[Closed] Petty environmental crimes - whats yours?

Drive to work, because I’m so lazy I want the extra 30 mins in bed. Hate it, even typing it makes me feel like a ****

I leave my computer screen on and let the in-built power saving function save the power.

My girlfriend is terrible for leaving lights on at night.

My main love/hobby is music production. So I have a kind of mini studio. All the gear is left on 24/7 because 1; I don't have to go round saving settings. And 2; So I can just quickly get going when inspired.

No idea how evil that makes me. But I'm pretty good everywhere else.

besides having a 17yr old cat which just must be awful for the environment, I have a bad habit of leaving the fridge door open whilst cooking as I keep nipping in there to get stuff and put stuff back.

Overfilling the kettle, having to make do with the chalky sediment to brim a cup of tea fills me with horror.

TJ you are my 20yo daughter & I claim my £5 🤣

Drive to work

Did this this morning because; reasons. It was a bit too cold, a bit too rainy, and I just couldn't be arsed after riding all week and a HIIT session last night.

leaving computers on stand by / waiting for power save as I hate starting up 20,000 windows to the right place again in the morning.

I sometimes deactivate the stop/stop on my car because it's bloody annoying when the engine is cold, it makes the whole car shake.

I bought a £4k MTB on a R2W scheme which saved me a fortune, I've ridden it to work maybe 3 times in as many years.

When the company I worked for went bust, I didn't tell the liquidators about the bike it cost me less than £300. I've still got it, it's lovely, it's not really an environmental crime, but it's linked to the above.

Existing.

Shaving my balls with an electric manscaping tool so I can look pre-pubescent.

Methane production?

750-1000kg CO2e there TJ 7-10% of a household footprint (but half that to account for a "normal" bath)

Big oil heated stone farmhouse here, not even going to go near calculating that!

Gum - indeed - you should be using a cutthroat razer

besides having a 17yr old cat which just must be awful for the environment

What's the cat doing? Burning tyres on National Trust property?

Grum & tj - plucking has no environmental impact; if you don't fancy that, singeing.

@Mister-P

Just for a bit of fun

i am not meaning those major things like multiple flights a year, having pets, driving big 4x4s to take the kids to school.

*crosses legs*

Using waaaay more sheets of bogroll than i need to. Being told three sheets is enough by a controlling arsehole of a parent (see what I did there) clearly scarred me, and i'm rebelling!

Litter picking but then not separating it into recycling at the end. Screw it, the litter picking was good deed enough and I'm not fishing around in amongst the dog-poo bags in order to fish out all the Strongbow cans.

Music on in my kitchen all day pretty much everyday, I work upstairs, but I like some background noise in the house when I'm on calls.

I own 2 cars, I really don't need 2 cars, the second one is just for convenience!

Following advice I've left my valve hi-fi on since I bought it and recently read it might not be necessary.

Falling asleep in front of the tv. Kids go to bed and I think, great, time to watch episode 5000 of scandiwhatever drama. Immediately fall asleep and wake up 2 hrs later. Lights on, tv on. Pointless.

I've an Aga

I turn off the stoo/start function on my car, I find it ok if I know the wait will be long enough but I tend to go handbrake/neutral even for a brief stop and think it can't help the battery (maybe I'm prolonging the life of the battery which is better overall??)

Falling asleep in front of the tv. Kids go to bed and I think, great, time to watch episode 5000 of scandiwhatever drama. Immediately fall asleep and wake up 2 hrs later. Lights on, tv on. Pointless.

Pointless finishes at 6pm, so are the kids in bed at 4?

Driving for over an hour each way to ride my bike in circles.

My paintings are acrylics which is basically plastic.

Single use zip ties to hold my life together.

At least today I have learned that our dog is a major environmental crime.

I shall advise the wife to stop posting photos of her on social media do the EPA don't hunt us down.

In defense, the dog doesn't take a giant over flowing hot bath on a daily basis.

Grum & tj – plucking has no environmental impact; if you don’t fancy that, singeing.

Singeing requires a heat source, and even the most efficient blowtorch uses gas.

Mine's picking up my dog's poo in those flimsy plastic bags. Be a lot more environmentally friendly just to leave it on the ground.

Do the goldfish count as an environmental crime?

I ride an ebike, for fun.

I get annoyed when I make the tea and there's a cup full of boiled water left in the kttle. Even more so, when MsJimmy makes the tea and it's over half full afterwards.

