A day of low pollution.

[Lance Dopestrong]

Right, being retired is nice, but Bank Holidays aren't so good because all the workies aren't at the Mill, and are cluttering the place up.

So, today I'll have a quiet day at home with Mrs Dopestrong and our youngest offspring. As I've got nothing planned I'm going to to keep a tab of the pollution I make and the resources I consume.

So, up at 0700hrs.

Quick forest Gump, flushed with my grey water system, 2 sheets of Andrex. Not bad for someone with such a big arriss. Slight usage of paper, nil mains water.

Quick shower, a bit of water used. Shower gel into the sewer, albeit only a minimal dab because I'm a bloke, and ultimately the bottle will go in the recycling.

Teeth brushed, small quantity of mains water and the energy required to manufacture and deliver toothpaste. Are the constituents inherently polluting? I don't know.

Dog walked.

Sun now shining, solar panels generating far more than I'm using. Planet Rock on the radio using some solar.

Boiled the kettle, so some mains power for a minute of two, but I've already generated more solar power than the mains power I've used, and that's gone back into the grid.

Oaty protein bar for brekkie. Paper packaging.

So...a quiet day thus far, and while I'm probably doing better than many people would I'd still made my pollution and consumption mark. I'll update as the day goes on.

[Cyril Haearn]

Are you a net contributor to the grid? Do you use gas or oil for heating etc?
I am staying home today for like reasons, I do dislike the bright sunshine

[PDQ Mobile]

Don't overlook the energy to cultivate and harvest oats.
Manufacture said oaty bar.
Deliver the bar to point of purchase etc.

Not sure about the kettle.
If the bit you took from the grid used gas turbine leccy then the carbon was generated? Although offset.

Not trying to split hairs.
The energy of argiculture and food supply is often overlooked.
Good luck on your endeavour.
It will be quite a tough one.

[Lance Dopestrong]

No, you're quite right. Reading thr wrapper doesn't show where it was made, or if Emma Thomson flew the ingredients in from LA. Their impact is a bit hard to just, but doubtless real.

Yep. the national grid would likely have burned some fossil fuels to make my beverage. However, it is offset and the energy I've already fed back to the grid will have been ample already to boil someeone elses kettle, so in NET terms I'm probably still good there. I think!

[reohn2]

Were you wise enough to get a government grant for your solar panels before they were withdrawn?

[Cyril Haearn]

Much better to buy oatflakes, why did you not have porridge for breakfast?

[Oldjohnw]

I never venture out on a BH, even when I was working. Even the Cheviots get busy. Last I heard there were about a dozen people there which is about eleven too many. I may wander round the village or along the river. Shed roof repair day: no excuses, apparently.

My shower even used solid shampoo bar. MrsOjw does have the washing thingy on. I don't know how it works but I am assuming elecky is involved and horrible chemical powder, so probably bad. I do believe we use something called Ecover which is A Good Thing. Or a Slightly Less Bad Thing. Telly has only been on a couple of times this year. When it dies - hopefully soon - I will follow St MickF and not replace. Radio has the best pictures. Unless there is an emergency car will not be used until I visit my son in Lanarkshire next Saturday.

[PDQ Mobile]

I overlooked waste water treatment plant.
Use (AFAIK) both gas and leccy, though some is self generated sometimes, I think.
Disposal of solid treated waste often by tanker/tractor.

Or perhaps sceptic tank emptying?
Tanker?
Or wheelbarrow to the garden/field?

[kwackers]

What did your dog eat?
What about your house and the amortised cost of repairs and the source of materials.
Ditto heating and power.
Fuel use of your vehicles, parts for same and their source. The lubricants and other nasties they consume.
Cost of your children, the stuff they consume, the buildings (including schools) they use (children make flying look positively green).

What about the taxes you pay - what does the government do with them? The local rates? The bin lorries, police cars, doctors surgeries - you have a percentage claim in all of that.

I think it's too easy to pat ourselves on the back when we think we waste very little but the picture is vastly bigger and hence why I think it's something government has to tackle.
Our personal sacrifices are very noble but the underlying structure of our lives is what needs to change if real inroads are to be made.

[PDQ Mobile]

Much better to buy oatflakes, why did you not have porridge for breakfast?

But the cultivation and harvesting/transporting still uses (almost certainly) diesel fuel.
Perhaps more than you think.

