Sunday 8 February 2009

Its Not Easy Being Green - St Ives Style



Am I the only one who has been extremely irritated by parts of the new series of Its Not Easy Being Green on the BBC ?

The first episode featured installation of solar panels - at a cost of £15,000.

This was followed by a project to refurbish a house along "green" lines. When asked their budget the couple there said £100,000 !

If I had fifteen grand in cash to spare I would also find it easy to be green. If I had a hundred grand it would be even easier.

These people obviously live in what I call "BBC Land" (aka Islington).
An ideal and politically correct world where all is good under New Labour.

I don't have anything like that sort of money - like most people who don't work for a bank or have a nice job at the BBC.

I'm particularly irritated because we've been "green" (as far as is possible) in a practical rather than political sense for ages. We recycle, use low energy bulbs (now compulsory) and generally do our best.

In particular I now collect loads of green waste from The Western Hotel every week and dump it in my compost bins. There is so much from that one source that I can't handle any more.

Given the number of food outlets in St Ives there must be tons of this stuff going into landfill.

In Germany (have friends there) most towns have a town compost heap and I think that they use technology like anaerobic digestion - so you don't just end up with a stinking heap of waste. This may seem a daft idea - but it could do a lot for the environment. Where to put it ? How about The Island Car Park - a far better use of the space.

St Ives Green Party take note. I believe that you're the largest party on the town council but we haven't seen a lot of progress - other than the excellent Farmers Market. While you're at it - could you get on to Penwith District Council about their poor excuse for a recycling scheme.

1 comment:

  1. If you need £15K to be green then we are all screwed!

    But what's the point anyway if we're all cutting back but manufacturers, mining ops, fuel producers carry on like literally there no tomorrow? London's full of four-wheel drives. Why?

    BTW, all our raw waste food goes into the compost bin except for citrus because this repels the worms.

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