Green Update

What did I do after my last post?

1) Water Butt - Bought a 220 ltr butt running off the garage roof (fixed). Given the high rainfall here in Cardiff this 'Summer', this has virtually been permanently full of at least some water at all times. All the water I use from this saves perfectly clean drinking water (and the energy used to make it so) from being used for watering the garden/indoor plants. Also, as the bathroom is next to the garden I have been using it to fill the cistern after flushing the toilet for the same reason - though this is more a when I can be bothered sort of thing, which I can see rapidly tailing off during the onset of winter...

2) Wall Insulated where radiator attaches with reflective foil, also central heating pipes insulated.

3) Insulate ceiling - guy coming round tonight to quote.

4) Bought LCD TV as my trusty 11 year old TV finally and suddenly died last month. RIP JVC TV!

5) Virtually no holidays this year! Not by choice, just cos the weather was too crap for the planned camping holiday! Went to West Wales and the Midlands (Woo!).

6) Started the garden to supplement our food supplies: Self-sufficient in Mint, Rosemary, Thyme and Oregano. As well as huge quantities of Tomatoes, Rocket and other lettuces, and about 6 meals worth of potatoes. A small start, but very satisfying nonetheless. Not to mention zero packaging, food miles and the fact that it was all organic!

7) Froze our energy bills for the next year and a half with E.on back in May before all the prices rose.

8) Bought a mountain bike - most journeys in Cardiff are now either walking or biking. Even the poker nights are a car share between us three 'West-siders'!

9) Cooked meals, often make enough for two meals as well as for lunch at work the next day. Saves money, power, washing up - time!

All of these are fairly modest things, and mostly aimed at saving us money - but they also help the environment, right?

Are you doing your bit!?

I have been thinking about the whole global warming issue and it suddenly being fashionable for people to be ‘green’. But does ‘being green’ necessarily mean making a sacrifice and spending more money – generally having to curtail your quality of life, as many detractors claim?

Personally I don’t think so at all, which is why my first round in ‘being green’ is purely 100% about being Selfish (no changes there!)…

My Energy Saving

Round #1

Lighting: Almost all bulbs are low energy, including 50% spotlights. Uplighter is still halogen because they don’t yet have low energy bulbs for it, 50% of spotlights are still normal due to the harshness of the light otherwise. Lights off when not in use.

Laundry: Using Eco Balls(!). Been trialling these for a couple of months now, and they actually seem to work!!! Basically they “produce ionized oxygen that activates the water molecules naturally and allows them to penetrate deep into clothing fibres to lift dirt away” without using any washing detergent or fabric conditioner!!! I even washed some old muddy kit from a year ago and it came out clean! Only problem seems to be the whites slowly go grey, so we occasionally have to perk them up with some vanish – but the savings in the pocket and on the environment are well worth it.

Mains power: Turning stuff off at the mains after use and avoiding standby drain, basically my two main ‘appliance clusters’ of the PC and peripherals; and the TV and peripherals off at source! Other stuff like phone charger switched off when not in use etc.

General: Not overusing cooker by buying an energy efficient table top slow cooker, only filling kettle with water you need. Bought a wind-up/solar powered radio, which now it has become sunny is fully capable of powering itself. Refuse to buy a DAB as it appears to use about 10X than a normal radio for some reason! All batteries now rechargeable.

Water: Getting metered water supply! Avoiding running taps unnecessarily, showering at the gym (I kid you not! Plus it gives me more incentive to go), putting a 'hippo' in the toilet cistern, not having baths, using economic settings on the washing machine. In the three months since we’ve been here our first metered water bill is about 30% less than if we were unmetered! Also, Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water) is owned by its customers, so I actually got a dividend of £25!!!

Transport: Walk to work. Walk in Cardiff in general. Car is only used for bulk shopping/longer journeys.

Holidays: Prioritise low impact. Go camping more often, used the tent three separate times last year – cheap and fun! Easy to nip off for a long weekend. Holiday closer to home, been exploring lots of Wales and England lately what with global warming making our climate very nice lately! Use the car instead of flying.

BBQ: Bought a ‘log maker’ to turn all our paper, cardboard, leaves etc into ‘logs’ that burn up to an hour – will be trialing them when we have our first BBQ! Hoping that we will not need to buy any BBQ fuel whatsoever!

Food: Starting to grow various ‘food crops’, bought some potted herbs such as basil, rosemary, oregano, mint, chives etc which have all been extensively used already. Will be planting some vegetables such as tomatoes very soon. Inspired by knowing they will be pesticide free, zero food miles etc.

Buying more locally sourced food direct from local farmer’s market and butchers. Buying less meat, but better quality (most cheap meat is only cheap because it is bulked up by all sorts of crap, so why not just cut out the crap completely), reducing dependency on supermarkets and supporting local shops. Using own carrier bags, avoiding over packaged foods (we are paying for the packaging!). I have been steadily identifying food and drink produced here in Wales and try and target those brands as much as possible – for example I almost exclusively drink beer brewed by Brains, Cardiff’s own brewery! Did you know Wales has it’s own wines, whiskey, gin, vodka etc.

To do list:

Water Butt attached to garage roof/main roof to store water for the garden and other ‘grey water’ uses – washing the car!!?

Buy fridge power regulator (increases efficiency of your fridge’s power use)

Insulate wall where radiator attaches with reflective foil

Insulate central heating pipes.

Insulate ceiling.

‘A’ rated energy using appliances. Washing Machine is already, will replace fridge with more energy efficient one.

Buy LCD TV. Apparently uses less energy than a normal TV. Plasmas are bad as they use more energy than a normal TV.

Buy nearly new smaller car and convert to LPG to take advantage of >50% fuel savings and road tax exemptions.

Might try a ferry trip to Europe this year.

Buy locally produced clothes – from the UK! Again, helping our own economy and people, using renewable resources such as wool, leather etc with low ‘clothing miles’.

Sorry if I’m rambling like a hippy or whatever, however this has all been achieved with no real altruistic action on my part to ‘save the planet’ etc, it is more borne out of direct financial savings to my pocket, as well as direct benefits to my health – so it is easily possible to become environmentally conscious and help yourself at the same time with no ‘sacrifice’ necessary! For instance, while staying on the ground while going on holiday is currently a novelty, I am not banning myself from flying and fully intend to continue my travelling wanderlust (2006 was particularly bad with 8 flights and 2 helicopter journeys!).

Anyway, something to think about…?

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

http://ecotopia.co.uk/index.jsp

Why Aaron. A. Aardvark?

Everyone's wanted to be first at something right?

Well this may date me and out me as some sort of geek across several orders of magnitude, however I have fond memories of a certain Judge Dredd story in 2000AD in which the evil Judge Cal takes over Mega City One and decides to sentence the entire population to death starting with the hapless Aaron. A. Aardvark, a non-descript man who had changed his name to be first in the city's directories.

So I suppose the moral of that particular story is that it is not always best to come first...

It's amazing the things that you remember from your childhood!

And yes, I do happen to like Aardvarks!