Eco audit: taking your pulse

Back to the blog tinkering. Trying to create a bridge between what I wrote about in my first few years of blogging – and what I’m writing about now. Cue a certain amount of moving posts around, and developing new categories: including an eco one.

I’d been thinking about an eco theme for a while before I started writing in February. Reading new blogs, coming across new ideas, enjoying some of that reflectiveness that can come at the end of an old year.  Add in a dash of what’s in the news, what friends are interested in – or grappling with – and a theme emerges.

Where it became interesting (for me, anyway) was going back to the older posts I’d written. As I’ve written on a particular theme for a month, I wanted to see whether some of the older posts could be viewed in that same light.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s been reading more than a few of my posts that food keeps coming up as a theme.  Reading about it, cooking it, thinking about it – no lack of things to write about. It was a category before – so it was easy to continue writing in that vein.

But had the environment been such an abiding interest over time? I wasn’t sure. Part of the reason for making my theme – a conversation with my teenage inner environmentalist – was a suspicion that I used to be keener.  More concerned.

In part, yes. Add in a bit more money, a lot more busy, and it’s easy for the environment to be just another topic on the to do list – and one that can slip off when day to day stuff crowds in.

And in other ways…I discovered that at least some of it had been there all along. A fervent commitment to picking brambles (the subject of several blog posts) – about food, yes, but also about the environment. (As well as about childhood memories.)

Similarly, the food-swapping party – again about food, but also about the environment. Finding out how to keep food; developing community, pooling resources – and having an excuse to eat cake in the process. (I’d love to do it again, too.)

Sometimes, it was a time of year that brought a particular musing. Winter brings soup – and soup becomes all about using what’s in season, using things up. (It works quite well too alongside notions of eating more veg, and the environmental (and health) benefits of that.)

Re-exploring driving brought its own set of musings – in part because my teenage environmentalist had urged against driving for so long.

Driving trades off with a love of public transport – but also an enjoyment of walking. Yes, I don’t have to worry about finding a parking space.  Yes, it also happens to be eco.

Sometimes the debates shift as life moves on.  We’re still on the same topics, and thinking about them afresh, because our circumstances have brought us to doing so.

Sometimes, when we’re feeling demoralised, or that what we do isn’t making enough of a difference, it can be worth remembering that we can change.  We’ve done it before.  We can do it again.

And sometimes, the change is reminding ourselves that there are skills we already have that we can pick up again. Ways of responding that work for us, work for the place we live in, and the people we live with.

I started with the image of a pulse, and actually, that’s one I’d like to hold onto for eco issues. We know that our bodies work best when our pulse isn’t racing too fast, or equally too slow.

It’s not about a grand rush, and then nothing. Slowly and steady runs many an organism – including those with ecological intentions.

Eco audit: sew far, sew good

I feel I am entering dangerous waters here.  I am about to attempt to write about something that I have not so much experience of. Sewing.

I know I’m allowed to write about writing, reading, food, and so on, because they are such familiar aspects of life to me. I have my opinions all worked out – or I’m updating them as I go.

But sewing? There are so many others out there on the web, for whom sewing is A Way Of Life.  And I’m not in that camp.

So why mention it? Because I was thinking about what I might have reasonably considered environmental in my teens – and somehow, sewing, or rather mending, hove into view.

Remember all that school bag carrying I mentioned? Those bags took quite some pounding. And I tended to be a bit particular about what I wanted in a bag, so when I got one, I didn’t want to give it up just because the seams were creaking a bit.

The solution was mending: sewing, and resewing, the seam at the bottom of my bag.  In fact, I’m sure it happened on more than one bag.  After a while, I learned to use double thickness thread, and sewed backstitch to make the seams extra durable.

What else can I manage. Sewing on nametapes? Check. Taking up hems on kids’ trousers. Check.  Resewing seams on clothes, where the thread has worn? I think so.  But not that much more.

I have reasons for wishing I could do a bit more sewing. My mum knows how to use a sewing machine – and I do not. (Well, only a bit). I remember trying to have a go as a child – and then being scared by how fast it went when you pressed the peddle too hard.

I equally have a friend who sees a project – and does it. Sew your own sofa cover? OK. Done it before? No. Didn’t put her off – and results good. Do I feel like I can do the same? Less so.

