What Carbon Naughty Things do you do

mark55man

I am shortly to join the ranks of the solar panelled, and I am looking forward to a new hobby as I try and maximise the environmental and financial benefit from this. I have started a blog around carbon naughtiness to encourage myself and thought I would share some of my initial analysis on my own Carbon Naughty habits and hope to get some feedback:


Naughty Habit Area

1. Driving - I have really tried to improve my driving efficiency to the point of actually running 2-3 mph under the speed limit (on my route I find it just delays the point at which I am stuck behind a truck)
2. Lights - I had got lazy after the novelty of my Owl meter ran out with turning unused lights - have given up on the kids
3. Recycling - Am making more of an effort at recycling - though still suffer from landfill-itis if I am having a major spring clean
4. Flying - I've cut that right out - but its more to do with affordability than energy saving
5. Gardening - Used to burn the rubbish away, now the council takes it away every fortnight, but I know I need to some more

So that's my share of naughtiness - what do you do to save energy?

shirlgirl2004

Driving is a really bad area for me. I try to be as careful as possible but we live in a semirural location on the top of a hill so cycling with 2 smallish children in a trailer would kill me. I used to use it a lot more when we lived closer to a town. I drive about 20,000 miles a year but apart from combining journeys where possible I don't feel there is much more I can do.

I am good with my rubbish with regard to recycling and minimising waste. I haven't been on an aeroplane for about 2 years although this is for family reasons rather than environmental.

In the garden we have a composter and chickens & dogs to eat scraps. The council does take away some green waste but not too much.

I try not to buy unneeded "stuff" and love buying used furniture to upcycle. We try to avoid plastic toys and other things where possible. So our new kitchen will be solid pine rather than some plastic coated design. I would have loved to reuse the current kitchen but it is about 30 years old and really is only fit for the bin (or maybe a workshop). In our last house I gave our old kitchen away on Freecycle and hope to do the same again.

I am quite good at turning lights etc off unfortunately the rest of the family aren't. Actually an area where we are bad is we have a swimming pool which is heated. We use an air source heat pump but obviously it is consuming electricity that is not essential use.

mark55man

Thanks Shirl

Tell me about composting - how long does it take to get going - do you need to spend anything to get going.

I have a medium sized garden, but there is a spot that I could use

Ben84

I'm pretty polarised really, I have some environmentally sound habits and some bad ones.

I don't have a car and use buses around the city or walk and for long distances the train. Generally though I don't use motorised transport that much, certainly not every day. I have never flown anywhere either, I've always used boats and trains to go abroad.

I'm not a big buyer of consumer goods either. I buy things I like, clothing, furniture, anything really that will last well and keep them for a long time. I try hard to avoid buying things that will get rarely used as they're just expensive clutter. I use the library a lot for books, magazines and rent videos rather than buy them.

Food I have almost no waste, but I do buy whatever I find at the store and don't pay much attention to distance travelled.

I also like the central heating a lot in the winter.

I don't recycle. I used to a lot, but my perception of the value in doing this has changed dramatically and I'm no longer convinced by the claimed benefits. I now think it may be a misuse of time, local council funds and for many items not in fact beneficial to the environment either.

rachelhen

Straighteners

mark55man

Ben - Thats interesting about the recycling - I go through the motions, but I do wonder if its actually of any use. Like if it was pointless would anyone have the courage to agree?

Rachel - that doesn't sound very carbon naughty - so I guess you are winning at the moment

Shirl - One last point - if you are heating your pool, you could benefit from Solar PV as your pool would take any Kw that could be thown at it. remember the money you get from PV is 95% for generating it at all and only 5% whether you use it

shirlgirl2004

mark88man wrote: »

Shirl - One last point - if you are heating your pool, you could benefit from Solar PV as your pool would take any Kw that could be thown at it. remember the money you get from PV is 95% for generating it at all and only 5% whether you use it

We possibly could benefit from solar however we have a lot of large trees in our garden. Although the garden is south facing a reasonable amount of shadow is cast at certain times of the day. Also we don't intend to live here too long so we would not recoup the cost of having it done. We also had solar panels in our previous house and didn't find they generated a great deal of heat (water heating only system). Certainly economically it wan't viable just to pay for maintenance. With the money saved we can afford to buy organic and locally grown goods.

