Great Big Green Week
With Great Big Green Week in full swing, I wanted to see if we could share ideas on how we can make our beloved hobby more sustainable. One of the key initiatives for this year's event is celebrating swaps to promote sustainability, and I believe our community has a wealth of creative ideas to contribute.
Sustainability is crucial, not just for the environment, but also for the future of our hobby. So, let's brainstorm together on what items or practices we can swap to help reduce our carbon footprint and make our adventures more eco-friendly.
Have you discovered any innovative products or techniques that have helped make your caravan or motorhome lifestyle more sustainable? Are there specific items you've swapped out that have had a positive impact on reducing waste or energy consumption? Share your experiences, tips, and suggestions with us!
Perhaps you've found eco-friendly alternatives to common caravan accessories, or maybe you've implemented a recycling system while on the road. Whatever it may be, your insights could inspire others in our community to make small changes that collectively lead to a significant positive impact.
Please use this discussion to exchange ideas, support each other in our sustainability efforts, and showcase the creativity and innovation within our community. If we can drive positive change we can ensure that future generations can continue to enjoy the beauty of the great outdoors through our love of caravanning and motorhoming.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas on how we can swap for sustainability during Great Big Green Week and beyond!
Comments
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Hi Hja,
We have more info on our energy saving options including our first ‘smart metering’ Club site, Wyatts Covert Club Campsite, and the trial of non-electric Saver pitches at six Club Campsites; Clumber Park, Chatsworth Park, Burrs Country Park, Grafham Water, White House Beach and Brora. It's all part of our sustainability focus, giving members a choice of whether to use electricity when staying with us. By choosing to not use electricity, you can save up to £4.00 on any pitch type. More info on this here: Smart-Metering
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Of course they do, as they make a huge profit from the charge they make for members using EHU.
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When you buy your next caravan get something smaller and lighter. Do you really need to tow something the size of a small bungalow for just the two of you and your dog.
Colin
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Try and keep an outfit for longer, or consider renovating an older caravan. It’s like cars, the greenest car/caravan you own will be the one you keep longest. 👍
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What I'd like to know Rowena is the steps that the club have taken to utilise Environmentally friendly practices in either refurbishments of sites or in some cases new projects.
Let's take the work currently being undertaken at Steamer Quay. Is the club going to use recycled rainwater for the shower block and maybe power the electricity in there by means of solar panels? I have been on sites in Germany that have such systems and they work perfectly. How has the reception block been/being adapted? Are the grass cutting machines still using diesel/petrol? Compost heaps? Will they use various recycling waste bins, for food, plastic and tin, bottles and glass or is everything going in the one size fits all commercial waste bins that seem to be being used in club sites nowadays?
It's all very well asking the members what they are doing but I'd like to know as a member that the club is doing its bit.
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Whether I am right or wrong I don't know but when we were away in the van I always got the impression that that we used less of everything, certainly less water which is becoming more of a precious resource. Certainly a very modest amount of gas compared to home. The elephant in the room might be electricity but if I compared total energy used between home and motorhome I reckon in the motorhome might be less? When on site we almost exclusively either walked or use public transport from the site so journeys in the motorhome were limited to travelling between sites or home and sites.
I think what a lot of us would like to know are what are the general conclusions regarding the metering of electricity experiment. The promised two sites does not seem to have materialised yet. On the one site where it is being used (Wyatts Covert) it seems to have very mixed reviews about usability and management of the online system? I think many would have expected there to have been more progress on the role out of metering or at least more updates on how it is going and whether the Club still think it a worthwhile project now that energy prices have reduced considerably from their peak?
David
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The Club should be leading by example on this issue and providing an incentive for members to be greener but there is little sign of them doing this. As David points out there does not seem to have been much progress on the roll out of meters. Meters have even been installed at Ashridge, the promised second test site, but have not been brought into use and there has been no explanation as to why?
Apart from in house facilities, the Club appears to be going in the opposite direction. A prime example of this is at pop up sites and Club Fest where pitches have become ever more energy hungry over the years. At one time those attending such events needed to use all their own facilities, there was no electricity, just water sources and disposal points. Not anymore, pitches are supplied with electric from diesel guzzling generators giving members no choice until this year to opt out of its use. Even serviced pitches were provided this year which surely places a higher demand on water and energy. This said, I think the Club is frightened to do otherwise because the majority of members have no appetite to do anything different even when they have full facilities within their outfits. Heaven forbid if the Club should introduce push button showers to save water and look at the hoo hah because rubbish points have been abolished in favour of a single collection point. Many sites have been making this kind of provision for years!!
peedee
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Hi everyone, Thank you for your suggestions and comments so far.
With regards to the Club, we take Sustainability very seriously and do many things, but change takes time and we don't change for the sake of change. In the magazine we have a Sustainability Matters Column feature every 2 to 3 months and news stories and we have a Sustainability hub on the website and Nick Lomas is covering Sustainability in his July magazine column. We work with Green Tourism who hold us accountable for our initiatives.
