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Discussion Forums » General Discussion
How Green Are You?
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13 Mar 2009, 12:41
Super Logica
Post Count: 148

How much interest do you take in environmental concerns? Would you consider yourself a fairly green person, or could you not care less about your impact on the environment?

I am just wondering what the "average" person does for the environment, and also whether this varies from country to country. So please tell me about your green lives! You can use the following scale for helping to grade yourself if you wish, though there are many more things you may be doing that aren't on it (do tell me about them!). Also, feel free to mention why you are green - Are you concerned about climate change? Are you trying to save money? All reasons are welcome!

0 - Don't do anything "green"
1 - Recycle paper/plastic/glass
(Is this government enforced or voluntary?)
2 - Switch off electrical things when you're not using them, try to keep heating low, try not to drive when not necessary/use public transport
3 - Grow some/all of your own produce or try to get locally-produced food.
4 - Try to be carbon neutral, either through offsetting programs (eg. British Airways have an offsetting programme for their flights) or through donations to conservation charities.
5 - Live in a green home/cave/wooden shack/tree and campaign against all threats to the environment!


Don't forget to mention which country you live in!
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13 Mar 2009, 13:36
.Love.Freely.
Post Count: 54
I live in the US.

We recycle. In fact, I would say 3/4 of the stuff we take to the dump (landfill) is recycling. It's completely voluntary and we have to take it ourselves. They don't just come pick it up for us like in a lot of places.

We also bought the most energy efficient refrigerator that we could afford and use nothing but energy saving light bulbs.

We also turn off lights and appliances/electronics when we leave a room. But that's also because we like to keep our electric bill as low as possible.

When we can afford it, we buy fruits/veggies from a local farmer's market store, though we shopw at Walmart (major retailers) a lot and they get their produce from local farmers a lot as well.

I try to drive in a manner that maximizes gas mileage and I also drive a vehicle that typically gets 30-34 miles per gallon. Not sure what that is in kilos/gallon.

Hubby and I also take showers together, which saves water. That's because it saves time for both of us, because it is good for the environment, and it keeps our heating bill down because we use 1/2 the hot water.

I also make sure I turn the faucet off while I brush my teeth.

I think that's about it. Oh yeah, and I majored in environmental science in college, but I've always been environmental conscious.
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13 Mar 2009, 13:39
Super Logica
Post Count: 148
You've lost me a bit there, what do you mean by dump (landfill)? If the rubbish is being put in a landfill, that is definitely not recycling!
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13 Mar 2009, 13:40
.Love.Freely.
Post Count: 54
our "dump" has a recycling center. it has about 6 HUGE green receptacles for putting your recycling.
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13 Mar 2009, 13:45
Super Logica
Post Count: 148
ahh, gotcha. We used to call them dumps (or tips) in England, but thanks to bureaucracy and paperpushing of the 21st century, they are now called Household Waste Recycling centres (HWRCs). Which really trips off the tongue...
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13 Mar 2009, 13:59
.Love.Freely.
Post Count: 54
yeah, that's a mouthful. I'm sure ours is called something ridiculous like that too. Like Waste Managment & Recycling Center. But I just call it the dump because I'm verbally lazy.
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13 Mar 2009, 20:27
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
No way?! I still call it the tip! What a load of bollocks!
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14 Mar 2009, 15:44
StaRRyEyDSupRiz
Post Count: 56
and i bet it's fun to "wake up" and have a little shower romp every morning!
that's another good reason- EXERCISE! hehehe
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13 Mar 2009, 13:39
.Love.Freely.
Post Count: 54
one more thing, I can't walk or take a bus to pretty much ANYWHERE because I live out in the rural part of our county. There aren't any bus lines where I live.
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13 Mar 2009, 20:29
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
We have no buses either! Very annoying! I take the train as I'm still learning to drive, and it's a nice smelly diesel one haha ;D I do prefer the electric trains though, since they are so much quicker.
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14 Mar 2009, 15:05
Transit
Post Count: 1096
There are 87 different bus routes in Stratford upon avon

