Month: October 2015

Recycling

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Metal sheep

Now that we live in a house, rather than a block of flats, Christine and I are back to regular collections of waste in recycling. In the flats, we had access to a bin store where we could dump rubbish at any time, and this was collected by the council at regular intervals. For a time, we also had recycling bins for glass, paper, metals and plastics, although these were removed. Sadly our fellow residents were not so good at sorting their waste and our local council took the bins away due to contamination with non-recyclables. In the meantime I had to take our recyclables to our local supermarket to dispose of.

For waste from our house, our local council collects our wheelie bin every two weeks. Historically all councils have collected waste weekly but many have switched to fortnightly collections – a controversial stance that central government were opposed to. However, we still have a weekly recycling collection; in other words, one week only recyclable will be collected, and the next week all waste will be collected.

This suits us quite well, as a lot of our waste can be recycled. We’ve got into the habit of separating our waste before we dispose of it and so it only takes a few minutes each week to put these into the relevant bags or boxes and put them out for collection. As well as metals, paper, glass and plastic bottles, our council will collect food waste and textiles each week.

Separating food waste from regular waste, to me, is really important. Food waste can usually be composted, and it’s the main cause of bad smells and flies in regular waste, so it’s good that this can be collected weekly. We get a small caddy for the kitchen, and then a larger box to put out to collect, along with a series of green biodegradable bags.

Whilst we’re just a household of two people, for now at least, because we can recycle most of our waste, we manage not to fill our wheelie bin, even after two weeks. And, as an extra incentive, our local council offers entries to a monthly prize draw to those who put out their recycling every week, via a sticker with a QR code on our recycling box.

Recycling and sustainability are key at my workplace as well and we’re actively encouraged to recycle as much as possible, rather than simply chucking things in the bin. To this end, all offices have recycling bins within easy reach; you just have to think for an extra moment about which bin is appropriate for any given item.

It’s with this in mind that I read this piece on recycling in the New York Times. It makes some interesting points, but is very much focussed on the situation in the US, and not here in the UK. The US is a much bigger nation with more landmass available for landfill sites, and no tax on landfill. Here in the UK, we’re a significantly smaller island with a much higher population density, and more opposition to landfill sites which are more likely to be in someone’s back yard. Consequently, we have landfill tax to make recycling more attractive and cost-effective than simply dumping waste in big holes in the ground.

I’m happy to do my bit to reduce our household’s waste and footprint, and I’m pleased that my local council gives me this opportunity.

Mac-less

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On Sunday last week, I packed my Mac up ready to move to our new house. 10 days on and it’s still packed up.

The main reason is that my computer desk will be in the dining room and we haven’t painted all of the walls in there yet. I’d rather not unpack my computer until the painting is done so that I don’t damage it, but it’s going to be a week or two before we’re at that stage. So, in the meantime, my computer stays in its box.

What surprised me is how well I’ve been able to manage without it. Normally my Mac is on all the time, and although I put it to sleep when I’m out, I usually use it every day before and after work. But I’ve been mostly coping fine with my iPad and iPhone instead.

95% of what I do on my Mac, I can do on my iOS devices. The main things I use a computer for are social media, reading feeds and articles, email, a bit of photo editing and playing World of Warcraft. Most of these things can be done on my iPad or iPhone as easily as they can on my computer.

Obviously I haven’t been able to play World of Warcraft in that time, and I’ve had to put off editing photos for now. Writing blog posts is possible on my iPad but it’s not as easy as on a proper computer. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how replaceable my Mac has ended up being.

We also haven’t unpacked the TV for similar reasons. Watching Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who on my iPad wasn’t as great as it would’ve been on a proper TV, but it was acceptable.

Eventually we’ll have all of the painting done and we can go back to having a TV and desktop computer and be a normal household again, and I’m looking forward to it. But it’s not been nearly as disruptive as I’d expected it to be.

Fitbit Charge review

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A photo of a Fitbit Charge. It's on my wrist and shows the time as 19:16

I’ve bought myself a fitness tracker – a Fitbit Charge (sponsored link).

My primary reason for buying one was that I needed a new watch strap for my basic Skagen watch. Instead of buying a strap I decided to just get a new watch, as the Fitbit wasn’t much more expensive at the time and it can function as a watch, amongst other things.

