The Unsustainable Holiday

We have just had two and a half weeks of lovely holiday time. (Thanks to everyone who had us stay or made the effort to spend time with us!) Our carbon footprint from those two and a half weeks is probably about equal to our impact over the entire rest of the year. 

We flew about 7000km, including three take-offs and three landings in large aircraft. We hired a car for one week and drove further than we usually drive in three weeks, including driving within Sydney and Melbourne where there were public transport options available. Friends also drove about 150km in their car to spend time with us. Family drove us around on lovely long day-trips through the Melbourne hills and from regional Victoria back to Melbourne. 

We took a holiday from cloth nappies and washing machines and added about 75 disposable nappies to landfill. Our cabin accommodation in NSW did not offer a recycling bin and we left our recyclable items with the ordinary rubbish. When we departed the cabin we left behind three times the rubbish we generally dispose of at home. Hardly anywhere were we able to compost. 

We heated one cabin the whole 5 days we were there (slow-burn pot-belly), cranked up an inefficient old reverse-cycle airconditioner on two cold mornings at another cabin, and happily enjoyed plenty of heating in our family's homes where we stayed with them. 

None of the water from our showers was saved for reuse, and shower heads were generally not water-saving models. We used full-flush toilets most places we stayed and, being guests in others' homes, felt obliged to flush every time. As the weather was colder than we are accustomed to, I suspect we had longer, hotter showers, I turned on heat-lamp lighting in the bathroom where it was available, and I ran cold water down the sink many times to get warm water for hand washing/ face wiping, where at home I generally use cold. I'm pretty sure the water heaters were set to a higher temperature than at home and the pipes were not insulated most places we stayed.

As guests we gratefully used products chosen by our hosts, whether or not the toilet paper was recycled, the laundry powder or dishwashing detergent environmentally friendly, or the coffee, tea or chocolate fairly traded. Given we have almost completely abandoned using alfoil at home, on account of the ludicrous amount of electricity required to produce it, we probably participated in using more alfoil than we will use for the rest of the year.

Our food was purchased from huge corporate grocery stores, and much of it had excessive packaging. (Notably, Eva did not enjoy the taste of either mandarins or cherry tomatoes from these stores, two of her favourite foods when purchased from farmers' market or growers' cooperative) We used plastic shopping bags, not having taken our cloth ones with us. I even bought imported out-of-season American cherries - I love cherries and we were so far off the sustainability wagon by that point that I gave in to their shiny blood-red temptation. 

Were there any redeeming factors? We did catch trams in Melbourne (for one day!), walk rather than drive to places close to where we stayed, and train rather than drive from Melbourne to Warrnambool (about 270km by rail/ 230km by road) in one direction at least. On the Qantas leg of our flights we recycled our in-flight rubbish (other carriers didn't offer to do this). At our cabin we chose not to turn on the reverse-cycle airconditioner, oil-fin heater or electric blanket. Anywhere we stayed we did not turn on heating in the bedroom and rugged up before turning on heating when we could. All our laundry was dried hanging outside or over racks in an already-warmed lounge-room rather than in dryers. Arguably we saved a whole long-distance flight by bundling trips to Melbourne and Sydney into one holiday rather than crossing the country twice. We paid the carbon neutral offset for our flights, however token that may be in practice. By being away we had our computers turned off for the duration.

Could we have done it better? Does anyone have suggestions for sustainable holidaying? I'm not looking for an eco-experience saving turtles or the like, just a manageable way to visit my family and friends across the country. I'm not prepared to resign myself to relationship-by-Skype, especially not for Eva's connections with her grandparents. Any ideas?

Carrying stuff on our bikes

One of the biggest limitations on me riding my bike is that I can't carry stuff when I'm riding. Having ways to carry stuff on our bikes will directly increase how often we choose to use them for local journeys. We can carry Eva. A basket for the front of my bike means we can now also carry her bag to daycare, and I have been riding her there more often than driving (until I got sick, and it got rainy).

The farmer's market inspired Tyson to make panniers with enough capacity to allow unbridled fresh produce purchasing on Saturday mornings. So far he has made two for his bike, both of which convert into baskets for market shopping. They are attached to the rack with S-hooks of very heavy gauge wire, so easily lift on and off. There is also one small one for my bike - panniers do not fit well around a toddler bike seat, and it had to be permanently fixed on. Shopping trips therefore still require either both of us together, or the car (or many small bike trips back and forward, which I'm not up for thank you, although I do sometimes ride down now for just a few items rather than saving up until we have a big shopping list waiting).

Panniers can be bought pre-made from a bike shop of course, but then they won't be as personal or as well loved as Tyson's creations. I'm still trying to convince him to let Eva weave coloured ribbons into the wire mesh but he is unimpressed by that idea so far.

Initial Time: The first pannier took about three hours, plus shopping time. The second one took only about a hour, as Tyson had perfected the art. The little third one was a fiddly job using leftovers from the first two, so also took about an hour.

Initial Cost: front basket - $10; $16 of mesh per pannier, plus wire (about $21 for a roll of about 30m, so about $1.50 worth of wire per pannier). The small pannier was scraps from the bigger two.

 
Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero cost. Time commitment is our commitment to use bikes over quicker, more polluting transport means. The baskets weigh  1040g and 1120g each so there is a small weight increase for riding (obviously more when they are full!) but they are fairly streamlined and don't add too much wind resistance. 

Impact: We are much more likely to ride instead of drive now that we can easily carry things. At very least, that's 11km (round trip) each week to get to the farmers' market by bike instead of car. Round trips to our local IGA are about 4km; our local fresh produce & continental store about 3km, the bigger complex we use for things like clothes about 6km and Eva's daycare 9km. I can't say we always ride, but we certainly do it much more often now that we can carry gear, reducing our level of stop-start local suburban driving. Its amazing how much fits into a couple of panniers - all 16kg of fresh produce in the photo below came home in two panniers.

Tyson is SO proud of his panniers - and justifiably so! People ask him about them nearly every week at the farmers' market. He did consider making them to sell but we gave that idea away when we realised he would make about $10 an hour. God bless all the craftspeople who choose to make good quality things anyway!