10:10 – Realistic Chance?
Posted: Fri 4 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Domestic, Green, Thoughts 9 Comments »My initial thoughts on the Guardian’s 10:10 Campaign were pretty non-committal, but yesterday I read Charlie Stross’s full-size and well thought-out piece, so I thought I’d do something similar to his post, but based on my own life and/or carbon footprint, which might help fill out my own thoughts and ideas on it.
So, using The Guardian’s own “How to reduce your carbon emissions” list, here we go… (Click on the more link below)
Incandescent
Posted: Tue 1 September, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Thoughts 8 Comments »From today, traditional 100W incandescent light-bulbs are no longer being sold. Under new EU rules the manufacture and import of 100 watt bulbs and all frosted bulbs will be banned in favour of the energy-saving variety.
I’m still in two minds about this, although we don’t actually use 100W bulbs around the house at all and we’re not prone to the health-issues that are being laid at the door of CFL (Compact Fluourescent Light) bulbs. But in certain cases, I’m still to be convinced about CFL bulbs as a replacement for incandescent ‘traditional’ light bulbs.
One of the things we made a slight mistake with when we moved in here was that we had spotlight downlighters fitted in most of the rooms, which use GU10 halogen bulbs. The light fittings are fine, and help with making the rooms feel like they’re a decent height (Which hanging light-fittings didn’t) But they do result in a significant use of energy, which is what we didn’t think about at the time.
We’ve looked at replacing the bulbs with CFL-replacements, but they most certainly do have a “warm-up” time. The ones we’ve used in the kitchen take a noticeable time to come on properly. In addition, they’re longer than the standard GU10s, so if/when we put them in to replace the ceiling lights, we’re going to have little humps of protruding light bulbs in all the positions.
As time goes on, and the current GU10s burn out, I’m sure we will replace them with CFL equivalents – but we’ll also keep on looking for better developments in those bulbs, rather than buying them all at once – particularly when they’re still at £8 or £9 per bulb – that’s a noticeable amount of money to be spending on lighting…
Cutting Down on Waste
Posted: Thu 6 August, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Green, Stupidity, Thoughts 3 Comments »In the news today, there’s a piece about a Plymouth dairy that’s encouraging its customers to use “Milk Bags” – recyclable bags of milk, and a reusable ‘jug’ holding the bags.
According to the story,
Dairy spokesman Richard Pryor said customer research showed people wanted inexpensive and convenient ways to reduce the amount of rubbish they put in their dustbins.
“This development is another important step in reducing the environmental burden of the 130,000 tonnes of plastic used in milk packaging every year,” he said.
Obviously, Dairy Crest in Devon are using plastic bottles for delivering milk.
But it occurs to me, surely the single best way of reducing that tonnage of plastic used in milk packaging is to go back to using glass bottles instead of plastic ones?
Our milk gets delivered every other day (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to the door in glass bottles. At the same time, the driver collects our used (and washed) bottles, and takes them to be reused. No ‘rubbish’ relating to the milk – the foil bottle tops go in the recycling bin.
On the (exceptionally rare) occasions when a bottle breaks, it gets put into the glass box, to go to the local bottle bank next time we’re in that direction. Again, no landfill, no waste – it’ll get recycled into a glass ‘something else’.
So, who is it who does our milk deliveries? Yep, it’s Dairy Crest – the same ones who deliver in plastic in Plymouth.
Playing with Concrete
Posted: Sun 26 July, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green Garden, House Work 3 Comments »Regular readers already know that when it comes to DIY I’m pretty much a total bell-end. It’s a thing I’ve inherited from my father, who is a world-renowned DIY bell-end, and tales of his idiocies have been used for me and my brother to dine out on many times.
Anyway, about two years ago, I put in a thing for the rotary drier/airer in the garden. At the time it was fairly straight, but over time it’s got more and more wonky.
So this time we got another fitting (this time with a built-in spirit level – genius!) and a bag of Postmix cement. You can see already where this might go horribly wrong, can’t you?
Only it didn’t – the holder is now cemented in properly (and absolutely straight!) and the airer’s post fits in it fine.
At the same time (i.e. while waiting for the postmix to set) we’ve also put up a hosereel thingy on the wall of the house, which’ll hold a 25m hose-reel – enough to get almost halfway down the garden – which should make for a tidier garden without sodding hosepipe coiled up in random places.
Sometimes, a day can be quite successful. Of course, I’m now waiting to find something to screw up in order to balance things out again…
Pick Your Own
Posted: Sun 5 July, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, Norfolk 1 Comment »Today, we went to one of the local pick-your-own farms, spent about an hour there, and collected enough raspberries and strawberries to make up more than 12lb of jam, for the princely amount of £15.
Yes, the fruit in our own patch will cost even less, but that won’t mature ’til next year, I suspect. It’s getting there, and we’ve got some small fruits on the stuff there, but these things take time. The PYO place was fantastically stocked, and you can be sure we’ll be going back there for more this year.
We’ve still got some fruit spare as well, so that’s going in some puds for the week. Can’t be bad.
Hail
Posted: Tue 16 June, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Green Garden, Weather Leave a comment »When I said we had epic hail yesterday, I really wasn’t kidding.
This was what remained around some of our flower pots two hours after it’d fallen – most of it stayed on the ground right through ’til at least half ten at night (having fallen at four or so in the afternoon) although it was gone this morning
Hailstones
Pretty impressive, really.
Of course, they hail has beaten the shit out of most of the plants outside – all the broad bean plants are bent over and have been beaten up, as have the strawberries, french beans, courgettes and pumpkins as well as the bamboo and lilac trees/bushes that we bought recently. But all of that should heal over time, so it could be a lot worse.
Mower RIP
Posted: Fri 22 May, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Green Garden Leave a comment »Longer-term readers may recall that back in August last year, we bought a second-hand ride-on mower from the friend of a friend. At the time this was A Good Thing, as it meant that a) we didn’t need to have the nice man mowing the lawn again this year (as in 2009) and b) that I wouldn’t have to slog my arse off mowing the entire bloody garden with the petrol-driven mower.
Over the winter, we got it serviced (supposedly- that’s a post for another day, I think) and the engine electrics repaired from where I knackered it when the battery fell off the back of the cunting thing, pulling various bits of connected enginery with it.
This year we tried starting it – nothing. The battery was flat, so that got charged up, having borrowed a battery charger from the out-laws. Once that was done, it ran. For about twenty minutes. It then went bang, chucked out a cloud of smoke, and wouldn’t start again.
Today, we got a different person to come out and have a look. Turns out the starter motor was fucked sticking , so he cleaned it out and lo, it started.
So I ran it round the garden again. Put it in gear to start mowing. And it went bang, chucked out a shitload of evil-smelling grey smoke, stopped, and wouldn’t start again.
So all told, I give up. The poxy thing’s knackered, and showing no signs of recovery. I think we’re just going to write it off as a total lemon, and one day get a new ride-on with a long fucking guarantee.
In the meantime, it’s back to the petrol-mower again. We spent £100 on that three years ago, and it’s never given us any serious hassle. Sure, it’s a pig to start the first time each year, but after that it runs just fine.
I’ve come to realise that I truly fucking hate garden machinery.