First Green Day

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

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.