Shopping Trauma

I don't really like shopping - particularly when it entails actually going out of the house. I do most of my shopping on the internet. Earlier this week, I went into Yeovil for a few things. It made me even more committed to purchasing with my 'mouse'.

First on my list was an energy-efficient, decorative light-bulb, with equivalent light to a 100 watt incandescent bulb. Given that new legislation has rather controversially banned the sale of ordinary 100 watt bulbs, buying a compact fluorescent (CFL) version should have been easy. At Toolstation they looked baffled. The chapped flipped through the catalogue to discover that they only sold 60 watt equivalents. B&Q were no better.

A quick look on the web at Energy Saving World and I find what I want in seconds.

B&Q have been leaders in environmental policy for some time. I've sat on a government committee with Alan Knight who used to be their Environment Manager, so I'm quite familiar with it. But going into the shop I didn't see any evidence of this. Furthermore, I bought a garbage pail from them about 10 days ago. The first time it was emptied it broke - the bucket appeared to be brittle and got a hole in it.

On this ill-fated shopping expedition, I forgot to bring the bucket for evidence. Even though I'd telephoned in advance, they said I had to get it before they could help me further. But what really horrified me was the girl behind the customer service counter. She said that if I brought the bucket back they'd replace it with one from another bin - and then just chuck that bin away! When I challenged her about this rather wasteful approach, she said that actually, they'd probably sell the bin without the bucket at a discount price. The bin was very cheap to start with and probably imported from China so I can understand why they might take this approach but it still made me uncomfortable.

Worse was the girl's attitude to food waste. She said she put all hers in a plastic bag and threw it in with the main rubbish. I explained to her that in South Somerset there's a very good scheme for collecting food waste (weekly) if you put it in a brown bucket. She wrinkled up her nose in distaste and said that it might attract maggots. And she admitted she threw away masses too! Oh dear...

I'd also bought in some cardboard to take to the Scrapstore but by the time I got there they were closed. However, I did manage to get to the main recycling centre.

Wondered why the can bank wasn't there. The chap explained that there were so many TVs and related equipment being chucked away that they had run out of 'cages'. Digitilisation is coming....

On the way home I saw a huge flock of starlings circling and swooping. They almost made up for the shopping trauma...

Snow crash

I would have abandoned the idea of school if I hadn't run out of oil. I've been lasting a year on one tank - and I lasted a bit too long. Of course it ran out over the weekend before the snow hit.

Actually the house wasn't that much colder than normal. During the day I only have the heating on in my office anyway. But I really missed not having a hot bath (I generally share the bath water with the children!).

We took nearly half an hour clearing the drive. It was incredibly icy - but very beautiful. The lane wasn't any better. My neighbouring farmer very kindly rescued us. Headed down hill thinking it was the better route.

One of my sons then declared that the drama was over but it wasn't. We were in first or second gear going very slowly when I lost control of the car. It just slipped and started gathering speed. So I steered into the hedge. The car teetered on the brink of turning over but settled. We were shaken and stirred but not hurt.

Luckily there was a car behind. We were rescued for the second time that day. The chap inside was another neighbour and he had some friends with a tractor nearby. They pulled us both out of trouble - and we finally got to school.

Ironically the other highlight of my week has been the launch of a campaign called Chilling Facts, which I've been involved in (see blog below). The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) launched their survey ranking UK supermarkets on the global warming impacts of their refrigeration systems. The issue was covered by Radio 4's Costing the Earth, amongst others, and we've already seen some response from the supermarkets. If you haven't already sent a letter encouraging them to do more - click here.

But I wondered if the chilling message about global warming might be getting lost amongst all the news about local cooling.

Chilling facts about supermarket refrigeration

I've been working with the Environmental Investigation Agency on a campaign to highlight the climate change impacts of supermarket refrigeration. The HFC cooling gases used have a global warming impact that is about 4,000 times worse than CO2, so this is a huge issue.

Here's an article that I've written on the results of the supermarket survey. The issue is being covered in BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth - Totally Uncool.

Article:

Waitrose was the worst of the main supermarkets in a global warming survey announced this week.

The Chilling Facts survey ranked the supermarkets according to what they have done to reduce the climate-change impact of their refrigeration.

Carried out by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) last summer, the survey put M&S top of the league, followed by Tesco, although Tesco is the biggest overall contributor to global warming through their refrigeration, because of their size.

The cooling gases used in supermarket refrigeration can account for as much as 30% of their carbon footprint. They’re many thousands times more powerful than CO2 in terms of their global warming impact. But it’s not only technically feasible for supermarkets to switch to climate-friendly gases, it would actually be cheaper if more of this type of equipment was made – although replacing fridges and freezers ahead of time will add to costs.

Another obstacle has been that very few refrigeration engineers have been trained to work with the climate-friendly cooling gases. M&S and Tesco have invested in training to overcome this problem.

Fionnuala Walravens from EIA said that she felt the survey results were ‘hugely disappointing’. She said that “supermarkets know that their refrigeration chemicals are a major contributor to climate change, but they’re not doing much to address this problem.”

In the UK supermarkets are the biggest source of global warming emissions from climate-damaging cooling gases, which are also used in air conditioning systems. In 2005 emissions from this source was equivalent to 2 million tonnes of CO2, which would be the same as for flying a plane from London to New York over 2.5 million times.

Asda and Co-op got points for energy efficiency but they had problems with leakages. Sainsbury too scored for energy efficiency but overall their carbon footprint was still increasing.

Morrisons was lagging because they refused to participate in the survey and the response from Waitrose was felt to be apathetic.

Iceland managed to score minus one because they had gone back on a commitment made in 1999. Just ahead of them is Lidl with zero points because no information could be found on how it has responded to this issue and it failed to participate. Aldi managed to score one point because of work they’ve done in Germany on climate-friendly refrigeration.

The Chilling Facts campaign has been set up to get public attention focused on supermarket refrigeration. EIA believe that this will force the switch to climate-friendly cooling gases. They plan to repeat the survey annually, so that the supermarkets can show what improvements they’ve made.

CHILLING FACTS RANKING

1. M&S 42/100
2. Tesco 32/100
3. Asda 24/100
4. Co-op 23/100
5. Sainsbury 20/100
6. Morrisons 17/100
7. Waitrose 12/100
8. Aldi 1/100
9. Lidl 0/100
10. Iceland -1 / 100

See article in Scotsman - in particular the comments!

Here's a link to coverage in the Telegraph (2feb09)

Radio 4's Costing the Earth - Totally Uncool (2feb09)

Guardian article (2feb09) Supermarkets fingered for refrigeration greenhouse gases - A chilling wake-up call has been issued about the global warming potential of hydrofluorocarbons

An Inconvenient blog (2feb09)

Chilling Facts website