I take fright at all the potential of making a mistake – cutting the material in the wrong place, getting the sewing wrong. (I stitched the two legs of a pair of school trousers together recently, when taking up the hems, so I know my potential for error.)

Maybe I need to find some projects which allow me to repeat what I already know how to do. Put sewing machine fear on one side, and stick to hand sewing.  Enjoy the feel of material in your hand. See something take shape, slowly but surely.

What I do have in common with other sewers? An enjoyment of fabric. Of patterns, of the feel of a particular cloth.

I had a small phase of doing patchwork, back in my second time in Poland, when I ended up inheriting a collection of scraps from the teacher who had worked in the language school before me.

Not that long ago, I gave up on my bag of scraps when it coincided with a sewing project at school, and the request for bits of fabric.  I know that it’s gone to good use, but I’m caught now between thinking ‘finally it’s getting used!’ and ‘I gave it away just before I wanted to use it again’.

But I still have another bag, one with larger bolts of beautiful fabric.  That one stayed.  I don’t know that it will become mini quilts, as I’d originally planned.  But my intention is to start using it, rather than saving it for a day when I really know what I’m doing.

We don’t always line up all our skills, and then start. Sometimes, the opportunity is there for the taking. We may make mistakes (will, in fact). But if we can hang on to the feeling of what it may be like to make something – a new something, made only by us – then maybe we can agree to start.

So far, so good.

Eco audit: to buy or not to buy

However strongly we feel about the environment, it’s hard to ignore the fact that society is making things easier for us – as well as harder.

Among all the encouragements to spend are the ones in the grey area: the spending that’s ‘OK because the products are environmentally friendly’.

As the analogy goes: we all still need to buy…[X: loo roll, shoes, whatever else] – so let’s make positive buying choices.

In my teens, I think there was little of that.  I know that there was recycled paper – yes.  I bought it.  The other main choices you seemed to be able to make at that time were to buy lead-free petrol, and aerosols without CFC propellants.

Avoiding animal testing for cosmetics. Not buying fur. That’s about all I can come up with from the early 90s, for now.

Well.  I think it’s fair to say I would be astonished by all the eco-buys that are now out there:

– household cleaning products (non-petrochemical based; ones that biodegrade naturally)

– toilet roll, kitchen roll (recycled products)

– toiletries and cosmetics (including non-synthetic ingredients, and limiting packaging)

– clothing (choosing natural materials but ones that don’t involve lots of bleaching or dyeing)

– food (local, organic, supporting growers over supermarkets etc)

– home decorating (where your wood comes from; whether your paint has low VOC content)

– wind up or solar power or rechargeable items (radios, phone chargers, fans…)

…and that’s just a few categories for now.  There are of course plenty more.

It’s interesting as a psychology.  We are no longer in the place of that cartoon of a mass of penguins, all crying out ‘But I’m only an individual – what can I do?’  There’s plenty we can do.  But the challenging part is around the buying.

If you’ve been following my train of thought this month, you’ll see that reducing and simplifying are some of the most challenging parts of the environmental mindset. And yet, for many of us, the immediate way we can show our green credentials is…to buy things.

In fact, despite my teenage self not having lots of eco-buying choices, I realise there were still some other principles going on, which brought an environmental perspective to life at the time.  (These are also ones that are mentioned in today’s advice on green lifestyles.)

I came across another useful maxim in the last few weeks, which has also helped me think about my eco activities:

‘Use it up, wear it out

Make do or do without.’

I’m guessing this is where the wartime ‘make do and mend‘ came from – or if not, the sentiment is the same.  The one above is evidently from the days of the Great Depression in the US.

Just as Britain has rallied around other wartime sayings (Keep Calm and Carry On – and all its subsequent variants), bloggers in the US are looking to what the nation knew during the Great Depression, and how to use that earlier wisdom.

So in the spirit of use it up…etc, I thought I would see what buying choices I made in my teens that are still going strong.

1) Buy something that will last: it helps you reduce (because you don’t have to keep replacing it). Case in point: rucksack bought before I first went off to Poland.  Some bits of it have disappeared (part of the waist strap), but much of it is fine.