http://www.carlberry.co.uk/rfnlistr.asp?L1=STR005&op=D&cp=2&srt=R
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14 Mar 2009, 16:02
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
Lol I don't live in Stratford, I live in Earlswood. Is on outskirts of Stratford.
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14 Mar 2009, 21:20
*just me*
Post Count: 30
I don't know how you cope living in Earlswood lol, it's so tiny and nothingyness apart from the water and houses lol. You definitely need to be able to drive living out there!! Trains are ok until you have to change trains lol.
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13 Mar 2009, 20:05
Doc
Post Count: 507
USA

1. Recycling is not mandatory by law where I live. We do it anyway just because the landfills are growing horribly fast.

2. We always turn off electrical stuff when not in immediate use. It saves on our electric bill! Same with driving... gas is horribly expensive. There is no decent public transport where I live and walking is out of the question when the nearest grocery store is 3 miles away.

3. Nope... never could grow plants. They would die in a week if I tried.

4. Huh?

5. Nope.


So... I would be a 2? Yay... I am a 2!!!!
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13 Mar 2009, 20:26
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
I live in the UK. We have to recycle some stuff, like plastic bottles, paper and tins, but we have a separate wheelie bin for it. I wouldn't go out of my way to do it though; I have more important things to worry about.
We also have a log burner instead of central heating, purely for the cost. Also, a fire is so much cooler than radiators. Although some places in England are 'smokeless zones' which is the biggest pile of shit I have heard in a long time. Thankfully my council (Stratford; Shakespeare county baby!) is cool with it ;)

Another thing that has come in over here is energy saving light bulbs - they give out harsh, sterile light, have been proved to cause headaches (they give me them), and they're just fucking shit. Edison would be rolling in his grave. If the government/EU really cared, why don't they make all the department stores turn off all their lights overnight, instead of enforcing something that is going to make little to no difference?

I am hardly green! I think I hate it so much because it's EVERYWHERE - on TV, internet, the news, papers etc and I have never liked being told what to do. It's my natural rebellious side.
Also, I don't think 'climate change' is anything to do with humans; I think it is just so typical of the human race to think we are the cause of everything.

But, that's another opinion for another day ;)
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14 Mar 2009, 13:01
Super Logica
Post Count: 148
Lol, yes it is for another day (RE: "I don't think 'climate change' is anything to do with humans"). Don't you come on my thread telling people that climate change isn't real! Haha, seriously though... umm. Well. Yeah. Have held back on commenting on this before, and should perhaps do so again now!

Mostly agree with you on the energy saving light bulbs though. The government wouldn't have to force us to use them if they were actually better, or equal to, standard light bulbs. I don't like them. However, if you get headaches from the energy-saving light bulbs you can still use halogen light bulbs, which aren't being phased out.

Of course, there is the whole environmental issue regarding energy-saving light bulbs too, since they contain mercury and are therefore unsafe to dispose of...
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14 Mar 2009, 13:16
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
Haha yes we shall stay quiet on the subject... shall save my ranting for Facebook groups ;D

Well we have a lot of weird light shades in this house and you can't get energy saving bulbs to fit them, so thankfully the other day my mom went to Wilkinson's and bought a whole shelf load of regular ones :D

It's just the government want to be seen to do something, so instead of tackling things like big companies, they will bully the humble house owner instead!
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14 Mar 2009, 12:23
Mojo Jojo
Post Count: 278
I'm in the UK, as you know :p

I recycle most household waste (I don't compost though). This is because the council threaten me with fines if I don't recycle, lol. If I didn't have a recycling bin, I probably wouldn't. I always use public transport because I can't drive. I much prefer local food, my FIL is a farmer so I get a lot of locally produced potatoes! I've just switched my heating from oil to electric. This is to try and save money rather than the world's dwindling oil supplies. My husband's a wind turbine engineer, which is a peculiarly dangerous job in this area as everyone is SO anti-turbines. I never leave things switched on unnecessarily, apart from the fridge. We trust the fridge!

xx

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14 Mar 2009, 13:07
Super Logica
Post Count: 148
hahaha, is that a Michael McIntyre joke I see? I always get him confused with Eddie Izzard. Very similar style of comedy.

