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...
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Footprinting
Carbonfoot prints are funny things, I am not quite sure I fully understand them, and I am certainly not convinced by the accuracy of the calculations, but I guess some kind of measurement is better than nothing.
I remember in a previous employment I got tasked with collecting all the information for calculating the organisation's foot print. I was amazed that half of the stuff we used to do to be environmentally friendly, like printing on both sides of the paper, switching everything off and composting teabags, made absolutely no difference, it was simply not considered. Fortunately we still ended up looking extremely good, but that had more to do with the nature of our work (we only worked in Scotland so no flights round the World and we provided services, not goods, so no massive deliveries by articulated lorries), than to do with the measures we had taken. The experience didn't really fill me with confidence in the calculations.
My half hearted approach to carbon footprinting didn't stop me looking however, when I saw an article about a new book calculating the carbon cost of all sorts of activities. Fascinating reading although it did absolutely nothing to convince me that carbon footprinting is useful, but I still feel the urge to share the information.
Apparently one trip by plane has the same carbon foot print as 340.000 disposable carrier bags! That is a lot of bags. I wonder how many shopping trips that is the equivalent off?
The football world cup has a footprint of 2.8 million tonnes CO2, and that is not even including the power used for all those TVs tuned into the matches. I guess that makes watching football a not very green activity. (I might still sneak a match or two though)
I could spend some time texting in stead, but unsurprisingly that has a footprint attached to it as well. An average text that takes 1 minute to write and 1 minute to read means 0.014g of CO2 into the atmosphere. This obviously doesn't take into consideration people like me who are rather slow at texting, so my txts just might cause even more CO2. Of course if you are a teenager it wouldn't take you a minute to write a txt, you could do at least 4 in that time, so that might make up for it. I am secretly fascinated by teenagers and their mobile phone skills, most of them seem to do it automatically without even looking and they do it constantly - what is it they say to each other??? I know of a kid whose parents got him a contract with unlimited texting. It obviously turned out that unlimited wasn't really the correct term, there was indeed a limit and they got hit with quite a bill when their son had sent more than 4000 txts in a month! That would make a mark on your carbon footprint...
So if not watching football and not texting, maybe I should do the washing. Here was a pleasant surprise and confirmation that we made the right decision not to have a tumble drier. If you do a wash at 40 and line dry it it produces 0.7kg of CO2. If you turn the temperature down to 30 degrees the impact goes down to 0.6kg. But if you stick the same wash in a tumble drier the carbon footprint will be 2.4kg. That is quite a difference.
But before getting too pleased with myself I saw the carbon footprint of having children. Apparently the average child will cause 373 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted over the course of their life - I have 2 children, so that makes 746 tonnes. Thankfully it was estimated that a carbon conscious child will only cause 100 tonnes, so hopefully I will manage to bring my kids closer to 100 tonnes rather than 373 tonnes.
So what should I conclude from this - well my washing habits are not too bad, but the World Cup is out (can't really tell my husband that though...), I need to learn to txt faster and we are definitely not having any more children! Guess that is that sorted then...
If anybody is interested the book is called 'How Bad Are Bananas' by Mike Berners-Lee. I got this summary information from the Ecologist:
I remember in a previous employment I got tasked with collecting all the information for calculating the organisation's foot print. I was amazed that half of the stuff we used to do to be environmentally friendly, like printing on both sides of the paper, switching everything off and composting teabags, made absolutely no difference, it was simply not considered. Fortunately we still ended up looking extremely good, but that had more to do with the nature of our work (we only worked in Scotland so no flights round the World and we provided services, not goods, so no massive deliveries by articulated lorries), than to do with the measures we had taken. The experience didn't really fill me with confidence in the calculations.
My half hearted approach to carbon footprinting didn't stop me looking however, when I saw an article about a new book calculating the carbon cost of all sorts of activities. Fascinating reading although it did absolutely nothing to convince me that carbon footprinting is useful, but I still feel the urge to share the information.
Apparently one trip by plane has the same carbon foot print as 340.000 disposable carrier bags! That is a lot of bags. I wonder how many shopping trips that is the equivalent off?
