Tuesday, January 30, 2007

21 Jan 07 - The government wants me to use my car

I'd like to take the train to work and avoid using unnecessary and polluting oil products. But because I work forty miles from home I'd have to pay a standard fare of over £20 a day, which is £100+ a week. A monthly ticket would cost a cool £293.80, or £67.85 a week, using the accountant's trick of dividing by 4.33 to get weeks.

Actually that's probably comparable to the cost of filling my car, but then the government gives me back 40p a mile in tax relief, which comes to a generous £36 a day. Yes, £36 a day on a 90-mile round trip. The government clearly wants me to use my car, at least its right hand does, although the left hand wants me to save energy.

It's not quite that simple, the rate goes down after the first 10,000 miles, or 22 weeks, but by then I'll have moved back to commuter-land as I'm self-employed.

It would be great to find a way to make it at least vaguely pay (like my car needs more servicing with the extra mileage), but it's a struggle. Then there's the question of getting there. I'm not just talking about calculating the probably of actually making it on any given day, but even on a good day it will take at least an hour, station to station. Then it's a 25-minute walk from the station to where I work.

That bit of the journey would be nicely covered by the fold-up bike I'd be taking with me (cost, I believe around £250). Add the time it takes to get to the station, factor in the residual bike -unfriendliness of the public transport system - the government (part of it) might want us to bike it, but the transport network sure as hell doesn't - and it still takes approximately twice as long and costs twice as much by public transport.

I say 'twice as much' because I can't be bothered to work it out. It's what's known as an educated guess.

Labels:

Sunday, January 28, 2007

24 Jan 07 Death By Power Bill

When the bill came yesterday my initial reaction was disbelief. I was going to call the company that supplies our power (using sustainable energy of course) and use some of my own energy - which only seems to sustain itself until about 9pm - to find out what on earth was wrong with their billing system. Instead, I decided to put together a quick spreadsheet showing the approximate amount of energy our three main energy culprits use, how much we think we use them, and how much this could all mean when it appears on our energy bill. It went something like this: - clothes dryer - 2 KW - 2-3 times a day - 2 hours a time - washing machine - 2kw - twice a day - 2 hours a time - dishwasher - 1 kw - once a day - 1 hour a time - everything else - 0.5kw a day This came to roughly 34 + 28 + 7 + 3.5 = 72.5kw/hr a week, which sounds quite cheap compared to what the bill was telling me, which was around 172kw/hr a week. That was before I discovered the teenager had been using a 2kw electric radiator to heat his room as that part of the central heating had broken down some weeks earlier and no one had got round to telling me. Hmm, this could add anything from 84 to a possible 24x7x2 = 336 very scary kilowatts per hour. But only if I were being truly paranoid about it. Once I had worked it all out, I figured I'd forget about making matters even worse with the additional cost of the phonecall and instead start talking about heating engineers and time switches. For several years before this winter we didn't even have an electric dryer, let alone run up Googly bills on it. Only problem was, we were forever loading and unloading clothes onto lines. On the other hand it did wonders for our global footprint and I think the clothes lasted a lot longer. As soon as the weather picks up we're going back to the clothes rack. Maybe we won't need our gym membership after all the running around with pegs between our teeth. Of course there's also the cost of the socks eaten by Dog, but that's another story.

Labels:

Car rides down the road - necessary?

20 Jan 06: Are lifts down the road really necessary? And how much does a kitchen mop cost to run? The daughter could not bear the thought of walking the half-mile to the tube station due to a combination of inclement weather and the fact she was wearing ridiculously high high-heels that were two sizes too large. Is it really necessary to take the car on such short distances? I thought not, so I decided to take her all the way to Golders Green (2 miles) instead. That's more environmentally-friendly? Had to deal today with the issue of kitchen 'mops' that actually use a lot of chemicals, that somehow slipped into our home inventory. How did I fall for this? The thing runs on two 'AA' batteries and makes a strange whirring sound when in operation. When I bought it I was relieved to read that the batteries would last around a year, but actually had to replace them in around two weeks. Maybe it's only the second set that lasts a year. The accused mop requires its own proprietary pads, which also seem to expire alarmingly quickly. Finally, it requires its own chemicals to do the cleaning, and no other. A bottle of these lasts about two weeks, so all in all I begin to feel the £35 cost in the first place was a bargain by comparison. We are now seriously looking at a miracle steam cleaner a friend introduced to us, whose marketers feel the cost of a full-page ad in the Daily Mail to be a worthwhile investment. This mop, which also runs on batteries, only costs £50, but has the attraction of using only water to clean. An appealing prospect environmentally, once I can adjust to the inevitable throwing-out of the other mop I purchased in December. So, I've started a fund.

