Bit by bit we can make a difference

I am a teacher and a mother, and love the natural world.

I'm interested in living a more sustainable, greener lifestyle, and passing these values to our children.

We have recently begun making changes to our house to make it more sustainable, including installing solar panels for electricity generation and an evacuated tube solar hot water system. We are also composting our kitchen scraps and trying to conserve water.

Our house is well insulated, but we will soon be applying a layer of film to our windows to "double-glaze" them until we can replace them one by one with real double-glazed windows.

Our next big project will be water tanks and a greywater system to water our (hopefully) productive garden.

I enjoy feeling like we're contributing to a better world, and hope that eventually my entreaties to the kids to turn off the lights when they leave a room will sink in, and I won't have to do it for them! Children these days are quite well-informed about the environment and sustainability issues, so I have great hope for the future of our energy and water supplies, as well as for the environment and biodiversity in general.

I recommend doing whatever you can, no matter how small. Everything adds up.

We have visited sustainable houses for ideas, and done a lot of research and planning until the time when we could do something. Everyone here should take advantage of the free advisory services offered in the ACT--the Home Energy Advice Team (HEAT) and the Gardensmart program. The people who came to our house had a great deal of knowledge and were so helpful in guiding us.