What are your Eco sins?

[Andthenthereweresome]

OK. What are your eco sins?
I’ll start

I use way too much cling film and kitchen roll. In my defence, your honour, I rarely fly and I drive a hybrid 😀
Oh and I grow my own veggies

But why? Why can't you just leave them to be collected? That makes no sense whatsoever.

My eco-sin is jacket potatoes in the oven. I was told off about it when I was a student - years (er, decades) ago! I don't like them in the microwave though. And I use a renewable tariff.

And although I don't use water in single use bottles I have a million other things in single use bottles. They do get recycled though (and not in the green waste bin!)

I actually don't get the hate for aircon, especially if you use a renewable tariff (or eg in France most of their electricity is nuclear, so not fossil fuels).

And presumably if it's going to get hotter, we'll need less heating, so it will balance out (maybe).

I wear a fresh pair of pyjamas every night. So do the kids.

I do my washing and tumble dry it.
I don’t give a crap about washing my tins and rubbish, it’s literal rubbish. We don’t actually have a recycling centre so all our “recycled rubbish” just goes to the tip anyway, so surely any food stuff left on it is good for encouraging small insects to break it down? Idk, but I don’t really care.
I run my washing machine several times a day.
I drive everywhere. We live rurally and the one time I tried to get a park and ride into our nearest town centre it was horrific and I had to get off because I had a panic attack.

on the other hand, haven’t flown in 13 years and before that hadn’t flown for 10 years.
I do try and compost as much as possible.
No food waste as it goes to the guinea pigs or next door’s chickens.

• Daily panty liners
• Cotton wool pads - reusables just don't work
• Use tumble dryer all year round
• Gas central heating on whenever I'm cold enough
• Daily baths

On the flip side:

• hardly ever drive <1000 miles per year
• share bath
• use bath water on garden (ground floor bathroom)
• no children!

Totally irresponsible not to recycle. Imagine if everyone did that.

I really don't think daily panty liners or using disposable sanitary protection is much of an eco-sin given that 93% of waste comes from industry. And why is it women who have to save on disposing of rubbish? It really annoys me.

I eat meat, drive an SUV, use a hose pipe, have astroturf and I often detach plastic bottle lids from the new style tethers.

But I take consolation that my family has a significantly lower carbon footprint than my Green Party voting in-laws who moved to Bristol specifically so they could avoid driving a nasty car to work and don’t eat meat because of the nasty cow farts heating the atmosphere. Because they fly on holiday once a year and we don’t.

This is a truly depressing thread.

Understandable. But I think/hope most of us are doing more positives than negatives? I like to think my own balance sheet is in the black, but I just can’t do every single greener than thou thing.

The people who truly DGAF are hopefully a minority and the rest of us are doing what we can with the time/energy/motivation we’ve got.

I agree with your original aspiration that everyone would have both a saint and sinners list. I certainly do
But some of these posts have just listed out lots of lazy crap, and topped it off with DGAS...

Mine is also the tumble dryer, I just find it so much quicker and easier and even use it during the heatwaves sometimes 😬

In my defence I have only flown once in the last ten years!

This is true. I try and do as much as I can but it shouldn't be so down to individuals. We need more things like the plastic bag charge.

i use cling film
i eat meat, not every day though.
i use amazon
i leave the fan on all night

Drive a petrol car, and go for long drives if I can’t sleep or need time to think.

Order shit loads from Shein.

Will always buy a fresh bottle of water to take to work instead of drinking the tap water. (Office tap water always tastes horrible)

Do you find you need the cotton wool pads? Just curious. I only got reusable ones for my baby but I haven't used them in years, I just put make up remover or toner on my hands and straight onto my face. Found it worked great for me tbh

i have flown about 3 times in 30 years

I use the tumble dryer on my towels - about 30 mins. Otherwise, they don't go fluffy.

I have far too much stuff

I switch on the kettle again as forgot if the kettle boiled - just pouring a drop of kettle water into another cup would prove otherwise

I forget to switch off chargers from the wall. The main multicharger I have is plugged into an extension lead and difficult to get to the actual plug.

Been lazy and driven to get to places half a mile away. I blame the recent hot weather and my car is climate controlled.

I have 3 dc
i let the tap run for ages to get the water cold
I love a bath not a shower
I eat meat every day at least once
i use AI a lot (in my job, in my defence)

to counteract- I try not to waste food,
i buy British whenever I can
i only buy edible gifts for family and friends birthday/xmas now and I don’t send cards
I recycle
i buy most clothes on vinted and sell
I do less than 4000 miles a year
I havent flown in 11 yrs

edited to add - I work for a very ethical company that does loads of work for British farmers which is something I hugely support, and dh works for the same company

I do drive to work and other journeys (hybrid car)
I buy new mainly
I use cotton wool
rarely fly now

however I recycle and take plastic recycling to supermarket
do food waste
cook mainly from scratch
line dry
try to reuse and buy those eco refills for cleaning products
sell on eBay and give to charity shops

I buy lots of out of season fruit & veg
I never recycle the peanut butter jar as I can't be bothered to clean it (I recycle other jars though)
Lots of food waste in my house
I drive a diesel
I forget to take bags with me to the supermarket so have to buy plastic ones each time

I dry my towels and tea towels in the dryer all year round as we like them fluffy.
We waste far too much food.
I never get on a bus as I like the convenience of my own car.
I holiday as much as I can.
I use the hose to water my plants, but I probably use less water than doing it with a watering can.
My recycling gets a rinse and that’s it, if it’s too dirty (like a Philadelphia container) it goes in the bin.

Im pretty good but i have a really bad habit of throwing my used gums on the pavement… i do try to correct myself but it is hard…

Occasionally I’ll put something recyclable in the regular bin cos it won’t wash out or it’s just too gross to sort.
Nice hot showers (not long, just hot!) and def stick the heating up in the winter. Hate being cold.
Use Washing up sponges (but I do wash them and reuse).

Oh god everything! Just existing!!!