5 DAY REVIEW

Throughout the past 5 days I have been conscious about my impact on the environment and have been looking for more way I can reduce my personal and household carbon footprints. The life I lead has generally a low offset however it still exceeds the amount it needs to be in order to achieve sustainable living. The biggest offsets come from vehicle usage. I need to cut down the amount of driving I do and bike more often or use other means such as hitching. In my household the largest offset is the power used. Being a big house with many lights we must make an effort not to have too many on at the same time.

Areas we have improved:

• Less showers and use of hot water
• Less usage of vehicles and biking more
• Less lights left on
• Cooking together/shopping together
• Using less water in washing machine
• Not using dishwasher
• Eating vegetarian

Areas with improvements needed:

• Buying locally grown produce
• Still less use of vehicles
• More bike commuting
• Turning off appliances
• Use less lights
• Less clothes washing
• Start a vegetable garden

FRIDAY 21ST AUGUST

Today I hitched into polytech. This is an easy and cheap way to travel whilst not effecting the environment any more than it would be. Some of my flat mates rode their bikes in today which is good to see. Later in the day I had to drive around for a couple of hours though to collect kayaks which increased my carbon emissions. However this could not have been avoided. Later I helped run an abseiling session which was environmentally friendly because it got a group of people outside for a few hours where they didn't need to use power. Another thing I've been doing is making bread the past few nights which cuts down on the amount of food we need to buy. Only thing is that it uses electricity to power the bread maker for 3 hours each time so I'm not sure if its environmentally friendly or not...... Have not had a shower for the past couple of days but have not needed to as I have not been doing much physical activity.

THURSDAY 20TH AUGUST

Our flat agreed that we should cut down the use of the heat pump because it so not very cost efficient. It requires a lot of energy to heat the living area. We managed to get about 2 square cubic metres of wood for free from some people with a farm that my flat mates know. The catch was we needed to drive to Gore to collect it. Since then however we have used the heat pump minimally and have used the fireplace on colder nights. This is a much more efficient way of heating the house. I also decided to look at how much water our washing machine takes to fill. With a wash half full it took more than four buckets to cover the clothes. I then decided that it would be a good idea to fill the machine using the bucket and tap so we could use a lesser amount and only use cold water on a short wash cycle.

WEDNESDAY 19TH AUGUST

Today I rode into polytech and back again with two of my flat mates. I tried to get a communal flat ride in but not everyone could today. I have decided to experiment with some home made cleaning products so combined vinegar baking soda and a small amount of liquid soap to use as toilet cleaner. This worked a treat, just as good as something you buy from the shop only its much better for the environment and cheaper. Since I have come back from tramping I have had two showers. I have also tried to persuade my flat mates to have shorter and less showers. We don't seem to go through very much LPG gas for our hot water so this isn't much of an issue.

TUESDAY 18TH AUGUST

Back from the Silver peaks tramping trip and into civilisation again. This means more commuting via car and using electricity. Back at my house my flat has bought the weekly shopping from New World which is not such a good way to support local produce. They have however bought some organic pumpkins and a bag of apples from some local orchard in Roxburugh. All this weeks food is vegetarian and a large amount is fresh veggies. This means less packaging. The compost bin has begun to overflow and so will need a new hole dug for the food scraps.

MONDAY 24TH AUGUST

Problem areas of my house hold:

• Very large living area takes a lot of energy to heat using heat pump.


• Lots of lights in the house that are not energy efficient.


• Large washing machine requires lots of water to fill


• Lots of vehicles


• Most of food bought is from super market i.e. New World, Countdown.


• Use cars for recreational activities i.e. kayaking.

Areas which are good but can be improved:

• Use LPG gas to cook and heat water.


• Compost food scraps.


• Recycle or re use containers/jars/bottles.


• Generally create little rubbish for big house hold- 1 DCC bag every two weeks.


• Use the fire to heat home.


• Car pool.


• Ride bikes to commute.


• Cook and buy food together.


• Buy mostly vegetarian food.


• Make our own bread.

Today am going tramping over night. Apart form the mileage of driving to the Silver Peaks this is a good start to reducing my CO2 offset. Ways I can achieve this whilst out tramping are sharing cooking gas and cookers with people and cooking together. Ensure all my rubbish is taken out with me and disposed of in the correct way. I will not be using any power for the next 36 hours, no showers and only two vehicles will be used.

CARBON FOOTPRINT

I live in a large house with 6 people in Sawyers Bay. Out of the 6, 4 of us own cars and between all of us there are 8 bikes. Our house is very large and takes a lot of energy to heat.

• My carbon footprint for the last 12 months equals 3.89 tonnes CO2.
• The average New Zealand person is about 7.8 tonnes CO2 per year.
• In order to achieve sustainable living we much offset 2 tonnes per year.

Over the next five days I will monitor ways in which my household and myself can reduce the CO2 emissions.