sustainablelivingproject.co.uk

Welcome to my sustainable living project, my name is Goo. The sustainable living project mostly takes place here at this little lock-keepers cottage on the canal. To get regular up dates please visit the blog. It is a place that has forced us to think a little differently, to think sustainably, about the way in which we use resources.

Pretty though it looks, there is nothing here to even hint at the modern comfort we’ve all become used to. There is no mains electricity here and certainly no mains gas. There is no mains water supply and no mains sewerage. Perhaps most importantly, there is no road access to the property, this tends to complicate things more than anything else – think about it – no doorstep deliveries, no refuse collection, every bulky item we buy entails a major logistics operation and it’s really hard to persuade workmen and builders, even at a price, to come and do stuff. (And nice shoes are a thing of the past!)

But my programme of sustainable living is not just about this place. Sustainable living is not about where you live, but how you live and most importantly how you think. Believe me, once you start thinking sustainably it’s hard to stop. Small incremental changes soon gather their own momentum and you wonder how you could ever have been so profligate.

I am no eco-saint, my sins range from buying strawberries from Egypt in the middle of January, to driving pathetically short distances in my car and continually forgetting to take reusable bags when I go shopping. I’ve done much better since starting my sustainable living project, but from a personal perspective life has become more interesting, more fun and more rewarding.

What on earth is this? Click image for more!

I’d like to think that wherever I lived, even a small urban flat with no garden, that I would still be growing herbs and bee friendly flowers in a window box. Maybe I would have an allotment or take up Guerrilla Gardening. I hope I would still be cleaning my house with vinegar and bicarbonate of soda and checking out all the latest eco-friendly cleaning products. I would be reducing, reusing, recycling. Where there are consumer choices to be made I hope they would be thoughtful ones, like buying from the Pants to Poverty range by Gossypium. I would be careful with my water and electricity consumption, maybe switch to a green energy company and unlike people who choose to live in the middle of nowhere, I could probably catch a bus!

 So what do we have here, besides a bill free existence? We have an 18 kilowatt generator, a Trace inverter and a bank of twelve forklift truck batteries, I’ll talk about these in more detail in later posts. In addition to this, we have a kerosene fired Rayburn which heats water and some upstairs radiators. There are two fireplaces downstairs. There is a hole in the ground out of which comes reasonably clear looking water, it is pumped into the house via some filters and it exits into a septic tank. The house stands on a third of an acre of land. To use the word ‘garden’ would be misleading, it is a north-facing slope struggling to be seen under the sort of brambles normally reserved for imprisoning princesses who can’t get out of bed.

The first aim of the Sustainable Living Project is to make better use of all of this. It is going to require some effort, a lot of research and at times probably some major investments. It won’t be a weekend makeover I’m afraid, so bear with us. My second aim is to convince others that sustainable living is both achievable and desirable, it’s about doing things better and enjoying life more in the process.

Find out how much we’ve actually got done with the regular post updates.