Going Greener

HH, good post, it would be nice to see the club contribute regularly to this thread with ideas and comments on suggestions made and some of their own which,im sure, the sites team will have been given much thought over recent uears/months....

for starters, heres my twopenneth and something a bit different to our usual so.ar panels and refillable gas themes.....

ELECTRIC BIKES......

these are wonderful things that can get us all put and about to a radius of, say, 15-20 miles of sites, without having to take the car.

shopping can be acheived with decent pannier sets, the paper shop/milk run now doesnt involve a car.....

of course, perhaps walking or running might be even better but lets (literally) 'cycle' before we run....

ive just done a little over 10,000 km on my ebike, which ive had for 40 months.....now, a lot of that milage has been for pleasure, but theres an awful lot, too, that has been for short (upto 20 miles) shopping trips that means the equivalent mileage has been saved in the car....

we use them at home but also when away in the MH and they can even be charged when off EHU by means of an inverter.....so, for the majority of my time away,my battery power for my bike even comes from the sun....

yesterday we did a 66km round trip to the island of Normoutier (from St Jean de Monts) on a continuous off road, purpose built track, and you really get to see the countryside like this.

in the spring we were in Spain for 9 weeks and dribbling into the countryside away from the tourist areas took just a few minutes and we were totally immersed in the quiet and calmness of the inland areas...

this just would not be the same in a car.....

if anyone is thinking about it, i would say have a try of an ebike, post your interest here and those that use them can offer some advice on type, size, battery range, charging, weights, costs etc, etc....

One eco site that we stopped at on the other side, used solar power to heat all the water. That perhaps might not work here, but they also had a compost heap where they asked you to put veg waste, there was a list of what was and wasn't acceptable. I don't see why the CC should not do something similar. It should reduce overall refuse transported off site and therefore have a cost impact. The compost could be used on site.

Oh as to your comment about a box on wheels. We can all make a big difference 50 / 55 burns significantly less fuel than 60 mph.

Often think the 'grey' water which is 90% shower water in our van could be put to better use than tipping down the drain.

HH - if you want to be really green

- stay at home, don't travel

- turn the heating off

Thanks all for a great start, let's hope the thread grows!

Nice idea, BB, and one we'd not considered. Do these bikes fold down, or do you just have to have a large space to transport them?

Eco site - what a lovely thought :-) We've used sites in this country where the facilities block water has been either entirely or partially heated by solar roof panels, and they've worked very well.

Compost bins, that's a good thought. I'm writing to the CMC to prod them about various measures on their sites, and this is a good one. If you don't mind, I'll borrow it and add it to my letter.

Agree about taking a few mph of the speed. We're lucky that our pop-top van has a lot less drag too, which really helps, but that's not to everyone's taste!

Food for thought there - I certainly reckon this could be much more used by sites. We've met places using roof water for flushing - not CMC of course - but once we recycle washing water with soap and grease in it seems more problematic, either in buildings or vans.

I suppose it could be used to fill the flush tank... though I'm guessing storing it might lead to clogging the system up?

But it does seem a pity just to chuck it, yes.

Compost bins, that's a good thought. I'm writing to the CMC to prod them about various measures on their sites, and this is a good one. If you don't mind, I'll borrow it and add it to my letter.

Please do. It is only the second time I have come across it. Both were in France. The other time on a site run by an English couple.

1 Metered electricity

2 No serviced pitches