There are lots of fitness trackers out there but I went with a Fitbit for a couple of reasons:

  1. Price – I was able to get one for a good price on Amazon at the time
  2. Recommendation – my manager at work has a Fitbit Charge (having previously owned a Fitbit Flex) and she recommended it to me
  3. Third-party integration – Fitbit integrates with Runkeeper, which I use for tracking exercises and walks, and with IFTTT
  4. User reviews – the Amazon reviews of the Fitbit Charge tended to be better then other trackers such as the Jawbone Up or Misfit ranges

I’ve had the Fitbit for 10 days now, which happened to include the time period when we were moving house, and so I clocked up a lot of steps and stair climbs initially. It’s set for five basic daily targets: 10,000 steps, 8.05 kilometres distance walked (that’s five miles in old money), 2,937 calories burned, 30 minutes of activity and 10 floors climbed. I upped the floor climbs to 20 as I was often hitting 10 floors before lunchtime, but I’ve kept the rest at the defaults.

I’ve exceeded 10,000 steps on some days (and 15,000 on a couple) but on other days I’ve missed the target by some way. This is despite my normal daily commute consisting of around 45 minutes of walking, split into four blocks. I was surprised at this, but it’s useful to know that I need to get more exercise during the day. I managed over 80 floors climbed one day as well, although this seems to be because the Fitbit Charge is interpreting some of the steep hill climbs in our area as stairs. Something to bear in mind if you live in a steep-sided valley like I do.

Fitbit app

You can track your progress using the Fitbit mobile phone app, which synchronises with your device via Bluetooth. By default it does this regularly throughout the day but you can turn this down if needed. The all-day sync mode does have an effect on your phone’s battery life, but it’s not too significant, in my experience.

If you have friends with Fitbit devices, then you can also view their progress. The ‘Friends’ view in the app shows the total number of steps taken over 7 days. At the moment, I’m on 54,374 – this is less than the 70,000 that I’m aiming for but puts me fourth out of seven, and only two of my friends have hit this target. You can also take part in challenges – most steps in a day, week or weekend, and also specific goals like stairs climbed. It’s a good motivational tool, although it does result in the app sending notifications when you’re close to overtaking someone, or vice versa, which gets annoying after a while. Thankfully, these can be turned off.

My main reason for purchasing the Fitbit Charge was that it also tells the time. The time doesn’t show on the screen all of the time, but can be illuminated by double-tapping the screen, pressing the button on the side of the screen, or lifting your wrist towards you. It’ll also show your key targets – steps taken, stairs climbed, calories burnt and distance walked, which you can scroll through by pressing the button.

The Fitbit’s battery life is reasonably good – a full charge should last between 7 and 10 days, depending on usage. It charges via a USB cable, but with a custom port on the back of the device. You can’t wear the device whilst it’s charging.

The Fitbit Charge comes in four colours and two sizes. I accidentally bought the small one, which is a bit too small for me but alleviated by an additional strap that I bought separately. Some of the Amazon reviewers had found that their Fitbits fell off easily and so I had bought an extra strap anyway. If you have medium-sized arms, I would recommend the large size though.

Overall, I’m impressed with the Fitbit. It seems to count steps quite accurately, despite being worn on the wrist, and performs well. It’s also good at motivating me to take the stairs rather than lifts, and to get out and walk more to maintain my targets.

Making a house a home (part VI)

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A photo of our dining room

Well, we did it – we’ve finally moved into our new home, at long last. About 99.5% of our possessions are here with us too, with just a handful of things still in our flat. We moved the bulky items last Sunday and so we have been living in the house for the past week.

We also now have a laminate floor in the kitchen, dining room, hallway and living room, which was fitted on Monday. It looks great, and is a huge improvement over the old carpet that was down when we moved in.

We’re now at the stage where we can finally get coloured paint on the walls. So far, just the one wall in the dining room has been painted, and we’ll be doing the same with the living room. These are the walls where the radiators will go, and as it’s now October and beginning to get cold, we’d like to get the radiators back on the walls as soon as we can.

Finally, we’ve given notice to end our tenancy agreement on the flat, so we’ve been focussing on getting that clean. The contract expires in a couple of weeks. It’ll be nice to only have to pay bills for one house.