🍃 [FESTIVAL] Here's what sustainable means in my home 🍃

[Jenny]

This topic is part of the Community Center Festival of Sustainability

The original topic was posted in the Italian-speaking Community Center by @Daniela1746  and we have translated it below.

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Eager to share my work in sustainability with the whole Community, I am sharing the checklist directly:

• Spring cleaning with an antistatic cloth and then water and vinegar for non-wood surfaces (fridge included); the same goes for the bathrooms
• Wood oil or Swiffer with parquet oil.
• Baking soda and vinegar water for the toilet (the cleaning products are also environmentally friendly)
• Use of plates and glasses and compostable cutlery for picnics
• compostable glasses in the bathrooms, too, where I invite you to use a glass for oral hygiene and to limit the waste of water, which is so precious! 
• Water-saving taps and thermostatic taps in the shower that dialogue with a condensing boiler
• Canvas shopping bags
• Use of glass bottles in the refrigerator (however, how can we resolve the issue of the purchase of water in plastic bottles by guests?)
• 2 baskets or small bins for separate waste collection (wet and mixed waste: disposal 3 times per week)
• Eco-friendly toiletry welcome kit
• Ceiling fans provided 
• Badge provided to turn off lights and fans when leaving the room
• I invite guests to use shuttles to the beach (avoiding the use of cars) or the train to travel to the various neighbouring locations/beaches… 

My dear Hosts, I look forward to reading your own tips!

[Jennifer3225]

Great ideas Jenny. I am liking. I am going to look up what a thermostatic shower head is. Inspired.

Jennifer

[Delphine348]

Hi @Jenny and @Daniela1746 ,

I share what I wrote on another discussion on the CC.

Thank you for spreading the word about sustainable practices in hosting ! 

Since the beginning I tried to think about sustainability, living in the countryside helps maybe.

- In addition to the refillable bottles, because our tapwater is clean, I have water carafes and I added sodastream machines (to do sparkling water). It helps guests to reduce their plastic emission during their stay. The result is spectacular, I have very few plastic bottles in the recycling container now. 

- The product I purchase are biological and/or EcoCert (French label following 14 out of the 17 UNO sustainable development goals), we can find more and more of them in our shops. It includes toilet paper, all washing and hygienic products, compostable coffee doses...

- I have no paper towels of course, but tea towels. 

- There is a compost in the garden and a little compost box in the kitchen to help guests to think about sorting their wastes. Soon I hope to add chicken in our garden and encourage guests by giving them eggs in exchange for the compost effort! 

- there are containers in the laundry to sort the wastes between recyclable and not, box in the kitchen to put cork and plastic cap from the bottles and I put them to recycling container in the village next to ours.

- In my local information guide, I have the following themes : shop local, entertain local, local activities to discover and I try to keep it up to date with the help of our tourism office and departemental tourism bureau.

- in my house rules I added my environnemental chart (no other free space in the listing informations) - I realized that it is not a translated space though.

- the garden is free of chemical products, and I don't water it. I only water a line of roses and flowers in the yard.

- We chose a phyto epuration system for the wastewater management because we don't have a public service and need to manage our wastewaters individually. Like this the water goes back to the soil after cleaning. Very efficient system and beautiful square of reeds in the garden.

- of course, led lamps everywhere, and in the hallways lights work with presence detectors, faucets with flow reductors, remote control for heating, no Air conditionning devices...

I would love to have solar panels, it is forbidden for all buildings in the close area around our middle age church. I chose my electricity supplier because he purchase a part of it from renewable sources.

We are still waiting for a soft mobility solution on Sundays. We have a "On demand transportation" service everyday but Sunday and it's a pity since there is many listings around Fontainebleau that would use it. 

[Daniela1746]

Thank you @Delphine348

I feel honored to be appreciated for my efforts. 

Furthemore you suggest me new hints highly interesting. Let me consider sodastream machine for sparkling water avoiding new plastic bottles:  such a  good idea. My house is in a small ancient village where water pipeline had not been  implemented (it does not exist at all ) because it is really ancient  on top of a mointain. Therefore, you ideas are really sustainable for us !! Cheers

[Jenny]

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful, detailed post @Delphine348!