Can I still lug things around in it, 20 years on? Yes. Do I need to replace it? No.  I’m hoping to get many more years, or use-it-ups, out of it.

2) Buy something that will be flexible: it helps you reduce (you don’t need to keep buying more) and to reuse, in a sense (because you get more uses out of it). Example: items of clothing (or shoes) that will go with lots of other things. If it still looks OK, if it still works with other clothes, if it still fits, do I keep it? Yes.

So three cheers for a few items that have survived since my teens (court shoes for occasional smarter occasions, a batik blouse), and others that have at least a decade on them. Wear it out? The onus is on me to take better care of them in the meantime, perhaps, and to be wise about what really does need replaced.

3) Buy something that does the job (with a little TLC): there’s a certain bookcase that has done me nearly three decades. OK, I didn’t buy it myself, but as soon as I had a place I could furnish, out it came. It’s wooden, it’s simple to put together, and to take apart.

Sometimes, the taking apart is easier than the putting together. At one stage, I lost the screws for it, and had to prevail upon a more practically minded friend to replace them, and the metal lugs that hold up the shelves.  But it is still going strong.

These days, said bookcase needs a little support.  Another bookcase to lean on, to be precise.  Being attached to the wall, so that it doesn’t sway sideways.  It doesn’t fit with the other bookshelves, but on the grand scale of making do, it does the job just fine.

4) Resist the siren song that says you must have a certain thing. In fact, looking back only a couple of decades reminds you that you did just fine without…a mobile phone.  A car. And plenty more.

Part of me might quite like a big food mixer – and part of me knows that my granny’s hand mixer, handed down, does me just fine for most recipes.  And for others? I’ll get round – or do without that recipe being part of my repertoire.

Given that we have more and more choice as shoppers, it’s no bad thing to have a few ideas about to guide your purchases.  They may not be eco products – but the spirit is still eco, as is the emphasis on not getting more and more things.

We are fortunate in this day and age.  We may make do in some areas, do without in others – but so many things are within our reach, far cheaper, than was ever the case for earlier generations.

It can feel like an academic exercise to avoid buying – until you try it. And realise how much of your energy, time, emotion and so on can be diverted into thinking about The Next Purchase.

So here’s to a balance of wise purchases – when we really do need to buy – and a spirit of ‘that’ll do me just fine’ for the rest.

 

 

 

Eco audit: on yer bike

Back in my teens, I got into cycling.  Not racing, not even to keep fit – just to enjoy the motion of cycling, and the places I could go. It was an escape. It was free. And I’ve now realised that it was also quite eco.

My dad passed on his bike to me – a racer, with a crossbar. I quite liked that. It had gears and drop handle bars.  At some point, mum bought me a gel-filled saddle – well appreciated after you’ve been cycling for a while.

I was learning to drive. I wasn’t very confident. But I could cycle. And I was lucky that I could also get out into the country fairly easily. So I had a phase of heading off on the bike, finding some country roads, even a corner of a field that I could see was public access.

But you can’t get to school with all the bags and the cello.  Or maybe you could, but you would need greater skills of balance than I possess. I wasn’t ready to attempt to cycle in Worcester and deal with the traffic.  So it was back to blagging lifts for the bulk of day to day life.

Next biking moment: tandems. I was working with children in Poland who were blind or visually impaired.  So to get out and about together, we had a few goes at riding tandems together.  Both of you can get involved.

All went well until the front fork of the bike snapped one day. Poor child on the back of the tandem I was on was rather rapidly precipitated to the ground. Glad it was a quiet lane. We did finally get back to the school, and thankfully there were others with us who could help.

Fast forward to university days.  Others cycled. I didn’t. I had carefully lived only 5 mins from lectures for three out of four years, so I didn’t need to.  And I knew that getting your bike nicked was quite a regular concern, so I hoped I was well out of that.

The flip side of living in a city where you can walk to many places is…well, you walk. Bikes add an extra level of complexity.  There’s the whole helmet thing too, of course.  So I kept on with the walking, and left the cycling to others.

And yet…if there’s one easy eco movement to spot, it’s the increase in people cycling – and the astonishing improvement in cycling infrastructure.  National cycle routes.  The promotion of cycle paths that allow you to stay well away from busy routes – and enjoy a spot of nature as you whizz by.

