Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell spent three months during summer 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we're home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint.
I'm guilty of introducing an 4x4 jeep sized-footprint into the house. At least that's what a recent Guardian piece claims here thanks to the arrival of our pup. Much of Leo Hickman's piece is taken from a hackle-raising book, Time To Eat the Dog and is probably spot on. I've already noticed that even at eight weeks Vulcan's lack of house training meant we had to wash our hands more; and we're flushing his poos away so our water use is well up. He eats a chicken-based biscuit (so we're fuelling Amazonian rainforest decline as soya feed gets used to fatten the poultry base). We also often leave a light on for him - and at night to keep him warm we provide a hotwater bottle (better than gas central heating, but still a need forextra electricity as we heat up a saucepan on the hob).
In an ideal world we'd have got an unwanted/rescue dog who would still have a resource-heavy footprint (mostly shit) but convincing the rescue centres to let me take one home was heavy weather. One in Wales didn't seem to think I could collect a dog (Jester) without a car (wherever I lived) because it would be "too traumatic". I was so furiously amused that I couldn't actually reply to this ridiculous comment.
The whole family was also expected to do the fetching, and we had to do it straightaway. When I pointed out this would mean taking the girls out of school - technically illegal - the dog ladies (because they always were) gave a telephone shrug as if that was quite inconsequential.
The dog books are the same, containing scant regard for resource pawprints. Here is where you learn that dog poo should be picked up in cheap nappy bags (which don't biodegrade); and dogs need to learn to love cars so they can be driven for walks. Call me old fashioned but I think it's better to start walking from where you are, not by driving to where you want to be.
This is not a campaign I will be putting a jot of time into - turn on dogs and you lose a huge swathe of people who just might have made an effort to cut their carbon emissions until they realise they love the enemy. Besides, I am looking forward to walking our puppy more as he gets big enough to do so and together we will muse on this strange, strange world.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Dog daze
Friday, May 8, 2009
Local news
Pete, Nicola, Lola (seen here publicising a plasticbagfreehighburybarn film show event) and Nell love travelling but like to do it in a way that keeps their carbon footprint low. So that's no planes, occasional trains, car club cars and enthusiastic biking when we cannot walk. This post is from Nicola
Just had a weekend staying or meeting up with friends who've left London. I wish they'd stayed put, but it was fun chatting as we rowed from the Bath Boating Station down the Avon. One week later the blisters are patching themselves up. The south west, it's a dangerous place...
Back home we have been busy in our street encouraging neighbours to plant up their tree pits with poppies, camomile and other native wild flower seeds. Lola, Nell and I clear up the pit - retching slightly as we flush dog poo down our loo, put the tossed cola cans into the recycling bins, dig up the current plants for green waste recycling and plop cigarette butts into the dustbin for landfill. I wanted to grow carrots but the dog poo really puts me off. This is a tame version of guerrila gardening, but I like the idea that my kids are already so used to community cheerleading. And it led to some interesting chat about the sunflowers and sweet corn I've seen growing on roundabouts in Nairobi, Honiara and here in London near Blackfriars Bridge.
So far nine of our street's trees are planted up by their nearest neighbours and adorned with a green ribbon to show there's big tree love out there.
Next project is to get clothes swapping going in our school. The plan is to get parents and carers to bring unwanted clothes for 0-11 year olds to the school one Friday. They can just give them, or take other items or give and take. It's a good idea but definitely a trial.
The swishes held for mums have been very successful but if we are ever to crack fast fashion then swapping clothes is a no brainer. The problem is that if parents have never been tempted by secondhand clothing, then they often feel ashamed to kit their children out in it. At least that's how my Somali, Bengali and Turkish friends put it. How different life is for Lola and Nell - really I'm surprised I didn't get pre-loved children given my enthusiasm for all things secondhand/vintage/freecycled etc.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Chinatown coconut
Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola
Packaging is creeping back into our lives - we recently bought a clingfilm wrapped green coconut in London's Chinatown for #1.25. The coconut was husked (though I still had to ask for help from a man with a cleaver to open up the eye) but without the wrapping I'd never have known it had been grown then flown all the way from Thailand.
Lola, Nell and I lapped up the milk (very sweet and delicious but it is an acquired taste so I keep practising my kids) through a bendy straw and then the old man split the coconut so we could guzzle the meat (a floppy grey jelly). It was delicious and made us feel as if we were on holiday.
