount of toys and junk, and I am not sure how best to minimise this. I managed to smuggle some stuff into a bag for the charity shop, but what to do with all these little silly plastic things that come with magazines, party bags etc. What am I supposed to do with them? They are too small to go to the charity shop, they wouldn't even get 5p for them, they are too pointless and horrible to recycle as presents for other children (yes, I admit I do that sometimes with really nice stuff), so all they can really do is add to the mountain at the landfill site. Honestly what is the point of these things? And the even bigger question: how can I stop them filling up the toy box? Should I ask people to stop buying my children presents and tell my kids they are not allowed to get party bags when leaving birthday parties? That is definitely not going to make me 'Mum of the Week'.

Then there were all the dilemmas people seemed to put in front of me. During a discussion at the school gate about the cold weather, somebody asked me if it is better to have your heating on a lower setting but on all the time or do shorter burst on a higher setting? I don't know - I am kind of assuming it depends on your heating system, your level of insulation and other sorts of variables, but where to find the answer?

This was followed by my husband asking: for mothers day do you want chocolate handmade here in Scotland, but probably not fairtrade, or do you want fairtrade chocolate bought from a supermarket? Help - I really have no idea what should be given priority. There is obviously going to be some kind of carbon footprint no matter what, because we don't have many cacao plants in Scotland, but should I be supporting the business who ensures more local employment and hopefully retains some skills and money locally; or should I go with ensuring the cacao growers get decent money, but through that I would also be supporting supermarket shareholders? My first reply was to get the email address for the Scottish company to convince them to use fairtrade ingredients, but unfortunately I can't do that in time for next Sunday - so what should I choose?

Likewise I have been trying to decide which veg box company to go with. There are a few different options in this area. There is the very local one, based in this town and with the option of getting other groceries from local shops as well - but it is not organic. There are a couple of organic ones, based in this area, but because they sell organic produce they have to source some of the stuff from slightly further away. Which one is the better option? Should I be as local as possible or is organic more important?

Even 6 months down the line I find myself stumbling on these questions all the time. The ideal option hardly ever exists, and I am not sure how to fine tune my priorities. Maybe I can find an app for this, then I could put in the different options and it would calculate the best way forward. How about that? It would be great. Oh, guess I need to get an i-phone first...

Do I want to know???

2010-02-28T20:34:00.008Z

Ignorance is definitely bliss! Sometimes I think life would be so much easier if I didn't really know what was happening around me, I could then geniunely say I didn't know better when doing something ungreen. Unfortunately this is not the case - in fact I somehow seem to be drawn towards articles, books etc that brings more knowledge into my head and makes my life more difficult.

Recently I was offered a free book with a magazine subscription and I was given a long list of books to choose from, yet of all these books I went for 'Go Make a Difference - over 500 daily ways to save the Planet'. My thinking was - there should be a trick or two in there that I have missed, this will be good inspiration. It is a great book, but unfortunately rather than making me feel happy about the stuff I am already doing it has made me feel overwhelmed by the stuff I am NOT doing.

This book covers everything you can think of regarding green and ethical living and there is some very good information in it, but it has not made my life any easier. The wealth of information in it is making all my efforts look rather small.
There is all the stuff to do in the garden, like putting up bat boxes, laying on squirrel banquets and planting bee friendly flowers.
Then there are things to do with the kids, such a flying kites, getting on the bikes, making a frieze of endangered animals or even making your own recycled paper!
Of course there are also all the campaigns you can sign up to: campaign for re-use of empty homes, campaign to support the victims of Bhopal on Day of No Pesticides, campaign to stop the use of child soldiers, campaign to ban Lindane (a dangerous pesticide), campaign to make supermarkets take responsibility and obviuosly you can write to countless embassies to protest about ivory trade, whaling etc
Not to mention the long list of things that you should and shouldn't buy, e.g. buy organic produce, buy fairtrade, buy local, but avoid anything with phthalates, bromin fire retardants or bisphenol A, not to mention boycutting companies that use animal testing,child labour, sweatshop production etc

These are all very worthwhile causes, and I don't for one second suggest they shouldn't be supported, but my brain simply cannot compute it all.

I am kind of stuck, I feel I need to change more or less everything I do and even if I did I would probably still miss something. What's more important, to create a wildlife haven in your own garden to increase the very important biodiversity or to support a campaign against exploiting children??!! There is not enough hours in the day to get involved with everything that is wrong in this world, but where should I start? The thing is if you don't pay attention you could very easily end up supporting something that you really don't like - but if I had to check all the ethical lists before doing anything I would never get started. Argh!

If I had read this book before embarking on this green project it might never have begun, I would have given up on the whole idea. Thankfully I am already halfway through, so at least I could tick some of the boxes while reading the book and say 'yep, doing that already' and not end up completely disheartened, but it is not a good feeling. How did the World end up in such a mess with complete lack of respect for the Planet we live on?

So what to do now. Do I burn the book and try to erase the information from my memory or is this the time to step up the game? I just don't know. What I do know is that it is easier when you don't know... No wonder that lots of people don't really want to hear about the environmental problems that we face. But unfortunately I can't just ignore the facts, so I will need to find some way of navigating the information jungle. I will probably just have to start with the things close to home and I will always be of the opnion that trying, even when not successful, is better than doing nothing at all. The one thing thats for sure is that I will not be buying part II any time soon.

Half way

2010-02-21T20:27:00.011Z

We are now half way through our year of trying to become green, so has anything changed over the last 6 months? I think it is time for a stock take.

Recycling: We have always been pretty good on the recycling front, but I think we are even better now - hardly anything goes in the bin that could go somewhere else, we recycle, compost, reuse, donate, freecycle etc.

Waste: We are trying to minimise waste, but it is difficult. Everything seems to come wrapped in at least one layer of plastic. On the plus side our paper waste is definitely down, we get almost all bills online and are signed up to Mail Preference Service etc.(In fact a lot of the paper in the recycling bin is probably my children's drawings - oops bad mum, should be keeping them, but there are sooo many)

Energy: We are definitely a lot more conscious of our energy use - we don't leave stuff switched on (In fact my husband said the other day 'what happened - we always seem to be stumbling around in the dark...)Last prognosis suggested that we might not have increased our energy use since moving, despite this house being double the size of the old one.

Water: We don't get readings for water usage, so we don't know for sure, but I am pretty certain we use less water now than a year ago. We are still to install a water butt for the garden, but the cold winter hasn't really been a great incentive to do water installations outside.

Car: We use the car less, although there is still room for improvement here. In fact doing this stock take has made me realise that the mileage readings I wanted to take have kind of been forgotten, and I don't know with certainty how many miles we drive on average in a month - so action required. At least when I do drive I try to follow the advice for greener driving.

Other transport: we do a lot of walking now which is good, on the other hand my bike hasn't made it out of the garage many times, I struggle with public transport (thankfully my husband is doing better on that front) and we are booked on a flight next month - quickly next subject!

Food: We are still managing to have 2 vegetarian days a week, and red meat has also been decreased to just once a week. Likewise we seem to have limited the amount of food that ends up wasted.

Shopping:I now try to get our meat from the local butcher rather than the supermarket and I generally pay more attention to the stuff that goes in my shopping basket. Unfortunately we are not strictly buying organic, because it is just too expensive, but I try my best to avoid excessive amounts of food that has been flown half way across the planet or is packaged in ridiculous amounts of plastic. I still haven't signed up for a veg box delivery and I rarely make it to any of the local farm shops, which is slightly pathetic - so another action to note.

Cleaning: the main products in the cleaning cupboard are now bicarbonate of soda, vinegar and microfibre cloths.

Gardening: I am learning the basics of growing our own vegetables. This is definitely not a skill I will have fully mastered within the year, but considering what I knew this time last year, there has been huge progress.

All the little things: I pay a lot more attention now in general. I try to think about what I do and what impact it might have, although that is a gigantic task - and sometimes too difficult to figure out. Changing your mindset is a very difficult thing to do (just think about how many failed diets, exercise programmes or other resolutions there are every year), but I believe we are getting somewhere.

And the big things: well we haven't made any huge groundbreaking changes to our lives, that was never the plan from the outset. We have however probably changed some priorities, e.g. I am not sure we would have spent our limited money on insulation last year, but that was the choice we made this time round. Somehow the little things also push you towards the bigger ones. A year ago putting solar panels on the roof was the stuff of daydreams, now it is something I actually want to see happen. OK, it will still be a long time, they are expensive and our bank account is empty, but it has entered the priority list.

So what is the situation? Have we achieved anything? yes! Are we truly green? No, probably not. There are still lots of things we can do, some of them we will hopefully manage within the next 6 months, others will take longer - but at least we are doing something. In fact the other day I was reading more about the Transition Town movement www.transitionnetwork.org. It is a very exciting set up based on the idea that many of the issues we are likely to face due to peak oil, climate change etc can be overcome by building sustainable and resilient communities that has a completely local basis. Transition here means the transition away from a completely oil dependent society and basically Transition Towns are trying to prepare themselves for what might come. We don't live in a Transition Town (yet...), but it made me think that maybe we are trying to be a transition family. A time might come when we all need to change our priorities, and if so hopefully this project is good preparation. I sincerely hope that the future doesn't look half as bleak as some of the predictions are suggesting, but if changes do come then hopefully they will be slightly less of a shock for us; and if life somehow continues like this for the next 1000 years, well then we haven't lost anything by learning new stuff, cutting down on waste and consumption and probably got healthier and fitter in the process.I think we are on track!

The public transport issue

2010-02-15T13:33:00.004Z

I think we are doing pretty well on many fronts, but there is one area where we are struggling: transport. We keep trying to cut down on car use, and we have succeeded to some extend, but almost every time I decide to make use of public transport it ends in stress, frustration, tears or most often all three.

Public transport is do-able when you are an adult travelling, but if you are travelling with kids it is a different matter, and I am yet to be convinced that it can be easy.

Theoretically speaking we are well placed for using public transport, as we are lucky enough to live in a town that has both train and bus links.
I have been doing a few journeys to Edinburgh lately and tried out some different options, but none of them have been straight forward.

The first time we tried the bus. I chose this option because it can be quite a job to get to the train station. We live in the opposite end of town and walking to the station takes a good 20 minutes for an adult, walking with 2 children takes a lot longer! We can't cheat and take the car as there is no parking to get anywhere near the station, and although there are busses going through town they are unfortunately not frequent and reliable enough to trust getting to the station in time. So to avoid this we got on the Edinburgh bus that passes within easy walking distance of our house. The journey time is approx 1 hour, passing through different smaller towns on sometimes winding roads - so with in 15 minutes I was feeling travel sick! Luckily that didn't happen to the kids and the older one only got impatient after 25 minutes which is pretty good going for her, but 35 minutes of 'when are we getting off' can still be rather tiring. The younger one fell asleep, so he had to come on my lap, which made for rather cramped conditions, but I guess he was quiet at least. The journey in was however a whole lot better than going home...

The thing about busses is that you never really know when they are going to come, they are quite likely to get stuck in traffic. So when heading back we waited at the bus stop for more than 20 minutes in rather cold windy weather, during which time my daughter kept swinging around and accidently hitting other people and my son made several attempts at escaping to the other side of the road, not to mention doing mega splashes in a puddle and picking up old cigaret butts. Great fun for me! Of course the bus came eventually and that was when the party really started. My 2 year old son insisted on standing in the middle of the bus rather than sitting on a seat, which I couldn't really let him do, so he decided to have a tantrum. For more than 25 minutes he was screaming the bus down! Not only was that aggrevating for me, but I could literally feel the waves of anger coming from the other passengers in the bus - not pleasant! Obviously at the same time my daughter was complaining of a sore tummy and saying she wanted to be home. A delightful journey!

So when we had another Edinburgh trip ahead of us last week I decided we should try the train instead. Overall more successful, but not exactly enjoyable. I managed to solve the issue of transport to the station by half cheating: we had managed to plan it so that my husband was coming off a train shortly before we were leaving, so he could take the car home and solve the parking issue. This time I was also only travelling with my 2 year old, which made things slightly easier. My son is like most other boys his age obsessed with trains and he was highly delighted we were going on 'the chu chu'. What he didn't quite understand was the fact that you have to get off the train again and he was very upset when it was time to get out - poor wee man.
On the way home he was so desperate to get on the train again, that he really wanted to stand right at the edge of the platform to look for it. Not exactly a safe place to be, so once again we had a bit of a stand off, although luckily not a 20 minute screaming fit. When we got on the train there were nowhere to sit (we were getting closer to rush hour), but guess what nobody offered us a seat, so for most of the journey I had to stand trying to keep hold of myself, my son who really wanted to look out of the window and a pushchair. Not great! Obviously we had tears once again when we had to get off the train, but at least that should mean he enjoyed the trip.

So here are some of my reasons why I struggle with kids and public transport:
- Public transport is exactly that: public, so when your kids are having a bad day you can't hide it, they will aggrevate both you and everybody else!
- In a car the kids are strapped down and you know exactly where you have them, in busses and trains you have to constantly watch them and keep them occupied to avoid them jumping on the seats, running away etc.
- Public transport always includes waiting time, and one thing the kids hate is waiting!
- There is less time flexibility on public transport. If your child realises they need the toilet a second time just when you are about to leave the house that could mean a 5 minute delay if going by car, but much more if going by public transport, because you just might miss your bus and then have to wait for the next one (please see above regarding waiting time).
- Public transport can be uncomfortable and I hate to say it but unfortunately people are rarely very helpful.

I do realise that these arguments shouldn't really stop me using public transport if I truly want to be green, but I am not quite sure how to overcome them. Most of the other things we do I have come to enjoy to varying degrees, e.g. growing vegetables, saving money on energy, walking to the shops; but public transport is different. It seems to increase my stress levels and that is something I really do not need. Help needed - how to travel with young kids on public transport with out risking a heart attack??!!

Winter garden

2010-02-07T20:16:00.008Z

Yesterday I was doing bag packing in Sainsbury's as a fundraiser for my son's playgroup. Seeing the copious amounts of food of all kinds that go into people's trolleys made me think that if for some reason supermarket deliveries were hit by a crisis and stopped, we would all be in big trouble. Hardly any of us would have access to homegrown food, a lot of people wouldn't know how to grow it and even if we learned to grow it we wouldn't know how to cook it. We would probably even struggle to go to the local farms to get supplies because they have neither diverse enough produce nor the infrastructure to supply food locally.

This led me to make more serious considerations about our garden again. I haven't really thought much about it over the winter, it has been frozen and covered in snow a lot of the time, but yesterday I remembered my discovery from last summer: Gardening is a fascinating subject!