The football world cup has a footprint of 2.8 million tonnes CO2, and that is not even including the power used for all those TVs tuned into the matches. I guess that makes watching football a not very green activity. (I might still sneak a match or two though)
I could spend some time texting in stead, but unsurprisingly that has a footprint attached to it as well. An average text that takes 1 minute to write and 1 minute to read means 0.014g of CO2 into the atmosphere. This obviously doesn't take into consideration people like me who are rather slow at texting, so my txts just might cause even more CO2. Of course if you are a teenager it wouldn't take you a minute to write a txt, you could do at least 4 in that time, so that might make up for it. I am secretly fascinated by teenagers and their mobile phone skills, most of them seem to do it automatically without even looking and they do it constantly - what is it they say to each other??? I know of a kid whose parents got him a contract with unlimited texting. It obviously turned out that unlimited wasn't really the correct term, there was indeed a limit and they got hit with quite a bill when their son had sent more than 4000 txts in a month! That would make a mark on your carbon footprint...
So if not watching football and not texting, maybe I should do the washing. Here was a pleasant surprise and confirmation that we made the right decision not to have a tumble drier. If you do a wash at 40 and line dry it it produces 0.7kg of CO2. If you turn the temperature down to 30 degrees the impact goes down to 0.6kg. But if you stick the same wash in a tumble drier the carbon footprint will be 2.4kg. That is quite a difference.
But before getting too pleased with myself I saw the carbon footprint of having children. Apparently the average child will cause 373 tonnes of CO2 to be emitted over the course of their life - I have 2 children, so that makes 746 tonnes. Thankfully it was estimated that a carbon conscious child will only cause 100 tonnes, so hopefully I will manage to bring my kids closer to 100 tonnes rather than 373 tonnes.
So what should I conclude from this - well my washing habits are not too bad, but the World Cup is out (can't really tell my husband that though...), I need to learn to txt faster and we are definitely not having any more children! Guess that is that sorted then...
If anybody is interested the book is called 'How Bad Are Bananas' by Mike Berners-Lee. I got this summary information from the Ecologist:
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Eat green(s)
This weekend we ate the first homegrown produce of the season - fantastic! OK, they were just small lettuce leaves, but they tasted great, even my daughter liked them, and there is something very satisfying about eating stuff you planted yourself. It was nice to get a boost on the food side of being green, because frankly I struggle quite a lot on that front.
We still eat vegetarian at least twice a week and we definitely eat more local produce than before, but I still think we have an awful long way to go to have proper sustainable eating habits.
When I go shopping it keeps churning in my head that we should eat local and in season, but I am not sure how I would feed the family that way. Trying to think of fruit that is in season just now mainly points me to rhubarb, and that wouldn't really work in my daughters snack box for school...
When we started out some things came relatively easy, e.g. saving on energy use - it doesn't take new knowledge or a lot of effort to achieve. Other things have been a bit harder, for example it is only recently that my bike has had proper usage, but we have managed to lower our petrol usage considerably - it mainly takes a bit of effort, no new knowledge required. Food is different!
I feel I need to be completely re-educated. I have spent most of my life being told about the importance of getting your daily fruit and veg, but I don't know how to do that solely on local produce in season? I simply haven't got the required skill set.
On top of that comes the problem that we are all used to eating dishes from all corners of the world, and living primarily on food grown/reared locally would limit choices a lot. I am not suggesting that would necessarily be bad, but it would take quite a lot of getting used to and I am not sure how I would present it to my kids. How would I explain to them that they can't eat bananas like everybody else just because that fruit doesn't grow here - they would definitely answer 'but you can buy them in the shops'. Not to mention they would have the argument that fruit is good for you. Even harder, how would I convince them to eat whatever local alternative I might find to ensure they get their 5 a day, because green or not I still don't want my kids to suffer malnutrion.
I have no doubt that it helps slightly that we are trying to grow stuff in the garden, the kids are fascinated with it, and it should give them some kind of idea about seasons etc, but it would never really convince them to give up bananas, cucumbers and a whole long range of other things. (I am here completely ignoring the fact that my gardening skills are totally insufficient anyway to grow food of a quality and quantity that could feed the family!)
Actually thinking about it all just now, I realise that I have to accept this as a very long term project - that is the only solution. That way I can spend the next 15-20 years improving my gardening and cooking skills, which should then give us a much higher level on the self sufficiency scale and by that time my kids will have left home and I don't need to worry about them having tantrums at the dinner table. Yippee, all solved - who said you can't plan your way out of problems...?
We still eat vegetarian at least twice a week and we definitely eat more local produce than before, but I still think we have an awful long way to go to have proper sustainable eating habits.
When I go shopping it keeps churning in my head that we should eat local and in season, but I am not sure how I would feed the family that way. Trying to think of fruit that is in season just now mainly points me to rhubarb, and that wouldn't really work in my daughters snack box for school...