BUT.... new kettle last week and it's got a 1,2 and 3 cup measurement INSIDE the kettle. No excuses now - HA

Goldfish?  Hmmmmm - petty I would say - minimal amounts of food and extra energy consumption

so do we need a sliding scale for pets?  goldfish - forgivable.  half a dozen german shepherds - you planet murderer you

Where do we put stick insects?

😉

Big 4x4. Works with lifestyle but wouldn’t buy the same thing again if I was in the market for a new car. Problem is, the most environmentally friendly car is the one you already have and this one’s got another few 100k in it.

Keep quiet when the boss at work puts bags for life straight in the bin - the good ones too.

I have a huge bath, use it most days and fill it up to the overflow with really hot water. I just love it. A shower ( and I have a really good one) probably gets you cleaner and uses less water and energy but I just love my big deep baths!

From the man who slags off people for using dishwashers!

I wash my bikes and cards and motorbikes with a truck cleaner on the gravel outside my shed.

Not a shocker, but it's at the top of the hill that leads to a protected rainforest creek.

Not sure what else I can do really. Even biodegradable soaps can't be great.

The other thing is wearing a disposable mask every day at work.

Oh ****.

I'm going to be TJ when I'm older.

Mine's mainly recycling related:

Not sorting plastics into thermoplastics and thermosets before they go in the recycling.

Occasionally chucking large car parts in the recycling bin. Chucked a crankshaft in there once. it went CLANG! as the bin emptied into the truck. Brother in law quietly disposed of an old Punto shell that way over a series of weeks.

I've also been known to shred our recycling in the garden shredder around Christmas to squeeze it all in.

Does a pond count? 4000 litres of water for 5 fish, pump and UV running 24/7. I suppose it provides a bit of a habitat for other creatures.

No blinds or curtains on most of the windows in our house, or if there are then they rarely get used. Must be doing a decent job of warming the garden!

Every once in a while after heavy rain an imprint of my tyre tracks is visible on certain woodland trails for a couple of hours. No, I don't think it's a terrible thing either but I've been informed otherwise.

We've got a hot tub - expensive to run. Sometimes I can't be bothered going outside to recycle, so the occasional tin ends up in the kitchen bin.

Also got an additional car than we need. Both got largish older cars (mine is 20 and Mrs is 8) but we've just bought a little Aygo for shopping, getting daughter to learn to drive, and bailing my son out so he can get to work as he's blown his engine up again on his car).

Plan is to potentially keep the Aygo as it's ideal for short trips.

And not so petty …..I cut down trees and use leaf blowers almost daily

I always boil a full kettle.

i drive 1.5 miles to work in a car that does 7mpg

I have a dog.

i drive 1.5 miles to work in a car that does 7mpg

Major crime alert!  Send for the CO2 police!  Planet murderer!

I resort to weedkiller and calcium sulphate on the patio* once a year or so.

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*assembly of red and orange 1990's slabs with a jungle of virulent triffid between slabs and aggressive moss and slime growth due to being tucked under a north facing railway embankment and retaining wall.

I have a dog.

You've misspelt 'iPad'.

I've travelled more in the car to get to places to ride, than the actual riding distance this year.

Major crime alert! Send for the CO2 police! Planet murderer!

I prefer to think im keeping the oil and gas economy going 🙂

I use a variety of petrol powered equipment for garden maintenance, plus I eat Loads of meat 🍖 😋

Pizza oven in the garden. Really don't need to light a fire to cook a pizza.

But they taste so good.

i boil the kettle, with almost twice as much water as i will use in the cafetiere (min. for kettle) and the let the boiling water cool back down nearly 20* before using it.

too tight to buy a low volume, 80* kettle

Major crime alert! Send for the CO2 police! Planet murderer!

I prefer to think im keeping the oil and gas economy going 🙂

Yeah - Send for the CO2 police! Planet murderer! 😀

I use the internet for trivial things

I don't compost. I should as it's the only thing we actually throw out (scrapings, tea bags, coffee, fruit/veg skins etc). But I don't like the idea of a rotting VAT next to the house.

I insist in only buying Brazilian beef products.

No, I don’t think it’s a terrible thing either but I’ve been informed otherwise.

Like

I just really love shitting in the woods. No idea why but it just makes me feel like a king. All that nonsense about bagging it and taking it home can go get ****ed.