A year ago I had no clue at all. The only gardening effort I had made was planting flowers in pots to look pretty and maybe the occasional container with parsley.
Today I found myself making a schedule of the stuff we could plant this year with notes on when to plant and important things to remember. How did this happen?!

Lately I have been reading a book by Michelin starred chef Paul Merrett. A few years ago he decided to become self sufficient, despite having only the same flowerpot level gardening knowledge as me and he managed to get an allotment somewhere in West London. The book describes how he and his family gets on and then gives recipes for all the veg they produce. It is a well written and inspiring book. I particularly like it because he makes me feel less like a fool! If a Michelin starred chef whose daily life is centred around food hasn't got a clue how to grow vegetables, then surely I am excused for my pathetic gardening knowledge. What's even better is that he manages to answer some of the very basic questions, that I would probably be too embarrassed to ask a garden expert about. (Anybody wanting to borrow the book - send me a message).

So I am now attempting to plan what will be in the garden this year. Obviously the corner we have dug up is nowhere near the size of an allotment and becoming completely self sufficient isn't really on the agenda (yet..), but the more I read the more fascinated I become. All these little things to know, e.g. peas can become rather tall, so it is a good idea to plant something next to it that prefers midday shade like radishes or beetroot, or never grow potatoes in the same place 2 years in a row as it increases the risk of disease, or something I would never have guessed: to attract useful insects and beasties you can plant specific flowers such as calendula.

I am beginning to see the garden in a completely different light. When we are planting stuff we might as well plant something that has a dual purpose, not just something to look nice. Several of my pots that used to be filled with flowers will this year be filled with lettuce and herbs and hopefully some 'useful' flowers. If only I had truly realised what you can grow in pots earlier I could have had all sorts of edible stuff even in our old garden, which was about the size of a stamp.
I am already having visions of extending the vegetable patch even further (we don't need a lot of grass do we?!) and I am seeing bare patches all over that could maybe be filled with something edible.

Obviously I am partly daydreaming here. The chances of us having a highly successful crop anytime soon are not particularly high. What is much more likely is that despite all my planning things will get disrupted from the beginning. The weekends we are supposed to be planting will probably be very rainy or if the weather is suitable for gardening the likelihood is that something will come up that we have to go to or even more likely, projects will have to be abandoned halfway through because the kids will refuse to be in the garden for more than 15 minutes or they will batter each other with shovels or they will enjoy digging so much they dig up the seeds or ...

The same thing will probably happen when it comes to weeding and then of course again at harvesting if something actually comes up. If we do manage to get anything in quantities larger than just one meal I could easily face a cooking problem as well - like a lot of people I am much better at cooking pasta than I am at being creative with radishes and chard.

Still I have to keep the dream going, there is something surprisingly satisfactory about making stuff grow. If things get really bad I guess I can always turn to my Paul Merrett book for inspiration - if he can do it, surely I can too... (Yes???)

Green school

2010-01-31T21:04:00.011Z

Some time ago I promised myself to stop ranting about big companies and their complete lack of responsibility when it comes to our planet. It gets quite boring and doesn't spread good vibes. Yet after starting my post I realised this was exactly what I was doing again - somehow these companies keep winding me up. So in the spirit of not wanting to waste I have decided to publish this post anyway:

We had a letter from my daughter's school saying that they had joined 'Green Generation' a British Gas initiative, where the school can collect points (or leaves as they call them?!) and when the target number of points is reached the school will get equipment or something. Points can be collected by the pupils by doing different things, such as appointing tap monitors, setting up a school compost or making green pledges. Other people can also donate points to the school by for example doing a home energy saver check on the website.

I liked this idea, it sounded do-able to me. Normally in these schemes you have to spend money and collect vouchers,a very badly disguised way to encourage parents to buy more, but this you could do for free and even get personalised energy saving advice. Could it be that a big company was actually trying to help schools as well as encouraging energy saving with out any direct benefit to themselves???

Considering the progress we have made I didn't expect the report to be a big effort - and it wasn't.It was however a complete waste of time. Not only did the programme fail to nominate any points to the school for my efforts, but the whole thing was flawed.

The website didn't provide me with one single piece of information that I didn't know already. I guess that could be a good sign, as I have obviously learnt something over the last months, but still slightly disappointing.

However what really got to me (other than not being awarded any points) was the very generic approach disguised as a personalised report. It was obviously not designed for people who had heard of energy saving bulbs and insulation already, but for the people with no clue what so ever.

I had to fill in several details about our property, e.g. how big, how many windows, how many light fittings, how much insulation etc. I did it all, including ticking the boxes of yes, we have 300mm of loft insulation and yes, we have cavity wall insulation. Yet when my supposedly personal action plan came up it mentioned cavity wall insulation. Uhm, why - we have it already. OK fair enough under the carbon calculation section it did say that I would save 0 carbon by getting cavity wall insulation, so somewhere it did register that we have it already, but surely it shouldn't show up on my action plan then?

How come that a big resourceful company like British Gas can't advice properly on energy saving? I am not asking them for advice on raising kids or growing tomatoes, but energy saving should be their kind of thing, shouldn't it? Do they only have the knowledge to suggest the first basic steps of energy saving, such as insulate your home, switch your appliances off and use energy saving bulbs? Or were they in fact mainly interested in getting my details (I had to give full address and other stuff) in case I needed insulation and they could get a sales person round?
If they were serious about this they would have a programme that could deal with different categories of people, but I think they are more interested in looking good than actually achieving something real.

This is how far I got before realising I was on the rant again. Apologies to you all. So after re-reading it I started wondering what I should do instead. After all it had started with me wanting to be helpful to the school and getting the kids involved is definitely important, so there had to be something else that didn't involve British Gas or any other company for that matter. Amazingly a note came out from the school that they were looking for more parents for their eco committee. There we go! It was the obvious thing to do, but unfortunately it doesn't always take a big company to ruin your efforts - 2-year olds can be just as effective!

After speaking to the teacher we agreed that I would come along to the next meeting in the understanding they both my kids would be there as well and sit and draw or something (you have to be P3 to join the committee, so they are not quite big enough). I kept all my fingers and toes crossed that they would behave. We were off to a fine start, turned out that one of my daughter's classmates were there too, so they had company. All good and well and I got down to the business of helping some of the older kids inputting electricity readings to a spreadsheet. Then disaster! I won't give too many details, but lets just say, you should never bring a potty training kid to a meeting - especially not if they decide to show everybody what they have produced...

Needless to say the meeting was cut short for me and I now have to pluck up the courage to attend the next meeting without looking too embarrassed. Oh, what fun you can have trying being green....

Flying on the Happy Planet

2010-01-24T20:20:00.012Z

It is amazing the amount of 'green' stuff you find once you start looking. Going through some old mail I came across a link to 'The Happy Planet Index'. Initially I thought it sounded like some hippie kind of thing - 'lets all have a group hug and be a happy planet', but it turned out that it was in fact a new way of calculating the state of the nation as opposed to the GDP figures normally used.( www.happyplanetindex.org )

As we know the GDP gives an indication of the economic growth, but the Happy Planet Index takes in all sorts of other factors and rates the sustainability of the situation as well - so theoretically speaking it should give a much broader and accurate picture. A worthy cause I think, a GDP figure that measures purely growth doesn't really encourage sustainability, but it is likely to be many years before the powers that run the country will change the tune.

However on the same website you can also calculate your own happy index rating, and of course I had to give it a go. My overall score was 42, pretty close to the UK average of 40.3(So you can be green and pretty normal!), but a bit behind the general average of 53.3 (Maybe we are just a miserable lot on this island???)All in all nothing too exciting.

The overall score is however just one part of it, you also get scores on individual sections, such as life expectancy, wellbeing and ecological footprint.

Life expectancy was interesting. For some reason my life expectancy was higher than average. The average is 86, my life expectancy supposedly is 87.4, but I have no idea why. Despite good intentions I still don't really exercise a lot and I don't have the best diet in the world, but hey it is good news. (maybe that should be my next challenge to try out all the ways that supposedly helps you live longer...)

The well being part looked slightly less optimistic, but maybe that did have something to do with the fact that we had a rare night out yesterday and the lack of sleep combined with a particularly stubborn 2 year old this morning probably didn't put too positive a spin on my answers.

Anyway the ecological footprint was my true test. If my rating here was bad, I would have to admit failing my green challenge. Apparently the UK average is 5.4 global hectares, the general average is 4.1 and mine was (drum roll...) 2.92. Yipee, I am doing OK. Apparently I am using one and half to two times my share of the Earth's resources, which is obviously not sustainable, but definitely the rigth side of average. Even the comments section of the happy index admitted that this was pretty good. (This is the part where I avoid going into details about how the figure is calculated. Some of the questions were very subjective, bordering on silly, e.g. is your energy consumption higher, the same or lower than your neighbour's? - How would I know, I don't discuss energy bills with the lovely elderly lady next door)

The comments sections also highlighted one of my big dilemmas - flying. The advice suggested that it was a good idea to think about other options and maybe rather than going away for 2 long weekends to have one longer holiday and thereby reducing the number of flights. It is very complicated though when your family lives in a different country. We don't actually fly that often, we can't really afford to go to Denmark more than once a year, maybe twice at a push, and we certainly don't go on long weekends to European capitals, but I struggle to see how I would give up flying completely.

We have just booked tickets to go to Denmark for Easter, and the fact is I did look at alternatives. We talked about going down to Harwich and get the ferry across to Denmark, but it turns out that for the price of the crossing we could probably fly to Denmark at least twice and that is even before calculating the cost of getting to Harwich. It would also have meant taking the kids on a rather long journey, which would not only be a serious test on everybody's patience, but would also take up a fair part of the holiday time - time the kids would rather spend being spoilt by their grandparents than with two stressed out adults trying to beat the traffic. So I am afraid the planet on this occasion became the looser, flying was cheaper and quicker and allow us to spend more time with the Danish part of the family - that is hard to argue against.

Of course this might all change in the future, oil prices might just go so high that flying becomes a privilege only for the rich and famous, but until then I don't see us cutting out flying altogether - I love the planet, but I also love my family and I need to see them from time to time.
At least I can always point to the Happy Planet Index - even with flying I secured a pretty good score - so beat that anybody calling me a hypocrite!

Insulation

2010-01-17T15:22:00.003Z

The snow might have gone, but it is still cold! When autumn started I must admit I felt uncertain about how we were going to get through the winter without raking up a massive energy bill in this rather large house, and that was even before we knew we were facing the coldest winter in 30 years. I looked for cheap ways of insulating, only to discover that it isn’t really possible(see blog 6th Oct, Winter is coming)So when we were offered a free home energy audit I thought why not – at least that will tell us where we stand.

We kind of knew that there wasn’t really enough loft insulation and considering the temperature of the house we assumed there weren’t any cavity wall insulation, so I prepared myself for a massive quote that we wouldn’t be able to afford. My first shock however was when I was told that we do have cavity wall insulation already, because the whole extension was built 5 years ago and an obligation to insulate the wall cavity has been part of the building regulations since the 1990’s. ‘Help!’ was the first word that entered my head ‘the house is freezing, but actually insulated’.

The second surprise was the quote for topping up the loft insulation: £125. Now that is a fair amount of money, but not as scary as I had feared thanks to government grants. So we did some thinking, and as this was in December and we were already spending extra money on presents and food and I don’t know what, it did seem like time to get the priorities right and sort the insulation. So we did and we have no regrets!

Before we sorted the insulation this was how it worked. The original part of the house would usually stay reasonably comfortable, the extension part of the house would be cold and the kitchen would be freezing. Unfortunately the rooms in the original part are the ones we use the least, so all in all it was a rather chilly experience.

We now have a rather different situation. The top up loft insulation was put in covering all of the extension bit, and this part can now stay nice and comfy for a long time, which is great. Even when we don’t have the heating on in the evening and obviously not during the night (I work from home, so it is on most of the day), we still wake up in a bedroom where the temperature is 16 degrees. That is nice. The rooms downstairs will usually be 14-15 degrees first thing, which is pretty good in the current cold climate.

The one exception is the kitchen, and this is where I have fully understood the benefit of insulation. The kitchen is part old house part extension. The extension bit of it has a skylight, which looks great, but doesn’t do much for the heating. The old part of the kitchen sits below the bathroom, which hasn’t got any insulation on top, because of recessed lighting (apparently insulation on top of those kind of lights are a major fire hazard), so basically the kitchen is more or less uninsulated. Normal temperature in the kitchen in the morning is somewhere between 10 and 12 degrees – that is cold!

I am sure it will still take us a few years to claw back the £125 in saved energy bills, and it did leave a bit of a gap in the finances, but I can live with that – because I am warm!

PS. I have changed the comments settings as a trial, so all you lovely people who send me comments on e-mail can now do it right here. I look forward to hearing from you.

Green Ice Policy

2010-01-12T20:29:00.004Z

The snow that has covered Scotland for more than 3 weeks is finally beginning to disappear. It has been very unusual to see this much snow and for such a long time, and I have loved it! It is fantastic that we built a snowman before Christmas and the remains are still there. I much prefer the white snow cover to the endless rain we usually have. This weekend we had a great trip to the zoo, we could see all the animals very easily - they didn't camouflage very well in the white snow.

It has obviously caused a lot of problems as well, because somehow we are never really prepared for snow in this country, and I do empathise with the people who have been having a hard time, but what it has also done is highlighting how far down the list green priorities are for the councils. This morning it took me 40 minutes to do the school walk, not because we had forgotten the lunch box and had to run back for it, not because my 2 year old refused to walk (both of which can happen...), but because the so called 'safe route to school' hadn't seen a snow shovel or a single grain of grit since the white out started. The path was more slippy than an ice rink and in some parts people were hanging on to fences and lamp posts just to be able to stay upright.

Now I fully understand that priorities have to be made and this extended period of frost and snow is unusual and therefore maybe difficult to deal with for the Councils, but I am not sure I agree with their choices.

Scotland has the World's toughest climate bill with a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 42% by 2020. How in the world do they expect to achieve anything near that if they can't even ensure that children are able to walk to school? One of the strategies to cut emissions is to get people to stop driving on short journeys, and the school run definitely comes in that category, but if the road to school is dangerous, there is no chance of people ditching their cars.

I am usually quite persistent on walking to school, even when the weather is showing off its darker sides, but I honestly considered taking the car at pick up time - rather a bit of CO2 than a broken leg! In the end I did walk, only to discover that the path was in fact even worse than in the morning (all the thawing and refreezing is very unhelpful), and we ended up walking back a different route that is twice as long and on the main road - so far from a safe choice.

I don't want to sound like some grumpy person with nothing better to do than complaining, and I fully agree with the fact that they didn't grit the path as a first priority - the schools were closed afterall, but the snow had eased off already last week and they knew the schools were due to return after the Christmas break, so why didn't they at least attempt to make the path safe? A lot of people use this path and surely it is in the Council's interest to keep the kids safe?!

