Hybrids and other Green Things

I've been diving into research for two of my articles (due soon!), and of course I tend to get a bit side-tracked. In fact, if you look carefully at my ever-increasing blogroll, you may notice a couple of new "greener" links there. Ample evidence of just how side-tracked I can get...! :)

One such track led me down the road (scuse the pun) of hybrid cars. I know they're all over the place in non-African countries, but I don't think I've seen one here, or know of anyone who owns one. So I hit my local motoring news site to see what's up with that, and what price range we're looking at for one. You see, I drive a 1982 Friggin'Ford 2.0L Sierra. It takes leaded petrol (which apparently is being phased out in SA in January), guzzles gas and probably emits a host of nasties into our atmosphere. So, as someone striving to live lightly on our planet and perhaps even reverse my impact, I really want to rethink my driving. Not that I do a lot, but when I do, it probably makes up for the week the car sits idle at home.

Of course one of the best-known hybrids is the Toyota Prius. So I went looking for it online and found out you cannot own one in South Africa! You get to "rent" it from Toyota for 4 years at around 5 thousand bucks a month, and then ownership reverts back to Toyota. How weird is that? Makes absolutely no sense at all.

Other varieties available are a Citroen or, well... apparently nothing. Prices kick in at around the R200,000 price range - way out of reach for the man on the street. You can buy a house, or you can buy a car and live in it!

So what's with this? Why can't we get decent, well-priced hybrid cars in South Africa? With all the talk about the environment and that we're in crisis-mode already, surely we'd have more variety, better prices, more options available!

Or perhaps we're expected to modify our own cars as we see fit, to create a genuine South African hybrid - or range of them? (I'd love to, but don't have the knowledge. Yet...)

One alternative I'd like to see is the government stepping in to tell the big car manufacturers "Develop and import/build a cheap hybrid here FIRST, or you'll get no other business". Like that will happen, but still it's something I'd like to see.

And then after I got off my side-track I managed to drag myself back to what I initially started to research. Green Giving for the festive season. Gifts with heart that matter, that don't misuse our resources or clog up the landfills with Christmas-specific non-reuseable wrapping paper.

The shopping malls are filling up. Already they are a pain to get to - long queues everywhere, no parking, kids running amok on their summer holiday (parents tend to drop them at the mall for the day and then go to work), everywhere scenes of snow and such - quite ridiculous for a southern-hemisphere sweltering Christmas, but I guess it's tradition we've inherited from colder climes.

And as usual, many are shopping just to buy something - anything! - as a gift, whether it's wanted/needed or not. More queues will form after Christmas to return or exchange unwanted goodies...

So I've been looking at alternatives. And I've found a whole pile.

For the third year in a row I'm going to be practising what I've preached and giving hand-made, carefully-considered and recycled gifts. My packaging has been reclaimed from other offices over the year in the form of nifty boxes that pens or ink cartridges arrived in. Many of my relatives will receive a variety of home-made fudge, rocky road, chocolate-dipped cherries and truffles in these boxes, ingredients for which are already in my cupboard. I am making both scatter cushions and table cloths/runners for one family member. Others may receive framed photos of their offspring or other hand-made gifts. And should there need to be wrapping paper involved, it's brown paper with re-useable "real" ribbons - the remainder of which goes to cover my son's books for school in 2006 (where I'm not reusing the 2005 covers).

Not only does this save me cash, but also the stress of running around a packed mall. Gifts have become individualized, something you can't just buy in the shops. The only people getting ready-made and bought things will be the three little kids (my son and his cousins) - but there again I may be able to get away with home-made in two cases. We'll see.

Other options are magazine subscriptions (gifts that keep giving every month), books of service vouchers (babysitting, a batch of brownies etc.) and online gift certificates (cutting out even the need for a single scrap of paper!).

I'm going simple, sustainable, trying to make as little impact on our already-strained environment as possible. And in the process I hope that each gift will be loved by those that receive it.