While restraining myself regarding climate change denial (acid fairy's reply), I will just state that if I was ruler of the world NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) opposing wind farms would get shot - no trial, no 11th hour pardon. Straight outside and against the wall.

I really hate nimbys, as you can probably tell. lol. Wind farms are great anyway.
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14 Mar 2009, 13:19
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
Lol it is Michael McIntyre.. I saw him in November, was fucking ace!!
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14 Mar 2009, 14:51
Mojo Jojo
Post Count: 278
It is indeed McIntyre, and how I laugh whenever I hear that joke...
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14 Mar 2009, 13:18
Acid Fairy
Post Count: 1849
Ooh I read a great thing online once about how wind turbines use more energy to construct than they will EVER make themselves. It was brilliant!

Also, they are ugly.

HAHA we trust the fridge - but not the TV :D
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14 Mar 2009, 13:23
Super Logica
Post Count: 148
That's true about their use of energy during construction, but technically it's also true of any other kind of power source construction. Even if a power station produces in an hour the amount of energy used to construct it (which I don't think they do), they aren't producing say, oil, which was used to drive the vehicles that took the construction materials to the site anyway. Technically you'll not get the energy used to build any kind of construction back afterwards so I feel it's a bit of a irrelevant argument.
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14 Mar 2009, 14:50
Mojo Jojo
Post Count: 278
That's fortunately untrue. They make enough energy to 'pay' for themselves in five years - at least the ones my husband works on do, although older ones are less efficient. They last around 25 years and it takes around 3 months to make the energy that it would have used to build them. This is from the er 'horses' mouth, lol. He's still ranting, lol...

I don't think they're as ugly as a nuclear power station :p

I kind of agree with the climate change being inevitable. There's been several ice ages etc without much human interference.
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14 Mar 2009, 14:28
lithium layouts.
Post Count: 836
Australia! I live with my family of 6 (4 kids -I'm the oldest at 22 - and 2 parents).

We recycle - it's voluntary here. I'm a bit anal with recycling. xD I'll go to the trouble of separating things out if I see them awry.

We're a bit bad at switching off things when we're not using them. There's always a computer or two that's on 24/7, and we often leave phone chargers and things plugged in all the time. But we're pretty good at turning off lights when not using them. And if I had the choice, I'd probably do without heating/air conditioning (except in really cold winters) but my family seems to like running the air conditioner in summer. Thankfully it's Autumn now, so our house is air conditioning-free.

We grow some of our own herbs, but that's as far as it goes. I don't do the shopping so I don't know if what we buy is locally produced, but I'm inclined to think that most, if not all, of it is. We buy our fresh food from major shopping centres.

I turn off the tap when brushing my teeth, and try to have short showers. My showers average 8 minutes. xD (If I'm washing my hair though it's more like 15 minutes.) We're pretty good with water, and that's probably due to the fact that Australia is quite water-conscious, since we're prone to droughts and bushfires.

I catch public transport to and from uni, and try to use it wherever possible. Or, I walk!

I have been environmentally/energy conscious ever since I was a young'un - the idea of living in a polluted world frightened me. Now, I think it's just the sensible thing to do. Once you spend energy, it's lost forever. And same goes for the environment. But at the same time, governmental policies that place the environment over, like, the direct wellbeing of people should be approached with caution.

As for the whole 'climate change' thing... the Earth definitely does experience natural cyclical time periods of heating/cooling. But in this case I think that human activity is making the change more extreme than it otherwise would have been. If that makes sense?
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