The fact is that making things safe for pedestrians during this snow spell has received very little attention. The Council's focus has been on the roads and thereby encouraging people to get in their cars. But what about the people who don't drive cars, like some elderly people - how are they supposed to get out.

I think it is time for the Councils and the Government to rethink the priorities. On one side they run ads in the radio telling people to drop the car for short journeys, but on the other side they do nothing to make this a safe option - what kind of a signal is that to send?

Maybe it is time for a radical change, e.g. in Denmark it is the house owner's responsibility to keep the pavement outside their property clear. Sure that can be a real pain, if it has been snowing overnight you need to get up even earlier to do some snow shovelling before work, but I can assure you it is a lot safer to be a snow pedestrian in Denmark than here.

Anyway until the Councils get their act together and get a green ice and snow policy, I shall continue my daily debate whether to persevere with the walking and risking to put myself in the category of eco idiot (especially when I fall and split my head open) or to cave in and go by car. Hmmm...

New Years resolution

2010-01-03T20:54:00.007Z

We have now entered 2010 and as always we have to make a New Years resolution. My resolution is to eat less chocolate! Why? Does chocolate have some kind of adverse impact on the environment, you might ask? It probably does, I don't really know, but what I do know is that you should never make New Year resolutions about anything important, because they never last. The chances of me eating less chocolate are about as high as the chances of me winning the lottery, but I do recognise the fact that from a health point of view I should be eating less - so the perfect resolution, I should stick to it, but it is never going to happen...

The question is if I were to make a serious new years resolution, what would it be? There are many issues I could go for. All the obvious ones (no, not losing weight) such as saving energy, eating less meat, using the car less, saving water, buy local, grow my own food - the stuff we are already working on. I have just signed up for the 10:10 campaign - save 10% on your energy usage in 2010, but this is not a resolution, it is a commitment.

I could make it a resolution to try even harder next year to have less waste at Christmas. Despite my efforts, this Christmas was still a scary experience from a green point of view. My kids received so many presents, that after the high of opening boxes, my five year old just sat in a corner looking rather overwhelmed and feeling upset that she didn't know what to play with. We have to find some way of limiting the presents next year - it is just too much, and even half the amount of stuff would be more than plenty for them. Anyway, I have almost a year to figure that one out, so a bit silly as a New Years resolution.

What would probably be a useful New Years resolution would be to learn some more facts about peak oil and global warming. As this green family project is growing quite a few people seem to have the urge to question me about all things environmental. Some of them are almost trying to challenge me to convince them that global warming is real, because like a considerable part of the population they are sceptical. The thing is I am not a scientist, and most of the scientific figures can be interpreted in many different ways anyway, so it would be pointless for me to start some explanation that I probably wouldn't even understand myself. Frankly the specifics of how global warming is happening (or not) are irrelevant to me, but what is very relevant is the unsustainable way we live.

80% of the Earths resources are used by 20% of the population -so where would we be if everybody on the planet lived the same way as us??? It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that this will not hold up in the long term. We can continue the way we are at the moment and hope for some kind of miracle to happen, or we can try to start a change now? Personally I don't really want to take the risk and that is why this green project is too important to be a New Years resolution. So my wish for 2010 is that it will be a year of discovery and learning and by the end of it we will have made lots more green progress, one step at the time. Now where was that chocolate...?

Christmas wish list

2009-12-21T21:24:00.009Z

It can be rather difficult to be festive and green and the same time! 2 weeks ago I wrote about the measures I am taking to make our Christmas slightly greener this year, but I am slightly concerned that I blew absolutely everything this weekend when we had 14 people over for a christmas party. Not good! Well the party was good, but I think we just about blew a weeks energy use in one day... (Fact is I haven't had the guts yet to read the meters, so I don't know for sure, but I have a strong feeling that when I do the weekly readings there will be a massive spike). I always knew that the usage would be slightly higher than normal, but I hadn't realised how having guests can give you completely different priorities for the day. (Unless all your visitors are eco-freaks like yourself!)

We left the heating on for most of the day, because we obviously didn't want people to get too cold. Lights were left on in most rooms downstairs all the time, because people were moving around, and where as normally I know which lights burn a lot of energy and avoid putting them on, obviously this was not the case for all the party guests - so the heavy duty stuff was going. I found myself switching a few lights off from time to time, but who wants to be a party pooper?!

I think a fair bit of food probably got wasted as well. Everybody had brought a contribution to the party and we had loads of food, but a lot of people didn't feel a big urge to take home leftovers, and I can't really blame them, because I had no desire either to eat my way through the food mountain.

Thankfully I didn't have a hangover the following day, but I did spend a bit of time wondering how to make parties less wasteful and energy intensive. The thing is it would have to be done discretely, if you start a party off with asking guests not to switch the lights on and bring an extra sweater, you have kind of ruined the party spirit.

The best I have come up with so far is getting better energy sources. Unfortunately renewable energy is pretty expensive to install, so it would probably be many years before I could have a green energy party, but I did a search anyway to see what might be possible. I went on to the Energy Saving Trusts website (www.energysavingtrust.org.uk ), they have a tool where you input information about your house etc and you then get an idea about what might be suitable for your house.

A wind turbine is out of the question, we are afterall in the town and the size of the garden doesn't amass to several acres of land. Hydro power isn't really an option either as it needs a source of water, and we don't have a river flowing in the back.

The options that we might have are a wood fuelled boiler, a wood burning stove, an air source heat pump, solar electricity panel or solar water heating. Wow! I wonder what it all means?

I have never been a techy person and despite diagrams and all sorts of other stuff on the website, I still haven't got a clue how any of this works. Well ok, I do know that a solar electricity panel converts energy from the sun into electricity, and a wood fuelled boiler is obviously a boiler fired by wood rather than gas or oil, but exactly how it would all work in our house is still a mystery! How do you put in a wood burning stove, when your property hasn't got a chimney? How much electricity do you actually get out of a solar panel? Can these things work together or does one exclude the other? All sorts of things to wonder about.

The biggest question of all is obviously how much would it all cost. According to the aforementioned website from the Energy Saving Trust these are the approx costs you can expect: Wood fuelled boiler: 9k, wood burning stove: 3k, air source heat pump: 5-9k, solar electricity panel: 8-14k and solar water heating 3-5k. It is possible to get grants for some of these things and I believe low cost loans are available as well, but frankly we can't have any energy consuming christmas parties for a long time if we are to get enough money together for any of that.

So I am down to my very last option if I am to have a more guilt free party next year:

Dear Santa,

I have been very good this year and I have made several changes to my lifestyle in order to help stop all the ice on the North Pole melting. Please, please, please can I have some kind of renewable energy installed in my house both to help secure your workshop and to make it possible for me to enjoy some more christmas parties. I promise I will work even harder next year to be green. Thank you.

Love from
DG

PS. Please watch out for my new apple trees when you land in the garden, they are still a bit fragile

Merry Christmas everyone, enjoy the festive season!

Green cleaning

2009-12-14T20:32:00.006Z

I am not a clean freak by any standard, but considering Christmas is here and lots of people will be coming to the house I figured it was time to make the dirt less obvious. I have been using various green cleaning products for quite a few years (after all that is one of the easiest ways to make a green choice), but if you look at the ingredients they still don't look that healthy, so I decided to do some quick research on alternatives. How to have a 'cleaning-chemicals-free' house?

It turns out there are lots of websites out there telling you how to clean with ordinary household products rather than squirty stuff from a bottle, so I thought it was time to put some of them to the test. The most urgent issues to address were the bathrooms and the windows (my 2 year old thinks it is great fun to lick the windows - he keeps saying 'mmm, tasty!)
I quickly realised that the 2 must-have products in green cleaning are bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar. Bicarbonate of soda can do all sorts of things, but the main thing is to work like a scouring powder, so for cleaning the washbasin or bathtub, just sprinkle some on a sponge and scrub away. It does seem to work, the washbasins were just as sparkly as when I use liquid spray-on bathroom cleaner.

It also has the advantage of not filling the air with some synthetic flower smell, but maybe that is just me being weird. I have never really understood the thing about air fresheners and strong smelling cleaning products, I find them headache inducing and it is my firm belief that the best way to get fresh air is to open the window. The smells also tend to give away the fact that I have frantically been running around cleaning just before any visitors arrive, even if I am trying to pretend that my house is always clean...

For cleaning the toilets I had 2 options to try out. One was to pour white vinegar in and leave it overnight, the other was to put 4 Alka seltzer tablets in and leave them for an hour. Both options supposedly gives you sparkling clean toilets and as we have more than 1 toilet I decided to test them against each other. They both kind of worked, but I am not sure either are the ideal solution. There is something strange about cleaning toilets with painkillers and since Alka Seltzer is an American brand there is probably quite a footprint connected to getting it here as well- so I would have to look for a British alternative if I was to continue. The toilet was clean though. Likewise the toilet came out looking nice with the vinegar, but this option had even more down sides. First of all the whole bathroom smelt of vinegar, which is not the most enticing of smells (even worse than air fresheners). Secondly because the vinegar needs to be left in overnight it requires a bit more planning and can't really be used in toilets that (like one of ours)gets used during the night. The main problem however with both options was the fact that the products only worked in the water area, so the sides of the toilet bowl didn't really get that much of a clean - not fantastic. I might just stick with my usual commercial green toilet cleaner for now.

White vinegar can also be used for making your own glass cleaner. There are lots of different versions on the net, but the one I followed was something like 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup of vinegar and a drop of washing up liquid. Put it all in a spray bottle, mix it well, spray on the window and wipe with newspaper. It works really well!

There were lots of other things I could have tried out, e.g. cleaning the oven with bicarbonate of soda. Apparently if you put a thickish layer of the white stuff in the oven, moisten it with water and leave for quite some time, at least overnight, you can then brush the bicarbonate away and all the dirt and grime will follow. Needless to say I never got round to trying it, frankly I hate cleaning the oven and I had absolutely no desire to test it, but if anybody wants to have go, please let me know the result.

My biggest discovery in green cleaning I think are microfibre cloths. I already exchanged my disposable kitchen cloths a few months ago for the washable microfibre option, and they are good. When rumaging through the cleaning cupboard this weekend I came across a microfibre bathroom sponge/cloth. I have a vague recollection of buying this thing on sale, but it must have disappeared into oblivion at some point during the house move. I can't remember how much I spent on it, but whatever the price it was well worth the money. It takes away the dirt no problem and without using any cleaning agents at all (the website for them is http://www.e-cloth.com/). Honestly it is a godsend for anybody who like me dislikes cleaning and just wants to do it quickly (that should be just about everybody then...).

So what is the conclusion on green cleaning. Well green cleaning products from the supermarkets are a better option than normal chemicals, but there are other options out there - and they are cheaper! From now on my main cleaning product will be a microfibre cloth and if things get really nasty I will sprinkle a bit of bicarbonate of soda. I shall never spend money on window cleaner again, a bottle of vinegar is cheaper than any ready mixed product and I dare say better. The one exception will be toilet cleaner, I haven't found the right substitute for that yet.

Obviously there are many more aspects to cleaning, and at some point I shall have to do some more investigating (although I don't think non electrical hoovers exist??), but for now I have made a start. With a bit of luck I will be spurred into action again next Christmas when I get another cleaning panic...

Green christmas

2009-12-08T20:57:00.009Z

Christmas is coming! In fact Christmas is here! We have reached the peak of the consumer year when we all seem to loose the plot and start running around frantically spending money and having a good time... Somehow the whole thing doesn't sit that well with trying to be green.

The thing is I generally like the festive season. It can sometimes get stressful, but it brings a lot of excitement and positive things (e.g. my children get dressed in record time so they can get downstairs and open their advent calendars) and for the kids it is an amazing month. So my challenge is how to make this a green Christmas (chances of a white Christmas are very slim anyway thanks to global warming...). How do I make this season slightly less excessive without turning in to the Grinch?

If looking around for advice on the Net the information you get is actually quite similar to normal green behaviour, e.g. recycle as much as possible, plan you food (you don't actually need to buy double the normal amount of food, nobody will be going hungry anyway), buy local, compost all your vegetable peels, avoid disposable plates and cups (if you are short get some from the charity shop or borrow from your neighbour), choose cards made from recycled paper or better still send e-cards, think about your wrapping etc. I haven't really come across anything groundbreaking or exciting that totally grabbed my attention and made me go 'of course - I should have thought of that!'

So unfortunately I have had to do a bit of thinking(!) to figure out the best ways to green up our christmas. Where can we make improvements that won't spoil the christmas spirit? This is what I have come up with so far:

We are not buying any new decorations. We already have quite a collection, but if we need additions we will have to make them ourselves! (I have actually broken this rule already, because I have ordered a wreath for the door, but it is made locally from locally sourced holly that can be composted afterwards, so I am almost excused)

Use of wrapping paper will have to be minimised. Apparently we use 8000 tonnes of wrapping paper every year, equivalent to approx 50.000 trees - that is a lot. These are the solutions I have come up with so far: I am going to wrap most presents in material. I have dug out old curtains, old table covers etc and I am going to cut them into nice pieces and use them for wrapping presents. After the mayhem on Christmas morning I can then gather all the pieces, fold them up and put them in the christmas box ready for next year! I have even experimented with sewing gift bags for the items that are likely to reoccur, such as CDs and DVDs.
Another thing I have tried out is using empty boxes from the kitchen, e.g. cereal boxes, tea boxes. If you open the sides gently you can turn them inside out, glue them back together and you then have a nice plain box ready to be decorated and filled with presents - it actually works. Sure enough this takes a bit longer than wrapping with paper, so not very appealing for my lazy side, but once I got going it was quite fun and my daughter was very happy to join in.
Admittedly some presents will have to be wrapped in paper - my five year old just might get suspecious if Santa's present is wrapped in the old table cover- but my target is not to need to buy Christmas wrapping paper for the next 10 years. Thanks to the previous owners of the house we have a decent supply (I think they forgot to look in the attic), and I am going to work on my skills to wrap presents without using sellotape, so that I can collect most of the paper back and reuse it next year.

I have ordered a turkey from the local farm shop - yes I finally found a shop. Well strictly speaking I haven't found it yet, because I placed the order over the phone and I am yet to venture out and find the actual building, but the risk of a Christmas without a turkey should be enough incentive to get me there. Hopefully I will also be able to get some of the other food from there, in order to make it a more local christmas.

