The idyllic coin

I've lived in the Marburg area of Germany for over 10 years now and I really like it here. One of the things I like is that the area is very rural. Lots of countryside and lots of trees. Another aspect that I like is the attitude of Marburg to the environment. Many buses run on natural gas, and there are many private vehicles that run on bio-diesel or gas. One of my neighbours has an all electric scooter which he charges up from the PV solar on his roof. The powers that be in Marburg also want to make it the first city in Germany to require all new buildings to have solar included on the roof. This is I think is an excellent idea.

Of course there are always two sides to every idyllic coin, and this week the new virus lab opened up in Marburg. Here scientists will work on some of the most deadly virus known to man, including Ebola. Interestingly enough if you Google Marburg you will find out just as much about the Marburg virus (and it’s pretty damn dangerous) as you will about the University city. In fact the virus is named after the city after an outbreak of the virus here in 1967.

So if we have an ever have a bad earthquake here I just hope that the prevailing westerly wind are blowing, as I live north of the lab. But I guess it must be safer than living close to a nuclear plant. Over the years I have worked and lived in a few places around the world, all had their good and bad sides. Here I have settled and I'm glad to call Marburg my home.

Grey water

Grey water is a generic term for household water that has been used once already (bath water, washing dish water etc) and is then re-used. I mentioned in my last post that we are using grey water from our kitchen to water the garden during this current dry spell. We only use it to water flowers and bushes and not anything that is edible. The grey water we use from the kitchen is from washing dishes and from washing hands. Both the hand soap and the detergent used for washing the dishes is biodegradable and is from the firm Sodasan which manufactures many environmentally friendly cleaning products.

Over the last year we have started to use a lot more environmentally friendly products and have been surprised by how good the results have been. We now use green washing powder and softener and our clothes are still clean and smell fresh. I believe the early generation of green cleaning products were no so effective, but the ones we have tried from Sodasan and Ecover have worked very well indeed. This I believe has helped to effectively reduce our negative footprint on the environment. Water use and conservation doesn’t make the news too often, but now and then there are articles about fish populations changing sex, drinking water quality, algae blooms etc, and one of the contributing factors to this pollution is household waste water. So I guess every little bit helps, even if it is just a drop in the ocean.

Technorati Tags: Enviroment, Grey Water, Garden,Sodasan,Ecover

Becoming greener

In the next couple of weeks Marburg is going to decide whether it should be made compulsory for all new buildings (including private homes) constructed in the Marburg area to have solar panel included on the roof. I think this is a tremendous idea and hope they decide in favour of it. It is still under discussion whether both types of solar panel (PV for electric and absorption for heating water) will be compulsory. Personally I hope they make both compulsory. I do regret not having solar fitted when we had the house built, but finances became tight and some extras we had to do without. But if it had been compulsory we would have found the money somehow.

On our housing estate it was compulsory to have an under ground rain water tank attached to the gutters of the house. Out tank holds 4500 litres of rain water when full and is plumbed to supply our toilets, washing machine and outside tap for watering the garden. I think this is a great idea as during heavy rains the tanks fill up first before the run off enters the rainwater sewer. In our estate the rainwater sewer is separate from the toilet sewer. The rainwater sewer then goes to a filtered reed bed and the overflow from there goes to the river Lahn. This system slows down the rainwater reaching the river thus helping to prevent flooding. It also of course helps lower our water bill and helps conserve water.

Marburg is quite a green town really. A lot of the buses run on natural gas or bio diesel. Also a lot of buildings and houses have solar fitted already. There are 3 wind turbines and they are planning to build more.

Technorati Tags: Enviroment, Marburg, Solar