Jon Seaton's Go Green blog

JON has signed the 10 pledges to accompany our Let's Go Green Together campaign. Read the blog below to find out how he's getting on...

Wednesday 30 January
Well, after 3 weeks of trying to be good it has come to an end.... Or you could argue that it is only the start as this has got me into the mindset of doing more positive things about the environment. There is a lot of discussion around over the pro's and cons of doing things to help "save" the environment and people a lot more aware of the arguments than me have (and will) argued long and hard as to the merits of each side.

I read State of Fear by Michael Crichton not so long ago about all this and it puts forward a strong case for the changes in the environment being a natural phenomenon.... But there are equally strong (if not stronger) arguments saying things are changing and for the worse.... Flooding, extreme variations in temperature, tsunami etc etc... the list is long and the events are becoming all the more frequent.

So if you are sitting on the fence over doing your bit what is it worth remembering?
* Recycling is fairly easy, many councils offer some level of
recycling, and where there is not bottle banks etc are fairly common place.
* Reusing plastic bags is pretty easy
* Turning off the water when you brush your teeth is not too tricky, and if you have to use a dishwasher they usually have an economy wash that does the job.
* Low energy lightbulbs are pretty good nowadays - and I have found no end of shops that sell them cheaper than I paid! They hardly get a disparaging comment in my household any more!
* Turning down the thermostat on the heating is likewise something that has hardly been noticed.
* Driving is always going to be a tricky one because bus services are not the best, but they are getting better and at some point there will also be a tram service in Edinburgh. If you do drive and have a mpg counter have a look, it makes interesting reading - since starting this I have been doing this and have lowered my fuel consumption (it now sits at 53mpg, was around 50 when I started) - i.e. it is cheaper for me to drive around!

So how have I done with the 10 pledges....
1 to switch to energy saving lightbulbs - managed this in the most common used lights. Still have a number of spot lights which haven't changed - but if these become available I will change.

2 to recycle household waste using locally provided facilities - do the council collected card, bottles and tins and have started plastics. Through RBS digital banking I have stopped getting statements as I can see them online (stopped three sets of statements per month)

3 I will organise or volunteer for an environmental project in my local community - failed miserably... two small children means that my spare time is limited.

4 I will walk, cycle, share a car or use public transport at least once a week instead of driving to work/school/shops on my own - again I have failed on this one, I very rarely drive anywhere on my own, usually having at least one small child with me, more often more. I did offset the cost of driving my car for a year, and I will continue to look at other options

5 to use rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones. Have bought a recharger and batteries, but no batteries have died yet so not replaced.

6 to reuse my carrier bags when I shop - bought a "Bag for Life" and recycled a load of shopping bags. Also stopped getting bags in food delivery.

7 to hang my washing up to dry rather than use a tumble drier - the weather has not been conducive for this recently, but more clothes are going onto the radiators at home. We still use the tumble drier more than we should, but very small children seem to be difficult to keep clean!

8 I will turn the tap off when brushing my teeth - I do this for myself and my son when I clean his teeth. I have also bought a hippo pack to reduce water used when flushing!

9 to pay back the environmental impact of flights I take and not to fly when there's a suitable alternative. Not flown this month but have offset the costs of a trip to Dublin next month for the Ireland v Scotland game and was surprised at how cheap it was.

10 to buy more local, seasonal or unpackaged food - Have managed to buy some, although we do a lot of shopping at larger stores - convenience is king to a great extent!

So that is it from me, as I have said above I shall continue with these because they feel like the right thing to do - they can also save me money!

With children it feels like we should do what we can to reduce, reuse and recycle... or as the Corporate Responsibility at RBS said, Avoid, Reuse, Substitute, Offset.... But it doesn't make the best acronym!

Tuesday 29 January
Finally managed to bring in a load of plastic bags for the bag recycling "box" at Tesco. We also got a charity bag through the door for Save the Children which got filled, we also put the Barnardo's bag that had not been collected out as well so a load of clothes and other housey things recycled!

Monday 28 January
Drove back down today trying to drive as efficiently as possible! We got home in time to put out the cardboard recycling box so that saved a journey to the recycle place

Unfortunately after three days of not using the washing machine it got a bit of a blasting when we got back - unfortunately babies don't really get the "keep your clothes clean" idea and Freya still brings up milk occasionally.

