15 years ago when I was studying the envirnonmental impact of human societies on the planet I felt a terrible sense of urgency about doing all I could to change the way people acted in order to preserve what we could of the environment.
I can’t believe that since then little or nothing has changed in UK society and in fact rather than being persuaded via taxation to drive cars and use aeroplanes less,have supermarkets produce fewer plastic bags and have every household reduce the amount they consume,and recycle and reuse more we are instead buying more and more plastic crap each time we shop then tossing it into a landfill,driving bigger cars and travelling to far flung destinations more often.
My philosophy whilst I was a young adult studying the impending doom which is likely to hit our species was one of ‘Ah well the planet will be better off once us humans have killed ourselves off’. Visions of car parks,airports,power stations etc all covered with grass and mosses seemed peaceful in comparison to the destruction the planet’s ever increasing human population was doing.
Now I have children the thought of them or my grandchildren or great grandchildren (all of whom I hope to live long enough to know) scratching out a living in a post-apocalyptic landscape fills me with horror and I wish we were all doing more to conserve the environmental features we still have intact.
Today is national Blackout Energy Day in the UK
in order to attempt to raise awareness and create a story in the national newspaper.
Like my friend Libby in Sydney –Australia,I’m reviewing what we do as a family to try and get our efforts to be green maximised.
At the moment we:
- We refuse all new carrier bags from shops (with a loud smug voice as it happens thus taking the opportunity to educate those standing in the queue at the same time). I keep a huge ancient army metal framed backpack (£3 from yet another charity shop) in the boot of my car and loads of strong bags which have lasted ages. Whenever we shop locally I grab the back pack and wear it as we do our shopping. It’s great as I can hold both kids’hands and the bag is like Mary Poppin’s magic carpet bag with the amount of stuff it holds.
- We use only Ecover cleaning products but generally use just water to clean worksurfaces and dust,perhaps a tiny spot of washing up liquid if there is some particularly stubborn caked on gunge to attack.
- We batch up our car journeys to the local towns so we are not driving excessively (eg. we went to Malvern to go to swimming lessons on Friday but also visited the toy library,the supermarket and did a bit of charity shop browsing)
- We shop locally in our nearby village by buying fruit and vegetables from the greengrocer (or local pick your own farm),meat from the butcher etc.
- All our kids’clothes are 2nd hand sources such as charity shops,eBay or friends’whose children have grown out of them. I honestly cannot remember when I last bought either of them something new to wear –ok have now recalled that it was some stout walking boots when we moved in June but it is RARE. My favourite trick is to take them to the shoe shop for measuring,leave without trying any shoes on,get onto eBay for some nice 2nd hand shoes in the right size.
- Excess packaging is avoided when shopping.
- We started to give homemade gifts (biscuits,picture calendars,pickles,jams,chutneys etc),gifts of ‘experiences’(visits to local attractions with the kids,vouchers to local restaurants etc) or vouchers rather than hitting the shops for ‘things’that our families or friends may already have or may not need.
- We recycle as much paper,cardboard,glass,tin foil,tins as possible by taking it to the local recycling centre each week.
- We make compost from vegetable waste.
- We will be growing our own vegetables next year now that we have been given a vegetable patch to use.
- We teach the children about the scarcity of resources (water,fuel etc) and why it is important to recycle rather than dump waste in the landfill.
- We take short showers rather than long baths (and the children have fairly shallow baths).
- We are reducing the amount of consuming we do by ceasing to buy magazines and newspapers,always taking a packed lunch for journeys instead of relying on over packaged,expensive service station offerings.
- We use rechargable batteries.
Gosh that’s actually quite a good list. I’m quite proud of us as a year ago I wasn’t doing many of those things and felt much more day-to-day guilt about sticking my head in the sand re. green issues.
It doesn’t seem enough though. I’m trying to think of what else we can do and have borrowed a couple of books from the library filled with tips about being more environmentally friendly. “365 Ways To Save The Earth”by Philippe Bourseiller is a beautifully photograpphed book which would make a lovely present this Christmas and also (more of the sort of papaerback you might have in the loo for people to read) “M.A.D:Go Make A Difference 365 Daily Ways To Save the Planet”
- One idea is to convert our big diesel car to run on bio-fuel (used vegetable oil I believe). Bealers has been researching this and is pretty keen on conducting the experiment next year.
- Buy a 2nd hand caravan and have UK and european driving holidays instead of flying (we don’t generally fly very often anyway due to the fact we both hate being in an aeroplane and the logistics of having lively three year olds make it a hideous proposal to start any holiday with this kind of experience).
- Ensure we buy only locally produced food. Eg. I did buy half a melon this week for 79p as my daughter loves it but I’ll bet that travelled a tad further than the local fruit farm…
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