For composting we aren't having a great deal of success. We had a traditional composter at our old house but when we moved we bought a Green Johanna which doesn't seem to be working so well. I think I don't mix it enough and it is a bit wet but once we get it under control it will work well. The Green Johanna works better than a normal composter because you can put meat and bones in so all scraps can go in it.

Mattty

We do recycle religiously. To the point where we have the monthly task of taking the plastic bottles to the recycling centre. Personally I would prefer the council spend more on recyling than spend it on land fill fines. The council also make some money from selling the recycled materials.

I sometimes wonder if there could be a business venture in mining older landfill sites. What with all the resources that we have just dumped and buried over the years.

Very little gets left on standby in our place as we have remote plugs with the switch next to the light switch. That way when you leave the room every thing gets switched off.

As for Carbon naughty.

I do drive a lot for work, (but did buy the most fuel efficient car I could afford just over a year ago and cut my fuel bill by over a half)

I do like a long shower in the morning, but I have installed one of those free, flow reducers from the water authority.

I do like to eat meat which is pretty carbon intense.

and we do have a two year old son and are hoping to extend the family sometime in the future, so that will increase our family carbon footprint.:rotfl:

crazyguy

I like to lay on my back and conserve energy, the missus does complain after a while though !

mark55man

Mattty wrote: »

...

I sometimes wonder if there could be a business venture in mining older landfill sites. What with all the resources that we have just dumped and buried over the years.

... snip ...

and we do have a two year old son and are hoping to extend the family sometime in the future, so that will increase our family carbon footprint.:rotfl:

I have wondered the same thing - is all that Landfill material like loose change down the back of the sofa - there when we need it most. Or is it all contaminated and un-usable

I agree my biggest naughtiness is a large family - caused by other naughtiness!!. As a colleague once (rather backhandedly) complimented me "If anyone is going to overpopulate the earth Mark I'm glad its you !!" - Good luck with that - anyway wrt greenness you seem to be very sorted - I need to be more disciplined

Ben84

mark88man wrote: »

Ben - Thats interesting about the recycling - I go through the motions, but I do wonder if its actually of any use. Like if it was pointless would anyone have the courage to agree?

I'm not against recycling, the potential to save resources and protect the environment is there and can in some cases be realised. It's more domestic recycling that I'm unconvinced by because I don't believe the numbers add up in favour of it.

My opinion changed a lot when I realised just how little of what goes in to landfills is actually domestic waste. Although a lot of numbers about waste are presented, often in ways that try to shock us, the domestic contribution is generally never quantified. It's about 8-9% according to DEFRA however, which raises the question of why so much effort is going in to domestic recycling. It is not a leading source of waste in the UK and with it being one of the most contaminated, diverse and widely distributed waste streams with heavy overheads to collecting, sorting and processing, it isn't even a good place to start, let alone put the majority of our efforts.

The issue is political perhaps. Recycling has become popular and councils and politicians who support it are in turn popular with the public. There's a business aspect too, it is very profitable for some companies. The recyclables aren't worth a lot, but the contracts to collect them are. Companies who are now under pressure to do environmental work are also targeting waste areas that customers see, which generally feeds the idea domestic waste is a major waste stream and environmental danger. It has become a self perpetuating situation with the environmental costs of domestic waste getting exaggerated.

Of course it's good practice to cut back on how much and how quickly we turn resources in to landfill, but the numbers have to add up. We are buying a service when the local council pay for recycling, the aim of which is protecting the environment, but I'm leaning mostly towards domestic recycling being too expensive and doing too little. We could just as easily spend the money on wildlife reserves or better public transport subsidies to cut energy use and traffic pollution in cities.

We wouldn't have to give up on reducing domestic waste either. The idea costly recycling programs are the only solution is mistaken. There are some projects aiming to lightweight packaging and reduce the mass of waste per product. It's entirely possible for light weight, low mass plastic packaging to replace a lot of bulky energy intensive packages we currently use. The plastic coffee refills are a perfect example. Pushing lots of resources through households is not as effective as just using minimal packaging. A greater emphasis on reusable items (tax breaks perhaps?) and longer warranties on consumer goods would help too.