I think I have managed to convince the family that we can get DIY crackers and fill them with edible stuff rather than getting another collection of plastic gimmicks. OK, crackers in general are probably still a bit on the wasteful side, but at least the content can disappear into our tummies rather than the bin. Somebody should invent a reusable cracker, then you could just put a new filling in every year.
There will be a proper cover on the table rather than a paper one. I have never used disposable plates etc for Christmas, but for several years I have bought paper covers, because I didn't have anything that fitted the table properly. I have now spent £20 on buying a piece of Christmas material, which I can hopefully use for many years to come - this is called long term investment!

We will however still be sending christmas cards out. There is not much point in sending e-cards to elderly relatives with no computer and my daughter is unlikely to accept sending e-mails to her friends when everybody else are swopping cards, but maybe over time we can bring the numbers down. Maybe I should get my daughter to do her own cards from some recycled paper?(I might also include a reminder for people to recycle their card afterwards...)

What I probably won't do this Christmas is go back to the library for a loan of a smart meter - it would be heart breaking to see how much energy is actually used. I wonder how much money the councils spend on Christmas lights in December - it can't be cheap?!

Does all this make our Christmas green? I don't know, but at least I am trying and if nothing else some of the above things should be saving us a little bit of money. I am sure there are lots of other things I could do, but Christmas is all about traditions and we can't really make new traditions in just one year - so this is a start.

I wish you all a happy green Christmas!

Green kids

2009-12-01T11:00:00.003Z

Not long ago I picked up a WWF postcard to join their campaign in the run up to the Climate summit in Copenhagen urging politicians to get their act together. On the front of the postcard was a polar bear floating on not very much ice. My 5-year-old daughter spotted the card and in her usual inquisitive manner asked what it was. Now until then I had never really attempted to explain being green, climate change or anything else of that sort to her, she is only 5 after all, but somehow that day I launched myself into it with some assistance from my husband.

I can't remember the exact words we used, I mainly remember half way through thinking that this was a very bad idea indeed - but it turns out that it was in fact a good idea. Somehow she managed to make the connection from our garbling that leaving the lights switched on is one of the reasons polar bears and penguins have less ice to live on. We didn't go into details about sea levels rising and other scary stuff, but she really connected with this thing about polar bears. Never ever underestimate your kids, they understand a lot more than we give them credit for! She is now really good at switching lights off and she doesn't question why, in fact if I occasionally have to remind her, she goes 'oh yeah - the polar bears - sorry'.

This has made me realise that maybe the most important thing about this whole green project is to make it a natural part of my children's lives, they are a lot more adaptable than adults and after all this is all about their future. If I can get them used to not consuming in the same excessive ways as my own generation, they will be a lot better off on many levels. The thing is if global warming or the lack of oil has completely changed our planet and lives in 30 years time, they will be wondering why we didn't do anything and I would like to be able to look them in the eyes and say 'I really did try my best' (still has a bit to go though before I can say that, I don't think driving the car and having long meditative showers count in 'trying my best'...)

Having said that maybe the best thing would be to just start listening to the kids and see things from their perspective. I have two very smart and funny nephews in America aged 5 and 8 and they (with possibly a bit of help from dad) sent me an e-mail with some advice to all the kids wanting to be green. I simply had to pass it on, so here is what the e-mail said:

Our dad told us about how you are writing about trying to be green and how difficult and frustrating it can be. Since it is our future at stake and since we have spent years doing green things, we would like to submit “The kids guide to being green, lazy and out of money.” These are proven techniques that anyone (but kids in particular) can implement. We just think adults are too limited in their thinking to see the obvious possibilities. And, unlike most of the things you have tried, they are not only energy/water savers and reduce carbon emissions but they also save money and time.

So, we don’t think that this should be left up to the grown-ups. We want to get the kids involved and as we said – we have proven and tested easy things kids can start doing right away (if they are not doing it already).

1) You tried turning down the water temperature and taking short showers. We say skip the bath all together and we have made this argument to our parent for years. No water wasted. No energy used. More time for important stuff like playing.

2) When going to the bathroom, don’t flush at all. Sure your parents will eventually notice and make you flush, but by then you will have saved a lot of flushes, not to mention a lot of time.

3) Skip washing your hands. We have found this to be a major water and time saver. Quick tip to the kids reading this: we recommend washing your hands every once in a while. This way your parents will think you are doing it all the time and won’t check. In other words, a small sacrifice in order to achieve big water and energy savings.

4) Pick a favorite outfit and insist on wearing it everyday (dark colors are best, but we will get to that in a moment). Think about it. No laundry means water saved, energy saved, time saved and no detergent getting released into the lakes and rivers. Considering how much our parents complain about doing the laundry, you would think this would be a no-brainer.

5) Whether your parents use paper or cloth napkins, they either waste trees and water or they require washing. We say use your sleeve or pants. Either you will save a few trees or, by eliminating the cloth napkin, you cut down on the laundry (especially if your parents insist on washing you cloths anyway). This is also why dark colors are best because your parents are less likely to notice ketchup and jam stains. In a pinch you can use a pillow but use the backside. Otherwise your parent will insist on that water and energy wasting habit of washing them.

6) Do your homework while watching TV. That way the lights only have to be on in a single room. If you sit close enough to the TV you don’t even have to have any lights turned on.

7) Eat only pizza, Mac & Cheese, and cereal. No planning required (time saver). Few trips to the store (energy and time saver). No wasted food (you said yourself that this is important).

Feel free to pass these ideas on to any and all kids you know. And good luck.

What can I say but 'well done guys', it is good to know that the future of the Planet is in safe hands!

Am I going mad?

2009-11-23T13:52:00.007Z

I am beginning to wonder about my own sanity! 3 months ago I considered us to be a reasonably average family living a reasonably normal life, but after being sucked into the greener living issues I am beginning to have doubts. Once you start reading more articles, watching more films and generally become more aware of environmental issues, it gets harder and harder to ignore the problems with our lifestyles. I am beginning to fear that in my enthusiasm I am turning into some kind of eccentric.

I started off this project just wanting to have a conscience that wasn't pitch black all the time and now I am finding myself doing stuff I would never have imagined 3 months ago. E.g. yesterday I said to my husband I would quite like a sewing machine (Christmas is coming, so time to throw a few hints), and he in his usual pragmatic manner replied 'I take it you want one that doesn't use electricity then'. I hadn't actually thought about that, but after his little 'funny' remark I couldn't help doing a google search on non-electric sewing machines. Needless to say there are no modern versions of people powered sewing machines and you need to do a bit of digging (in your wallet as well) to get one of the old ones, especially the ones with a footpedal rather than a handle... The point here though is not the fact that non-electrical sewing machines are hard to come by, but the fact that I actually did a google search on the subject!

This morning I walked my daughter to school despite the fact that it was pouring rain. She didn't mind, she got a chance to show off her green teddy umbrella, but when I returned to the house completely soaked I did wonder what had happened to me. Last winter I would not have left the car at home on a day like this.

Last year I had no idea about growing vegetables and I had no interest for example in learning how to make jam - what's the point when you can buy it in the shops; but now I am thinking it would be great to make lots of stuff from all this amazing fruit that is going to grow in my garden. (Hopefully I will get the hang of this gardening thing at some point...)

A few days ago I was making breadcrumbs out of left over crusts - something I would never ever have considered previously. OK we still throw out some of the crusts, otherwise we would drown in breadcrumbs, but the fact that I did make a portion of the crumbly stuff tells me that things are actually changing.

I hope the changes are for the better, I certainly feel happy about them, but I do occasionally wonder if I am in fact loosing the plot.

Last week I was talking to one of the other mums at the school gate and briefly explaining about my green project. She was very polite, but basically told me that she thought all this green business was rather silly, it was just the government trying to scare us and especially global warming was nothing to get so hung up about, as it was just part of a natural cycle for the planet. I was slightly lost for words! Her reply made me remember that what I thought was generally accepted as the right thing to do, (even though most of us rarely get round to doing the right things) is in fact to some people complete nonsense. She considered me a fanatic with some kind of strange belief system and for a moment I felt like some kind of missionary facing a group of heathens. It was a strange feeling -I never really thought of being green as a religion! Am I in fact part of a new cult?

The ultimate strike to my sanity then came when I later opened my e-mail and there was a message saying I had been banned from the ad programme on this blog because I posed a risk to the advertisers. For a moment I thought I had become all powerful. Was my blog really so influential that advertisers like the utility companies considered me a risk? Unfortunately I doubt that, but it turns out that these ad programmes are more secret than MI5 and MI6 put together, so I am unable to obtain any information on this risk - maybe the risk was just the fact that they were due to pay me? I shall never know, so maybe I could just stick with the illusion that my green project has become a threat to some of society's big companies... ;-)

Anyway, ads or no ads, religion or not, I am still going strong. This project might be taking me in directions I didn't imagine to begin with, but I still feel I am doing the right thing. I might be slightly more cautious of who I speak to about the project until I gain the ability to remember some hard hitting facts to use in a discussion (not much hope there then, I am useless at memorising facts), but I have learned a lot and that in itself is reason enough to continue. At the end of the day we are still a pretty normal family I think, our lives haven't actually changed that much, we have just changed the focus a little.

Waste

2009-11-16T20:25:00.003Z

I have just been looking through the supplement to the September edition of Holyrood Magazine – yes I know it is November now, but Scottish politics magazines are not top of the priority list at the moment... The theme of the supplement was ‘waste’, a lot of the articles giving information on the Scottish Government’s ‘Zero Waste Plan’. Interesting stuff, although they obviously gave it the name ‘Zero waste’ because that sounds better than ‘15% waste’ or '30% waste', but as far as I can see they haven’t actually figured out when or how Scotland can have nil waste. Apparently the target is for 70% of waste to be recycled by 2025 – That is not exactly zero waste.

Anyway government plans or not, I have been thinking a bit about the amount of stuff we throw out. Our bin gets collected every 2 weeks and despite making an effort to recycle, to compost and to reuse it is usually almost full. That is worrying! How can we have so much stuff that just gets dumped? So I have been trying to suss out what actually ends up in the bin.

We never put stuff in there that can be easily recycled, so no paper, card, tins, cans, milk bottles, juice cartons and similar as that gets picked up by the council for recycling. We take all glass to the bottle bank. All clothing or material go either to charity shops or textile banks. Any other item that could still be used, e.g. old toys, baby equipment or books, goes either to charity, on Freecycle or occasionally on e-bay.

Obviously there is the much mentioned foodwaste, but even 1.5kg of waste every 4 days is not going to cause a full bin. Especially considering that some of the 1.5kg of waste would have gone in the compost rather than the bin.

Then there are the nappies. Yes, I have to admit it, I use disposable nappies for my 2-year old. Not very good for my green credentials, I know, but due to different circumstances this is how things turned out, and considering that my son is just about to be potty trained I don’t want to invest in washable nappies now. Even the nappies though are not going to fill the bin, he doesn’t pee that much!
Likewise the paper tissues we use for runny noses etc are not going to make the bin full, even when combined with the food waste and the nappies.

I think the majority of the stuff in the bin is packaging. It is all the plastic trays from the supermarkets. It is all the plastic and cellophane that various items get wrapped in. It is all the tubs that used to contain butter or ice cream or something similar. What is this thing we have about packaging, why is everything wrapped in layers of paper and plastic? Do we think our pyjamas are nicer to wear if they have been wrapped in plastic? Does the tea taste better if the teabags are individually packed in paper covers, then bundled together in plastic wrapping and then put in a card board box again wrapped in plastic (no I am not exaggerating – I have seen this myself)? Does supermarket meat make better bolognaise sauce, when it has been put into a plastic tray that could take about double the amount?

I want to reduce the amount of stuff we throw out, but how do I do it? Packaging seems to be such a big part of most things we buy. Apparently there is a law in the UK against excess packaging, and it is enforced by the Trading Standards. (http://www.which.co.uk/advice/excess-food-packaging/excess-packaging-tips/index.jsp) So we can complain about this, but interestingly enough the law is about whether the packaging is deceptive, e.g. made excessive to make us think we are getting more than we actually are, rather than being about unnecessary and pointless packaging.

As always I think the supermarkets are some of the biggest culprits, and frankly by now I should have become a lot better at avoiding supermarkets and buy more from the real local places, e.g. I am sure the local butcher doesn’t pack all his meat in massive plastic trays. But reality is that it is a lot quicker to get everything in the one shop, rather than going to several places, and many things I can only really get in the supermarket, so I would have to go there anyway.

Other than avoiding supermarkets I am not sure what to do? I certainly cannot think of any easy effortless solutions.
So here I am again – more effort needed! I start off by wanting to have less waste and end up needing to do more...

Maybe I should move to Berkshire, apparently they have started a scheme where you get money off vouchers for recycling. They are expecting that the average household can earn £130 worth of vouchers in a year, at least that way I could get something for my recycling efforts, and if it would mean money off at the local butcher’s I might even make it to the shop.

Food, food, food

2009-11-08T21:36:00.004Z

I am becoming obseessed with food! Not that I am eating all the time, but I seem to be constantly thinking about all sorts of food issues.

First of all there is the food waste project. This week it was all about planning your shopping and making use of the stuff you already have before buying more. It worked well in the way that I actually sat down to plan the dinners for the whole week and did the shopping accordingly. It was a very good reminder of how planning can help keep stress away because everyday I knew what I was cooking, rather than panicking at 4 o'clock. It also meant I didn't go to the supermarket almost every day, which was very nice, both for my stress levels and for my purse. However I have to admit I didn't do the suggested full scale planning that the project suggested, that includes planning for lunch as well. That was far too complicated. Asking everybody in the family to decide for the whole week which days they are having packed lunches, school dinners, lunch meetings etc was too much - not to mention how difficult it would be to keep track of the answers. So the planning element only covered dinners.

I am not sure it had a huge impact on the foodwaste. We still wasted food on a similar scale to last week, because again we mainly seemed to have an issue with not too tasty stuff. (one day I managed to cook a dinner that was almost inedible, even though I had followed every detail of the recipe...) So from a foodwaste point of view not a major impact, but from a stress busting point of view quite successful.

Another food issue that has been popping up is my cooking talents (please note that the above mentioned inedible meal was an exception, I am usually not that bad...). We are still having 2 vegetarian days a week and it works, but we have reached a point where we need to extend the repetoire of vegetarian dishes, and I feel my cooking skills are needing an upgrade. This is not because vegetarian dishes are more difficult to cook, but they need a different mindset that I haven't got, because most of the cooking I do include some form of meat. I need to find somebody who is vegetarian who can show me what they actually eat during a normal week- I am sure there are loads of great veggie dishes out there, I just don't know that many of them.

Similarly I have been doing a lot of thinking about the whole buy local, buy organic, buy seasonal thing. Organic food is great, but from a carbon footprint point of view not always the best - an organic apple that has travelled all the way from New Zealand might be low on chemicals, but it has caused a fair bit of CO2 to be released during transport here. Hence the reason we should be eating local food to save on CO2 emissions. But if we only eat local food (local even just meaning British) there are lots of things we wouldn't get - despite global warming we still can't grow bananas or avocados or lots of other common stuff on this island.

