www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

Today a contractor turned up on behalf of South East Water and installed a water meter at my request. It was a pretty quick and easy job and the water meter was actually installed at the point in the public highway (the footpath at the end of my drive actually) where the water pipes into my property rather than in the house as I had suspected (I was concerned it would be yet another  a big ugly box just like the gas and electric meters that take up space inside an understairs cupboard in the hallway)

I have to admit, the main reason for getting a water meter installed was a financial one. Currently I occupy a 3-bedroomed semi-detached house on my own whilst my better half and daughter spend an extended period of time abroad. The local council reduce my council tax rates for single occupancy but the water company do not. The annual bill for water is approximately £320 and that is based on the rateable value of the property.

Somewhere down the line you can only assume that the water companies have estimated the average use and cost of water supply, drainage and sewerage for a typical 3-bed semi with X amount of people living there. In my case that doesn’t apply so it makes pefect sense to be metered – So, presumably, the cost of my water bills should  come down.

Now here’s the green bit…

Because this is a green-thinking household there is a bath in the house but showers are more than 99% of the time. A shower uses a third of the volume of water that a bath does (plus it’s quicker to take a shower than run a bath, as we all know) OK, there is a Turner Monsoon pump fitted to boost the water pressure of the shower (and it uses electricity) but that’s because the water pressure is really pathetic in the bathroom and it’s virtually unusable without a boost. Continuing to have showers rather than baths will keep the water consumption down. Winner.

Then there’s the fact that  a low-flush toilet was installed in the bathroom, the only WC in the house. Not only does it use less water to flush than the previous Armitage Shanks cistern from 1964 but it has a dual-flush that uses less water (depending on whether you flush number 1s or number 2s ). Winner #2.

Also, by not driving a car, partly out of green choice, partly for health & fitness and partly for financial reasons, the cars don’t get washed. Winner #3.

And then there’s the water butt in the garden. Because the local council had a great deal on a compost bin we saved enough money to have a water butt purchased & delivered for the same cost as had we just had the composting bin on its own. Winner #4.

So it looks like this could be a win-win situation – Not only does this household save water but it saves money too. If you’re green and you haven’t got a water meter installed then it might be time to consider doing so. I’ll keep you posted as to how long it is before the water company start reducing our water bills – you know what these big companies are like when it comes to letting go of your cash…

Footnote: I just had a look at the volumetric water meter manufacturer’s website. Being a marketing guy myself I wasn’t totally enamoured at the language used for the V210 meter:

V200 and V210 volumetric meters are designed to maximise revenue collection.

Now I know the website is not consumer-focused but when they stumble across the term “maximise revenue collection” it doesn’t sound fair does it? Maybe I should suggest to the manufacturer that they use the term “optimise revenue collection” – that would be far more agreeable, don’t you think?

Diarmuid Gavin gives his top tips on preparing your sustainable garden for summer

After one of the longest and coldest winters most of us can remember, the first shoots of spring are slowly starting to emerge. And while it is still too early for the nation’s gardeners to start preparing the beds and borders in their gardens, there is plenty to be done indoors, particularly when it comes to seeding.

However despite many of us pledging to get back out and into our gardens this year, barely a third of gardeners are aware of the serious environmental issues surrounding the use of peat.[1]

Nowadays, with environmental concerns high on everyone’s agenda, choosing your compost is as important as the seeds you select.

Every year, 3 million cubic metres of peat is used in the UK for horticultural use and sales of multi-purpose compost. But the extraction of peat releases Significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, as well as damaging lowland raised peat bogs, which are home to many rare animals and plants. Just under half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted in the atmosphere each year as a result of peat extraction from UK sites alone; that’s comparable to the total emissions of over 100,000 homes. [2]

Fortunately there are environmentally friendly compost solutions available , and in the following video, gardening guru Diarmuid Gavin shows you how to make your garden green in every possible sense – using peat-free compost to reduce your carbon footprint and preserve our valuable peatland habitats and wildlife.

For more information visit www.direct.gov.uk/buyingcompost

[1] One Poll Survey, over the period 27028 Jan 2009, 2000 respondents

[2] The UK’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory records emissions of 420,000 tonnes a year for peat extraction from UK sites. However, 57% of the peat that we use in the UK is imported, mainly from the Republic of Ireland and the Baltics.

We’ve been thinking about the things a business can do to “go green” and that won’t cost them a penny and it was a pretty easy list to drum up. The simplicity of going green is that a business will not only become environmentally friendly and help towards sustainability but will actually cut costs; any business that cuts costs is saving money – saving money equates to more profit. So it’s what they call a win-win situation.

