It's good to be green

Hi Everyone,

It has been a long time since my last article, the pace of lockdown life seems to have taken over this year with not much breathing space. 

Lockdown has been tiring for sure with many of us running at full tilt for quite a while, it has taught me a valuable lesson though, to be more focused on my personal life and finally addressing my work / life balance, which has been work heavy for most of my career!

When it comes to balance, my wife and I have been focused on how we can live more sustainably, and thought it worth sharing some of the things we have done to minimise our impact on the environment. 

Restoring the natural balances on our planet and learning to adapt to climate change is a huge challenge, we really do need to 'boil the ocean' with this one. Or rather we need to cool the ocean, one ice cube at a time :-)

First thing to get out of the way though is my guilty pleasure, I am a petrol head through and through, driving a not very environmentally friendly 6 cylinder petrol car……………. In this respect I remain a hypocrite. 

In all other aspects my wife and I have been testing all sorts of lifestyle changes and sustainable products to see what works, here is what we have learnt to date: 

Plastic free - we started out wondering if we could be plastic free, the answer right now is absolutely not, though we have found companies who take any type of plastic for re-use and recycling. We have reduced our plastic consumption by around 70% we think, with some examples to follow. 

Shaving - I wanted to start with this as my favourite change. I moved from plastic multi blade razors with disposable heads to a straight razor. Wow did this take a little while to master, with many cuts in the early weeks. Shaving has gone from being a mundane daily task to a genuine experience with an amazingly close shave, where I no longer get shaving rashes! 

Home improvements - we have insulated our house as much as possible, upgraded our boiler and lighting to be as energy efficient as they can be. This has included motion sensing lights in hallways and the kitchen, to ensure lights are only on when actually needed.

Toiletries - We have found a company that comes to our house and tops up our toiletry liquids. We purchased sturdy re-usable bottles for shampoo, conditioner etc and once every couple of months, they get topped up! We have found this is a little more expensive but only marginally so, take account of the fact we don't travel to buy replacements and cost neutral really. The products we buy are environmentally friendly with no toxic chemicals.

Cleaning products - as above bottled cleaners get topped up every couple of months for both kitchen and bathroom, in fact bi-carb cream has turned out to be something of a wonder product! For the dishwasher we get environmentally friendly tablets posted to us in a neat cardboard box every three weeks. Washing powder for the washing machine again gets topped up and we keep it in a re-usable plastic tub.

Plastic waste - we have found local companies who will take most types of plastic that cannot go in the recycling bin. One company takes crisp packets so we store them up and take them in once a month. Another takes milk bottle tops and same story. We have pretty much stopped putting plastic into general waste where possible, other than the bin bags and we buy environmentally friendly ones.

Food - we are slowly changing our diet and eating less meat with more fresh goods and no packaging. With careful meal planning this is not only healthier but we are finding it slightly cheaper, with much less food being wasted. Our aim is to grow some of our favourite vegetable ourselves to further reduce the cost of food, we are lucky however to live in a farming community where fresh veg comes directly from farm shops at low cost.

Educating our children - this is happening at school with an excellent focus on sustainability, though as parents we are building on this. We have stopped our children buying plastic toys, unless second hand. Instead we are encouraging them to spend their money wisely on things they really need, or digital products that have less impact on the environment. It is amazing how conscious they are becoming regarding waste and importantly, value. When they outgrow a toy now their first question is "can we take this to the charity shop?" Amazing.

General waste - it would seem there is always someone out there who has a need for something we would have thrown out historically. From broken fence panels to old paint tubs, we use free sites like Gumtree and Facebook to advertise stuff we no longer need or is past its useful life to us. One person's trash is another person's treasure! Sure it takes a bit of effort on our part, but nice to know it is not going into landfill.

Ok so these are only small things, but if enough of us do them, these small things add up to a big positive impact.

 It would be great to hear about other ice cubes people are throwing into the ocean!

 Take care and stay safe 

Kevin