When we started out some things came relatively easy, e.g. saving on energy use - it doesn't take new knowledge or a lot of effort to achieve. Other things have been a bit harder, for example it is only recently that my bike has had proper usage, but we have managed to lower our petrol usage considerably - it mainly takes a bit of effort, no new knowledge required. Food is different!
I feel I need to be completely re-educated. I have spent most of my life being told about the importance of getting your daily fruit and veg, but I don't know how to do that solely on local produce in season? I simply haven't got the required skill set.
On top of that comes the problem that we are all used to eating dishes from all corners of the world, and living primarily on food grown/reared locally would limit choices a lot. I am not suggesting that would necessarily be bad, but it would take quite a lot of getting used to and I am not sure how I would present it to my kids. How would I explain to them that they can't eat bananas like everybody else just because that fruit doesn't grow here - they would definitely answer 'but you can buy them in the shops'. Not to mention they would have the argument that fruit is good for you. Even harder, how would I convince them to eat whatever local alternative I might find to ensure they get their 5 a day, because green or not I still don't want my kids to suffer malnutrion.
I have no doubt that it helps slightly that we are trying to grow stuff in the garden, the kids are fascinated with it, and it should give them some kind of idea about seasons etc, but it would never really convince them to give up bananas, cucumbers and a whole long range of other things. (I am here completely ignoring the fact that my gardening skills are totally insufficient anyway to grow food of a quality and quantity that could feed the family!)
Actually thinking about it all just now, I realise that I have to accept this as a very long term project - that is the only solution. That way I can spend the next 15-20 years improving my gardening and cooking skills, which should then give us a much higher level on the self sufficiency scale and by that time my kids will have left home and I don't need to worry about them having tantrums at the dinner table. Yippee, all solved - who said you can't plan your way out of problems...?
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Success!
I quite often wonder if our change to a greener lifestyle is failing. Like when I once again show up at the supermarket having forgotten my own shopping bags at home, or when my husband brings home an extra large container of chemical weed kill, or I stay in the shower just that bit longer than it really takes to wash my hair or I put Argentinian blueberries in the shopping basket or I do jump in the car for a short journey or I yet again forget to switch the modem off or ...
These are the times when I need to remind myself of the progress we have made, and this week actually gave me a few hints that we are going in the right direction.
It started when I looked at the National Geographic quarterly green supplement. As previous editions it had several articles with various green information from garden advice and seasonal cooking to green celebrities and model towns. After reading it I realised that there was hardly anything new in it for me. This was all stuff I knew about! This might sound boring, but to me that was quite an achievement. Imagine that, I now have so much green knowledge that National Geographic can't teach me anything... Well, that is obviously not the case, I am sure there is still lots for me to learn, but it was good to realise that I do know more now than I did 9 months ago. I am moving up the ranks in the green brigade...
The most encouraging thing however happened during a thoroughly ungreen event. At the weekend we ended up driving(!) to one of these big shopping centres that contains just about every chain store Britain has ever seen, so basically a shrine to modern consumerism and the exact opposite of sustainable living. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often,(I think it is the first time we have been there since Christmas), but we had various reasons for going - it wasn't just random shopping.
It made me feel rather sad to see all this money being spent seemingly without any regard for real needs, resources, waste etc. Lunchtime however cheered me up - not because it was a spectacular meal, but because my kids made me proud.
In true shopping centre style we were in one of the chain restaurants and they always give out some kind of activity pack to entertain the kids. It seems that even these businesses are beginning to catch on to the green trend and the theme of this pack was actually recycling. Although I am not convinced about the restaurant's genuine commitment to reduction of waste, I was impressed by the ease with which my children completed the activities. I was very happy that my 5 year old could easily name things that can be recycled, reused, given to charity or cpomposted, it obviously seemed very natural to her to do this. I was even more impressed that my 3 year old knew what should go into the different bins, eg. flowers into garden waste bin, magazines in the paper bin etc - how does he know? I decided to take this as a massive pat on the back. Well done us, we seem to have got some kind of message across to the kids.
This is probably enough self gloating for now, if I don't stop I might start thinking we have successfully become green already! Fact is that we still have quite some way to go - but hey, we might as well celebrate along the way, it makes it all more fun.
These are the times when I need to remind myself of the progress we have made, and this week actually gave me a few hints that we are going in the right direction.