Labels:

Disposable cups, fruit salad containers

18 Jan 07: I solve the disposable cup problem but what about the fruit salad containers? I have finally got round to using an old Evian bottle instead of numerous disposable cups for my frequent trips to the water cooler. It's not always easy to fill something that large, but I get satisfaction from knowing I'm doing my bit in this regard. Another dilemma - how much water should I put in the communal kettle? Pure environmentalism says as little as I am going to use, but this doesn't take into account the other workers who might want a hot drink. Wouldn't it be selfish just to fill for myself? But to completely fill the kettle would be horrendously wasteful of energy. Fortunately I have found a happy medium at around two cups - one for me, one for 'someone' else. We're still not flushing the loo at home when it's only wee. I don't care if the hose pipe ban is over in many parts of the country, it'll soon be down to sludge again if we keep on flushing down those litres. The moulded clear plastic boxes the fruit salad apparently has to come in are starting to mount up on my desk, and I don't know what to do with them. The fruit salad comes in an 07 type of plastic, whatever that is. If I remember rightly, the recyclers are only really bothering with 01 and o2, so even though technically it can be recycled, it probably isn't going to be. Beloved has rebuked me for leaving lights on around the house. When I mentioned they were only low-energy bulbs that didn't cut much ice, so I'm going to have to mend my ways. I've also made a mental note to refrain from moaning about the lack of youth involvement in groups when I couldn't find a good reason why I shouldn't become a scout leader, since there was a shortage and the kids were unable to join the Scouts even if they wanted to.

Labels:

Ecoxiety: definition

What does 'ecoxiety' mean? n. the feeling one gets when contemplating the difficulties involved in trying to live an environmentally-friendly life maybe. Or maybe you have your own definition .... I'd love to hear it.

Labels:

17 Jan 07: What to do with used polystyrene boxes?

17 Jan 07: What can I do with my used polystyrene boxes ? These things are getting to be a bit of a liability. It's the same with plastic cups, and the expensive looking insulated paper cups you get with hot drinks. It's so easy to 'forget' to recycle them, or not even bother. After all, the feeling of getting a brand new one with every drink is kind of 'mothering'. The cup gets a little grotty after the first few refills. So what? This is a health hazard? Even worse is when the drinks machine won't accept your cups, and you are forced to get a new cup with every drink. Lunch presented another dilemma: should I go for the brocolli in the plastic wrapper? I mean, why does a vegetable need a wrapper? It's a bit like those dogs you see with cotton jackets on - you wonder what's wrong with their own fur?? The plastic bottle from the strictly vegetarian multivitimins is still on my desk, staring at me, challenging me to do something about it. What can I do? I look underneath it to find the triangle that tells me it's recyclable and the number in the middle that tells me no one's actually set up to recycle it. Am I wrong? Something I'll have to find out.

Labels:

10/01/07 Struggling with my plastic food wrappers

As I look out over the discarded packaging of an eaten fruit salad (freshly prepared). What sort of plastic is it? Will it remain in a landfill for about a thousand years while it slowly decomposes? But even if it has a ‘recyclable’ sign on it (it does) where on Earth am I going to dispose of it? Must get a plastic crusher so I can take it to the council recycling some time. Is there such a thing? Lunch was a choice between poached salmon and vegetarian quiche. I love salmon, but only the organic sort. Salmon farming in Scotland seemed such a good idea to begin with, great way to expand the economy as well as supplying more people with what was previously a bit of a luxury, but now? Then there was the Coca-Cola dilemma. Coke comes in two basic forms: diet and non-diet. I had been drinking rather too much of the diet variety recently, as I like to watch the calories, but feeling increasingly guilty because of the Monsanto link. Study the ingredients of just about any diet drink – including sugar-free squash – and you’ll find a component called Aspartame. This is marketed by a company called Monsanto, which has – well, not a very good name – with environmental campaigners.

Labels:

16 Jan 06 Went to an interfaith dialogue group

I went to an interfaith dialogue group today. That's my new thing. I mean, learning to actually listen to each other seems better than trying to prove how wrong anyone else is. By pure change the topic of discussion (there always is one!) was 'sustainability'. I honestly thought it was going to be about how long we can sustain these old religions, but it was about the environment. I can tell you, I don't often get the chance to kill two rhetorical birds with one stone, but I did today. So what are religions going to do about the environmental decline? Can they take a lead? Can they manage to inspire others to 'do the right thing'? I hope so, but from what I see most of our religious leaders have a way to go in terms of what you might call 'earth consciousness'. On the other hand, some more than others. Not to mention the rest of us.

