So how's your carbon footprint?

Let's start with...

Electricity: well with two laptops running all day and two TVs (from evening until bed) we perhaps use quite a lot. Phone chargers not plugged in when not charging though and so sue me, I left a light on for five minutes! We use what we need I suppose, but do keep it down. Not a huge oven or microwave user, rarely bake and the new hob is supposed to be sparing. Never leave outside lights on unnecessarily and we’ve solar panels on the roof and wind turbine shares. There’s always more you can do but we’re not going to live in a tent and we generally get returns on our payments.

Plastics and fuel: we do really try. Always separate in the bins although still not sure it doesn’t all go in the one place anyway. Avoid it where possible, but could probably do even more. Plastic toys for kids have been banned from day one but it is hard to always comply. Not bought a plastic carrier bag in years I don't think and 'bags for life' have long been a staple. We've never driven, so never had a car with all that entails and have travelled via public transport over large swathes of Spain and Italy and anywhere else we've ever been.

Veggies: we try to have ever more of, with less and less meat. Saving the planet one chop at a time eh? Short of growing our own greens, which has been variously mooted, we try to keep it to locally grown but, not always possible.

Carbon footprint as a whole is easily saved this past Corona year with no travel possible! Not really sure I’ll be too great at continuing it in any way once we’re back to normal, but while I’m surely worse than some, I’m not as bad as many others and try and help with compensating measures when booking flights… just, not always. We were also given a great Christmas present of xx number of trees planted every month for a year on our behalf. Love that. Every little helps I’m sure.

Central to the heating system in this house is a nifty little, fairly newly-installed doodad (new enough for me not to know much about it, which may or may not be years), easily accessible on the wall. On. Off. How hard could it be? Hmm, auto… wassat then? Aha, to be fixed via laptop or phone, set up to come on and off when you want. Even when you’re away from home. Coolcool. Can check room temps (never on in bedrooms and rarely higher than 20 degrees needed) and can have it turn on coming home from… wherever… then the place is all cosy when you come in. Neat!

Until it’s not neat any more! Auto doesn’t work and wtf knows how to fix the thing in the metre cupboard? Radiators fire up when you switch it on sure, but then they have to be at ‘open’ and as someone (ahem) has the tendency to turn them to ‘closed’ they then do not heat up. So you think you’re coming home to a nice warm house (spoiled or what!) but of course it’s still freezing because... duh. Wasted effort. What we need is something to warn us, remind us (okay, me) that the damn things are at ‘closed’. Like before going to bed or something. Or maybe just switch the brain back on momentarily before retiring.

We haven’t used the open hearth in at least two years, and we were fond of it. No radiators needed then and it is so nice to see. But using wood (even although from well-sourced places) causes smoke and there are neighbours with breathing problems that can be exacerbated by it, so you feel mean. I honestly like to sit without the heating on of an evening, as long as it has warmed the place earlier. My super-hoody is great and I like my hot-water-bottle, but if it gets too cold I’m not averse to putting the heating on again… opening those rads again!

What I do find though, is this inability to slide under closed doors. I do still have to open them to exit and enter a given space. So to countermand this act of sedition and prevent it from causing WWIII every time I have the audacity to move around (probably causing huge draughts just by moving) I had the radical idea of keeping the hall heater on too. Helps with condensation on the front door I feel, but has the disadvantage of then heating a space rarely used, which is also not great. The jury is still out on this one but I do think it helps the heat stay in the room, only then escaping out the front door when that is opened. This house is well insulated, we get quite a good score on that, and we do ventilate sufficiently.

Opening the back door, especially when the heating is on, or has been on, is tantamount to mutiny in this house. Me ‘n Fletcher! I don’t see the big deal as long as I’m not leaving it open. Even I can see that would be stupid, but a quick open/shut (out) then open/shut (and I’m back in) just cannot be so wasteful and surely beats the inconvenience of waiting until tomorrow to empty a bin? I play along, mostly, curtailing mutinous behaviour until considered unavoidable. The blinds are all down at night, keeping what heat there is, in, as much as possible.

I now need to work on the water wasting. I adhere to all measures, I do, and we don’t have a garden hose so pretty sure we save (have saved) thousands of litres, watering the garden from the canal, but we’re both getting too old to be humphing those buckets so might have to reconsider this one. The rain barrel helps but soon empties. It’s me leaving taps running when not even using them is probably our biggest use. There’s an old juice bottle in one cistern, the other is a miniature one anyway. I don’t always flush when I know it’s just me and I take short showers. The dishwasher’s very sparing (his pre-rinsing is a bone of contention!) and I only have a soak in the bath as a treat. And then I go and leave a tap on all night! Hate myself for that, have to admit.

Clothes, both buying and recycling, we’re quite good at, not least because we’re not huge consumers. Not averse to second-hand (aka ‘vintage’) but actually don’t need to even go there. Bamboo instead of cotton undies and socks when being replaced these days. Washed with soap strips nowadays (great stuff, no big bottles of liquid or powder and posted through the letterbox at three monthly intervals), on cold, mostly, which again saves water and electricity. Dryer only in winter, (usually) outdoors all summer.

All in all, I think we’re quite good at it all. You can only do your best, but at least we do try and we are very conscious of the whole ‘movement’ to save, spare, protect etc. We’re not vegan, nor even vegetarian and there is still loads we can do, but we manage it to quite a good extent.

How ‘bout you?