Just curious - how "crunchy" are you?

Pretty crunchy I think, but always room for improvement

until a few weeks ago my job was pretty crunchy - renewable energy strategy...
still breastfeeding
use a sling almost always rather than pushchair (although I never even considered this to be crunchy )
have (rented) our own field for veg, fruit and chickens
eat locally produced food where possible
try to minimise electricity use, use the wood burner where possible
try not to buy too much crap
just started using CSP
use reusable breast pads, and nappies obviously
use dogs for using up leftovers
make own compost for garden
use a waterbutt for field
buy A rated appliances and energy saving lightbulbs
pretty much stopped travelling by air
order groceries by internet
avoid using conventional medicines where poss (me and Antonia anyway, DH is not convinced!)
we don't own a tumble dryer or a dishwasher
Don't buy much new baby clothes (I think I've bought maybe 8 items for Antonia - everything else is second hand)
Recycle glass, paper etc
send unloved stuff to freecycle and charity shops
do a lot of voluntary work for local RSPCA

Our biggest downfall at the moment is car travel - it would take an hour or so to walk to the nearest bus stop so we have to use the cars for everything

ETA: OMG I've just seen how much I've typed I know I'm guilty of waffling sometimes, but seriously, don't feel like you need to read all this. In summary, I think we're pretty crunchy but we fall down due to having two cars. Really that's all I needed to say!!

I know we can do more, as our house is drafty, poorly insulated and has two ancient boilers and inefficient central heating system. But remedying all that costs more money than we have right now. In the meantime our crunchy/eco list includes:

- cloth nappies (not wipes but buy eco wipes, use eco disposables if they're ever needed)
- csp
- breastfed Connor til I was pg with Finn and my nips got too sensitive, breastfed Finn til he self-weaned
- tried cloth breast pads but really didn't get on with them and had to move on to paper ones
- recycle, including taking tetrapaks to be recycled as they can't be included with our recyclable waste here. I get very annoyed with packaging with silly recycling statements like 'plastic film recyclable, label sorry not recyclable yet'. So you try to peel the label off and find it doesn't come off. I cut it off and then put the plastic in the recycling but it's hardly a way of encouraging people to recycle more!
- compost food scraps
- grew our first veg last summer in the form of a few runner beans, will try to do better this year
- water butt
- I'm vegetarian but dh and boys aren't
- buy local/British where possible, I do buy veg from overseas but if there's a choice, for example, between English apples and those grown overseas I'll buy the local ones. Was disappointed a couple of days ago to only find French cauliflower in our local Morrisons, when it's a crop that's in season in the UK at the moment
- buy free range eggs and chicken, fairtrade bananas and coffee and organic if there isn't much in it pricewise but unfortunately we can't afford to buy organic all the time
- have cloth, jute and reusable plastic carrier bags
- don't use small plastic bags when shopping for veg, I just annoy checkout staff by letting them deal with half a dozen carrots and onions rolling around as they try to weigh them
- I'm currently trying to avoid chocolate that lists veg oil in the ingredients as more often than not it's palm oil, and to meet the demand for it huge areas of uran utang habitat are being destroyed for plantations. At first it was a good way to give up chocolate, but now I seem to be making it my mission to discover chocolate that I'll allow myself to eat
- use some eco and some non-eco cleaning products
- don't have a dishwasher or tumble dryer
- don't use clingfilm
- buy books from charity shops and give unwanted books back to them
- use energy saving lightbulbs, although like Steph I thought everyone did these days!

We really fall down on cars. Dh has a commute of an hour which wouldn't be possible by public transport, and I still have my car which primarily I used to commute but I gave up work nearly four years ago. I'd say I do no more than about 30 miles a week as I mostly walk to our local shops but I can't quite bring myself to give up the flexibility of having it there if I want it.

So could do better, but I think we're going in the right direction.

Amanda, there's nothing wrong with still having your car if you don't use it much - it's far worse if you use it a lot!

I will get in the car to go to Chapel Allerton for a coffee because I like Caffe nero better than Costa

we don't do anywhere near what we should but i always think its better than nothing will edit 2morro when i cna think lol

[clothmama]

From what I understand actually having a dishwasher is more environmental than not having one! We have a new Bocsh one and it uses something like 4.5 litres of water - I would use at least double that to wash up and need to do it twice a day - therefore using more like 20 litres a day heated in a much less efficient manner Again it is being sensible and running on the most efficient cycle (not necessarily the shortest - our quick cycle uses more energy and water than a regular cycle!), only running it when full and at night if you have cheaper electric etc. and of course buying it and keeping it for a long time not replacing it every 2 years just to have the newest shiniest model! That is why we went with a Bocsh as even though it was double the price of a basic one it should do us a good many years and if it does break down hopefully be fixable and worth fixing!

From what I understand actually having a dishwasher is more environmental than not having one! We have a new Bocsh one and it uses something like 4.5 litres of water - I would use at least double that to wash up and need to do it twice a day - therefore using more like 20 litres a day heated in a much less efficient manner Again it is being sensible and running on the most efficient cycle (not necessarily the shortest - our quick cycle uses more energy and water than a regular cycle!), only running it when full and at night if you have cheaper electric etc. and of course buying it and keeping it for a long time not replacing it every 2 years just to have the newest shiniest model! That is why we went with a Bocsh as even though it was double the price of a basic one it should do us a good many years and if it does break down hopefully be fixable and worth fixing!

WSS, i wouldnt be without our dishwasher and when hubby temporarliy broke it a couple of weeks ago i realised just how much water I would use washing up multiple times a day

Call me completly un-crunchy but there is no way I would have cloth wipes for everyone in the house...in my VERY honist opinion that is a step too far for me

does anyone know if you can compost animal waste like hay and stray when you clean out dorr pets out ?

From what I understand actually having a dishwasher is more environmental than not having one! We have a new Bocsh one and it uses something like 4.5 litres of water - I would use at least double that to wash up and need to do it twice a day - therefore using more like 20 litres a day heated in a much less efficient manner Again it is being sensible and running on the most efficient cycle (not necessarily the shortest - our quick cycle uses more energy and water than a regular cycle!), only running it when full and at night if you have cheaper electric etc. and of course buying it and keeping it for a long time not replacing it every 2 years just to have the newest shiniest model! That is why we went with a Bocsh as even though it was double the price of a basic one it should do us a good many years and if it does break down hopefully be fixable and worth fixing!

WSS, i wouldnt be without our dishwasher and when hubby temporarliy broke it a couple of weeks ago i realised just how much water I would use washing up multiple times a day

Call me completly un-crunchy but there is no way I would have cloth wipes for everyone in the house...in my VERY honist opinion that is a step too far for me

We researched before getting a dishwasher and found the same, with 5 of us, washing dishes 3 times a day would just be silly, heating and using that much water to wash and rinse. We too went for a Bosch machine and although we've had a problem with it in the past, we managed to fix it ourselves.

We use cloth wipes for most things, cleaning, nose blowing and as I use more toilet paper than the rest of the house (wiping for wee not just poo!) I use it for just that. I draw the line at washing wipes for 5 bottoms though, I'm not quite *that* crunchy

Shadow, have you tried un-kitchen roll (or whatever it's called...)? I've seen it on HyenaCart and would like to make my own but reckon the snaps would scratch surfaces. I could just make a pile of big wipes I guess, but quite like the idea of keeping it on a kitchen roll stand; i think it would get used more.