MAKE A HUT A HOME

Yes that is my house trundling down the road on the back of a truck, as you do.

So! An update as to the little house project…

1) WE HAVE DOORS AND WINDOWS. Added windows and glass doors lets in so much more natural light, which almost gives the illusion that we don’t live in a box.

Recycled doors

Recycled window

2) WE HAVE CLADDING! This was a huge part of making the site hut look less like, well, a site hut.

I’m not going to lie and say I did much of this- but I did have have a go at it which resulted in the following: a wonky side to the building (which Dave swears was not my fault, bless him and his nice lies); the neighbours knowing exactly when I was the one using the nail gun due to my girlish scream after pulling the trigger each and every time; my mother freaking out at the idea of me using power tools altogether- and creating such a scene it was worse than listening to me actually using the nail gun.

bang, aaah!

3)  INSULATION: So Dave tells me this is one of the most important things because: it keeps us warm at night, cool in the day, keeps energy costs down, it has sound proofing properties…etc etc. All I know is that the ceiling fell down and is now patched together, as is my dads head which it subsequently fell on. Sorry Dad.

4) CARPET: A quick cup of tea and a seven minute youtube video later…BOOM! We were quite the carpet laying experts. An hour or two after wondering why it wasn’t looking as fresh as the example in video, and coming up with an entirely new technique in place of a knee kicker (planking the carpet and rolling around*)- we decided we always planned on having nice rugs anyway.

5) PAINT: Our donated carpet was green…which naturally meant we had to find something loud and garish to compliment it. Yellow. Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

6) MOVING HOUSE, LITERALLY. We had it craned onto the back of a flatbed truck and driven onsite in the field, much to the dismay of the local residents…

I was sure the floor would stay where it was, waving goodbye to the walls and ceiling

dismayed cow

*patent pending

Erm…why?

MY NAME IS JESS: I am a 25 year old female post-graduate living in England, and I want to go waste free…how hard could it be, right?

Actually, I always thought it was impossible, that you either had to be rich to afford a waste free life style, to be void of food packaging and plastic bottled cleaning agents, or a devout hippy with an impressive beard. Even then, I always imagined these waste-free weirdos sneaking their garbage out in the  middle of the night to avoid scrutiny, whilst in the day they shone as exemplary human-beings to their neighbours and friends; who were all quite honestly sick to death of hearing about the crime they were committing by using plastic covered toothpaste. I thought it was a life of luxury afforded by those who didn’t need to shop on a budget, or didn’t live in a city, or who had enough space in their life to grow their own food, and could replace all their throw away items with expensive metal substitutes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like an impressive beard as much as the next person (the guy on the left in this link is actually a close friend of mine), and my nickname growing up was in fact ‘hippy’ but I am by no means a spiritualist floaty type of person who wishes to ditch my razor to adopt the natural look, and the thought of the mooncup makes me quite honestly wretch. I am, on paper, a scientist. Yet right now I am a post-graduate working in a deli where I make sandwiches for minimum wage, trying to pay off my bank loan which I foolishly took out to complete a masters degree, which ultimately got me here…as is the case for the other hundreds of UK students working in ASDA or bar tending whilst being more qualified than the customers they ‘serve’.

So why am I trying to go waste free when, and lets be frank, I quite clearly have bigger problems to work out….like leaving my parents house after having to move back home (cue the sad string music). Well, I kind of just want to see if it is possible. Or for lack of a better explanation: why not? I don’t know about you but I hate the thought that the environment and the animals in it are suffering because of the waste we are too lazy to avoid. The oceans, forests, woodland, and even our city streets are quite literally littered with our rubbish…and for what? It’s just not something I want to be part of.

I WANT TO SEE IF LIVING WASTE FREE IS POSSIBLE: Right now I am living in Brighton, the only city in the country run by the green party yet it has appalling recycling facilities (I mean, really bad!). In the summer I am hoping to be living in the countryside with enough space to grow my own food and live off the grid on solar and wind power (which we’re of course building ourselves), and next winter I plan to be travelling South America, where I am a volunteer primatologist for Ecoparque el Fenix monkey sanctuary and my boyfriend is to be building eco-beach-houses. I am hoping that if I nail the zero-waste life style now, then I can be as low impact upon the environment as possible no matter what project I am working on or where I am living at the time. But can being waste free work in all these situations? I’ve yet to find a “travellers guide to waste free” for a start so maybe this will be the first!

SO THAT’S ME AND THAT’S WHY I WANT TO BE WASTE FREE: Lets see what happens! I predict the first couple of months to be the strongest learning curve, which will of course be documented here for educational purposes…if not just for a laugh.