Eco audit: holidays without flying

At the time when my environmentalism was starting to develop, flying was not an Issue.  It was mostly out of reach – back to factors of cost.  (I dare say we might have found package deals to Spain, as a family, but we didn’t.)

So by my mid-teens, I had been abroad about four times.  Once to Germany by plane c. aged 2.  And back to Germany again for school exchanges – by coach, ferry and train.  All three school exchanges.  Because it cost too much to fly.

When we did start to do a couple of family holidays abroad – we didn’t fly.  We drove, went by ferry, drove some more.  (I say we.  Dad did the driving.  I picked the music to listen to in the car.) Again, because of cost – and luggage, and use of car for self-catering, and so on.

So possibly the first main time I flew again was going to Poland in my gap year.  It certainly felt unusual to be in an airport.  And it made sense to fly, because my placement was near a capital city, and my hosts (whom I had never met) could meet me there.

It wasn’t the earlier era of flight where only the rich and famous flew.  But it certainly wasn’t the easy experience it is today.  My teenage self would be amazed at how easy – but also surprised at all the discussion that has come up about off-setting air travel, not part of the environmental conversation 20 years ago.

The internet has transformed travel booking – not just for planes, obviously – but the whole process has been made much quicker and easier, and easier to contemplate.  But the biggest difference is all those low-cost airlines. And, gradually, the rise of social cachet to fly more often.

In my office days, working for an organisation with offices in lots of countries, travel was an assumed part of the picture.  I wasn’t as travelled as some of my colleagues – much of my travel was still around Scotland, day trip stuff.  But for others: two weeks away, to distant destinations.  Where overland travel there and back just isn’t possible – unless you want the two weeks to be the there and back.

Meanwhile these days, for a whole range of workplaces, when Busy is Good, then you fly.  You fly to save time, so you can come back the same day.  And complain about the early flight when you’re back in the office the next day – not really rested, but back.  So you can be Busy again.

There were a few years in which, yes, I was able to ‘notch up’ flights.  Feel a bit important.  Yes, I also liked the chance to be abroad; to do the key business of the year; get to know colleagues abroad better; help our applicants over the first few days of Living Abroad for a Long Time. It felt like it had a purpose.  But it was still flying.

All that time, I was choosing public transport for the rest of my travelling, work and personal – but then getting on a plane, and ‘blowing the budget’, as it were.

Because we don’t always want to hear about the impact of what we’re doing. And if the society around us condones it – encourages it, even – we are less likely to spend time checking it out. It has taken the rise of social awareness – and an improvement in corporate travel policies – to make that shift.

The other factor that greatly affects decisions on travel is – being able to drive.  If you don’t, for whatever reason, your holiday travel relies on good public transport.

Thankfully, travel in Europe is generally OK in this regard – and it can be a source of satisfaction to see just how far you can travel by public transport.  I’ve made it from the far north-east of Poland to central England, all by train or ferry.  I didn’t do it all in one go, quite, but I’m glad that I had the experience.

Things change again with kids.  Money goes down.  Need for flexibility goes up.  And inviting locations, like sand and waves, can be found much nearer to home, in a place like the UK.

My passport expired.  It didn’t get replaced for a couple of years.  We used the train, or drove, to holiday destinations in the UK.  And much of that has been just fine.  When the logistics of just getting everything ready to leave, go away and come back get more complicated, why make the transport harder too?

Soon, we’ll all board a plane together for the first time.  It’s still an excitement.  And it will feel like a treat, a rarity.  Which is probably a good thing. It’ll feel like coming full circle.

Will the world go back to not flying? No.  Should we use trains more? Yes, if we can – though I recognise that family railcards do make that more affordable than just buying tickets for adults. (It helps if you like trains a lot.  Which I do.)

Does that mean we stay in the UK, explore its beautiful and diverse scenery, but travel to our destinations by car – and put that impact out of our minds? Hmm.  What is the best solution, given that some places just can’t be accessed by public transport?

That answer lies with us individually – where our families and friends are, our budgets, the logistics of carrying our luggage (and that of small people, who may not be able to carry much).   Complex.  But still worth thinking about.

