We found that there was far more to green living than just splashing out on an eco-house. Small changes, many of which make great sense anyway, all add up and soon end up being as important as the technology of the house. Here are some simple ideas that anyone can try.

In this section:
Using the heating efficiently
Food
The eco-baby
The eco fishtank
Transport
Compost

GREEN LIVING: USING THE HEATING EFFICIENTLY
A first step is to optimise the thermostat settings. This can significantly reduce heating bills in any property. Standard settings for thermostats are 21°C for living rooms, 18°C for bedrooms. In fact, we find this too hot, and low draughts and high performance windows make rooms comfortable with lower temperatures. We live perfectly happily in 18°C in the living rooms, 16°C in the bedrooms- three degrees lower than the standard settings. Similarly, in most houses the hot water tank thermostat is set to 70°C when it need be set no higher than 40°. Ours is set to 50°C because it feeds the washing machine and dishwasher.

The second step was being aware of energy as a precious resource- turning off lights and appliances, turning down radiators in hallways and empty rooms, closing doors, switching off the boiler when leaving the house, sharing baths, do washing on the cold wash whenever possible. Generally we would call this living like granny!

The third step was living within the limitations of the system- waiting until the end of a good solar day before doing washing or having a shower if there is not enough hot water in the hot water tank.

GREEN LIVING: FOOD
The food we eat has a major environmental impact. City dwellers never see any of these impacts; as far as we know, food arrives in the supermarket in neat little packages, with no sense of what went into its production or its transport. What is more, generic processed food is expensive, unhealthy, and often does not even taste good.

Using local produce: We are both keen cooks, and believe strongly that using local produce is a vital starting point for both green living and good cooking (as do many top chefs). Yet all food shops are now stacked high with globalised food shipped from all corners of the world, including such insanities as onions from New Zealand, apples from Argentina, and green beans air freighted from Africa. Avoiding excess food miles (the distance food is carried) is the single most important step to eating sustainably.

We buy as much food as possible locally- organic vegetables from a local box scheme, the odd run to a farm shop, eggs from a local organic farm and a growing supply from our allotment 200 yards down the road. Living with the food available through the changing seasons is an enjoyable challenge. The Soil Association publishes a list of local organic farm shops, farmers markets and box schemes.

Using low energy cooking techniques: There are many techniques to dramatically reduce the amount of energy used in cooking.
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Avoiding supermarkets
Supermarkets are convenient and even enjoyable if you enjoy that doped up shopping trance feeling. However, they are a menace for small local business. They drain customers from local food shops and force prices and standards down so far that only the largest agricultural corporations can compete. These low prices are rarely passed on to consumers- supermarket meat and vegetables are invariably more expensive that local shops. We buy virtually nothing from supermarkets except food reduced for clearance and the organic milk (which is hard to buy elsewhere).

Buy Organic
Although health has been the main public argument for organic food, we believe that environmental issues are just as important. We must return to a sustainable agriculture that does not require vast inputs of high-energy fertilizer and pesticide, and protects and builds the soil. However, the organic food on sale in supermarkets often has terrible food miles. Most of it imported from across Europe and some exotic vegetables, such as sweet corn and green beans, are air freighted from the tropics. Our vegetables are all locally produced organic - from the box scheme or from the allotment. Only fruit is harder to find from good organic sources- when in doubt we tend to opt for UK fruit, especially from farm shops and farmers markets.

Buying in Bulk
We buy grains, pulses, oil, and fair trade coffee, from an organic wholesaler- putting in one large order every six months. The prices are usually less than the standard non-organic produce in the supermarket with far less packaging and transport. A chest freezer, though it uses plenty of electricity, makes sense for storing frozen organic vegetables and meat bought in bulk.

Meat
Many people refuse to eat meat, for good environmental and ethical reasons. Personally we like having meat occasionally, and believe that it can have a place in sustainable living. We are careful, though, to avoid factory-farmed meat. Organic meat is often very expensive and we have been searching for free-range and traditionally fed meat without the organic label. The best source is rare breed meat, which is excellent, and half the price of organic meat. With careful enquiries we have found a local farmer whose chickens really do range freely and are kept well, and another who cures his own bacon from traditionally kept pigs.

Fish
From an environmental point of view, fish is a bigger problem than meat- the oceans are being overfished to the bitter end and fish farming brings its own set of health and environmental problems. We eat fish rarely as a special treat and, wherever possible, from local rivers or shellfish produced in the UK. In summer we fish for the invasive American Signal Crayfish, which have taken over the local rivers, with nets draped over bicycle wheels. In an hour we can pull up 3 kilos.