Even if you do manage to get food produced in Britain, it could easily be intensively grown green house vegetables, that are very unhelpful for the CO2 levels as well, so not a great option either. That is why you are supposed to be eating seasonal food, and not think it is normal to eat strawberries in November.

The thing is if I was only to cook with ingredients grown locally, in season and preferably organic I would be down to a very small range of items, that I wouldn't have a clue how to cook. I mean, I struggle to be creative doing vegetarian dishes, but if I was limited to the stuff that can actually grow in this country, my family would very quickly go hungry. Not only would most of my cooking books be obsolete, but I would need a series of cooking lessons to figure out how to make kale and turnips exciting.

So despite being an OK cook, I am finding it really difficult to make big changes to our eating habits. To feed a family it is not enough to know 4 different dishes, there has to be variety, and because we are now so used to everything being available all year round, most of us don't really know how to cook with only local ingredients.

So in my confusion and frustration about all these food things I turned to my own garden again. (obviously I can't grow bananas or papayas, but at least I can do local and organic) This weekend the weather was actually dry, which has been fantastic, so I kind of saw it as my last chance to do a bit of garden work. Despite the fact that the only really successful thing in the garden this year has been parsley, I still seem to have boundless optimism, so today I planted a plum tree and some blackberries. I have also ordered 2 apple trees which will hopefully arrrive by the end of the month. It is amazing how a bit of gardening can lift the spirit and pottering about in my wellies I felt certain that next year I will definitely be able to 'harvest' lots of stuff. Long may this feeling last (!), then I just need to learn how to cook with all these local vegetables...

Kitchen Canny

2009-11-01T21:41:00.005Z

I have just completed the first week of a food waste project. Interesting! I signed up to this project called Kitchen Canny a few weeks ago, but only last week did I manage to get started. It is a 4 week project. The idea is that the first week you continue as normal, but put all food waste into a separate bin. The second week you are supposed to look at your shopping habits and the third week is all about cooking appropriate portions. The fourth week you do the bin thing again, and hopefully things are a bit better.

Now, this is about all the food that you could have eaten, but you didn't for some reason. So it includes all the stuff you find at the back of the fridge which is out of date, all the vegetables left on the plate because the kids wouldn't eat them, all the half rotten apples you ended up with after a 'buy one get one free' offer etc. However it doesn't include banana peels or other stuff that isn't really eatable.

The result of the first week was interesting in several ways. I actually had less stuff in the bin than I had expected after the 4 days you are supposed to do it. I know that we can be wasteful sometimes and I probably thought the bin would be more or less full. However at the end it was only half full with a weight of 1.434 kg. I have a suspicion though that the time span isn't really long enough to fully capture our habits. You are supposed to pick 4 normal days in the week for collecting your food waste, and although we did have 4 pretty normal food days, I don't for example get round to clearing out the fridge every 4 days. Anyway I shouldn't really complain that I had less foodwaste than expected.

So what did end up in the bin? There were quite a few prawn skewers. They got binned because nobody actually liked them, the box had 2 varities and only one of them was nice. So I guess we won't be buying them again, but we had no way of knowing they would be that unappetising.

3 potatoes went in the bin, because they had started decomposing! I really must get round to finding a proper box or bag for storing the tatties.

A fair bit of bread crusts went in there as well, solely due to the fact that my daughter refuses to eat the crust of anything. It is a bit of a pain, but except for shoving them down her throat I have run out of ideas on how to get her to eat them? It was a bit of an eye opener to realise exactly how many crusts actually go out on a daily basis. I guess I could start buying crustless bread, but I don't think that is the best way to go, both because the rest of us are happy to eat the crust and because I don't want my son to change his mind and decide he doesn't like crusts either. I have been wondering if there is something I could do with the crusts, but the only thing I have been able to think of so far is bread crumbs. I am now going to make sure that we always have a supply of homemade breadcrumbs, but at the end of the day there is a limit to the amount of breadcrumbs a family can consume - what should I do with the rest???

Then there was a small bag of peas I had to throw out. They were meant to be frozen, but in my distracted busy mum state of mind, I managed to put the bag in the vegetable drawer of the fridge rather than the freezer... oops. If I find a way to avoid this kind of stuff I will probably have cracked the big question of how to be an organised and calm parent!

The one thing there was surprisingly little of in the bin was leftover food from the kids. I fully expected that to be quite a big part of the waste. It could be that we had 4 lucky days and for some reason the kids were exceptionally good eaters these days? Or maybe I just haven't realised that my children actually do very well and they are not really the fussy eaters that I claim?

We also didn't seem to have much waste due to cooking too much, something else I had expected. I do normally tend to weigh out things like pasta or rice, but it can still be difficult to cook the right amount. Some days 400 g of pasta is more than plenty, but other days it is not enough. Likewise with vegetables, one night a bag of beans is far too much and nobody wants to eat beans, 3 nights later beans have turned into the children's favorite food and one bag is not enough. On the 4 waste days it must all have been good days and all vegs got eaten, but I am pretty sure that 4 days taken out of a different week could look the exact opposite. With kids you just never know.

As I said I never had time for a fridge clear out, so nothing really went in the bin just because it was out of date, but I do know that happens. We didn't have any overripe bananas either which also happens on a regular basis, but maybe it doesn't happen quite as much as I imagined?

So what have I learned from this first week of Kitchen Canny. Well it almost looks like we primarily waste stuff because we buy stuff we don't like (prawn skewers, bread with crust...) - not a very clever thing to do, but not really intentional either. Not quite sure how to avoid this, unless I stop buying new products and always stick with the things I know everybody likes? Hm, that wouldn't exactly make dinner time exciting. The other thing to remember is to store food properly - no potatoes in plastic bags, no frozen peas in the fridge. I will just have to get organised!

Judging from the contents of the bin I should be happy, because matters weren't as bad as I feared, but I am still left with a sneaky suspicion that things could have looked different and somehow we had 4 good days. I am going to try my best to do week 2 and 3 even though they require a little bit more of my precious time and then week 4 will be interesting. If I end up with more stuff in the bin it will definitely be proven that this was a lucky week, if I end up with less then I shall be very proud of myself. Bring on the food waste challenge!

Where is this going

2009-10-27T15:25:00.005Z

These last few weeks have been a bit hard! Some days it feels like I am going backwards rather than forwards. Don't get me wrong, I am still trying, but the realities of life sometimes catch up with you even when you have the best intentions in the world.

I have had to higher the thermostat for the hot water, I realised I was probably pushing things a bit too far when my two year old son uttered the word 'cold' when he got put in the bath. Poor little man!

I have also had to give up on walking to the weekly ballet class. It caused so much stress and frustration, because we literally had to walk straight from school to the leisure centre at a reasonably fast speed, and after a whole day at school this was just too much for a 5-year old. It always ended in tears and didn't really make for a good family experience. With changing the clocks it would now also be dark when walking home, which wouldn't exactly help matters. So we have started taking the car. This way my daughter has time to sit down for 10 minutes and have a snack between school and ballet. Now she is not completely exhausted, we don't have any tears and altogether we have a nicer afternoon.

The thing is that I have been extraordinarily busy lately and that isn't helpful for the green agenda. Generally I find that the green options require a slightly higher level of planning and often a little more time. If you want to avoid excess food in the fridge you need to plan out meals very carefully. If you want to cut down on processed food it might take a bit longer to cook the dinner. If you want to walk rather than take the car you need extra time. When you are really busy that becomes difficult. Tonight we ended up with fishfingers for dinner, something we haven't had for a long time, but I simply hadn't had time to think about the meals and do the shopping in advance.

What should I do? My situation isn't exactly unique, most families are probably facing the same issue. I am still full of intentions, I am still motivated, but I am not superhuman and I can only do so many things in a day. Obviously we are still more green now than 3 months ago, because we have learnt a lot in this period and that is not going to change - but how do you fit in green priorities when life gets really busy??!

I haven't figured out the answer yet. Maybe I need to go on a meditation course or read a self help book? No, probably not - that would just take up even more of my time! Maybe I should give the project a rest for a bit and just be happy with the progress made so far? But that wasn't really the point, I still want to do this and I still have improvements to implement. Maybe I will just carry on the best I can and take heart from the fact that other people actually care about this as well.

Recently I have had people telling me that not only do they follow my project, but it has encouraged them make one or two changes in their own lifes. I think that is great. Not because I think I can be the saviour of the world, but because it makes me feel like I am not being stupid. I am not wasting my time, I am basically doing stuff that most people find sensible enough to copy.

On a similar scale my best friend in Denmark just send me an early birthday present: a climate cooking book. This book has just been published in Denmark (probably a date specifically chosen to coincide with preparations for the climate summit in Copenhagen in December...) and besides from recipes it has information about all sorts of climate change related stuff. It made my day to get this book. Not just because presents are nice, but also because it is lovely to get support for the project, and then of course it seems to have interesting information in it. So to finish this entry off here are a couple of things I have come across in the book so far:

-Boiling water in the the kettle before putting it in the pot can save energy, but only if you have an electric hob, no real saving is made if the hob is gas.

- Excess packaging is actually not the biggest issue on the waste front in relation to climate change, wasted meat and dairy products are far more serious

-Locally produced food are not only better because less transport is involved, but they have a higher content of vitamins etc, because they get to ripen naturally.

Interesting stuff. So many things to consider, when you are trying to do what is right...

Motivation

2009-10-20T22:21:00.009+01:00

I just read on Sky news that the Advertising Standards Agency has received more than 300 complaints about a government ad telling people that if we don't get our act together now our kids will suffer the consequences of climate change. Obviously a quite hard hitting ad playing on the fear of all parents that their children will end up unhappy.(http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091020/tuk-outrage-over-drowning-pets-climate-a-45dbed5.html)

According to the article most people complained about the scientific evidence used, but the rest simply thought the ad was too scary...

I haven't seen the ad, so I can't comment on the science used (and I probably wouldn't have a clue anyway...), but the fact that some people find it too scary probably says a lot about the general attitude to our Planet. We don't really want to know. I certainly would rather live in oblivion! What is the Government thinking bringing this day of doom message right into our living room, just when you've sat down to relax in front of the telly? No wonder people are complaining.

Unfortunately the message is true - all signs are pointing towards a bleak future if we continue the way we are going at the moment. The question I am asking is what exactly are we expected to do? This is not me trying to run away from responsibility, but I would like some clear guidelines, how much do I personally need to do? I am trying to do what is right, but I am struggling to find out exactly how much is enough. What is the point in scaring people if you are not offering any solutions?

I wish somebody could tell me that if I do x,y and z, then things will probably turn out OK in the end. But unfortunately this is not the case. I think we need more information we can relate to at a personal level. Having a smart meter in the house was a hundred times more effective at changing my habits than 20 energy saving campaigns, because the smart meter gave me information related directly to me. Generic information is exactly that - generic, and therefore very easy to dismiss as not really relevant to me.

For action to happen we need arguments we can understand and a belief that the target is achievable. I started this green project completely voluntary, and so far it has not been just plane sailing. I still have days when the state of the planet comes very far down my list of priorities. I have times when I feel it is a never ending spiral and there will always be something else I can do to be that little bit greener. On those days I would rather the Government gave me some incentives to get my act together, rather than scaring me with grim pictures of the future. I would like some happy stories that showed me that it is worth the effort.

We are all comfort creatures and I think we are much more likely to listen and to act if we can see easy ways of doing stuff. Things for example would be looking great in Scotland, if we could help the planet by drinking beer!

The parts of my project that have been the most successful are the ones where I either save money or don't have to do much. I am much better at saving energy now, because I can actually see it on the bill. I do my washing at 30 degrees, because it makes no difference to my daily life at all. The parts where I struggle more is where a real change of habit is needed - that takes a different level of determination (which I don't always have).

Maybe I need to think about my arguments for doing this. Am I trying to save the planet for the sake of my children? Am I doing this to feel better about myself? Am I just being a good citizen listening to the Government? (Probably not...). Am I really looking to save money rather than the Planet? Did I just want a subject for a blog? I am not sure, maybe it is all of them.

One thing I am sure of is that if the Government or anybody else for that matter really wants to help us change our habits then they need to help us find our personal motivation. They can dish out all the information in the world, but if they can't get people motivated one way or another it is all a complete waste.

To keep myself motivated I bought a fridge magnet the other day. It has a foolproof argument:
Save the Earth - It is the only planet with chocolate!

Small steps are OK

2009-10-12T14:00:00.009+01:00

I had quite a shock this weekend! I was explaining my green project to a friend and she asked me: 'so what are you doing to become greener?' Uhm... After a few panic stricken moments I came up with: I wash the clothes at 30 degrees, we are vegetarians 2 days a week and we lowered the thermostat on the boiler. Not exactly an impressive list!

For a moment I had the feeling of complete failure, am I in fact not really doing anything? It sounded a bit silly to say we take all glass to the bottle bank, because we did that before as well, saying we have signed up for online billing isn't exactly a major feat either and I can't claim to grow my own vegetables, because our carrots are the size of overgrown peanuts and the beetroots are only tops and no root.

My lack of answer to the question was even more disturbing, because I have now become involved with the local climate challenge group and I feel I spend a lot of time thinking about environmental issues at the moment, yet I had no decent answer. (This involvement with the Climate Group is one of the reasons for the lack of updates on this site as well, apologies to you people who faithfully check in on a regular basis).

The thing is that when you get put on the spot you want to be able to say big things like 'we have had solar panels installed' or 'we sold the car and only use public transport' or 'we converted the garage to a mini wind power station using a tricycle, an old sheet and 20 metres of organic cotton string...', but I had nothing like that to say.

It got me re-evaluating the whole project again, and I realised that being green isn't just about the big things, it is just as much about taking responsibility for your everyday actions. The main difference between now and then is my attitude. Before I would often leave the light on in the living room when going upstairs to put the kids to bed, because 'I am coming back down again shortly'. Before I would only occasionally walk to the shops rather than take the car. Before I would just grab the most convenient pack of veg in the supermarket without fully considering if we would be able to use it all up. I don't do that anymore!

I have become so much more aware of my actions. Yes, I still use my car, but I use it a lot less than I used to, and when I do use it I try to drive it in a fuel efficient way. We obviously still use electricity, but I make a very conscience effort to not use more than necessary. I always look at how much water is in the kettle before switching it on. I don't leave anything on standby and I know which kitchen appliances are the most energy consuming. I try to make sure I use up stuff in the fridge before it expires (try is the key word here...) and rather than thinking about putting in 1 fruit tree in the garden I am planning 2 or 3 and couple of berry bushes. I wipe my sons face with a washable flannel instead of disposable wipes, and my daughter's sandwich goes in a reusable paper bag rather than cling film.