Eco audit: bringing your own food and drink

Back in the holidays of my childhood, if you were travelling – you brought your own food.  Yes, there were service stations, and you might occasionally be allowed to buy a cup of tea. But you had your packed meal with you, and that was that.

I recognise now that cost was probably the main factor here.  Two children, one parent working (and sometimes between work), you would save money where you could.  Holidays cost – save your money for the main areas like travel and accommodation.

And when you’re driving as your way of getting to your destination, having the food with you means you can be flexible.  You can respond to sudden calls of nature, inviting looking picnic spots, and immediate cries of starvation.

So for a long time, it essentially Felt Wrong to buy food to go.  Things in disposable packaging. It had an impact, too, on school lunches, where I remember very little in my lunch box that was throw away.

I also recognise that, when coming to issues of the environment, we tend to adopt a particular section of it that we feel strongly about.  Packaging is one of mine.  Just so you know. It may help when I seem to be getting more nit-picky about it.

My teenage self would no doubt be shocked by how easy it is now to buy – and throw away – food and drink when you are out and about.  And astounded by supermarkets selling so many things in individual packaging for school lunchboxes.  (We’ll presume they are more for school lunches – on the basis of the marketing – but not exclusively.)

Yes, it is cheaper to buy items in the supermarket than buy take out in a shop.  But you are still dealing with all that packaging.  And while most local councils ignore much of the plastic packaging that is generated, it is all going in the bin – into landfill – and so on.

I’m noticing certain patterns as I consider what happened after I left home.  Student years – go back to your flat for lunch.  Or someone else’s flat.  Or possibly buy food in a university cafe – where at least it was on plates that would go back into the kitchen for washing.  When there is little money, and/or your commute is very small, it is the easy choice.

The choice gets harder in a work environment.  We are all expected to be Busy.  Our time outside work feels more limited.  And the argumentations for buying food on the go increase.  Work places have to put a reasonably strong emphasis on the environment, too, before it becomes socially less acceptable to buy and junk lots of bits of takeaway food  with its inevitable packaging.

My teenage self would no doubt find it hard to understand the rise of convenience items in today’s society, that are used for a short time (the time it takes to make, store, and later eat a sandwich), and then discarded.  And it does seem like the tide is turning a bit.

More of the eco stores will sell reusable fabric wraps for sandwiches.  It is particularly easy to buy sets of plastic storage boxes for taking food with you.  And you can get fancy storage too – ones where you can keep your salad dressing separate, or heat part of it up and not the other, and so on.

Now I am, for my part, at the stage of lunchbox filling for others, it’s become part of the routine.  If I had to make sandwiches every day, I would probably rebel.  But making some things in batches and freezing them – like mini meatballs, or mini baked omelettes, means that school lunch decisions are much quicker.

The complication is when we are travelling together by train.  If you are carrying all your luggage, all your items for staving off boredom for long train journeys, it can be hard to lug all the food with you too.  I’ve probably come to a place of compromise on this – and I know it’s an occasional scenario, rather than a regular one.

So, is this obsession, or common sense? I know that I find it harder and harder to buy certain food items without lots of packaging in supermarkets.  And although in an ideal world, I would be wafting from market stall to market stall, selecting my produce, that’s not where I’m at – nor many of us, I suspect. (Plus market stalls don’t necessarily favour paper bags over more plastic.)

The tricky bit is where we buy heavily-packaged items because it’s what society encourages us to do.  That we’re doing well if we Buy Stuff.  And that it’s OK to do so – regularly, and without much thought.

If anything, that’s the bit I want to keep an eye on – because, I suspect, that argumentation will come up rather a lot this month.

Eco audit: buying recycled paper

You get through a lot of paper when you’re studying.  Working in an office.  Teaching.  Whatever I seem to do, there is paper in my wake. The paperless office is still a far distant concept, for most workplaces.

So how did my teenage environmentalist respond? Buy recycled paper.  Reuse paper where possible.  And when you’ve got all the use out of that bit of paper – recycle it.

Let’s start with those in reverse order.  Recycling paper – again much easier than it used to be.  They’ll give you a bin to put it in, they’ll come to your door.  And it’s not just writing paper they can take – paper packaging too, if it’s clean.