Foods to avoid
There are some food which, from an environmental perspective, are best avoided altogether:

• air freight fruit and vegetables (green beans, kiwi fruit, and avocados from outside Europe will usually be air freighted).
• Factory farmed chicken- battery chicken conditions continue to be horrible. Free range is widely available - so what if it costs a few pounds more.
• Prawns- almost all tiger prawns are from farms in the tropics created by cutting down coastal mangrove forests. Prawn fishing generally is extremely destructive.
• exotic new fish species from far away- the desperate expansion of unsustainable factory fishing
• Crab sticks- made from a drift netting a fish called Pollock. Greenpeace has been calling for a boycott of Pollock for years.

GREEN LIVING: THE ECO-BABY
We regard bringing a new person into the world as a major responsibility, especially when there are so many humans already. We soon found that babies in particular have a tremendous environmental impact. For generations, companies have preyed on the insecurities of new parents to sell them expensive baby products they do not need: infant formula, disposable nappies, and all those expensive plastic knick-knacks. Here is how we have minimised the impact of our little Elsa:

1. Disposable nappies are a nightmare. They cost a packet, give babies nappy rash and clog up landfills leaching poisonous chemicals for generations. There are numerous well-designed rewashable nappies on the market. We use the "Motherease" brand and have found them to be excellent.
2. Breast is best. There is no question that it is far better for babies to be fed breast milk. What is more, it is free and needs no plastic bottles or accessories.
3. Wean on home made organic food. Elsa has been weaned on organic vegetables from our box scheme (see above)- boiled, put through a food mill, and frozen until needed in ice cube trays.
4. Buy as much as possible second hand. We have obtained virtually everything we need from friends, family, charity shops and car boot sales. These are often as good as new- after all babies grow up so fast that they never get to wear anything out. The only major new purchases have been the nappies, a high chair and a push chair, and then only because we ran out of time to find good quality used ones.
5. Use strips of old t-shirt for baby wipes. We have bundles of these strips around the house and we wash them with the nappies. The commercial moistened wipes are loaded with chemicals and gave Elsa nappy rash. Similarly, we change the nappies on old towels.
6. Sleep with the baby. Not only is this psychologically good for everyone, especially baby, but it cuts out those expensive cots and "moses" baskets.

GREEN LIVING: THE ECO-FISH TANK
Spare a thought for a fish in a lifeless tank with plastic ferns and a florescent pink castle. This way of keeping pet fish reflects our whole attitude to the natural world; removing living things from their natural ecosystems and keeping them in unhealthy artificial environments, sustained by chemicals and electric heating.

Our friend, the environmental writer George Monbiot, started experimenting with reproducing river ecosystems in a fish tank. After two of our goldfish had died in a fish bowl, George gave us the tank to continue the experiments for our last remaining fish, Glorious. We put a wire mesh grill across one quarter of the tank, behind which we planted reeds from the River Thames. The grill holds the reeds, but also provides a fish free habitat for little wrigglies. We put mud and gravel from the river at the bottom of the tank. We then filled the whole tank with water from our neighbour's fish-free pond guaranteed to be full of a wide range of organisms, snails and pondweed. We top up the tank with new pond water whenever the level goes down, but have never needed to empty the tank. Once a month George sticks his hands in to clean the insides of the tank. We still feed the fish with fish flakes, but only once a day- there are plenty of other things in the tank to vary its diet. Two years on, Glorious looks very healthy and just keeps growing. Shortly we will buy another fish for company (to be named Marvellous).

GREEN LIVING: TRANSPORT
Taken together, land transport produces a third of the UK's greenhouse gases. This is not including air travel, which, in terms of its impact, adds half as much again. We refuse to have a car and travel by bicycle and public transport. Not to say that this is easy. Managing without a car is a struggle in a world that assumes that all parents have cars. However, it is also a huge saving and helps to sustain our low cost living. There is nothing fancy about the bikes- a standard sit up and beg city bike each with a seat for Elsa.

GREEN LIVING: COMPOST
We compost virtually everything. All kitchen scraps and garden waste, of course plus toilet rolls and scraps of cardboard, old shoes, corks, coffee and tea bags, crumpled up paper bags, mussel and crayfish shells, garden leaves and twigs, old cloths and towels. The only things not going into the compost are meat and human poo (even baby poo). The compost bin is in a sunny spot to get a bit of extra warmth. We empty it every 6 months and put it on the garden or allotment.