Letters page

We love to hear from you, whether it's your views on our articles, thoughts for the newsletters or something green you would like to share with us.

Shampoo article

I have used FiN shampoo exclusively for the last two years. Over the Christmas holidays, my family visited and they all mentioned how my hair was shiny and ‘magnificent'. They used to tell me off for my matte, sad, unattractive hair, so that was a fantastic change of tune on their part!

Now, I perfectly understand that shampoo won't alter the fabric of your hair but since I switched to FiN, the only thing that has changed has been the shampoo so I will attribute the afore-mentioned success to Faith in Nature. With many thanks.

I cannot end this message without praising everybody involved with the BGI newsletter as it provides a lovely few minutes of information, easily legible and usually ‘spot on'.
Kindest regards,
Anne, Devon

Renewable energy

I wanted to say how interesting I found your newsletter again! I was particularly interested in the ‘Do you know what you are wearing?' article, as I have bought both organic cotton and fairtrade products from Nepal! I'll be going for British wool, hemp and bamboo from now on, since they weren't mentioned as being bad! I also found SolarBud's article about the solar backup system very interesting. It's really great to see how other people are making a difference and taking renewable energy production into their own hands. I made a similar, but much smaller scale system a couple of years ago to power my bedroom. However, since then I have had a change of heart about such systems from an environmental and financial point of view...

My first problem with off grid systems is the number of batteries required to produce a useful amount of power. Batteries are most certainly not a good thing from an environmental point of view, should be used sparingly and need replacing every 5 years or so.

Also PV has an inherently long payback period, usually at least 12 years. Large scale wind turbines, on the other hand, have a much shorter payback; more like 3 years. This means that, in theory, you could re-invest the initial amount in wind power every three years, meaning that you will potentially be generating more than four times as much renewable energy after a 12 year period than with solar.

My final point, and this might be a slightly contentious one, is that small scale renewable generation is inherently inefficient. The reason is simply economies of scale, when 100 people club together and decide to build a community renewable project, like a large wind turbine, or a large PV installation on the roof of a community centre, they will get better value for money than if 100 people individually installed renewables on their homes.

I am currently a member of two community renewable co-ops, Westmill Wind Farm and the Fens Wind Farm. These are both part of the energy4all co-operative, which promotes the setting up of community renewable projects (http://www.energy4all.co.uk). This allows you to put more renewable energy into the national grid than you use, and saves the hassle, and risk of having a power plant installed in your own home.

And the bottom line: I invested £2000 into these co-ops. I will shortly receive £400 back from the government. Therefore I have spent £1,600, which should provide all of my power needs for the next 25 years! Not bad value in my opinion.

Best wishes,
Sam, Bucks

Note: This is obviously a subject Sam feels passionately about, so we asked her to write an article about community renewables. Look out for it in next month's newsletter!

Ecobutton Review

Regarding the Ecobutton - how much embodied energy is in it? Does it actually save any carbon at all when the amount of energy taken to manufacture and distribute it is taken into consideration? And what is wrong with using the sleep function that virtually all computers already have?

Sorry to be a killjoy but sounds like a waste of precious resources to me!

Smiles,
Josef, London

As this was a technical question, we asked Ecobutton directly. Here is their response:

‘We are currently working on the carbon footprint of the ecobutton^TM, this task is extremely complex as there is no consistent formula either business or government based as to how many factors should be included. We endeavour to minimise our production and our direct distribution (we have many suppliers & distributors) carbon footprint wherever possible.

In answer to using the sleep function, the ecobutton^TM ensures that your PC is always using the most efficient sleep mode available, which is not always the case with the sleep function of your PC, typically from the worst to the best can be a difference of more than 70W'S (dependent on the individual PC).

The ecobutton^TM is as much about habit change as it is about saving money, research tells us the green button encourages the user to use it even for the quick breaks away from the PC.

The ‘ecoscreen' shows the user how much they can potentially save by using it regularly and feedback tells us that these users are much more conscious of their energy usage.

We don't claim to have re-invented the wheel, we are just trying to help users to help themselves become more energy aware and to save them some of their hard earned cash in the process!'

Regards, Wayne

Common Land Answer

Although many of the statements are popularly believed to be true, they are all false except number 8. Just to add to the confusion, the laws and regulations applying to commons can vary from one area to another!

Many commons have public access and provide an invaluable amenity for walkers, wildlife and local communities. It doesn't have to be a warm, sunny day, as our picture shows! Why not go and investigate the wonderful riches to be discovered on your local commons? Your local Council should be able to provide information about them.

Nick

www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/protected-areas/common-land/about.htm
www.malvernhills.org.uk/
www.bansteadcommonsconservators.org/

Nick is a Banstead Commons Conservator and will be writing more about this project in next month's newsletter.

photo (c) Nick 2009