It was also announced that ESB would finally begin requiring payment for eCar charging points around the country. Earlier this year, the utility postponed seeking €17 per month for usage of the almost 1,000 charging points nationwide. The utility are now communicating with eCar customers about the imminent introduction of charges and are currently looking at appropriate tariffs.

The utility said “Ultimately, everything has to be paid for. We need to reinvest and keep the system up to date. We will have to charge

The following piece ‘Being Green’ has been circulating on various social media platforms over the past few months and it really struck a chord with me. Like the woman at the checkout we didn’t have the ‘green thing back when I was growing up but everyday we were doing the ‘green’ thing without actually realising it.  Just take a few minutes to read it through and you too will see how easy it was, and still is to be green.

Being Green!

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.” She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Old Cash Register ~ Photo Credit ~ South Park City Museum via www.tripadvisor.com

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the shops

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn’t do the green thing back then.

Brown paper bags were used to wrap groceries and then reused to wrap books

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Solar powered clothes dryer!

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

A single radio to keep up with the daily news stories

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

No computers or electronic gadgets back then.

It struck me as I was reading it that life was so much simpler back then. I remember my mother washing out the milk bottles (the two in the photo escaped as I found them while doing a litter pick!), using brown paper to cover school books, washing the nappies by hand and we walked or cycled to the shops. My first introduction to typing was on the typewriter in the photo above (that’s not that many years ago!!). I remember strapping it to my bicycle and cycling four miles to the classes and back home again.

Whoever originally wrote this piece was right – we probably didn’t consume nearly as much oil/gas/electricity back then. However, it wasn’t because we were being ‘green’, it was more because technology hadn’t advanced far enough yet. What do you think? Were we being ‘green’ back then or was it just a way to make ends meet?

All photographs unless otherwise credited are copyright of Mary Gethings.

Where does YOUR energy go?

Although plastic Christmas trees are reusable from year to year, real trees are the more sustainable choice. Plastic trees are made mostly of plastic and use up resources in both the manufacture and shipping. While artificial trees theoretically last forever, research shows that they are typically discarded when repeated use makes them less attractive. Discarded artificial trees are then sent to landfills, where their plastic content makes them last forever.

Live trees, on the other hand, are a renewable resource grown on tree farms, that are replanted regularly. They contribute to air quality while growing, and almost ninety percent are recycled into mulch. Live trees are usually locally grown and sold, saving both transportation costs and added air pollution.

You Choose!

Artifical or locally grown Christmas tree?

Visit your local garden centre and buy a live Irish grown tree in a large pot. This will allow you to reuse the tree for a few years without having to plant or re-pot the tree. If you have a spacious garden the tree can be planted out after Christmas where it can be enjoyed for many years and also help the environment and reducing our carbon footprint.

Don’t forget to go to your local council’s website after Christmas for details on tree recycling and collection.

Here are some Green Christmas tips that’ll help you to save money, reduce your Christmas carbon footprint and won’t cost the Earth!

Renewable energy resources are clean sources of energy. They can be harnessed without damaging the environment, unlike using fossil fuels which release carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and other harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. They will never become exhausted. Unlike finite fossil fuels, renewable energy resources are continuously replenished through the cycles of nature and will not run out.

You Choose!

Renewable Energy or Fossil Fuels?

Wow, Friday 13th 2013 will be a day to remember for Eco Evolution as we were short listed in the Blog Awards Ireland 2013. We were thrilled to have been nominated in the first place but are absolutely blown away by the fact that we made the short list in the Best Eco/Green Blog category sponsored by ESB eCar.

The quality of blogs in every category is very high this year and it’s great to see that so many of the blogs that we read on a regular basis have also been short listed in the various categories.

Thank you so much to those who nominated our blog and a big thank you to the judges who read it and decided that it was worthy of a place in the short list and to the organisers who were hard at work behind the scenes. I hope you all had a relaxing weekend after such a mammoth task.

Wishing everyone the very best of luck in the next round!