YOU'RE NEVER TOO YOUNG TO LEARN

Case Study

No age is too young to start sowing the seeds of green awareness, say Cameron and Geraldine Goodall.
They reckon the small measures they have taken to save energy and money will have the added benefit of setting a good example to daughters Murron, four, and Maggie, two.
The family live in a three-bedroom terraced house in Lasswade, Midothian, where they all try to do their bit to be greener.
Cameron, 39, said: “It’s not a case of us being really green or living our whole lives by it, but it doesn’t take much to do things like switching to energy-saving lightbulbs so we do what we can.
“We’ve been trying to do things like that for years now and having the girls makes us even more aware because Murron learns about the environment at nursery.
“She’s only four but because she’s grown up with the way we do things, she automatically puts things in the recycling bin and switches things off.
“Our lightbulbs are energy-saving lightbulbs and we very rarely use the tumble drier.
“Midlothian is pretty windy so we can hang the washing out if it’s dry and if it’s not, we prefer to hang it out to air dry in the house rather than sticking the tumble drier on.
“Having two young kids means we use a lot of batteries for their toys so we also use rechargeable batteries where possible.
“When it comes to leaving things on standby, I’m aware of it but my wife is the real stickler for switching things off at the mains – everything goes off, even the Sky+, which I then need to re-programme. But it’s
better than wasting the energy and money leaving it on.
“I don’t consider myself an eco campaigner or anything like that but a lot of the changes are obvious things to do and are easy to make.
“It doesn’t take much effort to put an energy-saving lightbulb into your trolley instead of a normal one and it saves you money in the long run.
“It’s a question of common sense and about us doing our wee bit.”