Just warming up

CHIMNEY sweeps have never been busier and timber yards are reporting high sales of wood.

Yes, we’ve all come to our senses and are going back to wood fuel for heating.

As the price of gas, electricity and oil soar, we are reverting to the open fire to warm our cockles this winter.

Not only are we turning our backs on fossil fuels to meet energy needs as supplies dwindle, we are embracing the use of the cheaper and renewable form of biomass.

According to reports, wood is the only fuel not to have increased by 30 per cent in the last year, so many of us are ripping out old gas fires, unblocking our chimneys, and removing the ornamental dried flowers from the fireplace.

To those of you who find conversations about renewable technology confusing when those eco bods are talking photo-voltaics and air recovery, biomass, put simply, is wood and other plant material.

There are new state of the art, super-efficient biomass systems that use wood pellets to heat our homes and provide hot water that have been developed, but the old-fashioned wood-burning stove will suffice.

I, for one, have recently installed a wood burner in my house. Moving in last January with only a couple of cheap electric heaters that emitted no more heat than a hairdryer, I needed to do something.

Knowing the inevitable escalation of energy prices, I thought wood would be a good bet – plus fitting a brand new wood burner is far cheaper than a gas central heating system.

Having heard on the grapevine that a Morso was the stove of choice among many, I chose a small Squirrel Cleanheat – apparently one of the most popular cast iron small stoves in Britain – and it was fitted in a few hours.

The clean heat has cleaner flue emissions, maintenance consists of a sweep once a year, and it has a modern look to it. There is also room to fit a back boiler to heat radiators if I so wish.

We have lit the stove almost every day for the last few weeks, revelling in the fact it costs us little - and we are boiling are socks off even with it turned on low. I

There are many places you can buy wood that is from a sustainable source, so I can comfort myself in the knowledge it is from a renewable resource.

Burning wood is also considered carbon neutral because the carbon released when it is burned is equivalent to that absorbed when it is growing.

Hiding the bags

ANOTHER supermarket has joined the war on plastic.

From next week, Sainsbury’s will stop dishing out plastic carriers.

On Wednesday 1st October, stores will hide the piles of bags and only hand them out when asked.

The checkouts have already started giving customers extra Nectar points for re-using shopping bags.

So, if you find yourself in need of a plastic carrier, you’ll have to go through the shame of asking for one.

Big collection

Local schoolchildren are helping make South Wiltshire greener by recycling  tonnes of old Yellow Pages directories.

Twenty schools in South Wiltshire have taken part in the Yellow Woods Challenge, the environmental campaign run by Yellow Pages and the Woodland Trust with Salisbury District Council and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. 

Pupils were encouraged to bring old directories into school for recycling while learning about green issues in the classroom. The schools competed against each other for the chance to win cash prizes from Yellow Pages for recycling the highest number of directories per pupil.

Woodford Valley CE School scooped the Gold Oak title and will be given £300 for recycling 11.37 old directories per pupil. 

South Wiltshire schools helped to recycle a grand total of 7,073 old directories, which will be turned into packaging and insulation products.

Guide books

SUSTAINABLE living writer and broadcaster Tracey Smith of Thorncombe has published a new book to help us get to grips with our rubbish.

Her first book, The Book of Rubbish Ideas, is a room by room guide to reducing waste in the home and has ideas about turning rubbish into a resource. Her words of wisdom include shopping locally, cooking simple food from fresh, and being mindful of travel and car sharing.

Part of the profits for the book will be donated to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics based in Bristol.

Sold Out by Robert Llewellyn is his account of how survived a year of not shopping.

The star of Scrapheap Challenge and Red Dwarf, Llewellyn tried a year of non-consumerism.

In late December 2006, after a long and painful Christmas shopping expedition,

Llewellyn had a revelation. He decided that he would simply stop buying anything for

himself for one year. He had enough stuff; he’d had enough of rampant consumerism -

he would literally ‘make do’ in 2007.

This irreverent and entertaining book follows the highs and lows of a former 1970s hippie drop-out who morphed into a wealthy Western male, now attempting to disengage once more from a consumer-driven society.

Llewellyn raises some thought-provoking issues including why, even after a year without shopping, he still has more consumer items than he could possibly need, whether it’s possible to maintain hope for a better, low carbon world when your next-door neighbour drives a Porsche Cayenne, and why it doesn’t have to be embarrassing to darn socks in the 21st century

Rosanna Holmes

Send any tips, questions, comments, or anything you think I need to know on environmental issues to rholmes@bvmedia.co.uk , write to Eco-Watch, Blackmore Vale Media, High Street, Stalbridge, Dorset DT10 2LH or phone 01963 365117.