Sunday 27 January
Slightly disappointed by the lack of recycle facilities available at the Macdonald resort we were staying in. We were in Center Parcs last year and at the end of each crop of lodges there were recycle bins for all your standard waste items. We are in a lodge in Aviemore and it does not have anything at all like that and, given they plan to increase the number of lodges from 18 to 50, it would not take a lot to provide some recycling facilities. I may be being unfair to the resort - the rooms are cleaned daily and perhaps they do recycle certain items.

We reused our towels rather than putting them in to wash on a daily basis which I am sure will help a bit - but didn't see any signs encouraging guests to do this as we have seen in other hotels.

Saturday 26 January
Mags popped out to get a few necessities from Tesco today and returned with a reusable bag / bag for life. It cost a £1 and as long as we continue to use it should be useful - I see it more as a trip to the local shop bag than weekly food shop, but it seems pretty sturdy!

Despite being on holiday still doing the tap switching off thing, and only boiling enough water for number of cups of tea. Again we are faced with water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink... ok there is water to drink, but all the rainfall and snow-melt has led to a huge amount of flooding - the Spey has burst its banks in a load of places, it looks like a huge loch with small islands (which turn out to be tree tops).

Friday 25 January
Managed to get along to a bottle bank type area in Balerno and they had a packaging recycler, so finally got rid of the plastics mountain in the garage - woo hoo, I have a garage again! I actually spent a bit of time reading what the packaging bin accepted and it includes a load of things that I had not thought could go anywhere - including envelopes.

We headed up to Aviemore this afternoon for a wee get away... I totally forgot to switch off the heating and hot water, Doh! Thankfully Mags was (not for the first time) one step ahead and everything was turned off... she had even unplugged everything in the house - with the exception of one energy saving light which was on a timer so the house didn't look completely empty!

We did drive up, but given we had four of us plus pram and a load of kids' stuff I think we probably did the right thing... it is a pretty fuel efficient diesel! We also stopped off at Bruar and bought some local produce... sausages, lemon curd and sticky toffee pudding.... not the healthiest but a nice treat and all the better that none of it has travelled more than a few miles! Oh and they are not to be all eaten during the same meal!

Thursday 24 January
I was reading somewhere that there is a place, might have been in Belgium, that charges for landfill waste and as a result the town now recycles 80% of everything that is for waste. In principal it sounds like an achievable way forward but there really must be more done by the Government / Council to make it easier... a start would be to include a packaging collection ie plastics, over the last few weeks I have realised just how much packaging comes into our house each week - and it is probably as much as the tins, bottles, cardboard and paper combined!

My composter is gradually filling up, kind of playing it by ear slightly and not really sure what I should be doing with it, just keep bunging in kitchen and garden waste... it should start to fill more quickly once the lawnmower comes out.... but the further away that is the better as far as I am concerned!!

Wednesday 23 January
Not a great deal today, our stockpile of plastic bags has diminished enormously. We tend to reuse the supermarket bags for all manner of things until they die, we do still have a big bag of fancier plastic bags under the stairs that I will take to bag recycle point at work. I always harp on about things needing to be on my doorstep or easy - well that is, so should do better! The bag mountain is diminishing though with an increasing number of "without bags" deliveries.

Tuesday 22 January
Still haven't had the opportunity to get to the dump so the mountain grows!

My "Hippo Pack" arrived - I think I may have been on the quick side getting one! Essentially what it is is a bag that you put in your toilet cistern and then as you flush you fill the bag up with water, the idea being that it displaces about three litres of water in the cistern so when you next flush you use three litres less water (as it remains in the bag).

A quicker and cheaper method of doing this (and dare I say more environmentally friendly) would be to cut the top off a juice concentrate bottle and use that? The other thing was that I can only use one of the three pack as the other toilet cistern is built in so Ican't really get to it! I think someone at work will take one off my hands.

Monday 21 January
I am finding that whenever I need to go anywhere I am pushed for time (two small children will do that for you) so getting the bus is something I really struggle with. Given more time and better services I probably would not hesitate to use the bus.

Apart from that confession I put more stuff to recycle in the various recycling containers - will definitely need to get to the dump soon - garage is starting to look like the Balerno Civic Amenity Site! I also did the water saving stuff (for info I shower in the morning so that will save some water - unfortunately because the thermostat on the heating is turned down so much it takes a while for the water to heat up, so I may have to use the electric shower - but not really sure which would be better to use?)

At night I went to a Burns supper, all good locally produced produce - haggis, neeps, tatties and whisky all from Scotland - did blot copy book slightly with some Australian wine - and dread to think of carbon footprint of the plane / ship bringing it!