None of this sounds like much, and there is still ample room for improvement, but I am heading in a direction rather than staying on the same spot.

I do hope that one day we will have solar panels and a garden that is full of useful stuff rather than weeds and miniature vegetables , just as I hope we will be nicely insulated and having a primarily vegetarian diet, but the fact is that small things matter as well. My actions won't have much of an impact on the level of CO2 spewed out in Scotland, but they do have an impact on how I think.

So next time somebody asks me what I am doing to become greener, I shall say something like: 'I am changing my habits gradually and I am taking responsibility for my actions. I don't do anything extraordinary, because most of us know what we should be doing, my bid to be green is to actually try and follow some of the advice that is given and not just leave it at good intentions.'

And hopefully I won't get too many of my friends asking, because if I have to say that kind of stuff too often I will probably end up with no friends at all!

Winter is coming

2009-10-06T21:11:00.005+01:00

Autumn is definitely in full swing now! This weekend was seriously windy (the kids trampoline flew across the garden and landed in my vegetable patch squashing my poor pumpkin plant), along with lots of rain and rather cold temperatures. It was a strong taster of what lies ahead, and a check on how winter proof our new house is. Not very - there are a few issues!
Unfortunately it seems that making your house warm is one of those things that you can’t do on the cheap.

Although our house has double glazing, nobody (including the surveyor) picked up before the purchase on the fact that some of the windows seem to have been recycled from a different property. Obviously recycling is a good idea, and usable windows should not be thrown out, but quite a few corners seem to have been cut when putting these ones in. Some of the windows have no seals, other windows have handles missing, some have a hole where the ventilation grid should be and some just don’t seem to fit together properly. Hooray! We have obviously known this for some time, but because it has been summer it hasn’t really been top of the priority list, but this weekend really proved that we have to do something.

Step one has been temporary measures along the line of putting duct tape over missing vents and around very drafty windows, but not exactly the most effective draft proofing. Step two was to have a look at the net and in the DIY shop for something slightly more appropriate, but as we are not exactly experts in double glazing it became rather pointless, we have no idea what shapes the seals should have or how to fit vents and the manufacturer of the handles appears to have gone bust. Step three was to phone some double glazing repair people to come and have a look, but when I explained the problems to them they sounded far from optimistic and suddenly were very busy - so couldn't come till end of next week sometime. Step four - well either we will be very lucky and the guy actually turns up and is able to fix it very cheaply... (ha,ha,ha) or otherwise we will have to stock up on duct tape and wrap up warm for the winter. Unfortunately changing all the windows is just not possible, putting in new double glazing is so expensive!

All these drafty windows also led us to look at the insulation of the house. My husband found a couple of unused insulation blankets in the attic which is good, but some areas of the house could definitely do with improvements on that front. Insulation unfortunately is not cheap either. Although the Government is pushing for people to get better insulation for lots of good reasons, the grants they are giving just don't cover people like us. The grants are primarily aimed at elderly people and people on benefits, but there is no section for a pretty standard young family of four, who at the face of it should have money as we have an income, but in real life are quite short on cash.

There are lots of organisations promoting home insulation and endless calculations of how much you can save in the long term by insulating your home, but you still need to come up with a fair amount of money to begin with. If you try to google alternative ways of insulating your home, lots of innovative high tech solutions come up (e.g. insulation material made from Soybeans or recycled plastic bottles), but nobody seems to have come up with some really clever cheap ideas, like using empty loo rolls or old books or something. I briefly got my hopes up when I was looking in some inspirational home magazine from IKEA, which happened to have a green theme, and in an interview some Swedish guy said 'you have to think creatively, for example we have used old newspapers for insulation'. It sounded like a great idea, but as IKEA didn't tell you how to use newspapers I went on the Net again to investigate. That quickly stopped my insulation plans. Apparently by using newspapers you are not only creating a haven for rats and other lovely creatures, but also dramatically increasing the fire risk. Not a good idea then!

So right now it looks like we are headed for a cold winter (better tell Santa, that my kids would like new fleeces for Christmas...). When I first started this project I suggested that being green always requires either money or effort, and so far it looks like insulation is something that can only be done with money. No amount of effort I put in can insulate our house at a low cost, I can't grow my own fibreglass matting or make window seals out of cardboard. The only cheap heating we have at the moment I think is our exercise bike - we will just have to take turns at pedalling away...

Smart meters

2009-10-02T20:24:00.005+01:00

Smart meters are a revelation! I finally got round to sorting my library card and I was then able to borrow a smart meter for 3 weeks. We have had it set up for 5 days now and it is almost turning into an obsession watching the figures go up and down.

I have trailed the smart meter all over the house testing out how much it affects our electricity usage to switch on the lights, work on the computer, make a cup of tea, have the lights on in the fish tank, hoover and all sorts of other things. It is fascinating.

I have made some interesting discoveries. Switching on one energy saving light does not create a massive spike (as expected), however using the oven, the microwave or the kettle is very energy intensive. To my surprise some things aren’t really that bad, e.g. having the laptop on or doing the ironing. Obviously nothing should be left on, if you are not using it, but having the oven on longer than absolutely necessary is a lot worse than forgetting to switch an energy bulb off.

Just to illustrate here are some examples:
When everything that can be switched off is off the energy usage is about 0.05kW. Some things like the fridge, the freezer and the pump for the fish can’t really be turned off, so there is a level of permanent energy use. If we switch on the main light in the kitchen, which has an energy saving bulb the usage goes up to 0.06. If I switch on the light in the bathroom, which has a complete overflow of lighting including 4 halogen lights usage goes up to 0.13kW

Using the normal electric oven means an increase of an amazing 1.92 kW, but using the fan assisted oven is even worse at 2.28kW. (Yes, I am one of the very lucky people, who has a range cooker that includes 2 ovens. In fact I have an incredible selection of kitchen gadgets, if only my cooking skills matched my collection of kitchen ware, I would be heading right for Master Chef...). The grill on the other hand 'only' uses 1.61kW, so now I know that using the grill in stead of the oven might sometimes save me energy.

Putting the TV on causes an increase in the energy usage of 0.08kW, and interestingly enough having the TV on standby has an energy usage of 0.02kW. Think about that - the lowest level of energy use would go from 0.05kW to 0.07, just by having the TV on standby. That is the same increase as if we left two energy bulbs burning all the time. Thankfully we are in the habit of switching the TV and various connected boxes off at the wall, but I hate to think about the money we have wasted in previous years leaving stuff on.

Charging a mobile phone is at the same level as switching energy bulbs on, but making a cup of tea is very energy intensive, it has shown increases of up 2.59kW to put the kettle on. It makes you think twice about how much water you are boiling. You can buy an eco kettle, that only heats the amount of cups you need (I think is has two chambers or something and loads a measured amount of water from one chamber into the other chamber that then heats the liquid???), but just looking at the water level indicator is a good start.

Obviously this is just how things look in our house and for our appliances, but it is a strange feeling all of a sudden to know exactly how much energy you are using, and there just might be days, when I would prefer to forget this information. Christmas Day for example, when I usually have absolutely everything on in the kitchen, not to mention christmas lights and all the other stuff. Suddenly Christmas becomes expensive at a different level.

Actually I think I might be turning into a bit of an energy geek. When setting up the smart meter you have the option of entering the rates you pay, that way it shows you the actual cost of the usage. So looking into all this really got me thinking about the rates we are paying and the best way to be set up. This sounds really boring, but I sat down and calculated how much it would have cost us if we had been on some of the other rates and hey it turns out, it doesn’t really make any difference. If I change to the rate that has a standing daily charge then electricity will be about £15 cheaper, but gas will increase by about £10, so overall not a huge benefit. I really should know it by now – the utility companies have lots of clever people working for them figuring all this out, so the chances of me out-smarting them by changing rates are not very high. But at least I did the calculation, so now I know for sure.

Anyway I should probably switch off my computer now and then sit and watch the figures go down on the smart meter by 0.01kW. Who needs entertainment, when you have a smart meter to watch...

Saving water

2009-09-29T21:38:00.007+01:00

We have a tap in the kitchen that has been dripping since we moved into the house, and all attempts at fixing it have been unsuccessful. Our DIY skills just don’t extend to include taps with ceramic plates and grit trapped in the middle. Listening to the dripping yesterday reminded me again that we really must do something about it, wasting water like that is plain silly.

The problem with water conservation in Scotland is that in general we have loads of the wet stuff and it keeps coming... On top of that in a lot of areas we are not even metered on water usage, so there is no financial gain in closing the taps. In general the incentives for saving water are almost non-existent here, but just because we have plenty supply that doesn’t mean we should be playing about with something that valuable.

So I decided to have a quick look and see if there are some easy water saving advice out there. Again I got down to a couple of different categories, the useful ones, the ones that involve money and the just silly ones...

- Don’t leave the tap running when you brush your teeth. This one I guess is useful, if you tend to leave the tap running, I don't though. Frankly I am not quite sure why you would leave the tap running? Does it make a soothing sound or does it make your teeth cleaner?

- Fix any dripping taps. Well I know we need to do this, but plumbers don't come cheap.

- Take shorter showers. Now this advice I will probably have to implement at some level, I know that I am more than guilty of taking long showers. It is my luxury in the morning, because it gives me a little bit of quiet time to sort my thoughts, before starting the day. I read in a Danish energy book that you should take an egg timer with you to the bathroom and set it for 5 minutes, that way you know exactly when you have been in the shower too long. I guess I will have to give it a go tomorrow (or maybe the day after...).

- Put a brick in the cistern, that way the water level will be reached quicker when refilling, and obviously less water will be used. Something else I will need to try out. I am sure there must be a stray brick somewhere in the garage or the back of the garden - I just need to find it!

- Get a water butt. This is something I would definitely do, it seems a pretty straight forward thing to do, and it makes sense to collect rainwater to water your garden – the only problem is that it costs money. Money that I haven’t got. So like quite a few other improvement it will just have to wait till the bank balance looks a bit healthier.

-Use a watering can when watering the garden rather than the hose. That way you kind of get tired before using up huge quantities of water. Again another straight forward idea, although slightly out of season by now - we don't tend to get long dry spells in Scotland in the autumn...

So far so good, nothing too demanding and generally cheap suggestions - I just need to get my act together.

As always there are lots of items you can buy or install to save water, e.g.flow reducing aerators for the shower head, ultra-low water usage cisterns or even composting toilets, but these things cost money and are therefore not an option!

But there are also more adventurous suggestions. The Guardian is suggesting installing a grey water system that can take water from the washing machine into the toilet, which makes perfect sense to me - it is almost obscene that we use drinking quality water to flush away our waste. However I am not quite sure how the system works and you would obviously need somebody to install it for you (=another expense), but it might go on my green wish list.

Tesco is also talking about grey water systems in their new 'greener living' section, unfortunately they are about as good at giving green advice as they are at selling local produce. Amongst the 'brilliant' ideas for saving water it is suggested to use the water from the bathtub or the shower to water the garden. All fine and well, but how I am supposed to get the water from the bathtub to the garden??? It would be a lot of work to carry it all out in buckets and by the time I would have finished I would be so sweaty I would need another bath. I am not even going to start thinking about how to get water from the shower drain to the garden... OK, fair enough they do actually suggest that you can set up a hose running from the bath and out of the window, but I struggle to see that working. The principle is obviously the same as emptying a fish tank, but it would take quite some suction to get the water flowing through the meters of hose you would need to get to an upstairs bathroom. The stuff you want to water is probably not going to be right under the bathroom window either, so to distribute the water you would either need a very long hose from the bath (=even bigger suction problems) or another bathtub under the window to collect the water in... Oh yes, Tesco- every little helps!

At least there is a bit more creativity to be found from a Brazilian environmental group, who has been running a campaign this summer encouraging people to pee in the shower. They calculated that an average household can save up to 4.400 litres of water every year, by reducing the number of times the toilet is flushed by just one per day. So if you are in the shower anyway, why not engage in a bit of multitasking... Their slogan is: 'pee in the shower, save the Rain Forest' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEulkK7SpRs) Hmm, I might just have to think about that one.

Green energy

2009-09-25T06:10:00.005+01:00

I have found another campaign to launch! Let’s take on the big energy companies and force them to make green energy affordable...

I got notification from my energy supplier that my monthly direct debit was going to increase dramatically. Despite the fact that we are quite a lot in credit it seems their crystal ball is predicting that we are going to have such massive increases in energy usage over the winter that on top of the credit already collected they need to double the monthly payments! In an attempt to get my heart rate back to normal I decided it was definitely time to do a supplier comparison, and in line with my new greener lifestyle I thought a green supplier would be a good idea.

Looking through green tariffs however did not stabilise my heart at all! There was quite a difference between the cheapest green rate and the cheapest normal rate, which forced me to re-think the situation. I quickly realised that going onto a proper green tariff would be financial suicide for us, and the whole situation frankly made me quite angry. When I started thinking about it, I began questioning the whole reasoning behind green tariffs and I came to the conclusion that they are just a way to squeeze some extra money out of the people who actually care. OK, I know this might just sound like sour grapes, but this is the way I see it:

The energy companies know that things have to change. Not only do we need to slow down the global warming process, but we are quickly running out of a lot of our energy sources – therefore the energy providers have no options. If they don’t make any changes at all either we will all be extinct due to the climate changes or they will simply run out of stuff to burn to make energy – either way the energy companies will be out of business. Investing in renewable energy technology is not just a fancy little side product they do to cater for eco warriors, it is a fundamental part of securing their own survival. So why do I have to pay extra for green tariffs?

At the end of the day we are all getting the same product. Signing up to a green tariff doesn’t mean that the electricity that comes into your house is necessarily from a windmill, they can’t target the distribution like that, it is more a question of overall production, so if for example 5% of a company’s customers sign up for green tariffs, then at least 5% of the energy produced will come from greener sources.
But what would happen if they never got more than 5% of customers signing up to green rates? It certainly wouldn’t mean that they would stop investing in renewable energy and just leave it at 5%, because that would be an extremely bad business strategy. Or what if -by some miracle- all of a sudden 90% of customers signed up to green energy, how would they deliver that?

Obviously the energy companies need extra money to be able to invest in new energy sources, but I think green rates are just a clever trick. A group of corporate people sat around a table discussing how to find the money they need to invest in renewable energy and somebody came up with the idea, ‘hey why don’t we get some of all these green eco friendly people to pay extra, they won’t mind they have the heart in the right place’.