That means things like paper wrappers on the outside of some chocolate bars. Paper bags you get in supermarkets for mushrooms.  Labels from tin cans.  Let alone flyers that come through the door, old magazines, what’s on leaflets, and so on.

If you’ve got a compost heap, some of it can go there.  If you’ve got a food waste recycling system of your own, bits of kitchen roll that have been used for wiping up food can go there too.  So far so good.

(Of course, not everyone has a compost heap – let alone a food recycling system.  I’ll probably say some more on those another time.)

What about the reusing bit? Fairly OK.  It’s become familiar practice in many offices to have bins for ‘used on one side’ paper, and it’s great for jotting notes on.

I use it for shopping lists, to do lists, moments when I need to do a diagram to prove how many Star Wars films Obi Wan Kenobi appears in.  (And at what age.  Parental responsibilities, you see.)

It can get trickier when the printing on one side has personal information.  Easier if you are in an office, and have access to shredding collection services.  (Yes, we can buy shredders for use at home.  Yes, I seem to have gone through two already, and they don’t seem to cope with larger amounts of paper.)

So, I’m feeling fairly good so far.  Then I remember where I came in: buying recycled paper.  School: good.  University: generally good.  Later on: not always so good.

Recycled paper from the 80s and 90s, when I was mostly buying for notes, was generally browny-grey.  Distinctive, good for identifying with visits to Germany and buying it there.  But yes, less beautiful under the hand and the pen than new paper.

In the present day, I seem to have slipped into the trap of picking up pads of A4 paper (for the occasions where I do buy new) and not thinking too hard about where they come from.   I don’t use them much, but I can think about changing this when I next buy.

Recycled kitchen roll, recycled loo roll – generally OK to get.  And, more recently, easier to get non-bleached baking parchment for baking cakes with.  In fact, that last item actually feels more satisfying to bake with.  It’s nice to see your finished item (hopefully brown), nestled in a mid-brown from the baking parchment.

It would help if I could cut the amount of flyers for takeaways that come though the door.  (Can I do mailing preferences for that?)  But then I could turn them into logs (so I discover) a) if I have a fireplace and b) if I want to burn paper.  Hmm.

I could turn newspapers into plant pots for planting out seedlings?  That one seems better.  Although we have been reducing the papers and magazines that come into the house, over the last few years.  So actually I don’t have much newspaper at home.  Unless I take home the copy of Metro from the bus that would have otherwise ended up under someone’s feet.

Audit result: could do a bit better on the new paper.  Fine on reuse and recycle – but the hardest one is to reduce.  That’s also the one to work on.  Good job all these words are going online, rather than on paper, as I write this.

Eco audit: recycling glass and cans

Back in my teens, my main area of environmental activity was probably pestering my parents to take bottles and cans to the recycling bank.  It was in walking distance! It was important! And so on.

I’m sure my teenage self would be surprised at how much glass and can recycling has become mainstream.  It’s one area in which I think the UK has ‘gone with the programme’.

But the main surprise is not that there are recycling facilities, or that people use them, but that local councils will come to your door to collect recycling materials.

I live in a city which gets better and better at this every year.  But even a few years ago, it was still the case that, if you wanted to recycle things, you needed to take them to a recycling centre – or to a local supermarket which had those can and bottle banks.

And the main factors there are a) distance and b) having a car.  For a number of reasons (which will probably work their way into becoming a post at some point), we didn’t own a car until fairly recently.

Immediate environmental conundrum: do you drive but recycle, or do you not drive (‘keep cars off the roads!’)- and end up with recycling that you can’t shift?

Even if you are cooking for two, even if you are making a fair amount of your own food, you will get through bottles and cans.  It’s hard not to.  Even if you grow your own, you still need to find ways to preserve your food after a while – which often means jars.

At university, I remember asking my parents if they would help me take the bottles to the recycling.  In my first year, living in a flat for six people (and with two out of six on a course which offset very hard studying with very hard partying), that added up to a lot of bottles.

Later on, in another flat, there were facilities we could walk to – which was a help.  But I know that, by the time we were in our second flat after being married, the recycling facilities for the closest supermarket were at the top of a steep hill.

