Whilst I am on blogging “sick leave”, I have invited anyone who fancies it to write a guest blog post. If you’re interested in contributing a self-build, green or cat-related post, please email me! Meantime, many thanks to Martin Belam for this contribution.
For the last 3 years we have been living just outside Chania, on the Greek island of Crete. Recently though, we’ve decided to move back to the UK. That has made us notice the different styles of environmental awareness associated with housing in both countries.
The availability of recycling facilities is something that Greece is lagging behind the UK with. Our local municipality had a couple of recycle bins in the town square, but there was no recycling collection at the house. In fact, there wasn’t a rubbish collection at the house. We would have to take our rubbish on a walk down to some skips at the bottom of the road, which were a magnet for fly-tipping as well as domestic refuse.
Recycling is more common in the larger metropolitan areas like Athens, but it doesn’t always go to plan. There are lingering suspicions that the ‘recyclable’ collections end up in the same over-filled land-fills as other waste, and it is common to see any old rubbish stuffed into the special bins in town.
Water is another issue with a contrasting approach. Despite the number of people laughing at us that we are swapping the sun for constant rain, it is the UK where we are more likely to encounter a water shortage. In Greece, water is not treated as a precious commodity. It was usual to hear our neighbours washing their cars at all times of day and night, and on most days a constant stream of water ran down our road from people who had been hosing down their patios and balconies.
Energy use is where we are going to notice a big personal difference though. The flat we have chosen in London features the standard British set-up of central heating and double glazing. We’ve also got a coal-burning open fireplace, that I think will be more of a visual feature than a practical method of heating the house. By contrast, our house in Crete featured under-floor heating. This kept the house warm throughout the winter, but cost us a small fortune in petrol to run it. As it took a long time for the heat to seep into the house, it wasn’t something that you could run for a couple of hours each day, and it had to be left on continuously from October to March.
Summer is a different matter entirely, and the Greek approach really takes advantage of the climate. Not only does the warmer weather mean that heating bills are non-existent, Greece is much more geared up towards renewable and natural energy in the home. Not only did we have solar panels to help cut down on our need for nationally generated electricity, but our hot water tank was housed on the roof. That meant it naturally warmed as soon as the sun rose, and so we never had to use the water heater during summer at all. This is a pretty standard arrangement on the majority of modern homes in Greece.
Greece doesn’t have a very good environmental reputation - for example it has been suspended from carbon trading agreements because of the poor quality of the carbon emission statistics it was supplying. However, there have been some high-profile protests aiming to increase greener transport activities like cycling, and legislation to use more renewable energy in the national grid and raise the level of recycling.
And there will definitely be one environmental improvement by moving back to the UK - I dread to think of the size of my own personal carbon footprint whilst I’ve been living in Greece and regularly flying back to London for work.
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