Sunday 20 January
I am in danger of becoming a "Green Bore" (too late I hear you say) I keep finding myself telling people little boring recycling facts or looking at packaging to see whether it can be recycled (M&S is good at labelling packaging), and then telling folk.

Also turning things off at the wall a lot more - TVs, microwave, washing machine, bottle steriliser - in fact pretty well anything that has a light on when not in use... pretty annoying for others in the house when not really paying attention and they go to use something.

Rather than going to the gym today decided to take the family up to the reservoir for a long "bracing" walk. Good to get out in the fresh air, and the dog enjoyed it!

Did an online shop through www.Tesco.com today. Again I am assuming that the lorry will not simply be bringing our stuff so will benefit from economies of scale, and one vehicle bringing lots of shopping beats several vehicles travelling to the supermarket.

Saturday 19 January
Took the dog out for a run this morning rather than driving to the gym for some exercise... apart from him stopping to sniff everything along the Water of Leith it was quite successful... well it tired both me and the dog out and created no CO2 (ok very little!)

I am going to Dublin next month for the Ireland v Scotland rugby game and decided to look at offsetting the cost of the flights. I went to www.ClimateCare.org (who I offset my car with) and looked at the cost of offsetting the flight. I was expecting it to be in ££'s so was slightly surprised to see that it would cost me 79p to offset a return flight from Edinburgh to Dublin! I decided to offset the flights for the five of us at a grand total of £3.92 (0.52 tonnes of CO2) - last of the big spenders! I had assumed that it would be much more expensive than that, and sure I had heard of airlines offering to offset the cost of short haul flights at source for several £'s!

National newspaper has an energy efficient lightbulb offer on the front page today - I am now convinced that I am the only person who has ever spent the full price for these lightbulbs (numpty!) - Morrison's and Ikea are other outlets that apparently have the bulbs on the cheap!

Friday 18 January
The guys in RBS Corporate Responsibility who I met the other day rang me up with an offer of free lightbulbs. Apparently when they launched YourWorld a few months back they had a wee stall at Gogarburn promoting it and giving away some energy efficient lightbulbs. Having recently spent a small fortune on the bulbs I required (and, yes, since then seen them pretty well everywhere for cheaper!) and really hoping that they do last as long as suggested I decided to give them out to the department. I put them on the table that is usually reserved for "holiday / birthday" sweets (sure your office has such a table!) and watched people descend on them. They didn't last long!

Apart from that didn't do a great deal on the pledges front.... The turning off the tap is a bit of a given nowadays and putting plastics, glass, cans, paper and cardboard in for recycling is working well - still amazed at how much plastic packaging there is. I took a full container last Saturday to the Sighthill Civic Amenity Site (CAS) and have filled the container again!

Will need to take it at some point - probably aim to do it when I am driving in that direction anyway. I am also managing to compost stuff so should hopefully get the benefit of that in the spring.

Thursday 17 January
Beverley passed me a link for Hippo Packs www.hippo-the-watersaver.co.uk/>.

I have ordered a household pack of three for £6.99 - the idea behind this is that when you put it in your toilet cistern it displaces a certain amount of water (about three litres), so when you flush three litres less water is used. I know it is difficult to get your head around saving water in Scotland when it rains as much as it does but although the average cost in Scotland for water is less than £1 a day (average being Cooncil Tax Bands B&C). I believe that in England there are areas that have metered water that is charged by usage.... It is not inconceivable (despite the rain - yup raining again as I write this!) that with climate change we could face water shortages in Scotland.

It does seem strange discussing the possibilities of water shortages given our natural state of weather in Scotland, and England getting in on the act more recently with flooding in Hull and Tewkesbury as well as other areas. There is also the "cost" of getting the water from Lochs or underground to your tap - it does not simply flow from one to the other - it requires treatment (screening, chemical treatment and clarification, filtration, disinfection and possibly pH adjustment) which ensures no harmful beasties get into our systems! And that doesn't include the cost of pumping the water all over the country!

Christmas Tree recycling update - I mentioned on Wednesday 9th that I would try and find out what happens to the trees that got picked up in the first couple of weeks of January with your normal rubbish. These trees are firstly chipped and then added to other waste (the brown bins for those who have
them) and are turned into compost.

