What are your green tips for the home? Share them with me.

[mellowchristmas]

Hi,

I've just started a blog about green living to get people exchanging simple tips about how to lead a more eco-friendly and ethical lifestyle.

I'm trying to collect tips from MNetters for future installments.

I've also just done my first post about cooking. Here's the link . Do you have any cooking tips you would like to share? I would love to hear what they are.

On of our local charity shops has a moany notice saying not to give them anything that is old, needs mending or stained, that it costs them millions to sort and get rid of it. They seem to only want new, untouched unwanted gifts I guess.

Now after reading this, I think they are being rather inefficient since old textiles clearly have some value. Maybe London is too expensive for rag and bone type businesses to work?

I get lots of notes throught the letterbox now for old stuff to be left on the doorstep, it's not for charity but they do recylce everyhthing, I just put in everything, including the odd thing posh enough for our charity shop! I don't have time to sort everyhting for the charity shop standard and then make a special trip with only one or two items.

Anyone heard of the group Sieze the Day - they are a very political folkie group. All their songs are deeply political but they have a fab one called flying about...flying. "I will recycle, I'll ride my bicycle, I'll fill my kettle halfway... etc etc. Really made me chuckle at first but the kids love it. They also have a lovely song "Because we love our children" which is all about the non-green things we end up doing because we love our kids but really we should be giving them a safer place to live in.

I think they are playing at the Big Green Gathering if anyone is interested.

Big Green Gathering

Our council used to collect the textiles but they seem to have stopped Every so often we get bags for the air ambulance though and they collect them.

Bokashi - it's the future.

Bokashi info

Our council are giving out free bokashi sets for all households.

Thx for sharing gingerbear. Unfortunately, my council doesn't provide Bokashis.

Buy clothes and toys 2nd hand from charity shops and eby, then ebay/charityshop/car boot them when you're done with them.
Wear socks, slippers and jumpers instead of turning the heating on.
Hot water bottles mean you can have bedrooms practially freezing but a nice warm bed.
Live in a really small house like us and have very low heating and lighting costs.
Recycling is fine but the best thing to do is avoid products that come in plastic or lots of packaging, ie have milk delivered in bottles that get washed, rather than just bunging plastic cartons in the recycling bag.
Old facecloths/terry nappies and plain water tdo a better job than chemical cleaners for cleaning baths, floors etc.
Put veg in boiling water (from kettle) bring back to boil, put lid on, turn gas OFF, leave for 20 mins it will all be cooked/steamed to perfection. No need even to simmer.

Get a heat pump, and keep the old-fashioned chrch/school-type radiators if you have an older hourse with the space as they are more efficient than modern slim ones.

In the winter of 2007/8 we used 200 gallons of oil. In 2008 we bought 100 and crossed our fingers. The oil boiler only fired occasionally and more often than not it's because the voltage from our overhead supply is too low for the heat pump and it trips. We still have well over 80 gallons left from last autumn.

We can't burn wood as the fireplace needs replacing as it's unsafe, but have managed to keep warm.

We also have an electric Aga but are considering in investing in an automatic control for it - investing being the word as it costs about £1400 here in France against £600 in the UK.

Grow your own vegetables, salad and herbs! Even in a London garden we manage to grow a lot of food. And create a small pond or water feature to encourage wildlife.

Use your many empty wine bottles to build raised beds to grow your vegetables.

Here's how to do the latter:

www.ivili.org/profiles/blogs/raised-vegetable-beds-made

Does anyone here do solar cooking? I really fancy a solar oven, but not sure if UK is too far north for it to work most of the time.

I havent done solar cooking snookie but have read about cloth containers that cook your meal without fuel.

We....

• live in a tiny house (not a choice for 'green' reasons, but anyway..) that we've insulated well
• mostly had the hot water off over the summer as we have an electric shower & boil a kettle for eg DS baths, tough cleaning jobs, etc
• invested in one of those remote control plug thingies so we can switch tv & stereo off- prior to that we left them on standby as the sockets are difficult to reach
• switch the oven off eg 10 minutes before the end of cooking time. For most things it makes no difference
• wash nearly everything on 30 degrees
• only put the dishwasher on when it's completely full
• Abel & Cole veg box. Topped up from Ocado the other day and couldn't believe the unnecessary packaging on fruit & veg.
• combine errands to avoid unnecessary journeys

We do, however, commit the mortal sin of putting DS in disposable nappies I saw a live debate at Grand Designs Live, of all places, where Kevin McCloud was going on about nappies... bizarrely, he seems to have thought the nappy issue through in great detail, and came to the conclusion that the most environmentally friendly solution is to use 'eco-friendly' disposables, dry them out, then use them as fuel in a wood burning stove

People in rural Lesotho (near South Africa) use cow dung as fuel for the fire, so the boaky nappy thing would probably work...

I'm just saying!

Oh and welcome AndieB - Im new to mumsnet too. (And get that lone fish feeling sometimes too in real life).

snorkie, I've done solar cooking in southern Spain, I wouldn't be massively optimistic in the UK. Even in Andalusia in August, you could guarantee that the moment you put your stuff in the oven, the sun would go in . . .
I've mostly used a box cooker, maybe a parabolic cooker would work better, but I'm not sure it would repay the time to make it in UK conditions.
What about a haybox - less funky, but still good

Thanks Takver, I'm sure you are right. I think I've known deep down the UK climate isn't right for this but I've been in denial.

Making and using a simple solar cooker

Trying to live ethically without resorting to a hairshirt can be hard. here's a few of my favorite ethical websites. They made me smile

www.cheeksandcherries.co.uk

www.poshgraffiti.com

www.ecoboutiqueshop.co.uk

Hi all,

Newbie here,

couldn't believe it when i found this section, just up my street, some excellent energy and eviro advice from Spanglemaker, its suprising how much you can save, money and evironment wise by just taking a few more seconds to do something, this solaor cookig thing sounds pretty fantastic but i dont think the uk gets enough sunshire surely, otherwise i'd be up for it

Tip: now its winter close your cutains earlier keep the warmth in. also check rounds windows for any drafts and use clear bathroom sealant to close up any gaps

:0

Batch cooking.... Do you think this is greener?

I try really hard [to the dispair of DH] to fill the oven if I need to use it. Batch cook lots of chicken legs, with veg in (at least 3 x 3 meals) then pop in batch of scones, flapjacks, spuds etc. Then either eat them cold later of microwave.

Give all DDs old clothes to nursery for 'spares'.

Terry nappies.... dry fast and don;t add to land fill.

Our local recycling is AMAZING. Almost everything can go in normal bins and they sort it for us

Be skint. Find this helps.....