Please don’t get me wrong, if you are actually one of the people who pay extra for green rates, then I applaud you for making that choice, but I would like you to join a campaign saying that all rates should have an element of green, you can't charge some people extra simply because they agree with your business plan. No other business would get away with asking for extra money for delivering something that is just part of their own development strategy - unless they are a charity, and last I checked I didn't see any of the energy suppliers in the Charity register.(Obviously by the time I get round to organising my campaign global warming will probably have finished this planet anyway, but I will keep you posted...)

I am not suggesting that we should all be paying the green rates as they are at the moment, but it is not right that the energy companies are playing on our green conscience to make money, it is not up to a few caring people to pay for the sustainable energy we all need. If they want people to pay more they need to give more, so until they start offering to install solar panels or set up garden windmills when you sign up for green tariffs, I am afraid I am out.

Excuses, excuses

2009-09-21T21:34:00.004+01:00

Trying to change your lifestyle to a greener colour can - surprise, surprise- be just as difficult as any other lifestyle change. Now I am not saying this to put anybody off trying, because even small steps are better than no steps, but sometimes it is difficult to keep the enthusiasm up and continue going.

Last week I felt we were doing quite OK, we had made some small progress and that was really nice. But now I am finding myself slightly resting on the laurels. The thing is that the weather has changed. Last week we had mostly dry weather and a fair bit of sunshine, so it was no problem walking to town or sorting a few things in the garden or not switching the heating on. This week has started off with rain, strong winds and generally depressing conditions. This is when your true green colour shows.

Today I was taking the kids to the library, and despite me making some kind of agreement with myself not to use the car for local trips, it obviously still happened. Grey weather can make you incredibly imaginative, it probably only took me a minute to come up with several 'good' excuses to take the car:

- with the wind and the possible rain the kids will make a fuss after 2 minutes if we are walking and we will have a nightmare trip,

- it will be quicker to go on bikes, but my daughter still struggles a bit on a bike uphill, so it wouldn't be safe, and oh, I still haven't had my own bike serviced,

-we could go on the bus, but I haven't got the timetable and we could end up waiting for a long time at the bus stop, which would again mean grumpy kids,

-and then of course there is the issue of my daughter saying this morning that she had a sore throat, so I can't risk her getting cold... (The sore throat did seem to have been miraculously cured by a cup of hot chocolate, but you never know).

All very valid excuses for pumping a bit more CO2 into the atmosphere...

I still felt slightly guilty when I got in the car, but convinced myself that one small trip wouldn't matter that much, and of course I did sign up for online billing last week!
Obviously we all have bad days from time to time, and I don't think one car trip makes me a green failure, but here is the problem: we are heading for winter and it will be cold, wet, windy and dark, how in the world I am going to keep myself motivated. Walking anywhere is not going to be particularly enjoyable, I won't be able to go out in the garden and feel all green and earthy while sorting my vegetable plot and I will probably be wearing at least 4 layers of clothing in an attempt to stay warm. OK I will always have my excuse of having signed up for online billing and we are managing fine with the 2 vegetarian days a week, but that is not exactly going to turn me into a green hero.

I need to come up with some kind a strategy. Something that can keep me going in the cold, or even better things that are completely independent of weather changes. Guess I could start by getting my bike serviced and finding the bus timetable, but it probably needs to be slightly more than that. I need to find a way to have a happy green winter - all suggestions welcome.

A few small steps at the time

2009-09-17T17:31:00.004+01:00

There is progress – yippee! OK I shouldn’t exaggerate, I haven’t managed to turn into a green hero overnight, but I have made some small steps.

First of all I actually did sign up for paperless billing for both the phone, gas & electricity and the bank and just as I thought, it took me less than 10 minutes to do all three!

Secondly I have made a great discovery: there is a local green group and they have a website which gives links to lots of local stuff. (http://www.linlithgowclimatechallenge.org.uk) . Now this is useful! There are lists of local green events, I realised I can actually borrow a smart meter from the local library (once I get round to sorting my library card of course) and I can even get local gardening advice. Who knows next year I might get some beetroot, that has more than just the tops and onions bigger than pinheads...

The website also gave me the link to the local Freecycle group, which is something I had planned to join for a long time, but along with all the other things never really got round to doing. Freecycle is a network where you can advertise useable stuff you no longer want and other people in the network can then pick it up if they can make use of it(http://www.freecycle.org/). It is a great way to recycle, especially since the charity shops often have restrictions on what they can take. Obviously I still haven’t got round to putting any of my excess stuff up for grabs, but joining is an important first step (isn’t it?). As a footnote signing up for freecycle also made me think I had become extremely popular all of a sudden, the amount of e-mails in my inbox almost tripled – I should probably change my settings on how to receive info from them...

Looking at the website also made me a bit more optimistic about my whole project, because I realised that there are things that I do already, but I hadn’t really thought about when listing my green credentials. For example it is suggested to sign up for Mail Preference Service to avoid some of all the junk mail – I did this years ago. Originally I just did it because I was joining Tele Preference Service to avoid all the horrendously annoying phone calls you get about new kitchens and double glazing and I stumbled upon Mail Preference Service along the way, but now I can pretend it was a green choice I made a long time ago. I also realised that there is an option to avoid some of the mail that still gets through (stuff addressed to ‘the occupier’ etc) by sending letters to them. Obviously this is a bit more of an effort job, because you have to write to each individual company, but if I put it on the to-do list it might happen eventually. It actually made me think that I should start a campaign for the same system that exists in Denmark, where you can go to the post office and get a sticker to put on your letter box saying ‘No ads, please’ and the postie will then not put any leaflets etc through your door. Hmm, something to think about when I have a couple of minutes spare.

Anyway the morale of all this is that it is definitely worth investigating what is already happening locally. You might not have to re-invent the wheel yourself and if the advice comes from a local source it is much more likely to be relevant and achievable, than some generic ‘cover all’ websites. I have a strong feeling that discovering this group is going to be quite helpful for my green project.

The last really positive thing on the green front is that my daughter is beginning to be more accepting of the fact that we walk to local places, so much so that this morning she got upset when I said we were going to school by car. (My husband has damaged a ligament in his knee and sometimes struggle to do the usual walk to the train station, so we had to give him a lift). In the end I had to promise to go to the train station and then come back home to park the car before walking to the school. Well done, girl. This might obviously change when the usual rainy weather returns, but for now she definitely deserves applause.

There might just be a bit of green light at the end of the tunnel.

(Possibly) Easy Green Advice Part 2

2009-09-14T10:34:00.005+01:00

I am still struggling with the whole green shopping thing, but I shall attempt to continue the list of supposedly green ideas without dragging supermarkets into it...

Lower your thermostat. This is obviously an easy thing to do, just find your boiler and turn the thermostat. But is it just as easy to live with the effects of this action? We did turn the thermostat to its almost lowest level last weekend and so far it is fine, but I have to admit I have noticed a difference. For example I struggled quite a lot cleaning the grill for the delightful fat deposits you always get after grilling bacon or similar heart attack inducing stuff, the water was just not warm enough to dissolve the grease. I ended up boiling a kettle of water to remove the last bits, that I couldn’t wipe off with paper. From a green point of view I assume it is still better to boil one kettle of water than having the thermostat set permanently on a higher level, but from a convenience point of view it was a reminder that being green requires effort.
I also have to admit that I miss my hot showers in the morning. The water is still warm and perfectly acceptable, but it doesn’t give me the nice cosy warm wake up feeling it used to. The thing is as well, we haven’t reached winter yet, so it is too early to say how it is going to be in January – how cold is it acceptable to be? Lowering the thermostat is easy, but it can also be a reminder that saving our planet might require leaving some luxuries behind.

Choose electronic billing. I know I should do this, I spend so much time on my computer anyway, that it makes perfect sense to get all bills electronically – but it is the whole effort thing again. It would probably only take me 15 minutes to set up electronic billing for the bank, the gas & electricity bill and the phone bill, yet I still haven’t done it. It always seems to fall down the list of priorities. It is at least 2 months since I got a new mobile phone contract, and I still haven’t logged in to check the details. Maybe this is something to add to the list of targets? Or maybe I should just get my act together and sort it right now...

Buy only manmade fibres. Apparently the production of natural fibres like wool and cotton is very carbon intensive, and it is therefore better to buy manmade fibres. I am not sure I like that idea. My experience so far with manmade fibres is that they tend to make the skin conditions of both me and my daughter flare up. They also usually make me rather electric and I end up getting shocks from static electricity all the time, especially in the winter. Somebody said that the electric thing is because I don’t use fabric softener, but I do find it a little silly to change a green habit of many years to start a new habit that I don’t really like. I guess for the sake of the planet I could give manmade fibres another a try, it would probably be cheaper than buying organic cotton or bamboo products, but if I end up not using the product that would be a waste as well. Hmmm... Guess this one didn’t really give me an excuse to extend the wardrobe as I had hoped.

Use busses instead of trains. Now here is some advice that just depresses me! I am not a huge fan of public transport in general, because I find them annoying, unreliable and a complete nightmare when travelling with young children, but as we are lucky enough to live in a town with a rail link, I have quite happily been using the train thinking I was making a green effort. Now it seems I need to get on the bus to be proper green. Frankly I am not sure I can make that shift. A least the trains are faster, more comfy and you can move around in them, which is quite important if travelling with an energetic two year old. The thought of swopping a 20 minute train journey to Edinburgh for almost an hour in the bus, with 2 impatient kids who have to stay in their seats all the way is just not appealing. Even when travelling on my own I do my best to avoid busses, I always end up feeling sick and I can’t spend the time doing anything useful, at least in a train I can read a book or work on my laptop. So this one I am afraid is just going to have to wait. I will try lots of other things first to become greener and maybe when I am out of ideas I will consider changing to busses instead of trains (until then I can only hope that there are other people out there less fussy than me who are willing to make this change of transport and save the planet...)

Looking at the list so far I am not sure how well I am doing on the green front. These were supposed to be things that can be done easily without costing extra and I am struggling with several of them. I think I need to have another look and maybe do a part three 3 at some point – there must be something I can get away with doing easily?!

(Possibly) Easy Green Advise Part 1

2009-09-11T06:53:00.005+01:00

I have been trawling through some of the vast number of websites and publications giving green advice, looking for ideas and for some way to find targets. There are lots of them and you could easily use a lot of electricity keeping your computer going while looking at them all.
The good news is that the advice is often similar, so at least there appears to be no major conflicts or contradicting advice, although it often differs how far it is suggested to go. So I managed to find a selection of things that should not cost me neither too much money nor effort to try.

Do your washing at 30 degrees. Yes I know, this advice has been around for a long time and well publicised, but I have to admit that until now my washing machine has always been set at 40 degrees. Anyway, I tried it today, and as far as I can see the washing looks fine. I will probably have to run a tougher test at some point and see how 30 degrees cope with spaghetti sauce and similar delights, but so far so good. The only thing that concerns me slightly is that I remember reading that dust mites and other tiny house guests only die if washing is done above 50 degrees...

Go vegetarian. According to the Guardian Newspaper the issue with green house gasses when it comes to food isn’t really about foodmiles or excess packaging, but about the actual production of meat and dairy. So it is a good idea to cut down on these two food categories. The question is how far do you need to take this? Paul McCartney and his showbiz friends suggest 1 vegetarian day a week, but the Guardian advises an almost entirely vegetarian diet and three vegan days a week! However much I want to go green, having three vegan days a week is just not going to work. My kids would be devastated if they were denied their cheese and yoghurt, and I would have a hard time explaining it to them when general food advice tells them to consume the stuff. Oh, and I would have to drink my tea black – no, it would definitely cause an awful lot of misery. But 2 vegetarian days a week I think we can manage, after all macaroni cheese, tomato pizza and pasta with red sauce all qualify. Hey, I think I might have something to put onto my list of targets....

Avoid foodwaste. Apparently people in Scotland throw out 566.000 tonnes of food every year. I know we are part of this, bread for example has a tendency of turning green and bananas very brown in our house, but apparently the way to avoid this is planning! Now this creates a few issues for me. First of all I do try to plan and write shopping lists (sometimes I even remember to bring the shopping list to the shop as well...), but supermarkets are extremely unhelpful when it comes to buying just the food you need. I know I have already had a rant about supermarkets and their ungreen ways, but here is another issue to add to the list. They sell lots of stuff in bags or bundles or boxes, so I am often forced to buy a bigger quantity than I need. Not to mention the ‘buy one get one free’ offers, they should really be called ‘buy one and get another one you don’t need’, especially when it comes to fruit and veg; there is a limit to how many apples or leeks or beetroot we can eat in a space of a few days before they go off. So planning ahead is fine, but after a shopping trip you find yourself with a selection of odd extra bits that you struggle to use. Right now for example I need a recipe that can use up 3 leeks, a courgette, half a tub of yogurt and 2 overripe bananas – suggestions anyone? I guess I really must find a farm shop where I can buy the quantities I need, but that contradicts another piece of advice from the Guardian:

Never use the car for shopping, buy online. This is interesting advice I think. The good thing about online shopping is that you are less likely to come across all sorts of bargains and offers, that you end up buying, so if everything is fully planned it can be useful. The down side is that you don’t pick your own stuff, and I have experienced ending up with some rather battered bananas for example, where most of them became foodwaste in the end. Online shopping doesn’t take away the issue of preset quantities either.
Going back to the farm shop, there are of course a lot of them who do weekly deliveries, which like online shopping would save the car journey (yes, I do know the van is then making the journey in stead, but it should be more efficient to have one person doing a planned out route, rather than 15 car journeys to the same place). Unfortunately you can easily get stuck with a box half filled with food the family won’t eat, because again you are not fully in control of what and how much goes in the box.

And I am just realising now, that what should have been a list of easy to try green advice, has turned into another rant about the difficulty of green shopping, hmmm! I shall leave the rest of the list to another day and instead go and consider what to do about my shopping today...

Carbon footprinting

2009-09-07T21:44:00.000+01:00

We need targets! I am so confused about my green efforts that I have decided we need some clear targets, something we can measure and hopefully celebrate when we reach the goal. At the moment I am constantly in doubt whether our efforts are going anywhere, especially because after doing something I often realise that in the process I have managed to be 'ungreen' somewhere else.

For example my parents came for the weekend, they had kindly agreed to give a hand with our rather patchy looking garden, so we spent quite some time trying to make it look as if there actually is some kind of plan to it. Among the jobs were elements that were part of my greener living project, e.g. extending the vegetable plot, so that next year we are all set and ready for lots of homegrown fruit and veg. So far so good. I was quite happy in the knowledge that I was doing something, until I realised that to do these various projects we had also ended up with 6 trips to the local DIY centre and 4 of those trips were by car. How many fruit and veg will I have to grow next year to offset the amount of fuel burnt in one weekend???

