Peat or Coir

So whats wrong with shouting green and driving around in a car? At present we don't have any alternative where i live ( whats public transport?) So I do the best I can thats affordable - I drive the most efficient car I can to do the job I need it to do.
My car does not use peat either. I would like to use my bike more but (1)I can't park it without it getting knicked and ...(2).most roads are too dangerous.(3) I haven't yet worked out how to tie my dog to the back.
I would love a hybrid car or one that used biofuel but present I cannot afford one.

 

You can buy peat free compost, Pal. Its a bit rough with woody bits, but you can sieve it if you want. I don't bother and use it as it comes from the pack. It works fine for seeds and potting on plugs etc

 

I drive a great big gas guzzling landrover...(couldn't get all my tools, mower, strimmer and leaf vac in a mobile hairdrier!..... but then i only do about 50 miles a week!. I use the cheapest compost available. Have tried peat free, but not only did i get some strange fungi come up but the seeds hardly germinated, and i don't have the same funds available as KEW. I don't cycle.......i live up a mountain and trailing my tools and or shopping behind a bike would be an impossibility, I suspect the OM wouldn't be impressed with having to use a tandem either. But i respect others that have all the green alternatives to me. I say each to their own, they have their own reasons.

 

A brilliant idea Waco. I'm going to keep my eyes open for a second hand one. (Don't think Mrs W would like me to use the one in the kitchen).
I found a reference to the use of microwaves for soil sterilisation at Belarus University -
Application of microwave energy allows sterilizing soil and mineral substrata used in hothouses in the process of cultivation tomatoes, cucumbers, flowers; fighting with soil infection, increasing energy of seeds germination.

[ 01. December 2006, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: Dave W ]

 

Mind boggles at the idea of a peat burning power station! Surely it can't be very efficient and it's about as sustainable as us burning what's left of our forests in a wood fired power station. Feel an Irish joke coming on so had better shut up or PC Thought Police will get me.

Green thought for the day - In Britain we have used up nearly all of our North Sea gas in less than two thirds of my lifetime. Billions of years to make and just 40 to destroy. Gas gotta come all the way from Russia now.

 

I know.And we`re paying through the nose for it!

 

Yes Hornbeam I cycle everywhere 10,000 miles a year in fact until I retired now only do about 5,000 done some 430,000 miles in total.
I have used one of those steam wallpaper stippers for sterilizing compost I stick the steam hose bit in a dustbin full of compost small holes in the bottom allow excess water out only trouble is it takes a while to dry out.
Geoff don't understand 3) I haven't yet worked out how to tie my dog to the back, to the back of what?

 

His bike I think walnut...

 

These are good you don't need to tie them up
http://www.bikesandtrailers.com/dog-trailers/index.html

 

As far as I know a number of Russian power stations burn peat, how many I don't know but the tonnage of peat burnt and CO2 immissions must be enormous.
As for coir, although being an alternative and supposedly sustainable, cannot be environmentally friendly importing it from the tropics as there is the "carbon footprint" issue.

 

Yes you are right Strongy. There are no easy answers and I see no signs whatosever that governments, industries and consumers are ever going to have the will or skill to halt the damage. It's all political hot air and you only have to travel to China,India or Egypt to see how much muck is being pumped into the atmosphere.

On the other hand, I believe it right to keep your own patch as clean as you can. So I recycle because that directly reduces the need for local land fill sites and incineration plants.

I don't need peat in the garden and would not import coir for the reason you give.

I don't use chemicals in the garden because I don't want to poison it

I campaign against airport expansion because it is an obscene poisonous intrusion that will wreck the local countryside and demolish scores of listed buildings.

This governmemt claims to champion green issues and nags other countries to reduce their greenhouse emmissions. At the same time, they back airport expansion and refuse to tax aircraft which are the worst polluters of all. It is just humbug of the worst kind. Humanity is too greedy for wealth and comfort to change its way of life. Future generations will pay the price. Coal, gas and oil are the products of the prehistoric sun. Its energy was locked up in plant remains over millions of years. When you touch your radiator, you feel the heat of that distant sun that is being released so very quickly now. Fossil fuel and the ludicrous peat power stations will soon be obsolete and only that will force a reduction in greenhouse emmissions. So we will have to build more nuclear power stations.

Boom! Boom! Chernoble!

I'll get off my soap box now

 

Hornbeam you are right in what you say but I struggle with what's the alternative we wouldn't need extra airports if the government closed down all these airlines that have budget flights instead they are now introducing a green tax this just goes into the government coffers it doesn't go to fight green issues just think of the out cry if you did shut them down no more jetting off to the continent for a stag or hen party for under �£30.a jumbo flying to America uses more fuel than an average motorist uses in a lifetime yes we can all do our bit recycling using green alternatives butits the big issues that need sorting all the pressure put on joe average is just a smoke screen to tax you still further

 

Yes Walnut. One of the slogans we are using on posters here is "Cheap Flights Cost the Earth!"

I see no solution at all, but that doesn't depress me. I live each day as it comes and enjoy it as best I may. Tomorrow's generations will have to grapple with tomorrow's problems. Brave new world?

 

A point that is raised again and again in discussion of green issues is that anything that individuals do to conserve energy and reduce waste is a miniscule part of the whole big mess. The British government cannot then be blamed for taking the same attitude on a larger scale!
We should all take responsibility for our own consumption and do what we can. The basic problem is that there are far too many humans on the earth but short of a vast pandemic I see no solution to that.
It seems that for large scale energy generation our only option now is nuclear power stations, and a faint hope that future generations will solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal.
I drive a car as I am unable to walk very far and can no longer cycle, and public transport is practically non-existant. I also use quite a few powered gadgets in the house and garden.
I do wonder if an energy 'allowance' per person per year would help; then if people chose to take multiple holidays abroad every year they would have to economise elsewhere, and living in enormous houses with with large unnecessarily powerful cars etc might be recognised for the foolish waste that it is.
In the long run I believe with James Lovelock that the earth will solve these problems for us.....