A wee update on energy efficient lightbulbs while I am at it - a few people have kindly (I know they were being kind because they were smiling when they told me!!) told me that I got stung for lightbulbs at B&Q, cheap energy efficient lightbulbs can be bought at Maplin (3 for about £3) and John Lewis (49p each).... And one of my friends pointed out that he had got some bulbs from B&Q for about £1 each that had been on offer - so tip is look around and not just rush into it as I did and you will get them for much cheaper than I did!

That's all for today, cheers

Wednesday 16 January
I met with a couple of people from RBS today, from the Corporate Responsibility team, they completely avoided trying a hard sell on what RBS does to reduce their environmental impact, (although I had found out prior to the meeting that RBS in UK and Ireland use 100% "green" electricity and they are one of only three banks to achieve a 95% score in the Carbon Disclosure Project last year. They also use rainwater to flush the toilets at Gogarburn!)

What they did talk about was things that the bank offers staff. On the intranet site there is a section called YourWorld, which as well as sections on the workplace and what the bank is doing, it also has hints and tips and offers for staff, it also has a Carbon Footprint calculator... uh oh, I don't do too well on that and am sitting at a fair bit above the average UK household for tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide) that we as a family produce per year (cars, heating, rubbish, flights etc)... Must do better! They also mentioned that the bank is investing in more video conferencing facilities to reduce the dependence on face to face meetings (and associated flights), and I certainly have a quarterly three hour video conference with attendees from UK and the United States.

At lunchtime I popped out to a local DIY store and purchased some rechargeable batteries and charger (just under £14) - nae the cheapest but they should last a lot longer - and we get through a lot of batteries (small toys all seem to be powered by AA batteries!)

I went onto RBS digital banking today and opted out of receiving statements, as long as you are registered with the online service you can opt out of paper based statements - save a wee bit of paper (3 separate lots of statements and envelopes per month, and sure Mags will be interested in doing the same!)!

Tuesday 15 January
Thought I would mention one of the pledges that I struggle with today - use of the car. I used to get the bus to work when I was in the centre of town and loved it - listened to the radio and got through a load of books. I then moved out to Gogarburn and had a wee boy (trust me its relevant!). Anyway I got a parking space which meant that the journey to work is 10 minutes by car (15 on a busy day).

To get the bus originally it would have taken me close to two hours as I would have had to get the bus into town from Balerno and then back to Gogarburn. There is now a bus that runs from Currie which would still require two buses and take over 30 minutes (assuming one bus dropped me off to a bus about to leave!). As far as cycling to work is concerned, the route goes along a pretty windy road which has had a few accidents in the last couple of years including a fatality so I am slightly wary about cycling along there (let alone with my son in a child seat!).

The car I have is a 1.5 diesel - not the flashest car but one of the most fuel efficient (I get over 50mpg). I also take Lochy to nursery 3 days a week (at Gogarburn). The days that I am not taking Lochy to nursery I need to get back to the house fairly sharp as the full day with 2 kids (one who goes at 100mph) is pretty draining for Mags - we are both still getting used to having two kids!

At the weekends we try and share the car and more often than not there are the four of us on journeys.

Anyway, all that doesn't change the fact that I am burning CO2 to get too and from work, so I went on to www.climatecare.org and offset my carbon for a year. It allows you to input miles per year and miles per gallon and then calculates your carbon dioxide emissions. For myself I burn 1.79 tonnes of CO2 per year by using the car which cost me £13.39 to offset. This money goes to a number of different projects including rainforest restoration, wind farms in India, bio fuel etc. Despite this I do still feel that it is a bit of a cop-out and will continue to look at ways to occasionally not use the car! I was surprised about how cheap it is as well - I was expecting it to be a lot more.

I received another enviornmental tip today from Beverley, a colleague at work, she has suggested I use Hippo Packs in the toilet. After realising it was not a disparaging comment on my toilet habits I looked into it - these displace water in the cistern so when you flush it uses c.3l less of water..

I'll do some digging and let you know how easy it is, whether it works and more importantly what it costs!

That's all for now!

Monday 14 January
Well the inevitable ribbing about the piece in the Scotsman ensued when I got into the office, but I was expecting it! A few people actually seemed quite interested so a wee opportunity to spread the word. I think people are more aware of recycling options, and here at Gogarburn we have plastic, cans, paper and the cups from the drinks machine recycle facilities. I have arranged a meeting for later in the week to discuss what Royal Bank is doing about the environment.

Apart from that not sure if I made much difference environmentally today, but am thinking about what can be done, switching off lights, closing doors to retain heat, tunring off the tap whilst brishing teeth etc, so I guess that is a start!

