Plastic bags hit the headlines

"Why do we all hate plastic bags?" I ask in The New Green Consumer Guide. Now, the headlines are screaming about their horrors and the campaign to ban them seems to be endorsed by every living celebrity. You might think the answer is obvious. Plastic bags are produced in their billions, litter the countryside, pollute the sea and are even responsible for destroying wildlife. But let's look a little closer and see whether they're as bad as we think.

If plastic bags are such a horror, you might be tempted to switch to paper bags. But that's not such a good idea. Paper bags take about the same amount of oil to make as a plastic bag, are 6 times as bulky and therefore require more transport fuel and they generally fall apart after one use. And if they do end up in land-fill sites - which most of them will - paper bags will rot and release greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. That's something we're trying to avoid.

Biodegradable plastic bags have the same problem - the fact that they break down isn't actually a benefit unless they end up in the right sort of composting system. Another problem is that they can foul up recycling systems.

So here are three things NOT to believe:
1. that paper bags are better than plastic
2. that biodegradable bags are the answer
3. that all plastic is bad

The benefits of plastic are that they are light-weight, cheap and good at their job. Some people jokingly suggest that they might also be one of the best forms of carbon storage.

So what should we do about bags? My hierarchy is, as follows:

1. Cut down the use of all disposable bags whatever they're made of.
2. Make consumers pay for bags to encourage us to remember to bring our own.
3. Make plastic bags from a high proportion of post-consumer recycled plastic.
4. Encourage people to recycle plastic bags - apparently only 10 in 1,000 actually get recycled.
5. Do everything we can to stop plastics ending up in the sea - or as litter.

Plastic bags seem to have become a symbol of our wasteful society. There's no harm in that as long as they don't distract our attention from doing things that really do make a big difference. So when we hear politicians, popstars and presenters sounding off about them, we should remember that they're not the biggest issue on the planet......

See also Charles Clover's view on plastic bags on the Telegraph website

Changing lightbulbs

First a confession. I have spotlights in both my kitchen and living room, which are adjoining - and not all of them are energy efficient.

When the spotlights were first installed I made sure that they would take energy efficient bulbs. I then ordered the 100 watt replacements, which were 23 watts each. But when I put them in I discovered that they stuck out like bulbous eyes and the light was achingly white - they weren't nearly as nice as the energy guzzling alternative.

So I rang the manufacturer - GE - and asked their advice. They suggested trying the 11 watt energy efficient bulbs thinking they might be better - and they were. Not perfect but an improvement on the large 23 watt bulbs. I replaced all the bulbs in my kitchen - 10 in total - and so use a total of 110 watts when they're on as opposed to 1000 watts with the normal spotlights.

But I've been a bit reluctant to make the same switch in my living room. The light isn't as nice and this seems to be more important there. But I've been spring cleaning and decided to bite the bullet - so now 16 of my 18 spotlights are energy efficient - I didn't quite have enough. The two standard spotlight bulbs serve as a reminder of what the light should be like - they're a warm light that are exactly the right shape for the fitting.

So why haven't the energy efficient bulbs got the colour right yet. I can't believe that it's technically impossible. This is such a barrier to people making a switch - in my view even more than the fact that they take a while to warm up.

But I have to point out that when I first put in the energy efficient bulbs in my kitchen I agonised over the difference. Now I don't notice it. And I think it's a relatively small price to pay for the energy and cost savings. The problem is that most of us want to be greener but aren't prepared to compromise on performance.

My next target is dimmable candle bulbs. What I've discovered so far is that it's now possible to get dimmable ones but that they're not as nice as the non-dimmable energy-efficient bulbs, which in turn are not as nice as the incandescent ones...... But once they're in I wonder if I'll go on noticing.....

Bottled Water - Eau No!

“I’ve been drinking bottled water for 30 years and I’ll go on doing it until the day I die” said one caller to the Radio 5 phone-in I was participating in. The debate was supposed to be about whether it is immoral to drink bottled water. Actually, most of the callers were more concerned with whether bottled water tasted better than tap water or not.

And the lady from the Bottled Water Industry Association seemed to have a religious conviction that everyone should have a choice. I certainly wasn't arguing that we shouldn't be able to choose. My point was that wherever possible we should choose tap water over bottled.

So what's wrong with bottled water? Well the real issue is that it's completely crazy to be transporting water and packaging all over the place - sometimes from the other side of the world - when we've got good quality stuff available from the tap. Water is heavy. Large quantities of fuel are used to transport it.

Yet more is used to make the packaging. Glass water bottles are even worse than plastic because they're heavier and so even more fuel is used to transport them. And don't be fooled into thinking that they're more recyclable - they're not. Actually in percentage terms you save more fuel from recycling a plastic bottle than a glass one.

It takes seven litres of water to make a one-litre plastic bottle. And we throw away ten billion bottles a year. So it's not just energy we're wasting it's water too....

One thing that is clear is that tap water in the UK is a safe and healthy option. Doesn't it seem bizarre that we go to great efforts to make it drinkable but flush much of it down the loo, whilst lugging heavy water bottles back from the supermarket.

OK, tap water is safe but does it taste nice? Well the Panorama programme covering this issue brought together some professional wine tasters to get their views. They blind tested a whole range of waters, including Thames tap. None of them identified which it was and one even thought it was the most expensive bottled variety.

What many people don't realise is that if you put water in a jug and leave it for a while, the chlorine evaporates. It also tastes better cool, so putting it in the fridge is a good idea. Equally, water filters can improve taste by removing impurities - including lead from old pipes.