Chinatown is an amazing place still, lots of back streets and an atmosphere so different to the theatre land of Shaftesbury Avenue or the mix of trendy/seedy in Soho. Unfortunately it's all at risk claims Paul Kingsnorth in his latest book, Real England, because Chinatown is under threat from a new kind of development - businesses that buy up streets in a pretence of cleaning up the area.
People used to worry about not being able to walk across farmers' land; imagine how you'll feel not being allowed to use streets?
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
How it went
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 (nervously testing the homemade oatcake) and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April (pic to the left shows what we were left with that had to be binned). Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is the final entry on how it’s going:Successes
1 The #2.75 coffee seals have got our coffee volcano pot back into action – and my friend Debbie’s.
2 Unexpectedly over the past month we’ve probably halved our food bills (I wasn’t running a strict tally), simply by avoiding packaging. We’ve also eaten better quality food and I don’t think even one tin of baked beans has been used.
3 Finding enthusiastic homes for things we don't want, or just can't fit into our house. We lugged things to the charity shop (which doesn't guarantee a new home), but prefered to use Freecycle and we also put 15 pieces of furniture into an auction.
4 Finding new uses for things (ie, reusing) is very creative. We all loved the buzz that feeling of invention gives you. Lola started sewing clothes from material scraps for her Sylvanian dolls and Nell was regularly in the cupboard looking for sellotape to transform something or other.
5 Every now and again we broke our own rules & it’s surprising how liberating those moments of rebellion can be!
Failures
1 We love eating cheese and biscuits – but our homemade oat cakes (see pic), although delicious at first, went soft in less than 24 hours. I think crackers might sneak back on our shopping list.
2 A huge cardboard box was ruined by a child weeing in it (!), therefore unfit for storing stuff and I reckon a reason for recycling.
3 Friends came to dinner and I didn’t brief them enough – so the left over risotto scrapings were tipped into our (out of action) rubbish bin rather than saved for the hens. I can’t believe I still know people who don’t automatically look for a compost bin…
4 At the end of the month we had a mini bag for the dustman. It was very light (I plan to weigh and itemise it, but not right now).
Abject failures
1 Those newspapers – at least one is bought each day, often two. We’d started off saying we would be waste free and avoid buying newspapers, but no one was prepared to go to the library (or even online) to read them. This shows our age I reckon. People under 30 would rarely waste their money on buying a paper when there's so many free ones around...
Verdict: this was a month long experiment that has helped break some of our throwaway habits. I hope we’re going to stick to the principle of avoiding packaging (but not in such a neurotic way). All the family learnt how very easy it is to avoid the plastic bag giveaway in shops and how hard it is to avoid plastic around processed foods. And to think that this was a birthday present to me - thank you family!
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We'd love your comments about our month giving up waste. If you want to read all the entries click on the menu bar on the right that says A-Z No Waste.
Toy story
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Nell adores her little toys, but invariably some of them break. The red Spanish lady has just been reunited (thanks to a dab of Araldite) with the other bit of her torso, and so been able to retake the centre stage of our toy-strewn floor.
Verdict: if I was on a desert island I reckon glue (preferably Araldite) would be my luxury item. When you need glue, nothing else will do.
If the glove fits
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
We wash up by hand. The research says that hand washing is more wasteful of power and water than an electric dishwasher. I guess it depends how you do the dishes, and whether you leave the tap running as a rinse aid. I defy any household to avoid all washing up (how do you do saucepans, coffee pots, wooden spoons etc?) but I do admit that a washing up machine guarantees a tidier look to your kitchen as it makes sure the dirty dishes are out of sight.
It also means you don't get dishwater hands - or the problem of what to do with rubber gloves when they develop holes at the ends. As you can see from the pic we had a go reusing this leaky left hander. The cuff has been cut into rubber bands (a tip I read in The Guardian) and helps me identify the plastic jar we use to decant coffee beans into so not all my containers are filled with coffee aroma. But my star invention has to be turning the fingers of the glove into a bit of Oud (you need to watch Dr Who to know about Ouds) and stick it into the kids' dressing up box.
Verdict: Creative - yes. Beautiful - no. Useful - only if you love Dr Who or dressing up.
