Cold outside...

[franceslievens]

The heating keeps it nice and warm inside, except on warm-sweater-day, when we collectively put the thermostat two centigrades lower and put on a warm woolen jumper to make it through the day. Yesterday I found myself confronted with the announcement that not only would the heating be turned down, but there were warm-sweater-day-activities between 9 and 10. Activities I didn't know about, so I did prepare lessons for that hour, but who complains when the substitute of teaching is hot soup and aerobics to get warm. Although warm-sweater-day was installed as a day of awareness for the energy we spend with just heating giant buildings like schools, the teachers do a good job of linking broad ecological awareness with healthy food and exercise. The kids loved it: drank their soup, jumped around like loons at the signal of their gym teacher, and generaly got way too hot, because most of them were wearing not one, but two or sometimes three warm sweaters. I don't think anyone got cold on warm-sweater-day, and according to the newspaper such a day does save energy and money. I don't have a thermostat to turn lower, because the building I live in gets heated by one big furnace in the cellar. We use low-energy bulbs and are starting to isolate the appartment where we can to reduce our energy costs and our CO2-emission. What measures do you take out of ecological awareness?

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

It was so mild this week until Thursday (Spring-mild and sunny) and now it's getting really cold.

I don't take many ecological measures besides selective sorting of waste and walking or using public transport instead of driving a car.

Oh and I try not lo leave things, like telly or computer, in sleep mode.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

You don't own your appartment, so you can't really improve it. Those are costs the landlord should do.

Sleep mode is something we should improve. Things like the stereo and the dvd-player simply don't come with a decent off-switch, so we have resigned to pulling the plug when we go to bed.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

We're Germans, we take this stuff seriously... ;-)

Recycling is mandatory, but we're better at it than our neighbours who think the 50m walk to the bottlebank is too far and throw glass into the bins.

We own two cars, so we've got to compensate for that. We try to use the car only for longer journeys, but sometimes when it's raining hard we use it to do our grocery shopping...

We can regulate the heating individually in every room and we don't like it too warm anyway. My parents usually have about 22C in their living room and that's sweltering!

We've got low energy lightbulbs and have saved a lot of money that way - they don't break and they definitely use a lot less energy.

We used to have an old fridge and when that broke we bought a new one which isn't the highest energysaving standard but a lot better than the old one.

To solve the sleep mode problem the boyfriend built in an extra switch between the plug and the tapedeck and we also use those multiple socket things that have got a switch, so you just switch off the socket and bingo, the television is properly switched off and the dvdplayer as well.

When we moved in, there was a tumbledryer in the appartment but we've stopped using that, because we can dry our washing in the communal drying space in the attic.

We've got our own shopping bags, so we don't have to buy plastic bags for our shopping. (I used to get such odd looks in England for that.)

It's all very simple stuff.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I think recycling is mandatory from the EU. We're very good at it as well.

I do most of the things you do as well, but I do use the tumbledryer that came with the new appartment. It's sole purpose being to dry the sheets, cos before it took ages. It'll stop being used once the weather is a bit warmer and I can dry everything outside on the clothes line.