It started when I looked at the National Geographic quarterly green supplement. As previous editions it had several articles with various green information from garden advice and seasonal cooking to green celebrities and model towns. After reading it I realised that there was hardly anything new in it for me. This was all stuff I knew about! This might sound boring, but to me that was quite an achievement. Imagine that, I now have so much green knowledge that National Geographic can't teach me anything... Well, that is obviously not the case, I am sure there is still lots for me to learn, but it was good to realise that I do know more now than I did 9 months ago. I am moving up the ranks in the green brigade...
The most encouraging thing however happened during a thoroughly ungreen event. At the weekend we ended up driving(!) to one of these big shopping centres that contains just about every chain store Britain has ever seen, so basically a shrine to modern consumerism and the exact opposite of sustainable living. Thankfully this doesn't happen very often,(I think it is the first time we have been there since Christmas), but we had various reasons for going - it wasn't just random shopping.
It made me feel rather sad to see all this money being spent seemingly without any regard for real needs, resources, waste etc. Lunchtime however cheered me up - not because it was a spectacular meal, but because my kids made me proud.
In true shopping centre style we were in one of the chain restaurants and they always give out some kind of activity pack to entertain the kids. It seems that even these businesses are beginning to catch on to the green trend and the theme of this pack was actually recycling. Although I am not convinced about the restaurant's genuine commitment to reduction of waste, I was impressed by the ease with which my children completed the activities. I was very happy that my 5 year old could easily name things that can be recycled, reused, given to charity or cpomposted, it obviously seemed very natural to her to do this. I was even more impressed that my 3 year old knew what should go into the different bins, eg. flowers into garden waste bin, magazines in the paper bin etc - how does he know? I decided to take this as a massive pat on the back. Well done us, we seem to have got some kind of message across to the kids.
This is probably enough self gloating for now, if I don't stop I might start thinking we have successfully become green already! Fact is that we still have quite some way to go - but hey, we might as well celebrate along the way, it makes it all more fun.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Ants
A war happened this week in our house! No, not a spectacular marital dispute, not even another stand off with my very stubborn 3 year old - but we had an invasion and I simply had to act. Wednesday morning we came down to the kitchen to find ants crawling everywhere! I was not amused, I have a serious dislike to ants inside the house. It might have to do with growing up in a house with regular ant infestations despite my parents' never ending attempts at keeping the little black creatures outside, but whatever the reason for my dislike I knew these ants had to get out of my kitchen asap.
Not long ago I had read that bicarbonate of soda is a deterrent for ants, so I straight away grabbed a tub from the cleaning cupboard and sprinkled everywhere. It doesn't work! the ants were happily walking all over it!
So I turned to my trusted friend in a crisis: google. As always I ended up with a wealth of information and an uncertainty about how much of it was actually true. Unfortunately one fact seem to be popping up again and again: never kill individual ants inside the house, the ant will release a scent that the fellow ants will pick up and they will all come to the funeral. This was worrying not least because I had frantically been killing ants all morning, what else was I supposed to do, ask them politely to leave? It is concerning that ants apparently have this built in kamikaze instinct - 'my pal just died, so I should definitely head to the same place'. In a war situation that is a frightening enemy.
Anyway I also got a list of various stuff that is supposed to keep ants away, incl. cinnamon, red chili powder, black pepper, vinegar, vaseline, chalk and baby powder. Some of them I quickly dismissed, e.g. the black pepper. I sneeze when I put pepper in to cooking, so sprinkling it all over the kitchen in the middle of hay fever season seemed a bad idea. Chalk didn't seem very convincing either, apparently you can draw a line with chalk and the ants won't cross it - but frankly I found that hard to believe unless it was a really, really thick line.
Vaseline however seemed worth a try, I kind of imagined that to an ant it wouldn't be pleasant to walk in, so I smeared vaseline round the door, on skirting boards, the edge of the floor - more or less everywhere and then I sat down to watch. Somehow I had imagined that the ants would just vanish, but they kept reappearing from other places. So I decided to try something else and chose chili pepper. A few minutes later I had a rather sticky red substance around the kitchen door consisting of vaseline topped with chili. Surely this would do the trick.
I watched the gaps in the door where the ants originally seemed to come in and the numbers there definitely diminished, but every time I looked at the end of the kitchen counter, there were hordes of them there. Where were they coming from?
I looked in all the cupboards under the counter, but no black creepies. I checked for gaps in the floor or the walls, still no success. So when my husband phoned the poor man got a long rant about these mysterious ants appearing out of nowhere.