The (cheap) food on your plate is probably around 50% oil energy seen as a venn diagram. I read it somewhere! Long ago.

Horse ploughed is rare! Like a Dodo.

( sorry Lance, It's your thread. I don't mean to drift it too far, and it will be interesting I think)

[Lance Dopestrong]

Were you wise enough to get a government grant for your solar panels before they were withdrawn?

Yes indeed! Pipped it by a few months.

My dog has eaten dodo eggs cooked over charcoal made from Jurassic trees, but I'm just keeping an Interest eye on my own consumption today as a slightly lighthearted, slightly serious exercise.

Cleaned one of my bikes, so a few litres from the water butt. A cupful of car shampoo isn't ideal, and went straight on to the ground. How biodegradable is this stuff?

A bit of Mr Sheen on the frame and a dribble of Duck Oil here and there - only minimal amounts, but still not ideal at all. On the other hand, it's a lot, lot, lot less hydrocarbons that I'd have consumed if I'd driven 130 miles this week I stead of riding them, so compared to the average adult I'm massively ahead of the game there.

Tidied up the shed, zero consumption or pollution there.

A few hours in and I'm doing ok, but even doing minor, inconsequential things I'm knocking out a bit of pollution here and there. Not the worst by a big margin I suspect, but still a bit of an eye opener.

[Oldjohnw]

Go camping. Use a gas stove and use fossil fuel. Light a fire or barbecue and burn down Yorkshire. So eat salad. All imported.

[reohn2]

Were you wise enough to get a government grant for your solar panels before they were withdrawn?

Yes indeed! Pipped it by a few months.......

Wish now I had but I dithered
I wonder how much energy could be saved and carbon footprint reduced by business and householder alike if those grants were still available,or at least interest free credit available from government to fit them.
I mentioned on another thread that I pass many a private and industrial roof crying out for solar panels.

[Cyril Haearn]

There are alternatives, solar panels discarded from buildings being demolished for example, are prices still falling?
One can do the right thing even if it costs more, but maybe the solar panels last so long that it does not cost more even without subsidy
No-one knows. Yet

[Cugel]

There are alternatives, solar panels discarded from buildings being demolished for example, are prices still falling?
One can do the right thing even if it costs more, but maybe the solar panels last so long that it does not cost more even without subsidy
No-one knows. Yet

There are many ways to improve our individual carbon footprint, species-murder culpability and so forth. Even the small improvements add up to make bigger ones, especially if they become fashionable and millions do them rather than just a few hippies, new-agers and daft old cyclists.

For example,

There's a firm that sells a solar-panel plus battery arrangenment that uses out-of-life (for a car) car battery cells. They cost a lot less than a new battery albeit the guarantee of their functioning is 3 years rather than 10. They're fine as part of a UPS or direct solar use arrangement. They get recycled (as far as they can be) at end of life.

You can buy a lot of what you eat locally, avoiding transport costs from Israel, Argentina or New Zealand. In West Wales there are hordes of market gardners and similar selling salad, veg, eggs, honey and so forth at the roadside of their hoose or at a peripatetic farmer's market. Many local farms sell their meat and other produce direct or via just one butcher, for far less than supermarket prices. A lot of these producers are also ideologically disinclined to use heavy duty fertilers, pesticides and antibiotics.

You could give up heavy-duty CO2 products such as chocolate, coffee, avocadoes and other exotics. I haven't but am working myself up to it. You can avoid stuffs that require a decimation of their local ecology to be grown - although it's not easy to discover the provenance of everything available, especially from abroad.

It's easy to make a bar of soap last months - I do: minimal use. It also makes your skin better. There are plenty of other cosmetical things that are highly damaging to the environment (and your skin) but can be replaced with non-damaging alternatives; or simply avoided. Are the wimmin reading?

If you have a garden, grow some of your own stuff in it. Very satsifying. If you don't have a garden, join or start an "incredible edibles" scheme- planting veggies in unused public spaces for anyone to pick & eat when ready. The ladywife is doing both and has done for some years now.

Try to avoid buying stuff with a ton of packaging. Not easy but there are moves afoot to go back to "loose goods" sold with no packaging but instead poured into your own reusable jar, bag or other container.

Etcetera.

These things will add up. They will give you a glow of satisfaction even though you know they're small things and you're still (like all of us) a damned polluting Wasterel of The Western World!

Personally I believe we're all doomed ... but it's still worth trying not to be, as far as you can manage.

Cugel