Archive of posts filed in ‘At Home’

Rubbish!

Waste, waste and more waste!! Today really had us thinking in the office when a group of us went to island waste on the isle of wight to see what happens to all of our rubbish on the island, and where it ends up?

Continue reading…

Plastic bottles - re-fill

I was sitting in a busy cafe the other day full of commuters. I made a few interesting observations… One was that you could have your drink in a mug which in my opinion always tastes a bit better anyway, and certainly as the winter draws in it makes you think of being back at home after working outside, holding the sides of a mug with your cold hands to warm them up again.

Also available in the same cafe were disposable cups and just watching the number which were being collected from the tables in one cafe, in one hour was incredible.. My mind boggled as I day-dreamed of just how many cups that was, when multiplied by every cafe in the world just how many stadiums must be filled on an hourly, or is it on a minute basis!?

Continue reading…

Jam jars

Well I have a huge amount to communicate right now after a few weeks of many varied activities!

I was just taking some glass jam jars to the bottle bank when my brain started churning. I was throwing the jam jars into the bank, hearing each be smash.put made me think how incredibly wasteful it is to break up a jar when it will then be melted a huge expense of energy, and most likely be made into jars again!

Why oh why, can’t we have 10 or 20 designs of jam jars which can be washed and reused without being broken and remade?

Paper…

It’s been a very full-on few weeks for us, what with Skandia Cowes Week, and then a few days of escaping!

Cowes Week was fantastic for us with loads of guests, loads of sailing, and an incredible iShares Cup.

Since Cowes Week it’s been great to take a few days off and get out and about. I headed west to Devon and Cornwall and spent some time seeing friends. It’s easy to forget just how beautiful the countryside is in the UK. What with Dartmoor, the farmland and the beautiful coastal harbours.

Continue reading…

Fathoming out building principles!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of research over the last year into sustainable and basically sensible buildings.

Learning about the different principles, and the way you can build either a wooden house with masses of insulation which has low thermal mass, or a brick, stone or concrete house, with masses of insulation resulting in high thermal mass.

Continue reading…