In terms of our site development, all new facility blocks have Solar PV panels if they are suitable. We are trialling a larger array at Brighton to ensure we get maximum benefit and waste as little as possible (club campsite usage means we are using energy in the morning and at night when we are producing the least energy), and yes we could go down the battery storage route but this is expensive and we need the right solution and is certainly an area we are exploring.
We install air source heat pumps in our facility blocks and have tried a number of things like rain water harvesting but the realities of some of the solutions don't always match well with the clubs usage patterns and the vast amount of power and water we use each year, so we have to ensure the solution works to deliver a difference and not just to be seen to do it
In terms of site equipment we are moving towards electric but not overnight, we replace old equipment with new more efficient electric equipment
We have a water saving trial currently at Black Knowl and Tewkesbury and if this is successful we will move towards making significant reductions in water in future years, and we are starting to introduce sensor taps in new developments.
We are looking at all the things you mention but for example waste is dictated by the local authority and waste contractor. We have recently moved to Biffa and the service does vary and what happens at the end point varies so in some areas the sorting centres are very advanced and that's why you see if all go in together, but in others it does not, much like you find from town to town across the country. For us we would prefer to offer the same service so that its familiar on sites and therefore we offer separate bins, however food waste is still very uncommon in many areas so this would only be a thing if our waste providers offer it
In terms of the metering trial, we did an update earlier in the year in the magazine. The metering has cut member consumption considerably however the metering process for members needs to be simplified before we move this forward and this work is in hand and should be available early next year. We had planned to trial 2 different solutions but we could not find two suitable solutions that did not cost a significant amount of capital and we believe the solution we have, when its enhanced will offer the right solution; however we do still need to test it at Wyatts Covert and gather feedback as we have done for the last year. Ashridge does have meters and this is to benchmark usage between the two sites and to ensure our findings are valid and comparable before we choose to offer it elsewhere. And Steamer Quay when it re-opens will be on meters.
In terms of pop up sites we are exploring Solar to support the operation and hope to trial a solution in the near future and our teams are proactively looking at all areas of the business to improve what we do; but it's an enormous job and Carbon is our key focus.
We have a sustainability mailbox so you are welcome to email any questions to us or any ideas, or catch up on the magazine, the sustainability hub and the FAQs we have published:sustainability@camc.com
Sustainability and Green Tourism
Our Sustainability hub is just going through an overhaul so we expect it will feature some recent stories in the very near future.2 -
Rowena
Thanks for the pretty comprehensive update.
Good to see that Steamer Quay is being prepared for metering. Obviously that site previously didn't have any electricity points so its a blank canvas. Is it the intention to do the same on all newly upgraded sites? From what you say the Club are clearly going to proceed with metering once they have ironed out some of the difficulties?
I think I am right in thinking that Meter-Macs don't have an app, seemingly no indication on their website? This makes the system less customer friendly and hopefully that is what the Club is working on?
It's probably a bit niche but I would be interested to know, in the future, how successful the air pumps are as given time we all might be going down that route!
David
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It is all very well having recycling facilities, but every site, with either major club, and every independent site Including CLs or equivalent) get rubbish and food mixed in with the recycling. Until everyone actually cares about rinsing containers (normally required) and separating correctly, then a fair few recycling centres simply send the contaminated material to landfill or incineration.
It would help to have everything required clearly laid out for each individual site as the acceptable combination of say cans and plastic and what is classified as acceptable plastic and paper varies so much around the country.
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I’m sure it does in the caravan itself. However, with our caravan on a service pitch we used our shower and washing up sink, rather than those on the block. I would suspect that we used less water than when on a standard pitch and using the facilities. Although you can run the cold as much as you want 9 litres of hot does not last that long.
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Having done both certainly not for us, we use water as and when we need whatever the pitch type Arthur. We refill the aquaroll morning and night and if on site during the day we refill if we run dry.
Of course people are on holiday, and I've never come across another type of holiday accommodation (not tents) where water isn't on tap and used as one wants, and yes I do count my caravan as a hotel/B&B/holiday let on wheels.
I suppose it's all historic as older campsites had just one tap every so often and it was easier to build them that way? Now most newer sites have SP and more and more of them, as I said it's meant to be a holiday. I'm sure you'll be aware from comments on here they are extremely popular.
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Very good point, I'll certainly take longer in the showers in the facilities than in the caravan.
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I notice in the latest magazine that only 6,000 of the 385,000 members read it digitaly! Maybe if there was an option of a digital subscription like the C&CC with a saving on membership fee, considerably more would agree to this greener option.
peedee
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Regarding water use and our guesses as to which sort of pitch uses the least it always amazes me as to the number of people, particularly motorhomers, who fill their water tanks to the brim on arrival and empty that unused on leaving. Same with a few caravaners dumping their aquarolls contents. I wonder how many litres are wasted across the network during a season. I bet it’s considerable.
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Is a digital magazine greener though? There are lot of contradictory views and research studies depending on if you believe that or not, with as far as I can see, no definite answer.
