Evening standards

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

The Evening Standard has just created a special green issue (4 April 2008). Reading it I discover that I am a mean green - someone who suggests taking the tube rather than a taxi, declines a skiing holiday for fear of abusing my CO2 footprint and eats everything in the fridge, even though it's mouldy.

It's upsetting that my low-impact, low maintenace (& v cheap) lifestyle is so scorned, even if it's not unexpected.

There are glam and genuine greens -identified in the ES as the authenti-greens. Key figures include David Attenborough, Tracy Worcester and Zac Goldsmith (all much loved by ES for pic opportunities). However as I've spent this month trying to find ways to create zero waste (and keep on failing) it seems fair enough to be branded a shabby, mean green.

In the spirit of gritty waste watching I add a snap of my not-sure-if-they-are-hairy-or-not legs. Home waxing is not a way to keep your home waste free. And for a woman who'd rather take her bike, than splash out on the tube I guess a visit to the salon for a pain-inducing half hour of hair removal is out of the question.

Verdict: Don't rush to treat me to this though, because if you do I'll be caculating the carbon footprint of a wax session & guarantee to find it high enough to find a new mean green cause. Surely rolling my eyes at friends' plane trips is enough?