Imposing change - would you be in favour??

[Twattergy]

Reading the climate change threads there is a lot about the changes we can make to do our bit for the environment. But my feeling is for the dial to shift some fundamental things need to be imposed on us, not a choice. Covid has shown us that people will manage restrictions of they have to. I think there should be:
-Compulsory water metering

• Massive clamp down on water waste by water companies- like business threatening level fines
• Restrict number of flights per person per annum and pay a significant tax if you need to do more
• Product makers forced to ditch unnecessary packaging ( I acknowledge much food packaging reduced food waste so you can't just look at food)
• My most extreme one is rationing of meat, the US and UK per capita consumption of meat is ridiculously high and all of us would be fine if we ate less of it (and yes govn would need to compensate meat producers, but furlough shows state compensation is possible if the need is strong enough).

There are others but those are my opening thoughts!

@Remainiac I love a bath - and bathing small children doesn't take much water because you're not filling it very high. This seems like taking a lot of joy away for little tangible benefit.

You do realise that I have no power in this? I can’t stop you or anyone else from enjoying a bath. That said, for housebuilders to stop installing baths and merchants to stop selling them so existing ones can’t be replaced is exactly akin to the move towards electric cars - we’ll get there eventually and you’ll get over it.

Interesting. I think the answer should be more like installing systems so bath water and shower water gets drained off to water butts for private gardens if you have one, or communal green spaces (with X% of parks and commons given over to fruit, vegetables, herbs for all to forage from). People can still have their baths and the water isn’t wasted. At the moment it’s easier to use bath water to water gardens and pots or flush loos than it is shower water.

Also, normalising sharing bath water! I grew up going on muddy family walks and there’d never be enough hot water for everyone to clean and warm up with a shower or bath each afterwards. So we’d do a bath and take it in turns: first person gets it piping hot, second person warm, third person tepid. Take it in turns to be the first person. Instead of 24/7 hot water and endless new water.

And weekly baths or showers rather than the MN standard of three a day while boil washing your towels after each one and yelling at your toilet brush.

Funnily enough, water use for washing is my big green sin. In every other way I'm ultra green - a vegan, no car, don't fly anymore, second hand clothes, very little plastic etc. Buuut, I LOVE baths and showers! I have justified it to myself, because I'm a vegan, and beef and dairy production uses vastly more water. But of course, I know I should reduce my bathing habits. I got better recently due to the drought, and saved some of the bath (grey) water for my plants. I like the idea of bathing water draining into water butts etc. Then I could bathe relatively guilt free!

@WanderingFruitWonderer the vast majority of water attributed to beef and dairy is rain falling on the fields they graze in. Potatoes are the biggest consumer of water drawn from rivers and boreholes.

@Remainiac electric cars aren't joyless. It's exchanging like for like (car) and making a huge difference in the process. I just don't think the occasional bath is going to make that difference, whereas an occasional bath is such a source of joy!

Weekly shower?! This new world is sounding decidedly grim.

Maybe so. But animal agriculture is polluting our rivers. No question that plant-based agriculture is better for the environment overall.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/21/britains-rivers-suffocating-industrial-farm-waste

You’d be allowed to wild swim as much as you cared to in-between.

Not a chance in this world I'd have a weekly shower.

Yes I'd rather it was forced, I'd do it then.

@WanderingFruitWonderer In rural areas, poor nutrient management (fertiliser) is the agricultural activity that has the greatest negative impact, affecting 36% of all river waterbodies, and poor livestock management affects 28%.

All intensive agriculture is bad for the environment and I think sweeping assumptions with only left wing media articles as "proof" is incredibly dangerous.

Neonicotinoids have been found in waterways throughout the UK, and as these are the primary source of water for farmers the thought these are effectively being recycled is pretty disturbing.

I agree that all intensive agriculture is bad. But it's pretty unanimously agreed by almost all (if not all) climate scientists that a plant-based diet is more sustainable environmentally, in numerous ways. It'd also free up land for re-wilding, as far less land would be needed for agriculture.
Having said all that, I'm not too proud to admit that purely in terms of water use, I don't know much about which crops use more blue water as opposed to green water, and I must look into it. Of course there's been precious little green water lately!
It's an endless minefield, trying to be ethical. I'll have shorter showers and smaller baths. I've been doing that more over the last month or so anyway...

@WanderingFruitWonderer I did have a really good paper on water use and it is as you say incredibly complex, it's almost impossible to compare a Californian almond, with Brazilian soy, with West Country Beef unless you stick to just one or two indicators. Trying to compare eutrophication and terrestrial ecotoxicity for instance is hard.

We also need to focus on enjoying life whilst we are here not making it more miserable. I'm all for carbon off setting, reduced meat consumption (veggy here) etc. however I'm also happy to chuck money at even desalination is only around £3 per 1000 gallons which would be fine as grey water say for washing etc. A home based system for drinking water with higher salt concentrations water used for everything else could be a potential

Air and ground source heat pumps are interesting (next project for us), solar panels with battery back up etc

But the trade off for us we like foreign holidays and nice cars which pollute. Would be happy to use our carbon credits for holidays and cars but use solar and air source in the house.

@CravenRaven
Wood is a good and sustainable replacement for lots of more damaging building materials (concrete, brick, tile are all energy intensive, massive sources of CO2 and polluting.) Felling trees is part of this. What is important is the supply chain is sustainably managed - so it's grown and harvested specifically for this and that it's done in a way that manages the biodiversity of the conditions it's grown in.
Trees also need to be managed for health growth. When we moved to our property it had been neglected for many years and that meant that storm damage happened regularly to the trees however with some management we have managed to minimise this over the years and trees that were on their last legs have been brought back to healthy growth.

As with most things (especially with regards to sustainability) it's more complex than saying we must do x and not y - there needs to be an evaluation of what works for certain circumstances and that may not be the same thing that works elsewhere.
Blanket rules very rarely work as well as people think they will.

Perfectly normal in the seventies. It wasn't grim: wash in between which is quicker and warmer. (Less heating, less bare skin.) We washed hair over the sink if necessary.

We also use less water in a bath than shower. We measured it. Seventies kid, one tank of hot water. My bath is narrower than the previous one.

@BlackeyedSusan memories of the red line in the bath, brought back there!

I love this idea and think that it is definitely the way forward. However it is easy to say that but much more difficult to implement and enforce. Responsible companies will take the lead but getting others to do the same may be more challenging.

@whentheraincame Nespresso offer a recycling service for their coffee pods. You can order recycling bags and then book a collection from your home. You can also drop them off at their stores if one nearby. It's all free.

It's called extended producer responsibility, it is already a requirement that manufactures need ensure that 85% of the materials in motor vehicles are recyclable.

EPR for packaging waste will be phased in over the next two or three years.

@Plantstrees @MerlinsButler UK Gov Guidance here

A good explanation of EPR here
WEEE is Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment info here