So far I'm doing pretty well with my resolutions; I bought some rechargeable batteries and energy saving light bulbs; every time I've been shopping I've used the "bag for life" and I've walked to the shops - good so far; I've been very careful with putting the right amount of water in the kettle, but as yet I haven't bought any locally produced food, but my wife is at the market now, so that one is covered.

So pleased with all of this, I'm going to give myself a self-congratulatory pat on the back. I'm also going to come up with some more resolutions - it's a bit late for new year I know, these will be my January 20th Green Resolutions!

1. Reuse as much paper as I can, for making notes etc. Actually my wife is really good at this already - she uses the back of the receipt from the last shopping trip to write the shopping list for next time.

2. I'm almost certainly going to have to get a new car this year, probably soon, so I'll make sure I get a more fuel economic one this time (which will also save me money on tax), possibly a diesel engine - more miles per gallon (or kilometres per litre).

3. I've had loads of trouble with my electricity supplier so I shall investigate switching to a supplier that uses renewable energy - I'll avoid them if they use poorly placed wind turbines though.

I'll stop there as I'm getting dangerously close to becoming a fanatic. Here are some other blogs with green resolutions.

Here , Here and Here

My green resolutions got me thinking hard about what small things I can do to minimize my impact upon the environment without really having to make any significant changes to my lifestyle; there must be loads of things. Birdwatching close-by is one of those that I have already taken to (Birdwatching near Beverley).

Boiling the kettle this morning got me thinking about the energy used for my morning cup of tea. Obviously I only boil as much water as I need, but what about the method of boiling it? Is it more energy efficient to use the kettle or boil it on a gas ring? Well, apparently electric kettles use far less energy to heat any given amount of water than it does by using gas. This is good news for energy conservation as well as convenience!

However, when I thought more deeply about it I wondered if I really needed that cup of tea anyway, what are the options for a morning drink? I could go for water, but I find the taste pretty wierd first thing in the mroning. The obvios choice would be something like orange juice or apple juice, but the amount of water used in producing these is unsustainable, not to mention the pesticides that were probably used . Furthermore, these juices always come in a carton or a plastic bottle - not too good - think of the air miles too. On the other hand tea nor coffee exactly come from down the road do they? Tea and coffee plantations are major players in tropical deforestation too. This isn't at all easy.

Milk sounds like a good option, it's healthy, it doesn't run out, it can be bought locally and, if the milkman is used, the bottles get reused. That's REUSED, not recycled, but reused, wow! Still, dairy farmers use massive amounts of fertilizer to improve the grassland for cattle and there is often slurry run off into surrounding watercourses, sometimes resulting in the eutrophication of rivers and the elimination of fish from them. AAAAAArgh! It gets even worse too - flatulant cows are a major source of methane which is a potent greenhouse gas. Therefore, drinking milk melts the polar ice caps, poisons rivers, raises sea levels and contributes to the extinction of polar bears. Bloody cows.

So, drinking tea is not a green option, nor is coffee, fruit juice or milk, so what is left? I could lick the dew from the morning grass, but I don't have a garden, and anyway it might upset the delicate ecological balance of the lawn, if I had one. There is always beer. In the past people used to drink large amounts of beer. Producing beer can be done at home, reusing the containers required for the brewing process - excellent. The hops and barley (good for corn buntings) can be grown locally, reducing dramatically the travel miles involved and I'm sure I can find a yeast culture growing somewhere in the kitchen. The only other ingredients I need (I think) are water and molasses. Sadly I'll have to buy the molasses, but I can easily walk to the shops, and I can harvest enough rainwater for my needs.

It seems that the environmentally friendly alternative to a cup of tea is a pint of homebrewed beer. Hmmmm beer! This is one green resolution that I can easily stick to.

All day at the supermarket today was like shaving pieces off of my brain, but at one point I was asked if I'd made any new year's resolutions. I never do make any, but it got me thinking a bit today; it was either think about this or drive myself to frustration thinking about the amount of packaging I was throwing around like confetti. So, for the first time I've made some resolutions: Green Resolutions.

1. Take the wife's shopping bag with me every time I go to the shops. No more plastic bags for me!

2. Replace all the lightbulbs with energy saving ones. Most of the lights already have them, but there's a few left; I'll do it tomorrow morning.

3. When I use the kettle I'll make sure there's just the amount of water in it that I am going to use.

4. Buy rechargeable batteries for my mp3 player. Another one for the morning.

5. Try and use the car less. Fortunately I live very close to the shops and always walk, but I'm sure I can cut out some journeys.

6. Buy more loose food from local bakers, butchers, markets rather than the overpackaged crap from supermarkets. Damn those supermarkets!

That's enough for now. Like Tony Blair, I think it's unrealistic to expect people to change their lifestyles for the environment. Freakin' idiot!

Working in a supermarket drives me mental! Not only is the work sensationally dull, but the amount of waste created makes me mad. It's very stressful.

I don't believe it!

One box this evening was particulaly irritating. It was about 50cm square by about 40 cm high and made of some of the thickest, densest cardboard I've ever encountered. Inside was a myriad of folded cardboard seperating just four frying pans from each other, apparently to ensure that they didn't get scratched. However, it would appear that these frying pans were particularly prone to damage as they were also covered in a layer of plastic and each had a collar of cardboard around the neck, for what purpose I don't know. The amount of packaging that these frying pans require would make you think they were made of particularly fragile glass, not stainless steel. I weighed the resultant mess at 1.25 kilos; how ridiculous, all this rubbish just for four frying pans which once upon the hanger were free to smash into each other anyway!

What really gets on my nerves about all this is that not only is the cost of all this crap passed on to the consumer, eliminating nearly all of it would have almost no effect upon our lives whatsoever, whereas the benefits to the environment are great, both in terms of reduced rubbish to dispose of, but in terms of reducing the CO2 emissions created in the manufacture of such useless items.

I get so annoyed at the UK government waffling on about sticking so-called "green taxes" on travel to stop us polluting in aspects of our lives that would effect us to quite a large degree, when they could tax wasteful amounts of packaging out of existence and achieve similar reductions in CO2 emissions with very little effect on our lives. Not that I'm against encouraging people to think more before taking flights that are often not needed, just that there are so many other ways in which the government could cut CO2 emissions by providing real leadership instead of relying on crisis management taxation which imposes restrictions upon freedom of travel.

Of course, people shouldn't have the right to frivolously go careering around in planes contributing wildly to global warming, but governments do have the responsibility to explore the methods of reducing CO2 outputs that are the easiest and least disruptive to people's lifestyles, before stuffing taxes on travelling around when it is these very same governments who have encouraged us to lead lives which require so much travel. In this respect the UK government is about as much use as a clockwork orange.

All this from a box of frying pans.

I told you that working in a supermarket was stressful.