Friday 11 January
The teeth cleaning water one in the mroning is proving to be quite an easy one to do, so myself and Lochy managed it today and Mags is also going to give it a go, so that should save a bit - the rain still seems to be falling but sure we are helping a little bit!? With the amount of rain we get here I think we would struggle to go the whole Aussie way on water conservation... "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down"... maybe that is something for the home counties of England to suplement their hosepipe bans!

I decided to sort out the plastics and packaging currently residing in a heap in the garage today and bought a container from locak DIY store. It really annoys me that there is no plastics collection in Edinburgh, I have friends in West Lothian who get plastics collected and my brother in Glasgow has plastics collected as well. I would say that the majority of rubbish going into my big (land fill bin), apart from nappies, is plastic. Anyway, I now have a container to keep things a bit tidier and will head along to the civic amenity site (dump) tomorrow. Due to their nature "dumps" tend to be in out of the way places, but the very nature of that means it is difficult to get these places other than by car!

For those of you who picked up on the nappies thing, we don't use re-usable nappies, I believe that there is not much difference to the environment of washing with detergent / drying towelling nappies versus disposable nappies degrading over time.... I am also trying to reduce the use of our washer dryer so not sure if adding to the washing pile will help!

We did our shopping online the other day and said no to carrier bags (Just say no - an 80's throwback to Grange Hill there)..... Not quite sure this is good (essentially a bus for people's shopping, not using plastig bags etc), or bad (electricity to use pc, not buying local, potential that a lorry is only deliverying my shopping???). For info we do get a fair bit of shopping form our local store.. And I can strongly recommend the Cosmo Haggis pizza made in Loanhead with Macsweens haggis!

That's it from me for now...

Wednesday 9 January
Successful on the water one again for myself and Lochy, but then Mags pointed out that I was washingf my porrige pan with running water.... Doh! I did fill the kettle to the required amount though rather than fill it completely so I was not boiling water for nothing... and it is quicker for that urgently required cuppa!

Thankfully the council then came to my assistance on the pledge front and picked up our Christmas Tree! I had put it out last Friday but they arrived today - I believe all the trees get chipped then re-used but not totally sure what for - I will find out (probably - if I remember!)

Not at work today so decided to check the radiators and bleed them.... If the are not bled they will not be at their most efficient, so cost more and use more energy. It took about 5 minutes to do and about 90% had air in and were not working as well as they should be. I then turned rhe thermostat down a wee bit (just a notch... but every little helps).

Time to blog off, will send more as and when!

Cheers

Tuesday 8 January
So many pledges, so little time.... The first pledge of the day is a memory one, turning off the water as I brush my teeth. I managed it this morning so would have saved a wee bit, although looking outside at the teeming rain I am not sure we have quite the water shortage problem of some countries!

Later on I decided to tackle one that I have been meaning to do for a wee while, energy efficient lightbulbs. Unfortunately the first issue with this came on GMTV when they highlighted that energy efficient bulbs are hazardous and contain a small amount of mercury... vaguely remembering O Grade chemistry I knew mercury should not be touched or ingested (I also remembered that the term "mad as a hatter" comes from the use of mercury by hat makers working with felt)! Despite that, it has been used in thermometers for years - and I had no wish to put the lightbulb in my mouth as I did the thermometer!

I worked out which were the most commonly used lights in the house (12 of them), I then popped along to B&Q (other DIY stores are available!) and found the lighbulb section and was almost knocked off my feet at the cost of them - just under £36 for 12 bulbs. Issue number two... to give some perspective, the lightbulbs I normally purchase (standard 60W bulbs) cost £1.98 for a pack of 12. Perhaps if the government is so keen to encourage people to switch to these bulbs they should be subsidising them, create a lightbulb mountain of energy inefficient bulbs?

The majority of people will not be happy spending that much money on bulbs (especially if they already have bulbs that are working!). The final lightbulb issue came on returning home with the bulbs, on putting up the first one a comment was passed that the light was not as warm as normal bulbs and seemed a more clinical white... I guess we will get used to it, but not the best (or cheapest) start.

Last thing before coming upstairs was a bit of compost recycling, stuff is not falling from threes and the grass doesn't need cut so the composter (an early 2008 resolution) gets a regular serving of banana skin, apple cores, tea bags and the card from loo rolls!

Managed to remember to switch off tap during brushing for both mine and Lochy's teeth cleaning!

Click here to join our Let's Go Green Together campaign.

Click here to find out more about Jon