Digital magazines do not use any paper, so many consumers believe that digital magazines will save forests. However, digital magazines will be stored in servers that require energy use.
"It depends" Other research institutes have also concluded that printed media don't inherently possess a worse environmental impact compared to their digital counterparts. The argument stands that a print medium consumes resources and energy during production only once but can be utilized multiple times.
And yes of course there are just as many quotes which give the opposite view but there is no one definitive answer. But looking at the magazines racks in any supermarket, most if not of all which have digital copies, people do still like having a paper copy. I'm one of them as I find reading print versions easier to read.
People do have the option not to receive a paper copy of the club magazine yet only less than 2% (or just over3% of members households) choose to do so, perhaps that is more to do with wanting a paper copy than a saving? I would still want a paper copy.
Anyone have a data on the take up of the CCC digital subscription in relation to number of members?
Also of course look at the complaints on here when a paper copy doesn't arrive or is late. And of course the club might lose revenue from advertising in the magazine.
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Same with a few caravaners dumping their aquarolls contents
Of course that's because we do not have the option of taking that with us and have to do so, unlike MHs.
Personally I always try and 'run down' the aquaroll before leaving, easy to do as just switch the tap off on a SP in the morning, but no matter how careful there will always be some left that has to be emptied, but I agree that no one should be emptying a full aquaroll.
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Come on, Micky, you know assessing water usage isn’t an exact science so caravanners are almost bound to have left overs to dispose of. In a hot summer (remember them?) it was a way of watering grass and hedges so not a waste.
Similarly with MH tanks, it’s near impossible to estimate how much will be needed for a stay but I can’t understand why folk empty them. It’s something we’ve only done at the end of the season. Maybe those people bought vans with unfit for purpose payloads🤷🏻♂️.
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That statistic is quite telling in itself. I am not sure how they measure, perhaps just by clicks on the Magazine webpage? Also given that so many are complaining about not receiving the magazine due to post issues I would expect that figure to be much higher, especially with the Club promoting the online magazine in order to overcome delivery issue? I have not read the article but CS mentioned 2 or 3% of people opting out. It seems to me that the vast majority of the membership are wedded to the idea of a printed magazine? Given the current statistics I can't see there is much evidence to support the introduction of a digital membership, especially if people wanted it at a lower cost. And what would that saving be, perhaps the cost of a pint of beer a year? Is it worth it?
David
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I suspect in comparison with water use at home its a drop in the ocean if you will forgive the pun. It's impossible to calculate to the litre how much you will need during a stay. Certainly caravanners can put the excess to good use by emptying to water around a tree or in the bushes, after all its perfectly clean. Th explanation for some motorhomers emptying their water tanks on exit is simply I expect due to payload issues. A full 100 litre tank can be equal to a third of the payload on some motorhomes. Life is too short to micro manage everything you do!
David
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If you read the article in the July magazine by Nick Lomas, on some Club sites provision is made for storage of left over fresh water and it is used for watering the sites anyway so I cannot see it makes much difference if it is just dumped.
peedee
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I totally understand how that wastage happens but the point I was making was that this wastage must be quite significant across the network during a season. I thought that we were discussing little ways in which we could become more sustainable in these more informed days we live in. Afterall, that almost annual water shortage and associated restrictions may just be round the corner. May be we do need to think a little more about this very necessary commodity and how we use it. A main point of improving our sustainability is that every little helps isn’t it?
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But see PD's point above.
Perhaps it’s worth trying to persuade MH-ers not to empty their tanks🤷🏻♂️
In the SW we had a ‘hose pipe ban' for a year so I’m well aware of the existence of water shortages. Are you aware of the plans for a desalination plant in Cornwall? It’s all on the internet👍🏻
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There are still those who promote the NEED to empty their tank after every trip in order to avoid all sorts of dreaded lurgies. We only empty our fresh tank at the end of the season or if not going away for a few weeks because the water can get stale. And then we don’t empty the boiler. We use tank water for everything.
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I got that too Tinny, regardless of being a caravaner, motorised or otherwise, we can all do a little bit better in our sustainability efforts can’t we?. As I said, every little helps and that’s central to the original post, isn't it? Good to see the club harvesting some rain water, they need to step this up!
I wasn’t aware of the Desal. Plant in Cornwall but even so our efforts to save water may reduce the need to use at least some energy in this process. Don’t start me on the waste and pollution the Water Companies themselves are causing, that’s really dreadful and we need to set the good example and force them to change their ways, promptly!
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The only time I empty our fresh water tank is when there is a threat of frosts.
That statistic is quite telling in itself. I am not sure how they measure,
I would think it is measured by the number of members who have ticked in their profile not to receive the magazine even though some may never read it at all.
It seems to me that the vast majority of the membership are wedded to the idea of a printed magazine?
More probably too many members have insufficient knowledge on the use of computing devices. I saw somewhere a report from Age UK that 55 percent of over65 year olds lacked this knowledge.
peedee
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