Home, Dry... and Green!

They say that moving house is the most stressful event of your life, coming third to the death of a loved one and divorce. After moving two teenogres, one husband, four cats and one goldfish from Dover to Cornwall, I must confess I agree. It is only after a four-week settling-in period that I am starting to draw a few wonderfully clean breaths of Cornish air and remember why we decided to move in the first place.

So, in this stress-filled and eventful time, many regular things fall by the wayside, especially if they are not always viewed as a priority. Why bother with recycling and composting when you have to do battle with the gas company, the water board, the council tax chaps, removal men, estate agents, banks, solicitors...and so on? Not to mention unpacking, assembling furniture and setting up broadband on laptops to unleash the teenogres back into their social networking world so you can get on with all the other tasks.

I must admit that I like to think of myself as pretty green but after a never-ending seven-hour journey across southern England with extremely vocal cats, who made their displeasure known in a way that would offend the strongest of stomachs, recycling and composting were the last things on my mind. However, after a good night's sleep, whilst still somewhat exhausted and decidedly cranky, I found that I couldn't bring myself to throw anything recyclable away. Just couldn't do it. It felt wrong. So I improvised. Throwing something into a recycling box is no different from throwing something into a bin bag. So my impromptu recycling system involved many now-empty plastic packing boxes lined up outside the kitchen door, a used ice-cream carton and a bucket.

Hardly high-tech, I hear you cry, but effective nonetheless! The ice-cream carton sat by the kitchen sink and held all my vegetable peelings, tea bags etc. The bucket held the overflow from the carton, pending the arrival of my compost bin. And the plastic boxes held paper, cardboard (of which there was a lot!), plastic bottles, cans and glass bottles. Simple.

On my first trip out I invested in a compost bin. Ideally I would have built one from recycled wood but at the moment I just don't have the time or the energy. At least it was made out of recycled plastic. I discovered some very cheap energy-efficient light bulbs (buy a pack of two for 29p and get two packs free - can't complain at that). I also phoned the council to find out about the recycling collections and request a black box and blue bag.

Four weeks on, my compost bin is already overflowing thanks to the rather long grass we inherited, my black box and blue bag are full and waiting for collection day (which I missed first time round - oops), my light bulbs are saving me money each time I turn them on and my little ice-cream container is still doing a sterling job by the kitchen sink.

So being green doesn't have to be difficult or expensive and even at the most testing of times it can be doable. All sorts of constraints mean that not everybody can build solar panels or wind turbines but we can all recycle and compost. It involves very little effort, minimal expense and really makes a difference. Even in a rented house, like ours, where your green wings are very much tied, it is still possible to find ways round things. Our landlord has just agreed to a vegetable patch, the next thing I need to ask for is chickens! Fingers crossed he says yes!

Jo

top 2 photos (c) Salena Walker 2009 

chicken photo (c) Simon Hodge 2009