When I tidy up the kitchen sometimes there are bits of food scraps and I put the whole lot in the bin instead of picking the bits of food out.

Sometimes I throw recyclable packaging away in a bin when I am out and about, instead of taking it home to recycle.

Occasionally chucking large car parts in the recycling bin. Chucked a crankshaft in there once.

Oof. Those things are valuable. We have several different scrappies who come around in vans and they gladly take all my old bike and car parts.

Major crime alert! Send for the CO2 police! Planet murderer!

I prefer to think im keeping the oil and gas economy going 🙂

Yeah – Send for the CO2 police! Planet murderer! 😀

Just wait till you find out i dont sort out the recycling either!

Oof. Those things are valuable. We have several different scrappies who come around in vans and they gladly take all my old bike and car parts.

I heard they just leave a 20 yarder at the end of your drive

I love hot baths too btw and on some lazy jobless days I have been known to have one in the morning, it's lovely.

Just did a calculation, and a bath a day for a year uses up 1.2MWh of electricity which is about £200-250 and about 280kg of CO2 emissions (uk average) which is about the same as driving 1200 miles in a typical car. or about 5,400 miles in a good EV. Or, about the same as lighting a typical house (guessing 6 bulbs) 24 hours a day for 2 years.

Which doesn't sound so bad, but compared to flying it's about the same as Edinburgh to London twice.

Also, munro bagging, not really that great either given the amount of driving.

Lol @ thols2

Having a second car that is really bad on pollutants, purely as a fun thing.
Do a lot of miles just to go riding somewhere.

I counter them though by not changing the daily driver every 2/3 years (9 years old and still plenty of life left in it) and by not producing any kids.

Where to start... too many kids, too many pets, live too far from the office to cycle, old victorian house which has the insulation of a sieve - I'll probably burn in hell for it all.

I'm sounding a bit like a grumpy old man today

Dropping apple stalks on the ground. I eat the apple, pips and all but I'm left holding the stalk.

If that's too petty then buying 3kg plastic bags of apples instead of loose ones, oh and they aren't bio !

I don't repair inner tubes.

I use the internet for trivial things

so far the winner I think for total pettiness 🙂

Hmmm, two kids and a dog*, not off to a good start really.
None of us eat beef anymore and we'll have at least two meat free days a week.
Cycle commute for the last 10+ years, neither me or Mrs F drive for work, one of the cars spends 4-5 months a year sorned. They're old too, in fact I've owned two cars in the past 20 years :D, less than 5k miles per year. However, quite a bit of that mileage is covered towing a trailer to various circuits so I can spend a weekend going round and round in circles trying to be quicker than I was last time I visited, fuel is burned, tyres are ruined.
I've only been on eight flights in my lifetime.

I can't think of anything petty I do knowingly, it's either good or awful.

*the dog's ace, can I get rid of the kids and keep the dog?

I own cryptocurrency.

About a quarter mile from my house is a 4 way traffic light. You can tell from a bit of a distance where it is in the sequence and therefore if you can make it to the lights for the upcoming green.
I'll properly gun my (diesel) car from cold to make it through if I think I can. Almost certainly worse than sitting idling* for 2 minutes.

*yes it has start stop, yes its always enabled.
No it wont do it after quarter of a mile, especially on a cold morning. I trust the german engineers to know when is right to turn it off, and when to keep it going better than my own gut feeling, so I won't turn it off manually.

My cat has an electric blanket in it's bed in the summerhouse.

On the other hand it is old and fat and doesnt kill any wildlife these days.

Oh ****.

I’m going to be TJ when I’m older.

I guess it could be worse....

I got an electric blanket (I get seriously cold feet) and I basically never remember to turn it off. I am a monster.

Oh and practically everything to do with 3d printing, it's a great way to buy plastic from china and then waste electricity in order to turn it into slightly different plastic half of which goes in the bin and probably can't be recycled and most of the rest is just complete nonsense that nobody needs.

7mpg

wtaf, i drive a double decker coach that manages more than 9mpg, with 79 people on board!!

I like to use petrol as a chain cleaner.

On a couple of occasions I have had to poo in the woods, pretty sure that despite my care - that it does actually have and environmental impact. And no, I didn’t have a bag to take it home - but it wouldn’t have been suitable for bagging anyway…

My household goes through bananas at a rate of about two packs a day.

I have a bike just for the purposes of riding it around in pointless circles in the woods.