Labels: ,

15 Jan 06: Good one M&S!

Will they, won't they? That's the question. It's amazing how much change there is in people's attitudes because of global warming. So M&S are promising to become carbon neutral from 2000-and-whatever. I'm optimistic. Not so sure about Tesco though. I wonder which Minister had a private word in whose ear at the golf club? Somehow I've acquired a bottle made of someting called PTFE. It's some sort of plastic, no idea how damaging it is, or, for that matter, how to get rid of it. OK, it's got one of those 'recyclable' triangles on it, but is there actually anyone who's going to recycle it? Must remember to take it to the 'recycling' (somehow 'taking it to the dump' seems more poetic).
14 Jan 06: I become a cyclist
Hello again. In a stroke of -well, brightness - I came up with the idea of using the bike that's been sitting around in the shed for about four years getting rusty. This was a fitness idea, although it doubles up neatly as a route to self-righteous gloating. Having invested around £40 in Halfords for the various accessories I was ready to go. What fun! Although the bike is a bit small, and the gears don't seem to change. I'm not planning to take it out for more than about 20 minutes at a time, and only on the safer roads, which excludes most of the UK and more or less all of London. Walking up the hills is fairly safe though. *** A lot of paper is still going in with the rest of the rubbish, I'm afraid. I just don't get the time to sort it all out. *** Does anyone out there know anything about eco-friendly cleaners?
12 Jan 06 - Eco-battles with Tesco 6.30am Using less after-shave lotion has exactly the same effect on the face as using more. The bottle does not make it easy to put tiny amounts on my face, but I could always get one of those soft plastic bottles with a 'squeezy' lid. 8.00 Arrived at the office minus my green tea so was forced by addiction to purchase a cappuchino in the cafeteria. One more disposable cup for the landfill! In theory I could re-use the cup for several days, say for drinking water, but in practise the pressure of work means I'll be picking up at least some more for one reason or another. Usually because I'll forget to bring the cup with me. And the cafeteria will give me a new disposable cup with every drink. Mental note to bring the cup with me and ask them to refill it. 13 Jan 06: Popped into the chemist for a contact lens case, remembered to politely refuse the bag that was being used to house the case (although of course the bags get recycled in our house as bin liners, or to put the used cat litter in. While on the subject, is the organic wood-chip cat litter worth using? It's fully biodegradable, which is good, but then of course I'm putting it in plastic bags to get rid of it, which is not good. How's it going to make it from the never-got-rid-of plastic bag to the earth? Mental note to get some organic recyclable paper bags for the purpose. Went shopping at Tesco for Sunday's family afternoon tea. Should I even be shopping at Tesco's? But it's so convenient. Bought one mini-sized low energy light bulb. I decided not to use the Tesco own brand bulbs (which were cheaper) as I have bought own-brand bulbs in the past and found they didn't last very long. It was only when I got it home I discovered it was a bayonet-fixing, and I needed a screw-fixing for the lamp I had in mind. Then there were the plastic containers for the raspberries, plastic containers for the strawberries, plastic containers for the blackberries and so on. Do we really need this? And how many miles have these poor fruit travelled before they made it to our kitchen? Mental note to try again with the locally grown organic box, even though last time we constantly had leftover vegetables because we (I) never got round to thinking what to do with them each week. At the checkout I was asked, as ever, whether I had a Clubcard. No, I replied for the hundredth time. I do have one actually, but I've long since tired of being constantly asked at the checkout, and also I don't want my spending habits monitored any more. Damn the 1% saving, or whatever it is. One good purchase was the crate of 24 ultra-cheapo canned tomatoes at 15p a can. Not bad considering the same basic foodstuff can cost as much as 75p or more when purchased with a different label. Only thing to watch out for is damaged cans, which apparently is bad for one's health - not an old wive's tale, I've been assured. On the way home popped in to Borders bookshop for two schoolbooks for Aaron, taking care to refuse the tiny Borders plastic bag that we have no use for at home. When we finally got home I discovered an unsolicited package from Kleeneze, which we are supposed to give (or something) to the rep. when she turns up Monday. Sue usually chucks these straight into the recycling, I was a bit kinder and left it on the outside window sill. They even have the nerve to get annoyed if you chuck away their unsolicited mail! We bought a new water heater (urn) for £50 on Friday, as the old one had never been that effective since it's push button lid had semi-broken some time ago. It's still quite usable though, so I am going to offer it to the community via an email group we are members of.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Hello reader. I am moving Ecoxiety here, meanwhile you can find it at http://ecowatch.blogspot.com