The question now is what makes sensible targets.To get me started I thought it would be a good idea to calculate our carbon footprint, at least it should give us some figures to work on.

There are different sites for doing these calculations, but I opted for the calculator on the government website Act on CO2 (http://www.direct.gov.uk/actonco2). I put in all the information to the best of my ability although I didn't have any very accurate information about our gas and electricity usage - we have been in the house for less than half a year and it has been summer, so we don't really know how much will be needed to keep the icicles away from our noses during the winter period.
The calculation was done and the final result was an annual carbon footprint for the household of 12.88 tonnes.

That figure didn't really mean a lot to me, is 12.88 tonnes a lot? Then I almost spat my tea out all over my laptop when I saw the little note saying that the national average is 4.46 tonnes. HELP! Could things really be that bad? Are we in fact some overindulgent family with complete disrespect for the environment?

It took me a good few minutes to gather enough courage to look at the figures again, but then to my relief I realised I was looking at the wrong comparison figure. I think the 4.46 tonnes is the average for an individual. As a matter of fact the comparative figure for a family of our size living in a similar house is 15.48 tonnes. Phew. There is still hope. It looks like we at least have a pale green colour.

I returned to my original plan of setting some targets and realised that the government had very kindly suggested that we should aim for a reduction of 20% followed by a long list of possible actions to take.It was no surprise however that once again I was brought back to the 'no money' issue. Like everywhere else the suggestions included getting more insulation, draft proofing and other options that cost money.

So after due consideration I have decided that my first target should probably be to figure out where we are at the moment. I need to get some gas and electricity readings, I need to check exactly how things are on the insulation front, how much we use the car etc and then I should make a list of the things that we can possibly improve. (Hey, while I am at it why don't I write a business plan, set some KPI's and in a few months I can float my green life on the stock market...)

For now I have saved a copy of the carbon footprint calculation, and once I know where we are heading, I will try it again.

Still trying to be green

2009-09-02T21:20:00.000+01:00

More than a week has passed now since I embarked on my green adventure, but it is not an overwhelming success yet. Old habits die hard! The main difference between now and 10 days ago is the dominant place my guilty conscience has taken in my life and the amount of questions that has popped up about green living.

I am trying, but half the time I am not even sure what the greener option is. For example we have a slimline dishwasher, so it is smaller than an ordinary dishwasher and according to the manual it only needs half the amount of detergent (20g). This week I needed a new supply of the soapy stuff and the initial choice was obviously an eco brand. But I could only find this in tablet form. Tablets are made to suit normal sized dishwashers, so by using them I would actually be using double the amount of what is needed. Loose granules which I can measure in the correct amount were only available in some fully synthetic chemical option. Now which one is the greener option, using double the amount of the eco brand or the smaller amount of the not so green brand??? Or is this going to be an effort thing again and I need to cut the eco tablets into halves myself?

Likewise at our BBQ on Saturday, which as feared turned out to be a rather wet affair - mostly for my husband who in true hunter gatherer style had to brave the rain and strong winds to provide for the family (= cook the burgers). I had planned to use up some of all the disposable cups and plates that have been sitting in the cupboard for a long time, but again I ended up in a green crisis. Usually it wouldn't be green to use paper plates and I would certainly never have gone out to buy some, but what should I do with all the left overs from my less green past? It would be a complete waste just to get rid of the plates and cups without making use of them, but I can't exactly give a collection of open packs of paper plates to a charity shop. Should I just leave them on the shelf to collect dust? Suggestions anyone? I did end up using some disposables on the day, but I had a bad feeling when putting those in the bin later.

These are the kind of questions they don't answer on all the many green advice websites. There are loads of them, just type 'green living' or something similar in google and you will be spoilt for choice, but frankly a lot of them come out with the same rather generic stuff: recycle, reduce your waste, use your car less, turn down your thermostat, insulate your house, save on water, buy organic, buy local etc.

I wish they would have sections with advice like: 'How to convince your tired 5 year old to walk to ballet class in the pouring rain, when you would all rather go in the car' or '3 easy ways to break old habits, because old habits stand in the way of greener living'

It is not from lack of willing that my green project is progressing slowly, but a lot of the time I am simply stuck in the old routine with out thinking too much about it. For example I still forget to put leftover food in a reusable container rather than cover the plate in cling film. I still reach for the pack of babywipes to clean my son's hands after dinner even though I have put a washable flannel in the kitchen for that exact same purpose.

Maybe I should put post-it notes up everywhere to remind me of the things I should and shouldn't do - or is that wasting paper?

At least I still have 50 weeks to figure it all out, surely that should be enough time to change a few things?!

Green driving

2009-08-26T21:57:00.000+01:00

To my big surprise (and pride) I have managed to leave the car in the driveway for the last few days. I have done the shopping on foot, walked to the school and even walked to the various weekly ballet, swimming and gym classes, but today I had to make a journey that was just not do-able by either foot or public transport. So in recognition of the fact that I am not able to completely say goodbye to the car I decided to do a bit of research on green driving.

There are plenty of websites giving hints and tips on how to be more fuel efficient , but I opted to try out some of the tips given by a couple who supposedly managed to drive round the world on only 24 tanks of fuel ( http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/drive-smart/articles/article/19/), you would think they should know a bit about the subject.

Some of the hints I thought rather pointless for the real world, e.g. 'don't drive when you are angry'. So next time I get stuck in traffic with two fighting and screaming kids in the backseat, I will just stop the car and get out - or what?

Anyway most of the tips could be split into 2 categories, the ones that dealt with maintenance of the car, and the ones that were about driving techniques. Most of the ones about maintenance I happily skipped, to be honest I barely know what a spark plug is and getting a mechanic to check all the bits and bops on a regular basis doesn't agree with the bank balance. But I decided to give the suggested driving techniques a go, after all it could make me slightly greener, save me money and it wouldn't require too much effort (thankfully they didn't suggest to push the car in order to save fuel...)

Tip no 1: Get to the highest gear as soon as possible, so change gear before reaching 2000 revs. This actually worked quite well, I found myself checking both my speed and the revs, and it definitely made me change gears a lot sooner. (Please don't tell my husband, he has been nagging me about this for years)

Tip no 2: Drive safe. What can I say - I am a woman driver, so of course I drive safe...

Tip no 3: Keep the windows closed, or you will increase the wind resistance. Well this is Scotland and the likelihood of anybody wanting to open the windows is limited, after all they probably got in the car to avoid the rain in the first place.

Tip no 4: Don't go too fast, the suggestion is to stay 5-10 mph below the limit. Now this one was a bit more tricky as I have always had a tendency towards speeding, but I managed to keep the speed down for some time (maybe I was too busy watching the rev counts?). While I was happily cruising along thinking of my fuel efficiency, I realised that in one strike I had turned myself into one of these extremely annoying drivers who drives a bit too slow and tends to hold up traffic, and who would under normal circumstances make my blood boil. Aaargh! Even worse if all the tips were to be followed then by making other drivers angry I guess I was likely to make them drive less efficiently?
But after due consideration I decided that I can only be held responsible for my own actions, and if other motorists were getting agitated by my green driving, it would be their responsibility to get out of their car until the anger had disappeared. So I stuck to my green promise and duly stayed in the slow lane behind the trucks, while trying to cheer myself up by thinking of the fuel I was saving.
And the end result? I got to my destination in good time and I don't think the journey really took me any longer than it would have normally.

So I have to conclude that greener driving is definitely possible with out too much effort. I now have no excuse for burning excess fuel - I just need to remember to bring a baseball cap in the car to hide my face from all the angry motorists...

Green shopping

2009-08-24T14:14:00.000+01:00

Warning! Trying to be green when doing your shopping can cause a major headache. The day even started well, I felt rather smug about walking my daughter to school and being able to do imaginary head shaking at the other parents in their cars (obviously I conveniently ignored the fact that it is quicker for us to walk than to drive).

The smugness was still there as I pushed the buggy down the road to do the shopping on foot, but within 2 minutes of entering the supermarket my smirky grin had completely disappeared. Before starting I had done a mental checklist of certain criteria to green up the shopping:

1. Look for organic produce,

2. Take the version with the least amount of packaging,

3. Think about the food miles, so look for stuff that hasn't travelled half way across the globe

I only made it to the fruit and veg section before realising that I might be on a mission impossible. Standing in front of the mushrooms I first went for the organic option, although the whole organic thing doesn't work very well with the out of money issue, but I decided 20p extra would be OK. Until it dawned on me that these organic mushrooms were placed in a non-recyclable plastic container and then covered in non recyclable clingfilm - completely 'un-green' and contradicting no 2 on my list. So I changed my mind and opted for the individual mushrooms that you choose yourself and then place in a brown paper bag, that way I saved packaging and 20p (and probably got a few chemicals included in the price..). But the BIG question raised was: why can you not buy organic mushrooms in a paper bag? In fact when I quickly toured the whole section ALL the organic produce was packed in some kind of plastic, and no loose weight items were available in the organic version. What is going on?

Next stop was apples. Obviously it was the same case of organic apples in plastic bags, but this time versus ordinary apples also in plastic bags. The real problem occurred when I reached point 3 on my check list - foodmiles. The organic apples had travelled all the way from New Zealand! Not exactly local produce. And to my horror I realised that none of the apples were in fact British, never mind Scottish. All the apples had been transported from NZ, South Africa or Argentina. Again, all I can say is: what is going on? I don't expect to find British bananas or Scottish pineapples in the supermarkets, but apples aren't exactly exotic fruits and surely there must be British farmers with apple trees?

By this point I was thoroughly disheartened, not to mention that my 2 year old was seriously fed up with my very slow moving shopping, so the rest of the shopping choices were made on the usual speed principal rather than the green principal. Not exactly a green success.
On the walk home I kept asking myself what should I do: should I start a campaign against the supermarkets to get them to take some responsibility, should I extend the vegetable plot in the backgarden to grow all my own stuff and be self sufficient (not a very feasible option, we would all be very hungry), or is the best option to find an organic farm shop in the area, even if it means taking the car for shopping?
It is definitely going to take me some time to figure out how to do green shopping.

First Green Day

2009-08-23T06:44:00.000+01:00

Oh, we are off to a spectacularly BAD start!!! Only one day has passed and my green colour is rather dull looking.

At breakfast time I really fancied some nice rolls - it was Saturday after all, so decided to quickly pop round to Sainsbury's. Despite the fact that the shop is less than a 10 minutes walk away I still jumped in the car! Even worse it wasn't until I stopped the engine in the car park that it dawned on me that this was a very bad transport choice for a short journey. Oh, the shame. Which then only grew bigger when I got to the check out and realised I had forgotten to bring my own shopping bag... To top it all off, on the way back the current government radio ad about a quarter of all car journeys being less than 2 miles and a burden to the environment played from the speakers, and frankly made my ears burn!

So I spent much of the day evaluating all my actions and realised that not only is there big room for small improvements, but to be truly green is going to demand quite an effort...

I see a few stumbling blocks along my way. Big ones like how do I use my car less, especially in this country of constant rain; and smaller ones like how do I get my 2 year old to understand that switching all bedside lamps on in the house is bad, even if he is very proud he has figured out how to do it.

I am also realising that the whole effort and money thing is even more complicated than I first thought. We are having a BBQ next Saturday (God knows what possessed me to think the weather would be dry at the end of August in Scotland!), and we were in the garden trying to make it look decent. While cutting the grass with the Flymo, I realised that using an electric lawn mover is probably not the best green solution, but changing it wouldn't be easy. First of all changing it for a muscle powered one would cost money - of which we have none. Secondly trying to convince my husband that the green project extends to chores like cutting the grass and we should therefore make lawn moving harder for ourselves, could be a very tricky job.

I proceeded to attempt a quick stock take of the situation, in the hope of finding some good news. So on the good side:
All our appliances are A rated, we did take this into consideration when buying them for the new house
We have managed to change 2/3 of the lighting to energy saving versions. (The last third is a bit more difficult, the previous owners of this house had a love for halogen spot lights, and combined with some funny fittings it will take both effort and money to get them changed).
I have a compost converter. This was one of my first investments for the new garden and thanks to the Waste Aware Scotland project I only paid £10 for it, the rest is subsidised by the Scottish Government - fantastic deal. (www.recyclenow.com)
The washing powder and the majority of the cleaning products in the cupboard have a green eco label on them, which is good, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I am soon going to realise that there is an even greener option...
We are quite efficient at sorting our refuse and making sure it gets reused or recycled, but we probably still need to work on minimising the amount of waste in the first place.
We try our best to switch lights off and not leave anything on stand by.
We have a laptop rather than a PC, not just for convenience but also because they are far more energy efficient.

In general nothing spectacular. On the other hand the list of things still to improve is exceptionally long, far to long to mention- my green credentials are quickly fading. A bit more effort is needed!

The challenge is on

2009-08-22T07:24:00.000+01:00

Is it possible to go green without having a penny to spend on it and still retain a happy family life? That is the challenge I have set myself (and my family) for the next year.

4 months ago we moved to a new house in a small town in the Central belt of Scotland. It is a great house and we absolutely love it here. Before we moved I decided that this would be a good time to implement some changes. We needed to become greener!
Like a lot of people I do worry a bit about the future of our planet and I somehow had visions of me and my family living this green, organic, carbon neutral eco life in some super energy efficient house with solar panels and probably a wind turbine in the back garden...

But reality always returns to hit you on the head! (In this case it feels like a hammering with a baseball bat)

I have had to admit that becoming greener always requires one of two things: either money or effort. And both can be hard to come by.
Some things don’t require too much effort, insulating your house, getting double glazing or changing your boiler for example – You get somebody to come and fit it for you. But all these things require money up front. Obviously it would be an investment which would save you money in the long run, but if you don’t have the money to invest in the first place (or in my case if you have spent all your money sorting out the new house) it becomes slightly difficult.

Lots of green things you can do completely for free, but as a general rule these things require some level of effort. E.g. you have to remember to bring your own shopping bags into the supermarket and not realise at the checkout that you left them in the cupboard at home. You have to sort all you waste for various re-use and recycling, not just the easy stuff the council picks up. Or even worse you have to get your bicycle tyres pumped before you can ride it...

The fact is 4 months down the line the only real change that has happened in our household is me realising that green utopia is exactly that - utopia!

So I started asking myself, what is the matter with us, are we really too lazy to bother about our planet? Is it that difficult for an average family like mine to let go of old habits and settle into some new greener ones? If I can’t do it, how can I expect anybody else to make an effort?

So the challenge is on! Can we (me, my husband, a 5 year old and a 2 year old) over the next year adopt enough changes in our lives to truly call ourselves green - or will we turn into a bunch of miserable grumpy people.

I shall keep you all updated on the highs and lows of going green on a budget.