E,w,a&f #greenLiving Air 1; carbon

There is a stark reality in the reduction of carbon and the improvement of air quality. We produce most of this through our use of cars.

We also contribute by warming our houses, eating tropical foods, and through our purchases.

Firstly cars.

Simon Douglas.
https://www.instagram.com/sjedouglas/

There are very workable solutions: walking, cycling, buses, boats and rail. The worst decision you can make is to fly, rather than travel overland – including oversea.

Diesel [internal sleep conversion]

I have contributed. My LandRover was stolen and rather than replace it I moved to an MG. Once a smaller car became available I ‘Dipped the Grand‘ dropping to a 999cc Picanto; it is more than sufficient for my needs. It has a 40, 40, 400 ideology. £40 tax, £40 fill and a reward of 400 miles. At most I fill up less than once a month; and my insurance has just gone down again … [under 5000 mikes a year].

Both cars were passed down from parents and so up-cycling practiced.

Great for a whizz, not so good for economy.

During Lent I have been substituting journeys, mainly on my bicycle, and no, I haven’t got wet yet. I have wasted some time scraping ice though on the brisk days I chose to drive.

So how do you get 400 miles out of a tank? Mostly by challenging yourself. The least efficient manoeuvre is pulling away. The lights here change quickly, so coast towards them rather than stop dead.

Pull away slowly utilising all of the gears. We have a short stretch nearby where the limit is 40, but drops quickly to 30. Most drivers accelerate to forty, braking hard … a waste of carbon and cause of pollutants.

See the maximum speed as that, a maximum.

Driving at sub-optimal speeds produces less carbon, costs you less money and introduces spaces into the traffic system – improving efficiency. It also improves thinking time making residential areas safer; no brainer. The ideology that the optimal is the maximum is wrong, air resistance increases exponentially with speed. ±

If you drive through a 40 limited zone at thirty your followers are also reducing carbon by 25%, and if it us a row of ten cars, so are they.

Sit on a motorway with the lorries at 50 or 60, a tank of fuel gets me up to the Lakes, from Dorset, §and back.

Mostly though, low carbon car use is about culture. Picking the kids up from school [why?], popping to the shops, the supermarket run, collate these ‘jobs’ and do them once a month with the tip run. Your children will grow up as expectant car owners, mine didn’t; they are walkers [for pleasure] and cyclists, neither have a will to drive.

Next: food.

E,w,a&f #greenLiving Water 1; greywater

We use water for three things: drinking, flushing and cleaning.

Drinking tap water over bottled water is one of the most immediate changes you can make. It is also used in cooking.

I drain the cold water from my tap into a series of litre high milk bottles as the hot water runs, saving two litres a day. These refill the kettle.

My toilet has both short (wee) and long (poo) washes. I also have a compost loo outside; very simple to use with solids in biodegradable bags and carbon cover, and liquids in seal top bottles in two places; these re-enter the garden via the compost.

I use less water than falls in my garden – sustainability

Grey water is collected via the shed roof – simple drainpipe system – and then lidded and rolled to the top of the garden for tree and flower nourishment and car cleaning.

Showers predominate and that is pretty much it. Bill below £20 pm, pretty much the standing charge.

E,w,a&f #greenLiving Earth 1; resources

Aside from our travel and heat, the main resources we consume as humans are through packaging. Mainly food. I now know more about the wrapping food and my ideas have shifted towards increased packets.

Supermarkets are not ‘bad boys’, sustainability is demonstrated through food gifting and charitable donations. Did you know they give free food to their staff to combat poverty?

There is a three way division of waste: biodegradable, recyclable and waste. I generate very little of the latter.

We are fortunate that biodegradable matter is collected from the doorstep in Dorset although I compost all of mine, including toilet paper – more elsewhere. I also wash my eggs shells, saving these to add a calcium layer to the outdoors compost bin.

Recycled material is collected fortnightly: iron [tins], paper and hard plastics mainly. Dorset initiated the use of light technology to sort hard plastics at their recycling centre in the late nineties leading the field at that time.

My waste is minimal. I sub-divide the soft plastics into a bread bag, up-cycling the remainder, which is often zero. If I was to add the bread bags to my black bin they would need to be collected once a year. Instead I recycle them at a large supermarket where they enter the recycle chain quickly as polythene plastic. This is used as covers, over cardboard for cases of bottles and packets. One of the most efficient recycle loops in the UK, with stripped plastic returning on the delivery lorries, alongside out-dated food and the bio digested methane utilised to break-down the polythene, and power the trucks.

I scratched my head about soft plastic on hard trays but the injected nitrogen lengthens food decay times, reducing waste further. I save the trays, lifting veg in my fridge drawer above the naturally transpired moisture and further extending decay times.

Fridge drawer with containers inspired by the research that Tupperware have completed recently

So how much waste do I actually create?

Very close to zero with my reuse, upcycling and donations; unwanted coat hangers went to the charity shop recently. My clothes are cotton, wool or silk so could be bio digested.

Wood is difficult but I tend to take to the pub fire, along with confidential documents.

It is not difficult to divide waste and reach zero, it should be all of our’s ultimate aim.

Bin collections are fortnightly and I am lucky if my green bin is full bi-monthly. Forgetting to put the bins out, or remembering to bring it in is no longer a problem. Glass goes with it but is mostly upcycled, more later.

Think global; act local.

Earth, water, air and fire. #greenLiving

The elements provide an excellent framework for laying out your green thoughts. Some use 5 with aether or spirit as an additional idea but I shall focus on 5 in this occasional series.

1. Earth – the giver of resources, mostly rocks but also fossil fuels. Aluminium, hydrocarbons, glass and wood. Talcum and kaolinite, lithium and slate.

2. Water – essential for life; drinking, washing and flushing. it could include other liquids, such as oil. Feeds our plants and makes us smell.

3. Air – the stuff we breathe but also our weather systems and the pollutants we discard, mainly carbon.

4. Fire – the power we use to heat our lives, cook our food and celebrate the key occasions. Mainly electricity or gas but wood for some and candles others.

I intend to bitesize my experiences from over the last two years. Buying a new house, shedding the unnecessary and making conscientious decisions to buy green.

https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/four-elements-science/