Green? Or PR?
Posted: Thu 15 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, News 5 Comments »Isn’t it interesting how all of a sudden, a lot of media stories – and government policies – are becoming more ecologically-based?
Two this week came to my attention – first the “green rating” of houses when they go up for sale, as part of the HIP (Home Information Pack) concept that’s being introduced in June 2007. Of course, it’s a bit half-arsed, as there’d be no financial incentives to home-buyers for buying a house that was more ecological/green than another.
The second one, which interested me more, was about the possibility of charging people more for rubbish collection if they don’t sort their recyclable stuff from the normal household crap.
To me, that’s a good idea – we need to increase the amount we recycle, and anything that works to persuade people to do so is, to me, a good thing. It still amazes me on our refuse collection day, seeing how much recyclable stuff we have in comparison to the other people on our street. Maybe we end up with a lot more packaging etc. that is able to be recycled, but I don’t think so – I think that at the moment most people still see it as “easier” to just chuck everything into one bin, instead of sorting it out.
Regarding the charge for not sorting your recycling, I think this is an excellent idea, after walking down the road the night before this week’s refuse collection and noticing the quantity of black bags that most houses put out. We put out one bag a fortnight. And before I get accused of being smug and holier than thou about it, as has happened on Rise lately, I’m only saying that to point out that it is possible to cut your waste dramatically by dint of recycling, re-using etc.
Well I’m not in the least bit bothered about coming over all smug. We’ve been recycling everything for years, long before the councils started to act on it and I think anyone who doesn’t is lazy and selfish. We even save up our plastic bottles and take them down the local recycling centre either when we have a full car load or when it’s on the way to something else.
Where we now live there is a recycle collection every week and a rubbish collection only every two. There’s also a brown-bin collection every other week as well for garden waste that won’t go in the composter.
I was absolutely stunned last week when my hairdresser confessed that she never bothered recycling as it “was all too much effort” and couldn’t work out what could be recycled and what could – now bear in mind she doesn’t even have to do much sorting here – there’s a green bin and a black bin. In the green bin you can put paper, material, cans, plastic (grades 1-3 shown on the recycling label on the packaging) and glass. Everything else goes in the black bin. I can’t see how that’s difficult?!
The really bizarre thing is that she does an extra journey to the council tip weekly (which is a pig to get to and always has a huge queue) than sort her rubbish out – how is that time saving or less hassle?!
I joined ina rant about this a few months back over at Joe’s place
I thought the comment from the, ah, Transatlantic Cousin was priceless…
Re: Energy rating of homes:
As an ‘eco warrior’ of a certain design related construction profession, me thinks it’s not all good rating houses. Ppl would think that the application of double glazing to an older house would assist in the issue of heat loss through the thermal envelope………….wrong!!!!! Neither does loft insulation, especially glass wool based stuff, the thing is a cohesive package of measures including boilers, water use etc must be analysed and some in-depth calculations done b4 anyone can actually make a house more ‘environmentally friendly’ it aint as easy as you think.You can actually make a house less environmentally friendly by the application of the wrong products but with the right intentions (embodied energy and payback cycles etc).
Working out what and how it’s been done is even harder, how does an inspector know if said house has insulation ????? how doe she know what energy efficiency rating the windows were installed under???? Even with the experience I have I know it would be nearly impossible to verify or confirm how good a house was without doing a post occupancy evaluation (including forced air leakage testing), that’s over a day’s work in total per dwelling. My professional opinion would be to classify most houses built before 2000 (start of the tighter building regs on heat loss and airtightness) as bad, and those afterwards as not good enough, so what’s the point in energy rating them? Besides, any eco warrior worth his salt will tell you it isn’t neccessarily the energy rating but the amount of CO2 emmitted that is the issue and that involves a shitload of calculations that have taken me nearly 6 yrs to master. Ppl who think they are buying a ‘good’ house will be being misled!!!!!