Does anyone do any "Eco" friendly stuff?

[katymac]

I'm bored and I thought I'd see how many M/Ners were "eco" friendly

Basic stuff like recycling/saving water
Through to solar power and not using a car......then composting toilets and grey water recycling

Is anyone out there interested in this sort of thing?

We've just received a wheelie bin and recycling box from the council. But they won't be collecting the glass/plastic/metal stuff for a while and have no plans to collect the poaper at all. It won't make much difference to me because I've been recycling that stuff for years at recycling centres, but it's hardly going to encourage others to start. However, our recyclates get driven to Wales, all the way from Aberdeenshire, so I wonder whether I'm actually making things worse anyway?

I do have an use a car and tumble drier but compost stuff and am trying to do even more. The council sell a special composter into which you can put cooked food inc meat. You don't get compost out of it as such because it dissipates intot eh surrounding soil but I imagine you can move it from time to time.

I read about a miniature wind turbine which you can put on your house which I think costs about 1,500 pounds. I really fancy that. I noticed someone had a planning application in our local paper for one so I may find out where it is and go have a looksee!

we recycle everything possible, paper cardboard, plastic glass, tins, carrier bags, clothes etc etc. but even with the recycling boxes other people just dont seem to get it. my MIL just shoves everythign in the bin, inc. the 20 bottles/cans of beer her dh drinks a night, they have a box and just said "oh that can be used to out the shoes in by the front door" shes decided that its someone elses problem. when will simple minded people understand that its everyones problem and we need to start doing something fast or our childrens childrens children are going to be living in a sh*thole if they'r living at all!!!

In some areas of Europe, recycling is mandatory.

Composting poo - sorry, no way!

I recycle glass, cans, paper and cardboard. Take garden waste to the tip and they compost it down.

Have a compost heap in the garden and an organic bin in the kitchen for peelings, teabags etc to go on the compost heap.

Have a water butt in the garden and use that for watering plants.

Walk the school run when we can, ie the days I don't work - need to drive off straight after dropping him off on work days so no real choice there.

Put old and unwanted clothes into charity collections.

..and we're preparing a veg patch for next year.

But sorry I am not eco-friendly enough for reusable nappies.

Would love to do solar power/water recycling etc but I think the set-up costs would be a bit too high for me.

We compost/recycle everything we can (we throw out one half full bin bag a week between the two of us),
grow our own veggies,
avoid overpackaged items,
buy loads of stuff second hand,
use energy saving lightbulbs,
our car does 55mpg and if biodiesel was available locally we would buy it,
DH put down our old carpet in the loft as insulation instead of it going to landfill,
our baby is due in a couple of weeks and I have my reusables at the ready,
saving up for a mini wind turbine (someone mentioned this earlier),
switch off tv and computer instead of leaving on standby,

and so it goes on.

Somebody once asked me how I could be "bothered" to make my own compost when you can just buy it....... missed the point somehow methinks.
MB

Forgot to say. For anyone interested in this stuff, here's a link

about sustainability

Just for interest .....what does the Water Board do with our poo?

Washable nappies and breastfeeding
We use flannels for the children and cloths for the kitchen and floors (no kitchen roll use here)
Recycling by council (plus we take our cardboard)
Children are almost solely clothed from NCT sales and eBay.
50% of mine and DH's clothes come from eBay too.

But...
we live in the country and have 2 cars
and DH works for the airline industry and does a lot of flying.

use our local authority recycling bin for paper, foil and plastic, hardly ever have glass bottles but when do take them for recycling.
use as many enviromentally friendly products as possible, e.g ecover wahing powder and cleaning products. have just ordered one of those eco friendly wash balls from the internet.
compost garden and vegetable waste.
try not to throw anything away either, give to charity, sell it on, or find some way to reuse it.
only have heating on when need it, e'g put jumpers/cardis on first, not really been that cold yeet this year so heating not been on.
the one thing i wish i could cut down on is using the car, but i have to for work, i never know where i am going to be each day and often have to do house calls so need a car to get a round as the area that we cover is vast, and in a car the visits are hard to fit into one day.