Saving water

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

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

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

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

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?!