1. Switch off the Lights.

Whilst modern lighting can be very energy efficient it’s cheaper not to have lights on at all. So wherever possible, switch off the light, and make sure your staff know to do the same.

Make use of natural light wherever possible; keep blinds open, make sure windows are clean and try and remove any obstacles that prevent your premises being naturally lit.

2. Turn off electrical equipment when not in use.

A computer on standby still uses electricity, small as that amount of energy use may be, it all adds up. Switch off monitors, unplug any power packs, chargers etc. and switch off at the socket if possible or simply unplug.

3. Turn down the thermostat.

If you’re heating your premises in cold periods then turn the thermostat down a notch. We’ve become so used to having tropical temperature workplaces that it’s no wonder the heating bill has gone up, so encourage staff to close drafty windows and doors and wear another layer of clothing if needs be.

4. Open the windows.

Conversely, keeping cool is more economical if you simply open the windows when the weather is warmer – air conditioning is costly and uses huge amounts of energy and yet opening the windows is good to get fresh air and allowing air to circulate.

5. Change your driving habits.

For those companies that use vehicles, it might be time to drive a little more effectively. Hard accelerating and braking waste petrol so drive smoothly; Cruising saves fuel and you get to your destination less stressed.

Make sure your tires inflated to the correct pressure; an incorrectly inflated tyre will reduce your mileage per gallon.

Reducing vehicle usage, encouraging car-sharing and walking will also cut your costs.

6. Printing.

Firstly, think about your office printing needs: do you really have to print off every email or document that gets sent to you, even the first drafts? By keeping documents on your PC you will dramatically cut your paper and ink/toner costs.

If you do have to print documents then consider duplex printing or printing on both sides of the paper. Duplex printing alone will cut your printer paper bill in half.

7. Save Water.

A dripping tap can waste up to 10,000 litres of water a year, so ensure you turn off the taps. If you’re on a meter you’ll see your water bill reduced.

You can cut down on the amount of water in toilet cisterns by placing a water-filled bottle in there or a bag filled with stones.

8. Tea break.

Use mugs, cups and glasses in your workplace rather than plastic or polystyrene. This encourages you to reduce and reuse.

9. Remove Individual Waste Bins.

Using a centralised bin as part of your plan to reduce & recycle waste encourages staff to think about their waste.

10. Pass it on.

By being a greener business you can promote business best practice to your customers and your suppliers. Genuine action to become an environmentally aware business is worthwhile to your bottom line and to the bottom line of other businesses with whom you are involved and will promote sustainability.

Actively encouraging your staff to take green steps will allow them to take greater responsibility and pride in their work and benefit them out of work too.

Whilst many PCs have energy-saving modes there’s clearly room for improvement in these days of high energy prices and greater green awareness. That’s where Edison comes in.

Edison is a handy program from software vendor Verdiem that monitors and controls your home PC’s energy consumption. You can set the energy-saving modes for when you work from your PC and for non-work times, so if you work on your laptop from 9:30am to 5:30pm, just program these times into Edison.

By default Edison turns off the display, powers down the hard-drive and suspends the computer after 15 minutes in work mode, allowing you to work without power-management interruptions. Non-work mode turns off the display and powers down your PC’s hard-drive after 5 minutes and suspends the computer after 10 minutes, although this is all configurable from Edison’s power management panel.

Edison also shows you how much CO₂ and money you’re saving by powering down although, for us Brits, this feature is in U.S. dollars. And at $0.089 per kWh I’m not sure whether Americans get a better rate than us, although you can set the rate. (Use xe.com to convert dollars to your local currency)

Arguably driving in itself is not a green activity, especially when you don’t have an economical or an environmentally-friendly car. And let’s be frank, how many of us greenies actually have a green mobile let alone the world’s public at large?

Let’s take me, for example, the main man behind Everything’sGoneGreen. I, for my sins, own a Subaru. No, not an Impreza with a big-bore exhaust and a body kit covered in stickers but an old Subaru Legacy which is certainly just as capable. It’s fast and “quick off the line”, it’s a turbo, it’s got permanent four wheel drive (yes, it’s technically a 4×4) and it sticks to the road like sh*t to blanket. Those are boy-racer credentials in anyone’s book.

But I love mountain-biking and walking and, when I get the chance, I will go to inaccessible places in my car with bikes in the boot. It’s an estate/station wagon so it can carry 5 people comfortably with all their luggage. It gets regularly serviced and is well-maintained; it just had a puncture repaired and has two new tyres and the oil is topped up. I even brought the vehicle from a farmer who lived in Glastonbury and you can’t get more green than that.