Volcano crisis
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
The adults need their coffee fix and our old-fashioned, Italian volcano pot that brews up deliciously is out of action. The inner seal has completely crumbled. I ask around and no one seems to know what to do. In desperation I try the Gill Wing Cookery shop on Upper Street and find you can buy a packet of replacement seals for just #2.75.
Verdict: The best of this story is not just that coffee is back on the menu, but that I was able to give my friend Debbie one of the seals so her coffee pot has also come back on to the kitchen frontline – rather than be chucked out.
Repairing sheets
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
This is the third set of sheets I’ve had to patch. (does anyone else do this???) I expect the colourful repair will last better than the bits of sheet I haven’t yet patched, but it’ll probably be another six months before it needs to be retired (aka cut into hankies and cleaning cloths).
The real pleasure isn’t mending the sheets, but using my Singer sewing machine. It was given to my mum by her grandmother (known as Lola) on mum’s 21st birthday. I think it was secondhand then which makes it close to half a century old. My mum passed the sewing machine on to me when she bought an electric model. I love this hand powered machine, and because I’m not a very ambitious seamstress find it’s perfect for my skill level.
Verdict: the only comparable tool in the house is my PC. When I switch it on I do not feel any pride, in fact I often fear the day when the built in obselesence kicks in. In contrast when I get out my mum and great grandmother’s sewing machine I delight in the wooden body and case, the old-fashioned key on a bit of string and the lovely handle that joints into a fold so it can be fitted back into the box.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Evening standards
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Washing up
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Expert after expert claims that dish washing is better done by machines. They are apparently low on water use, can be light on energy use and make more controlled demand on your hot water. Thankfully Pete and I are as one on this – we think the way we wash up is so imperfect that it’s definitely less wasteful if we do it in the sink. Everything gets air dryed on a mix of wooden dish rack and the stainless steel drainer.
When we revamped our kitchen we moved the dwarf-sized sink out of the corner and into center stage. Should we ever have a dinner party, we could take turns holding the washing up while we debate the rights and wrongs of water provision (see more at Water Aid).
We still use one or two plastic bowlfuls of water every time we wash up. In the summer this is tipped into a bucket and then goes out on the hedge or the bigger, thirstier plants. Once I even used it to douse flames on a skip fire in the street.
In the winter and also during this strange cold-warm spring (today it is snowing, two days ago it was 16C) the dirty dish water gets released down the plug hole.
Verdict: In certain countries that’s practically a criminal waste. Maybe we should use the dish water to flush the loo? At least that way it gets a second use.
Excrete stragegy
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Anyone got any ideas what to usefully do with dog poo (seen here in the pic before it's been trodden on)? I’ve just learnt that before Thomas Crapper’s wasteful water closet invention the night soil of Islington would be sent down to Hertford to dress and fertilise the market gardens and farmland there.
More than 100 years have been wasted not dumping our dumps on the fields. Half of me thinks this is why it’s great to be living now, the other half is anxious about why have we think it is OK to flush away so many tones of poo?
Verdict: The best book on the subject is by an American, and is called Humanure. It makes even the worst ablution appear like a perfume of the gods (so long as it didn't come from a dog).
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Unwanted post
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Thin plastic magazine wrappers continue to pour through our letter box, they are definitely waste. But I’ve discovered that they can be recycled via my workplace, Friends of the Earth. This is not as good news as it should be as clearly I’ll have to work there forever as the recycling facilities they offer is an even better draw than their continuing hold on the Employer of the Year contest.
As for local flyers, well the sign in the pic NO JUNK MAIL seems to do the trick. Loads of houses have them now and the result is we know about less pizza places, not that we eat less pizza.
Verdict: using the no junk mail (not even pizzas) is as effective and even quicker than signing up to the mail preference service to ban junk mail. It did mean that we nearly missed the Give & Get event that was held locally though because no one put a leaflet through our door.
Hairshirt? My foot!
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Shopping requires a few change of habits, but mostly it is quite easy. Here’s three simple changes:
1 MORNING CUPPA: switching to coffee beans hasn’t been much of a hardship. Many shops sell beans and you can get fair trade, organic, whatever you want. I don’t feel bad about grinding them up with our electric grinder as we have chosen an energy supplier, Good Energy, that only provides renewable sourced electricity.