We do have bikes.  We don’t really use them much.  We are at a point where we are planning to donate two, and maybe make off with one reconditioned one.  Then we might finally all get out biking.  I think.

For my teenage cycling self, this is definitely a ‘could do better’.  I don’t have to take on cycling as my main way of getting around town – for which I’m grateful.  Cycle lanes in some areas, but clearly not in others.  I don’t plan to argue with double deckers, either.

But maybe the solution is to look at health benefits.  Enjoying the environment that is there – and that is accessible.  If I love trains for the way they can access areas of countryside that roads don’t, maybe I need to embrace cycling again for doing the same – particularly where cycle paths get me to areas of the city I might otherwise not reach. (And help me reach more bramble patches.)

So. The only thing to identify is: do I have get recycled bicycle clips?

Eco audit: new perspectives

Right at the end of my teens, I got a bucket load of new perspective. I lived abroad for half a year. I may not have backpacked around South America, or lived in a mud hut, but I went far enough to get some fresh perspective.

Going to a country on the other side of Germany may not seem that far. Not that different. Which was, I suspect, why there was more of a surprise factor. There were a lot of differences, sure, and some of those were also down to the particular location I was living in (a boarding school connected to a convent).

But one of the factors that really struck me was space. How much of it – or not. We were situated not that far from Warsaw, and many of the people working at the school would not have afforded to rent a place in Warsaw or nearby.  So they lived on site.

One of my friends lived in the female educators house (I think they called it). It was not unlike many halls of residence for universities – I mean those when I was studying, rather than those that have been built in the last few years.

(New halls of residence are built more for the people who will rent them, and make money for the university, while the students are not there in the holidays. In my humble opinion, as they say online.)

My friend was proud of her room because there was enough space on the floor beside her bed to fit another mattress.  That meant she could invite someone to visit her. And that was luxury indeed.

Most homes in Poland are small, unless you live out of a city, and (importantly) have enough money to build your own place. When I did my recce trip to a different part of Poland, after my studies, to see if I would teach there, I stayed with someone who still shared her bedroom with her sister.

They were in their 20s, and they still shared their room.  And their parents slept on the sofa bed in the sitting room.  It is taken for granted that parents will sleep in the sitting room. In fact, it’s pretty much taken for granted that your bed is also a sofa bed, even in a child’s room, and that you make it again every night.

Towards the end of my first stay in Poland, I remember going to cash some travellers’ cheques. I needed money to pay for the big train journey home.  The place I went to was above a hotel, in downtown Warsaw. All very nicely appointed.

The bit that was tricky was going up the escalators, from floor to floor, and seeing how much space was wasted. I would look at the corridor as I went up through the building, and mentally calculate how many people could be housed in that space.

My perspective on living space had changed.  Which was just as well, in some ways, as I was about to make the shift to student life – where your living space is very much affected by your ability to pay.

Why spin this story? I guess because sometimes we have to undergo some kind of a change in order to evaluate what we already have.  It has become popular to make fun of people having ‘gap yahs‘ but they can still be profound in their impact. And it doesn’t have to be a gap year either – I am finding just as much challenge in the building project just now.

Much of the time, we need incentives to change.  We need examples to see it’s not that hard – in fact, life goes on just fine in the new arrangement. The longer we become used to the new way of life, the easier it becomes to keep going.

The youngest member of the family seems to be coping just fine with arrangements at the moment.  The floor space is smaller, there are fewer toys available – but it doesn’t seem to matter.  Playing is still taking place just as much as normal.  (Which kind of bears out some of the simpler living stuff that I’m thinking about.)

As a teenager, eagerly anticipating change, life that we can shape for ourselves, it’s not so hard.  Change becomes harder as you get older.  I now know the comforts of having the same of certain things: the same mug for coffee, the same products from a food shop, perhaps.

So. Yes. We can live with less space. We can live with less stuff. We can simplify, and we are not less ourselves. It helps me that I’ve experienced new perspectives, earlier in life – it helps me know the benefit of it.

But right now, my teenage self may well be looking ahead and encouraging me to continue seeking them.  Which is really the point of this month’s set of posts.  It’s OK to go in a certain direction – eco behaviour – but we can still find sticking points. Blind spots.

Time to shake things up again, I think.