That’s not bad for a 14 year old car with 134,000 miles on the clock. And yes, that’s me justifying my ownership of such a “beast” and still hypocritically running a website showing people how to go green. Am I bad for admitting all this?

Ideally I’d love a Tesla Roadster, but that’s not entirely practical with a wife and kid. A Toyota Prius would be nice but they’re still ugly and I’m sure Toyota can do better than that. Even a Smart four-four would be cool with that 3-cylinder diesel engine but they’re still a little on the small side.

And more, much than this… I really do not have the money to fork out on a new green car.

So, what to do, Mr Subaru-driving, green-preaching hypocrite?

Well, I walk and ride my bike locally whenever I can and, check this, when I struggle normally to get 280 miles out of a tank of petrol… I drove like a granny on my way to and from a wedding at the weekend. I broke the 300 mile barrier on the way there and drove the whole distance back, over 350 miles, on a tank of petrol. That’s a whopping 75 miles more on a tank than I’ve ever done before and a fuel efficiency increase of around 25%. I got the same mileage out of a 2.0 turbo, 4×4 Subaru as my friend gets out of his 1.4 Citroen.

So tread lightly on that gas pedal; you’ll save fuel and save money and drive a little greener too

It’s so annoying to get junk mail don’t you think? It’s usually for all the stuff that you don’t want; another credit card, mortgage, car insurance… Actually that’s as far as I can remember about what sort junk mail we used to get because it’s been quite a long time since we saw that deluge of wasted paper on our doormat – We joined the MPS the Mailing Preference Service. We prefer not to receive mail from random companies hawking their wares and we certainly don’t want junk for the previous residents of this property who have not been here for over 2 years!

MPS online is the place to sign up. They don’t guarantee to stop ALL your junk mail but they reckon it’s good for cutting unwanted mail by as much as 95%. We can certainly vouch for that and we were only prompted to write this because we received a stray piece of junk mail yesterday. And if you’re visiting from stateside, as a number of our visitors are, try the DMA’s MPS in the U.S.

Once you’ve signed up for the Mail Preference Service it can take up to 4 months to see the reduction in evil junk mail but it’s worth it. That’s less junk mail, less paper used, less trees cut down, less crap for the postal service to carry around, less stress for you.

Now that just leaves the matter of all those pizza companies and local Asian restaurants that send their underpaid flunkies into our neighbourhood to try to get us to buy their greasy food…

Tips for avoiding junk mail:

1. Sign up to the Mail Preference Service (UKor US)
2. Sign up to paper free billing from your utility companies or your bank
3. Be careful when you sign up for some services that you check the small print and tick boxes: make sure you do not wish to be sent more crap from “carefully selected partners”
4. If they still persist then fill up their pre-paid envelopes with all your other junk mail and post it back to them

One of my pet peeves in this obsession people have with preheating ovens. Why do they do it?

Is it because the fire had to be roaring before it was hot enough to cook the pot on? Maybe the Arga needed to be left a while until the coal was burning efficiently?

But these days we don’t have so many of these ancient “appliances” (I still love to cook over a real fire on occasions) and the world has changed in terms of how we consume energy – we need to conserve our energy reserves.

Anyone who considers themselves a cook or a chef will preheat the oven regularly – they’ll tell you they need to preheat the oven because that’s what the book says, that’s what the pros do. It’s become ingrained over generations.

Actually it’s all a load of rubbish. Of course, the oven may need a little time to get up to the correct temperature and all that means is that *when* the oven is at the “correct” temperature, the food will cook for the length of time specified.

Now what if you DON’T preheat the oven? Is it the end of the world? Is your carefully crafted meal destroyed? Is it burnt? Undercooked? Well, of course, if you “slam in the lamb” and cook for the time specified with a preheated oven then you may undercook the food. But that’s no big deal because… All you do is add a little extra onto the cooking time. If you don’t preheat and the cooking time was 30 mins, just add 5 minutes on.

Preheating ovens is so incredibly inefficient and totally outdated in this modern world of energy saving. All you are doing is being inefficient – People who preheat the oven are wasting electricity or burning gas for absolutely nothing. And what if they can afford it? Well, that’s not the point. Energy is mainly used from fossil fuels and there’s a finite amount of them – so it’s time to throw out the old wives’ tale with the recycling…

Don’t bother preheating your oven, preheating ovens wastes energy. Just put the food in as normal, add a few minutes onto the cook time and keep an eye and a nose on your cooking.

Sermon over.