Green purchases that I actually use

Recently bought a water bottle from these people:

http://www.onegreenbottle.com

and I’ve used it every time I go out.  Its a pleasing design, kids can use it too and I think I’ll buy another one for when I go to the gym (eventually).

It made me think about other green purchases I’ve made, I think I’ve probably bought quite a few.  Washable nappies were a failure sadly, as was one of those remotes that turn your devices off standby.  In fact I think the only thing that I use regularly is one of those Onya bags that rolls up really small and fits in your handbag.  Its great.

Everything else was a waste of money and more of a tax on the environment than a help.  I am now much more choosy of what I buy.

Halogen light bulbs

When we got a new kitchen last year our builder put in halogen lights – 12 of them, each at 50W.  Making a grand total of 600W of power every time we turn on the lights.  Which is a lot of the time at this time of year.  They are often on from 5pm until 11pm.  From using our electricity monitor we can see that this is the biggest drain on our electricity use.

This in itself is surprising – its not the cooker or the TV or all those devices we leave on standby its just the lights!

So what to do?  Simplest first, turn the lights off.  And we are trying, sometimes only having half of them on.  Trying to turn them off when we leave the room etc.

What I’d really like to do is replace them with LEDs.  But the technology isn’t there yet.  It turns out that a 50W LED costs £20+ each.  Thats an unacceptably large amount of money to replace them all.  See here for details:

http://www.yourwelcome.co.uk/acatalog/GU10_LED_Lamps.html

My only hope is that technology has improved vastly over the last couple of years (50W halogens were not available at all until very recently).  So if I wait a year or two more (hopefully when my existing halogens start to go!) they’ll be down to an acceptable price and available in my local B&Q.

I’m really surprised that halogens haven’t really been addressed by shops.  Our local B&Q is full of energy saving light bulbs for standard lights.  But how much of a normal house uses these now.  Not that much I’d say.  I think its just the bedrooms in our house – maybe 30% of our total lighting.  And I don’t think other people are that different.  So energy saving bulbs are a help and I definitely use them where I can.  But realistically they don’t address that much of the issue at all.  And until there is a solution for all forms of lighting (small odd sized side lights are another problem as the slightly bigger energy saving candles just don’t fit) we’re not going to make much progress.

Texan chilli beef stew (slow cooker)

As stew is our staple winter food, I like to try as many different varieties as possible. This is kind of like a chilli – you can even add a tin of kidney beans – I would but my husband says they are too farty! It is however really tasty and melts in your mouth. You can obviously cook it for less time in a hotter oven if you so wish.

Oh and it isn’t really Texan at all

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• ½ kilo chopped casserole beef
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tsp flaked chilli
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 cloves garlic – finely chopped
• 1 tin tomatoes
• 300g butternut squash and sweet potato or similar (peeled and chopped)*
• *yes I use a bag of pre-prepared (from sainsburys)

Preparation

Toss the chopped beef in the flour, spices and seasoning until it is well-covered. Heat the oil in a large oven-proof saucepan and wait until it is really hot. Add the beef to the saucepan and brown all over. It is likely to stick to the bottom so don’t worry. Add the chopped garlic and fry for another minute.
Add the tinned tomatoes and the veg and bring to simmering point. Add a bit of water if it looks like it might dry out during cooking.
Transfer to a slow cooker for about 8 hours or else cook for about 4 hours at 120’c.
Serve with rice or couscous.
Can be frozen.

The lovely Co-op bank

I would really like to have the Co-op as my bank account.  They’ve just introduced a new ethical policy, although their old one wasn’t half bad either.  This new policy incorporates such things as human rights and ecological impact.  Their ecological impact statement now makes sure that they do not invest in such things as tar sands and biofuels.  I wish more banks had such a good understanding of these issues and had the courage to put them into practice.

http://tinyurl.com/bzwjoc

Sadly I don’t have a co-op bank account.  On a business front this is for practical reasons as they did not offer a good enough internet banking option to customers.  On a personal front its more complicated – fear of change, loyalty to my existing bank, and fear of the complications that will arise when I try and change over.  Maybe I should overcome that fear, it is for a very good cause after all.