Yes, you could fill your rucksack with bottles, lug them up the hill, empty them, do your shopping, and walk home with the bag full of food.  But it was harder work.

I think we asked a few favours for getting the bottles to the recycling bank every now and then – and I suspect more cans went in the bin than should have done.

But coming to your door – fantastic.  No problem if you don’t have a car, or if you can’t carry the weight of the bottles far.

New conundrum: where do you keep your recycling while it’s building up? Do you nip out to an outside store with every can or bottle as it becomes available, or do you keep them inside?

As it happens, I think we’re in a good place with this bit.  It’s easier at home – harder in work environments, where recycling facilities aren’t always so good.  Where it’s easy to put a can from your lunch in the bin, and no one bats an eyelid.

You can of course take yours home.  Petition for recycling bins.  Perhaps rescue items from out of bins, if you’re feeling brave, and there’s a sink nearby.  That’s where nudging, rather than lecturing people, helps.

The thing that struck me once, heaving bottles into the bottle bank, was why we break the bottles as we recycle them? Why not return them to supermarkets, as happens in Germany? Why not bring back that notion of getting a little money back on a bottle by returning it to where you bought it?

Answer? Back to transport, space, ease of carrying and so on.  If your house has space for crates of bottles, and you have a car, and   you even have space in your boot, then it works.

Even for an area like this which has become mainstream, it’s not all sorted.  And it can get equally confusing when you go on holiday, even just to another part of the UK, or a couple of hours up the road, and discover that you have to arrange things differently for recycling.

But…it’s going in the right direction, I think.  But I’d still like to know what to do with used lightbulbs for the weekly recycling pick up.  And broken glass, which recycling people understandably don’t want to pick up.  Any suggestions?

Eco audit: learning to speak environment

So I’ll start with the disclaimer.  This month, I’m planning to write about the environment.  I am not a scientist.  I am not an expert.  So I am not making pronouncements with authority (although I might reference some links to back up what I say).

But I am finding that I want to do something more about the environment.  The new year came round, and the cleaning fever seized me (well, for a day or two anyway).  I started clearing a few things – but then I started thinking about where I was at, and where I wanted to go.

You know the phrase ‘Employ a teenager while they still know everything?’ That was me on the environment – still without being a scientist, I might add.  But I had been to Germany, several times over, and realised that the UK was miles behind on day to day habits that were more environmentally friendly – and that we could learn a thing or two.

I kept on with the learning German, and the visiting Germany, and the learning new things.  And in the meantime, people started talking more about the environment in the media.  Holes in the ozone layer – and CFCs in hairspray.  Overfishing, and what was happening to fish stocks.

By A Level time, with exams looming, it was time to choose a topic for my speaking exam.  And guess what? It was the environment.  My zeal kept me talking – even when the phone rang in the office we were using, and we had to pick up again.  (Not recommended for nerves.)

And then…end of school.  Adult life begins.  New places to live.  An opportunity to decide what to do for yourself – and how to live.  But that doesn’t always mean we get it right.

Life has a habit of getting busier, whether it’s full time work, raising a family, or combinations around that. Busy life…easier to forget? Yes.  Easier to make excuses? Maybe. Especially if those around you don’t see it the same way.

Back to the start of this year: I knew that I wanted to make some changes.  And this time, I had been getting some new sources of information through the web, through blogs and online magazines and so on.

I hadn’t set out to read about the environment – but it kept coming up in what I was reading – and in the choices people were making.

So here’s the environmental audit.  It’s for me – and my teenage self, who might be surprised at how much has changed for the better.  As well as how much has worsened in the world.

It is hard to know how to respond when we learn that large sections of ice sheet have broken off in the Arctic.  When there are more and more ‘freak weather’ scenarios each year, around the world and at home too.  When corn crops and potato crops have suffered as a result of that weather, and food prices go up.

It is easier to look away.  One response.  Mine, sometimes, when I am overwhelmed by those news stories.  But I am wanting to go back to looking at what I am doing – what I can do differently.  Maybe learning from others who are already doing things differently.

So come along for the ride.  (You may need to bring your own bike – but there’ll be plenty of space to park it.) I’m not here to harangue anyone – except maybe myself.  And being really honest with ourselves is where change can really begin.