I mentioned last week that I was having LED lighting installed in my office. Well, the LED lights arrived and were installed yesterday and so far are working fine. There are 8 GU10 downlighters in my office and each one consumes 1.8W of power but gives out the same amount of light as a 20 W halogen. I thought that the equivalent of 160 W of light in my little office would be bright enough but I have to say that it's a little darker than I expected. There is enough light to work in, and because most of the time I work at a computer, I don't really need particularly bright lights however, it is noticably darker than the other offices. If I had to do a lot of reading through paperwork, I would definately want a brighter light. The other thing is that although I bought "white" lights, they seem to have a bit of a blue tint to them, so everything has taken on a very slight blue hue.

Overall, the lights are a success but I will probably get a desk lamp (with an energy saving bulb of course!) for times when I need a brighter light. I think the slightly blue colour to the light is more pronounced because the fluorescent lights that are used everywhere else in the factory give off slightly yellow light. However, it's a very calming effect and I quite like it.

After successfully building our compost bins from sustainably sourced, untreated timber, we're a bit worried about them rotting away themselves in a few years time. We've decided that we want to treat them with something, but not your normal wood preserves or stains that have a petrochemical base, contain VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and other generally nasty chemicals. After scouring the internet, I came across a company called Auro who sell natural paints and wood preserves. You can find their website here.

We've opted for their organic linseed oil to treat the compost bins but there are a range of options including wood preserves and stains, but also interior wall and gloss paints. Auro claim that all their products are made from natural materials that are sustainably sourced, and say that any excess paint can be composted. We just need it to stop raining now for long enough to paint the compost bins...

As well as painting my office at the weekend, the builders are also going to fit some new lights for me. I’ve gone for GU10 down lights but instead of fitting halogen GU10 lamps, we’re going to fit LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamps instead. These are much more efficient than halogens - they’re more efficient than compact fluorescent tubes too! Each LED lamp draws only 1.8 Watts of power but emits the same amount of light as a 20 Watt halogen lamp. I bought both the light fittings and the lamps themselves from BLT Direct whose website can be found here. The other advantage of LEDs is that they last over 50,000 hours so it will be a long time before one of them needs changing!

LED lamps technology is developing rapidly with more and more powerful lamps becoming available all the time. At the moment they are particularly useful for display lighting because they use such little power and don’t generate much heat. Although the manufacturers don’t recommend using LEDs to light an office because of they still cannot match other bulbs for brightness, we decided to try them anyway because I could always have an extra desk lamp if necessary. These lamps are still relatively expensive at the moment but it’s worth it because they last so long and the energy savings compared to normal bulbs is so great. These lamps pay for themselves in about 131 days through energy savings alone. If you don’t believe me, look at the calculations below.

To power eight 50W halogens for 8 hours a day where electricity costs 10 p/kWh costs 8 x 0.05 x 8 x 0.10 = £0.32 per day

To power eight 2W LED bulbs for 8 hours a day where electricity costs 10 p/kWh costs 8 x 0.002 x 8 x 0.10 = £0.0128 per day

Saving = 0.32 – 0.0128 = £0.3072 per day

Cost of bulbs = £5

Payback = (5 x 8)/0.3072 = 130.2 days

We’re redecorating some of the offices at the moment and mine is being done this weekend. We’re trying to use as many environmentally friendly products as possible so we have chosen paint from Ecos Organic Paints. This range is completely solvent free and releases no volatile organic compounds to the atmosphere. The paint also does not contain any toxic ingredients. Not only is this better for the environment, it’s better for the decorators too as they won’t have to work in nasty paint fumes.

We officially heard today that Alara has passed the Green Mark Level 1 audit! It’s a great achievement for us as and it means that we can start using the Green Mark logo on our packaging.

On to Level 2…

We recently bought some new lockers for our changing rooms so I am currently trying to find someone who wants our old lockers. I thought it would be easy – there are loads of second hand furniture places out there so how hard can it be? Surprisingly difficult actually! 

I found loads of companies who buy and sell second hand furniture, particularly office furniture, however most of them are only interested in buying second hand furniture in bulk. They do office clearances or buy old stock from warehouses, so they weren’t interested in a few beaten up old lockers!

So then I started to look at charities and local furniture recycling projects. London Furniture Recycling Project (LFRN) is a good place to start, as they have a list of most of the projects in the London area, which can be found here. Most of them specialise in furniture for the home because they pass the goods on to families on a low income, so lockers were of no use to them. Some of them do collect office furniture though. Green-works will refurbishes furniture before passing it on to groups or charities that can’t afford brand new stuff. However, they wanted to charge us £170 for collection of the lockers, which is a bit expensive if you ask me. A similar scheme called OFFERs was charging £50 for collection, which was more reasonable.

The only other options are to sell them on ebay, or to put them on Freecycle. If you haven’t heard of Freecycle before, it is a group that makes use of the philosophy that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If you have something that you don’t want anymore but is still in reasonable condition, you can post a description of the item to the group and anyone who wants it can come and collect it. The only rules are that everything offered must be free. I checked with our Green Mark advisers that it’s OK for businesses to use Freecycle and they told me that it’s fine because anything that you put on Freecycle is not waste so is not covered by waste regulations.

We’re going to try Freecycle first. It’s our first time using the system so I’ll let you know how we get on…

On Saturday we held our compost bin building day and here's a picture of all our volunteers proudly standing in front of the finished bins! They look fab (both bins and volunteers)! It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and it was a great day for working outdoors. A big thank you to all our volunteers - we couldn't have done it without you.

I've posted the rest of the pictures from the day here if you want to have a look. Hope to see lots of you again on the next days when we'll be digging some ponds for harvesting rainwater and planting a camomile lawn.

Tomorrow we’ll be building compost bins in the garden (finally) after having to reschedule twice. The weather promises to be fine if a little cold. If you’re reading this on Friday night and are at a loose end on Saturday morning, come and join us at 9.30 am at Alara, 110-112 Camley Street, London, NW1 0PF for a fun packed day!

Go on…you know you want to…

Our wormery seems to be doing ok but I’m not entirely sure what are the worm’s favourite foods so I’ve set up a little experiment. On the menu this week are potato peelings, carrot peelings, banana skins, courgette ends, shredded newspaper, lettuce, cabbage, and melon skin. I have arranged them on top of the wormery in sections, the idea being that whichever food disappears first is the worm’s favourite, and whichever doesn’t get eaten may have to go in the compost bin instead. So far, nothing much seems to have disappeared but I’ll give it a few more days and let you know what happens.

I have a feeling it might take a while for the worms to discover the new food at the surface as there is probably still quite a lot of food mixed into the coir bedding. When we first started the wormery I couldn’t resist poking around in the soil to see if they were still there and still alive so quite a lot of food got mixed into the bedding. I am managing to resist this temptation now so hopefully, once they munch their way through that they will move up to the stuff at the surface. I did spot some little cocoons in there though which is a good sign as it means the worms are breeding!