Look Ma, No Car!
In Maryland, we have two cars: a big Toyota Siena minivan (seats seven), and a small Saturn SL2 sedan. We drive less than some of our neighbors (some of whom have 30-50 mile one-way commutes), but our lifestyle depends on having motor vehicles. For example, even though I will cycle into work 2 or 3 days per week, it would be very hard to go ten miles each way every day, especially through the winter months.
Cambridge is a small, old town, without many wide roads, and much of the existing road space is used for parking. Thus we deemed that having a car would be impractical. Our house is less than a mile from the kids' schools, and around 3 and a half miles from Microsoft Research and the Computer Lab, where I'll work. So our plan is to walk, bike, and bus.
We've done a lot of walking since we've been here. We've walked to a bunch of stores very close to us, for groceries, takeout, housewares, etc. We've walked to a playground not too far away. Our longest walk was our second day here, which, as you may have read about earlier, didn't end well! Anne complains about walking. Colin has specifically asked Kim to buy us a van! But Tim seems to like the walking. We'll see what everyone thinks after a couple of weeks of walking to school.
I bought a bike a couple of days ago and I find the town quite cycle-friendly, with cycling-only paths, and cycle lanes on many of the main roads. Indeed, 1 in 4 Cambridge residents cycle to work. Motorists are pretty conscious of cyclists, which is in contrast to the way drivers are in Maryland! We have yet to get bikes for Kim and the kids, but Anne, at least, is eager to get one, given her aversion to walking.
There is only so much you can do on a bike, though. For example, you can't carry four bags of groceries very easily, nor can you carry a bed on your back. The solution: delivery. For the groceries, we've been directed to Tesco (the other big food delivery store in town is Sainsburys). We also bought a bed for Colin (the house had only three beds), and had this delivered, too.
We have yet try the Citi bus, but we see them around a lot, so hopefully they won't be hard to use. We visited some friends today, and they picked us up in their Corolla to take us to their house, so that's as close as we've gotten to riding the bus!
Small and Energy Conscious
In general, properties are smaller here. Consequently, there's less stuff in them, and the stuff in them is smaller. Our small house has a small refrigerator, a small washing machine, a small sink, and no dishwasher or dryer. My understanding is that it is typical to not have a dryer. The Cambridge climate is dry enough that most people seem to hang their laundry to dry outside. With five laundry-generators living here, we have to be a little more conscious about when we wash to avoid doing laundry constantly! At some point we may break down and buy a dryer, but it's more likely we'll buy a dishwasher, unless we can figure out how to get the kids to do a better job!
Recycling and Trash
Montgomery county, Maryland has weekly recycling pickup to go along with twice-weekly trash pickup. We have a recycling box that holds aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, and the like. We have a large recycling bin to hold paper products---newspapers, magazines, white paper, cardboard boxes, etc.
Recycling in Cambridge is a big deal, it seems. According to their web site, Cambridgeshire residents currently recycle 56.69% of their waste (up from 50.54% last year), compared to the English average of 32%. (According to the EPA, the US recycled about 32.5% of its municipal waste in 2006, doubling over the prior 15 years.) To participate, you have to divide your waste into four categories, stored among four receptacles (two bins and two boxes), which are collected every other week:
- Black bins are for trash.
- Black boxes includes paper, glass, cans, etc. These are essentially the combination of the blue box and bin we have in Montgomery county, but do not include plastic.
- Green bins are essentially for compostable materials, including garden waste and uneaten food products (peels, leftovers). But they also include cardboard, coffee filters, phone books, shredded paper, ... things I wouldn't have thought of, but are obviously biodegradable.
- Blue boxes contain (only) plastic bottles.
Black bins, black boxes, and blue boxes weren't much of an adaptation for us. It was a little confusing to differentiate between white envelopes (black box) and brown envelopes/paper/cardboard (green bin), since this was all combined before. The more vexing thing is to hold on to food scraps after a meal. They have to sit in your kitchen somewhere until you get around to taking them to your green bin (instead of just grinding them up in the garbage disposal or throwing them in the trash!). We just learned that you can get a "kitchen caddy" for this purpose, but we use a plastic bowl. Once you stick them in the green bin, you have to worry about keeping them from rotting/smelling too badly in the two weeks between collections.
That's it for today. This was probably more than anyone other than me might care about ... hope this wasn't too boring!
