Seven Days

Whooo-hooo, I'm Hugg-able again, and this time my Hugg has even been fronted on the Treehugger site.

What am I talking about? The Hugg site is a new user-initiated eco-news service, where you can submit stories seen in the online media or blogs, and then earn merit points ("huggs") by other Hugg members with hopefully enough points to float to the featured Hugg page.

Yesterday, I submitted this story from the UK's Independent newspaper on easy starting points to green your habits and lifestyle, provided by Donnachadh McCarthy (author and environmental auditor). I was grateful to get enough huggs to float to the feature page, but I just discovered that the sibling Treehugger site has included it in their postings. I'm well chuffed.

Anyhoo, McCarthy's article notes the "seven deadly eco sins" (transport, energy, water, waste, work, pollution, and food) and then provides suggestions on tackling those "sins" bit by bit over the course of 7 days. Here's the prescription for the first day:

Transport - Book your car in for a service today to ensure it is running at top efficiency.

Water - Have a shower today and not a bath. A shower uses about 25 litres of water, whereas a bath uses from 80 litres upwards. Get rid of the power shower if you have one.

Energy - Write out a pledge to yourself and date it, resolving never to leave the lights or heating on in rooms that you are not using. (It costs nothing, but is the most effective way of slashing your bills.)

Food - If you are not vegetarian, go veggie for the week - but buy an organic roast for a special treat on Sunday. If you are already vegetarian, try having a vegan meal (ie without dairy or egg products) once a day for the week.

Waste - Place a spare plastic shopping bag into your bag before you leave the house today and enjoy counting the number of bags you are able to refuse as you go shopping through the week.

Work - If you work in an air-conditioned office, see if you can use natural ventilation instead by opening doors and windows that allow a natural air circulation. Alternatively, experiment with the controls to see what is the highest temperature you are comfortable with. Every degree lower of cooling uses up to 10 per cent extra energy.

Pollution - Start eliminating noxious chemicals from your home, buychemical-free natural washing-up and laundry liquids from your health store.

Give it a full read and consider putting some of these suggestions into action for yourself. Here's our scorecard for Day 1 at Cracks Centraal:

Transport - Brought the car in last week for an oil change; currently averaging about 33 MPG in Gunter Grass, our '91 Honda Civic.

Water - No baths around here, and we've been using one of the best (and most affordable) low-flow shower heads for years.

Energy - We're already very conscious about extraneous lights in rooms not being used.

Food - We go veggie here at Cracks Centraal, and I suppose I can give up the cheese for a day.

Waste - I keep loads of cloth shopping bags in Gunter for our grocery trips.

Work - Got the best air conditioning money can't buy - a cool Seattle breeze coming through the windows.

Pollution - As per Mrs. F, all noxious cleansers have been banned for some time.