I spent a long time that day watching the same corner of the kitchen, I even sprayed some vinegar solution in case that worked, but despite my efforts ants were still appearing and I had no idea where from. Desperation was therefore setting in, when my husband appeared with a tub of ant kill. I am sure the prospect of me ranting all night about ants made him think that on this occasion chemicals were needed. I am not proud of it, but I grabbed the small container and sprinkled away.
And then I realised a place I hadn't checked: my 2 tomato plants on the kitchen counter. I lifted them up... and hordes of ants came crawling. I am now guessing that all my mysterious ants probably came from the plant - they were already in the house before I started my vaseline/chili campaign. Hmm - this kind of leaves me with a dilemma, because I am now not sure if that sticky red stuff actually did work to keep ants outs, after all the steady stream of newcomers did slow down dramatically after putting it on, or if it was only thanks to my chemical warfare that the kitchen was ant free the next morning??!
So what have I learned. Well, besides from the fact that Bicarbonate of soda definitely doesn't work as an ant deterrent the main lesson is probably that I need to calm down. To be truly green I cannot run around becoming obsessed with getting rid of ants (or anything else for that matter) instantly - it leads to bad decisions. So next step on the green path: learn to chill!
Not long ago I had read that bicarbonate of soda is a deterrent for ants, so I straight away grabbed a tub from the cleaning cupboard and sprinkled everywhere. It doesn't work! the ants were happily walking all over it!
So I turned to my trusted friend in a crisis: google. As always I ended up with a wealth of information and an uncertainty about how much of it was actually true. Unfortunately one fact seem to be popping up again and again: never kill individual ants inside the house, the ant will release a scent that the fellow ants will pick up and they will all come to the funeral. This was worrying not least because I had frantically been killing ants all morning, what else was I supposed to do, ask them politely to leave? It is concerning that ants apparently have this built in kamikaze instinct - 'my pal just died, so I should definitely head to the same place'. In a war situation that is a frightening enemy.
Anyway I also got a list of various stuff that is supposed to keep ants away, incl. cinnamon, red chili powder, black pepper, vinegar, vaseline, chalk and baby powder. Some of them I quickly dismissed, e.g. the black pepper. I sneeze when I put pepper in to cooking, so sprinkling it all over the kitchen in the middle of hay fever season seemed a bad idea. Chalk didn't seem very convincing either, apparently you can draw a line with chalk and the ants won't cross it - but frankly I found that hard to believe unless it was a really, really thick line.
Vaseline however seemed worth a try, I kind of imagined that to an ant it wouldn't be pleasant to walk in, so I smeared vaseline round the door, on skirting boards, the edge of the floor - more or less everywhere and then I sat down to watch. Somehow I had imagined that the ants would just vanish, but they kept reappearing from other places. So I decided to try something else and chose chili pepper. A few minutes later I had a rather sticky red substance around the kitchen door consisting of vaseline topped with chili. Surely this would do the trick.
I watched the gaps in the door where the ants originally seemed to come in and the numbers there definitely diminished, but every time I looked at the end of the kitchen counter, there were hordes of them there. Where were they coming from?
I looked in all the cupboards under the counter, but no black creepies. I checked for gaps in the floor or the walls, still no success. So when my husband phoned the poor man got a long rant about these mysterious ants appearing out of nowhere.
I spent a long time that day watching the same corner of the kitchen, I even sprayed some vinegar solution in case that worked, but despite my efforts ants were still appearing and I had no idea where from. Desperation was therefore setting in, when my husband appeared with a tub of ant kill. I am sure the prospect of me ranting all night about ants made him think that on this occasion chemicals were needed. I am not proud of it, but I grabbed the small container and sprinkled away.
And then I realised a place I hadn't checked: my 2 tomato plants on the kitchen counter. I lifted them up... and hordes of ants came crawling. I am now guessing that all my mysterious ants probably came from the plant - they were already in the house before I started my vaseline/chili campaign. Hmm - this kind of leaves me with a dilemma, because I am now not sure if that sticky red stuff actually did work to keep ants outs, after all the steady stream of newcomers did slow down dramatically after putting it on, or if it was only thanks to my chemical warfare that the kitchen was ant free the next morning??!
So what have I learned. Well, besides from the fact that Bicarbonate of soda definitely doesn't work as an ant deterrent the main lesson is probably that I need to calm down. To be truly green I cannot run around becoming obsessed with getting rid of ants (or anything else for that matter) instantly - it leads to bad decisions. So next step on the green path: learn to chill!
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