Skip to main content

Can we be green AND have a car?

The product reviews are on their way tomorrow... but first, we have one HUGE new product review - a car.

I'm so ashamed!

But I've been carless for about 6 years now and, man, it felt good to get out of London and not be fleeced by the train companies. For American readers, train tickets here are about 4-5x more expensive than in the states. And gas is about $7/gallon. They get you every which way in the old UK! There's one man somewhere on this island sitting on a huge stack of gold...

Our car is a Spanish Seat and it gets about 40MPG highway, 30 city. Not great but not terrible. I pushed for something compact with way better fuel consumption but the Mr. found our green list cars to be wimpy drives. And he was getting aggravated by the never-ending requirements--especially since he does the majority of the driving as I have yet to figure out how the hell to get round a round-a-bout in London without having a nervous breakdown.

We had a tight budget and were only looking at second hand cars. The most green one that we both loved the look of was a Honda Insight but there was only one used for sale in the ENTIRE country and it only sat 2 people and was a fortune for a 2nd hand car.

So with super green cars out of our price range or too mushy for the man, I had to do something to compromise. So a 5 year old clean burning Spanish set of wheels it is.

Though, we've agreed our next purchase, when we've got more car dosh, and more need for a car (i.e. if we ever leave London and move to the countryside) will be a super green model. We're waiting for Honda and Toyota to get use something green, nippy and affordable.

The worst part about now having said car is I can feel the LA girl in me coming out and suddenly I want a ride everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

To be continued...

Comments

Anonymous said…
congrats on the wheels. i hear you on the guilt front.

found this product link on bio-plastic bags. it made me think of you and previous post you wrote...

http://kitchen.apartmenttherapy.com/food/kitchen-cleanup/product-bioplastic-bags-008079
6:54 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Recycling centre visit request

I have made an official request to visit any of London's recycling centres for an in-depth look at how they really work. Questions like a) who sorts out the 'mixed bags' full of various types of recyclables and b) how are they actually recycled?   Most people I speak to are cynical that anything happens to the mixed recycling bags and I myself don't understand how our typical mixed recycling bag, which will usually contain up to 6 types of plastic, aluminum, glass and various types of paper (including little bitty pieces) can be efficiently sorted unless there is a huge team rifling through it all on conveyor belts.  I want to know - is it all a London borough con? Where is the evidence of how it is all actually recycled? I can never find any reports on it, apart from % of waste that is sent to recycling sites, not how much is actually recycled or how it is recycled.  One of our friends accidentally put his recycling bag out a day early on his street in Notting Hill (
1 comment
Read more

Why isn't all packaging recyclable?

It's been an interesting week trying to buy household products and food only made from recyclable packaging. A mixed bag. Literally. For example, I just made a rocket (arugula) salad with fresh mozzarella. The rocket I bought from Waitrose last week was in a recyclable bag made from recycled plastic. However, the rocket I bought from Sainbury's today was in a bag that did not have the recyclable sign, nor was it made from recycled plastic. The Sainsbury's mozzarella was equally guilty. However, Sainsbury's does use some bags that are recyclable, mainly for their organic products. Less confusing were the products in cardboards boxes/cartons and aluminum packaging. All clearly recyclable. And almost all of the plastic packaging we bought was recyclable apart from a few random items we bought at Marks and Spencers and the lunch spot Eat. Things like salad containers that looked like they were candidates for the recycling pile turned out not to have any recycling symbols
4 comments
Read more

The problem with flying

Everyone who knows me knows that I hate flying. It's loud, uncomfortable, confining and if things go wrong there's no way out. (I'm an advocate of parachutes under seat, not inflatable vests.) But the real reason I hate flying these days is the environmental impact. a) Apparently you're better off driving to your destination, alone , even if it's thousands of miles away, than being on a full plane. That's how bad the fuel consumption is. b) Planes dump their emissions in the most delicate part of the stratosphere and there's nothing to help mitigate the damage. For all of the pollution cars create, we have our plant life down here to help soften the blow. c) They are noisy, booming things and no matter where we go, we seem to be able to hear one or see one, even the far hills of Scotland. d) The amount of packaging they use per passenger is amazing. When my husband recently flew on a short haul flight to Amsterdam, he asked the air steward if they recy
2 comments
Read more