Becoming Domestic

Oh dear it turns out that the half of melon I so rashly bought because the kids asked me to ‘I WANT MELON I WANT MELON I WANT MELON!’ has travelled all the way from Brazil to be eaten by us here in Worcestershire, UK. Have just broken it to the kids them that we won’t be seeing much melon in this house again as it’s quite naughty to buy fruit which is grown so far away that it needs an aeroplane to bring it here to us. They are now crying and howling with anguish wailing ‘But we like melon!’

Having read some of the books I’ve borrowed from the library about simple practical ways people can live greener lives I’m now adding a few further amendments to the running of our house in order to make a difference:

• Turning off computers for one night will apparently save the amount of engery required to print 800 sheets of A4 paper! (yikes)
• Have the boiler set to produce less hot water as 30% of a household’s energy is used up heating water. I always add cold water to the kids bath which I now realise is pointless if it wasn’t heated so hot in the first place.
• Check that any packaging bears the recyclable symbol before it is purchased.
• Have a once a week ‘Buy Nothing Day’
• Use compact flourescent light bulb (CFL) in the hallway and landing as they use up 66% less energy. Apparently if every household in the USA were to replace *one light bulb* with a CFL  it would prevent the equivalent amount of pollution to removing one millions cars from the road.
• Buy children’s craft materials (paper/card) from recycled sources

Posted on November 7th, 2006 under Being Green • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback