Environmental Impact

More and more I am thinking about our carbon footprint and the effect that we, as a household, have on the environment.

I am starting to grow my own food - not much to begin with because I am not that green-fingered - but I have planted some tomato, bean and courgette seeds which are coming on nicely in their pots, and some salad greens which I have sown directly into the garden which are also growing well. And I have some curly kale and spinach to sow in the next month or so.

We have the chickens now and they supply us with the eggs we need and they also help by eating some of the vegetable waste. What they don't eat goes into the compost bin.

I cycle to work and try not to use the car unless I have to. Himself is working close to home at the moment so he is walking rather than taking his petrol-thirsty car.

When I'm shopping I try to buy fruit and vegetables that are, if not locally grown, then at least grown in the UK. This isn't always possible, British grapes for example, are probably rarer than hen's teeth. Although I heard on the radio the other day that our climate is getting more and more suitable for growing grapes for wine production so, who knows, with time, we might get British eating grapes too. But changing eating habits is difficult, and expensive.

Firstly we're used to being able to buy what we want pretty much when we want it, and that's a hard habit to break. But I am slowly getting us to eat more seasonally as well. Also at the back of my mind is the fact that we now live on a much more global scale and if everyone refused to buy products from certain countries, many of them third World, those countries' economies may well suffer.

Secondly, I try to buy organic as much as I can. But the problem I find with that is that the supermarkets over here charge an extortionate premium for anything labelled organic. I can't help but think they are to blame for so many people not being able to buy organic more regularly. Why should it be so much more expensive? It shouldn't be classed as a premium product. Whilst I will pay about £7 for a free-range chicken, I absolutely refuse to pay the same amount for two chicken breasts. So we don't have them. Since having the chickens, I refuse to buy any chicken that isn't free range. Not will I buy any product that contains eggs or chicken unless they come from free-range chickens - I will not support battery farming and its by-products any longer.

I have always bought bottled water. The tap water here is pretty dismal but I read in the paper today that it takes 6 litres of water to produce the plastic to make a 1 litre water bottle. WTF!?? So I bought a water filter this morning. It cost £10 and will probably cost about £5 a month for new filters. Which is much less than I pay for the bottled water I drink.

But we still have a lot of room for improvement in this house. We don't recycle as much as we should. We always used to as the recycling bins were across the road but since moving to the cottage there are no convenient recycling bins. Himself is of the opinion that by the time you've driven to the recycling centre, you've probably negated any good you might do by recycling in the first place. The jury is still out on that one.