At this point I have to admit that I do occasionally buy bottled water. I travel to London frequently on the train and don't always remember to take a water bottle with me. But I always ask for tap water in restaurants and get very frustrated at business meetings and conferences when bottled water is the only option. Sometimes I get very thirsty because I don't want to open a new bottle. Quite often there are loads of half empty bottles of water, which are simply discarded. On the Panorama programme they showed runners taking a quick sip from a water bottle and then chucking it into the street. What a waste....

Did you know that the carbon footprint of some brands of bottled water has been calculated to be at least 600 times greater than water from the tap?

So, this isn't just a lifestyle choice, it's a choice for a healthy planet. If we can't even change our habits on such an easy issue what hope is there?

Some bottled water facts from National Geographic:

• Americans are the biggest bottled water drinkers, consuming 7 billion gallons or 26 billion litres annually.
• Mexico has the second highest consumption followed by China and Brazil
• Italians drink the most per person with an average of about 2 glasses per day
• Global consumption of bottled water doubled between 1999 and 2004
• Worldwide about 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water
• Making bottles to meet American demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, which is enough to fuel about 100,000 US cars for a year.

Street light rant

I was pleased to see that I'm not alone in bemoaning the number of street lights we have - and how long they're on for. It pollutes the night sky, wastes energy and is a real eye sore too, particularly the nasty orange ones.

There's been some discussion recently about councils turning off lights between midnight and dawn. Hooray. Actually, I think there are lots of places where they shouldn't be on at all. And others where some lights might be a good idea but not nearly as many.

Street lights are big energy guzzlers because they have to produce quite a powerful light over a distance - and much of what they produce is wasted going straight into the night sky. And that brings me to another point - light pollution. Looking at a world map in the darkness of night, it's not actually dark at all, it's blazing with light. And if you're on the ground looking up at the sky there aren't many places where you can get a clear view of the stars.

Sailing across the Carribbean in the 80's I spent hours gazing at the sky and saw lots of shooting stars. But most people growing up today won't see any in their lifetime - only a ghastly orange murky glow.

When I sat on the District Council in Somerset, I discovered that there were some pretty dreadful policies on street lighting and once they were in place they were very hard to get rid of. New housing developments above a certain size were automatically fitted with lights, even if the residents opposed the idea. This meant that villages that for centuries descended into peaceful darkness at night were transformed into urban outposts.

Actually, there's one particular street light that really gets my goat. I live on the top of a hill in the countryside with a few farms and other houses nearby. It's not even a village. But there's one street light in the lane. It happens to be visible from my bedroom window. I haven't raised a protest because I know how difficult and time consuming it would be to get rid of it. But I'd be very happy if someone put it out of action....

So roll on Councils turning lights off - and more.....

Unwanted phone directories 50 times as high as Everest!

I don't use phone directories any more - I always look up numbers on the internet. But I've still got a pile of these weighty tomes in the corner of my office, collecting dust and doing nothing useful.

I've now discovered that 50 million telephone directories are distributed each year and 17.5 million of these are unwanted (Don't know if that includes mine - how do they know I don't want them?) If these were stacked up they'd be 50 times the height of Everest.

These statistics were publicised by www.welovelocal.com/directories who want to encourage more people to use their service. You can search for local businesses and if you're lucky read reviews of their services. BT and Yellow pages also offer internet directory enquiries.

But I didn't find BT very helpful on the subject of recycling. They have an automated question service called 'Ask Emma'. The virtual Emma was completely ignorant about recycling phone directories - she didn't understand the question. And she was equally ill-informed about how to opt-out of getting directories delivered in the first place. BT have now told me that there are two ways to tell them you want to be excluded from phone directory delivery - by emailing them at directory.products@bt.com or by calling 0800 833 400 and choosing option 5, if you want to do battle with their automated answering machines. You'll need to contact Yellow Pages and Thompson's directories separately.

If, like me, you've got a pile to get rid of, you might like to check with your local authority about the best way of recycling them. In Somerset (www.recyclesomerset.info ) I've found that I can put the directories in with my newspapers - yellow pages are often used for animal bedding and the other directories are recycled with the other paper.

Great Britons 2007

I really appreciate 'can do' people and you can't get much more 'can do' than Tim Smit (see photo), founder of the Eden Project - and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. So I was rather delighted to be on the judging panel that selected him for the short-list 0f three for the Environment section of Morgan Stanley's Great Briton Awards.

The Awards dinner was held earlier this week and was full of faces I recognised even if I couldn't always put a name to them. Of course I didn't miss either Maggie Thatcher, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award, and David Cameron who carefully led her to the platform to receive it. Apart from anything else they were on the next door table.

I sat next to Olympic Gold Medal winner, James Cracknell, who is planning another adventurous trip with Ben Fogle. He assured me that they'd both be well dressed this time (when they rowed the Atlantic, they apparently found it more comfortable being naked) - they're heading for the South Pole. On my other side was the Sports editor of the Telegraph - the newspaper sponsoring Great Britons.

The other finalists for the Environment Great Briton 2007 were Jonathon Porritt, who has so many green ventures behind him it's difficult to choose which one to mention and Jeremy Leggett, who set up the UK's largest solar company - Solar Century - but is also a leading speaker and writer on peak oil. Luckily I didn't have to select the overall winner because any one of them could have come out on top.

I have to admit that some of the other categories had some pretty dubious winners if you look at them from a green perspective. Lewis Hamilton, the Formula One racing driver, won the Sports category and Sir John Rose, Chief Executive of Rolls Royce, was the business winner. Making aeroplane engines might be good for the economy but probably isn't the greatest thing for climate change....