Obstacles to living the green life

A Dutch family believes that despite the obstacles, expatriates and nationals can do more to make a positive environmental impact in their own homes.

Stanley Hartmann regularly rides his bike to work to cut down on car emissions.

ABU DHABI // Stanley Hartmann tries to live the green. He rode his bicycle to work before his employer moved to a different office. Now, he says he cannot. "It's too dangerous because I need to cross two main roads. There's no good infrastructure for a bicycle." At home, he has installed a timer on his villa's water heater to conserve energy, a device he had to find by returning to his homeland of Holland.

Partly out of habit, partly out of hope that things will change, he sorts his paper products from the rest of his rubbish, even though it all ends up in the same bin anyway. His dream is to one day install solar panels on his roof, but this plan too has been stymied. Electricity in the emirate is provided by the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority, and the laws surrounding power self-generation are unclear.

"I've been told that if I do it, I'll be regarded as a thief," he said. A fisheries statistician for the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi, Mr Hartmann has devoted most of his life to environmental issues. "I believe in the environment. I think that we need to make sure the environment is kept for my kids and for everybody else's kids," he said. However, living in the UAE, a country with the world's largest per-capita carbon footprint, provides its own set of challenges.

"In Holland there is this system for segregation of waste. You don't use your car if you don't need to. There's public transit," he said. Since moving to Abu Dhabi in 2004, the family has been tracking its electricity and water bills, information Mr Hartmann has turned into a chart. By being mindful of water waste, he, his wife and two teenage sons have managed to get by on about half the country's average per-person use of 550 litres per day one of the highest rates in the world. "No one in our house has ever used a bath. We take showers," he said.

Summer causes the largest drain on power, when the chart shows air conditioners increasing electricity consumption significantly. To mitigate this, he moved the family's bedrooms to one floor so they can use one air conditioner at night. Small changes can also make a difference, he said. "When we make coffee, at once we pour it into a thermos, so no electricity is used to keep it warm." They have also installed a water filter. "We used to purchase gallons of bottles and we would use that water for everything," he said. "Now it's just for drinking."

Mr Hartmann said he was mindful about what he throws away. People often dispose of their mobile phones not because they stop working, but because they are no longer fashionable. "I had my last phone for four years," he said. "Finally, it broke and I had to replace it. But if it hadn't, I would have it still." Mr. Hartmann believes that, despite the obstacles, expatriates and nationals can do more to make a positive environmental impact in their own homes. Awareness, he said, needs to "be part of people's upbringing. I've been happy to see many people around me have the same feeling. It's not me alone."

@Email:[e-mail]