2 TOILETRIES: I found a supplier of package free loo roll at the shop Unpackaged (see pic) in Amwell Street, N1. In theory I could make moisturizer from my larder contents (or dab on a bit of oilive oil). Not everything is possible - the woman who runs Unpackaged promises me that she’s working on a way to provide toothpaste in reusable packaging.
3 SWEET TREATS: I’m choosing cake rather than biscuits (because biscuits have to be made at home these days). As for cleaning up without a napkin, that’s easy, you just lick off the stickyness then wash your hands.
Verdict: the surprising benefit of seeking out zero packaging is our shopping bills have been slashed, and we are eating more healthy food. Sometimes it is even tastier. Phew.
Slim the bin
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
We’ve found that the simplest way to stop waste going out of the house is to avoid it coming in.
Just in case we forget the bin has been taped up using a picture by Lola.
Verdict: it's fun - at any rate it's fun if you're a competitive sort of a person!
Library ticket
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
For book worms like Lola the only way to keep up with her reading habit is to visit the library regularly. The pic is of our most recent pile ready to be returned.
Although buying a book new doesn’t feel like a waste (in fact I did this just yesterday at the launch of Paul Kingsnorth’s fascinating look at local identity in Real England (Portobello Books)) it does create book mountains around our house.
Verdict: the library is brilliant. But sometimes I just can't resist buying a book. My new rule is to only buy books that I can then pass on, usually as a gift. The result is that I’m giving people presents who look positively puzzled – and forgetting to give presents to the ones who might expect it (eg, my mum).
Cat nap
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
I don’t like cats (even this cutie outside my window). I know this is surprisingly controversial and will probably alienate half the readers of this blog (OK, the other one). My main complaints are that cats kill birds, mice, do that horrible padding/clawing thing when they relax on you, spray and poo in my seed beds.
But now I have another complaint, and it’s about waste – those people who have to provide cat litter trays and are using that grey stuff. This is a mineral that has to be dug out of the countryside. It creates huge scars, brings in loads of heavy lorry traffic, and leaves the area with a whacking great hole that will end up as landfill or another quarry nature park.
And if that wasn’t enough complaints, the contents of cat litter trays are hard to dispose of (even for those people who use wood pellets).
Because of the risk of toxomoplosis CHECK SP the official advice is to put it into the rubbish bin. You’re meant to do this with dog poo as well. I’ve recently met dog owners who compost their dogs’ poo. They claim that this is OK so long as you are an expert composter who gets the temperatures up high enough to burn off the pathogens.
Verdict: my family would love a dog (the cat issue is actually solved by Nell being allergic to them, another point against the little beasts) but until I can work out how we’d sensibly deal with the daily dog mess the patter of little paws remains a dream.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Paper chase
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
One week's waste total
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Smell coffee
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
Another panic: this time we are short of coffee. Normally there are loads of shops nearby where we can buy fair trade coffee, but this time I wanted to be packaging free. The solution was to go to the cafe, Good for Food, and ask the Portugese owner is she'd sell me some beans that I could take away in my own bag - just like I do with her delicious bread. The pic is of the b eans wrapped up in an old pak choi bag taken from my veg delivery.
She agreed, so Pete and I are set up for another 100g of the hard stuff. I think that will produce 20 cups, about four days of coffee.
There are several specialist coffee shops around including the Monmouth Coffee Shop at 27 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden and Camden where finding fair trade beans should be easy. I think most of the Italian delis are likely to be able to sell me ground or bean coffee without a plactic wrapper as well, so it's more a case of learning to stock up so I can be assured of the perfect pre-breakfast wake up...
Verdict: I'm learning to think in new sizes - scoops, grammes and tupperware boxes.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
My book in shop shock
Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:
My friend Rita was cruising the second hand shops in Barnet when she saw in the window the book I co-wrote for Friends of the Earth. She couldn’t resist sending me this snap.
Save Cash & Save the Planet, published by Collins, came out in 2005, with an intended publishing life of five years. It’s still selling in the bookshops, but I guess as 19,000 have been bought there’s going to be a few heading for new life and new homes in the charity shops.
Verdict: I love this display! Humbling, but also hugely exciting to see Save Cash & Save the Planet picked out to decorate the shopwindow.
