During the house tour on launch night Gretel made special effort to mention every environmentally friendly product and energy-saving feature of the house where possible… but what’s happened since? There has been barely any mention of the use of these features, and even tasks like the camping one didn’t make any mention of the recycled water – it just made them save water that came from a crappy water feature.
The website has been a little different, take today’s Lunch Box Goss (who thinks of these names?) article:
This morning BB informed the HMs that they hadn’t been using water wisely enough and consequently they would be put on strict water rations. He provided them with a bucket each and told them they could only use a bucket of water each day for personal use.
During the first week or so there were several articles/interviews about the eco-friendly house, but no doubt they would have been lost in the launch hype.
If I’d put in a fair amount of money into making my house environmentally friendly, and I had a high rating television show about my house, I’d be sure to mention these products more and make a specific point about them. Why isn’t Big Brother doing this? They’ve got the perfect opportunity and perfect market to preach (wait, perhaps that’s the wrong word)… inform about how you can do your bit to save the environment in your own home. During Live Earth the other day they made the housemates walk around with the globe above their shoulders – but didn’t even mention on the daily show some of the features of the house! Perfect opportunity, Big Brother!
A little known fact that only those addicted to the official website may know is that the house actually uses grey water for the toilets and plant watering. This was sort-of mentioned on the launch night when Gretel referred to the rain tanks but she never went into any great detail. Grey water is recycled water generated from thinks like showers, laundry, the kitchen, etc. Approval from the council must be gained before grey water treatment systems like the one in the Big Brther house can be installed on residential property (in Queensland – legislation differs around the country).
Then there’s that crazy ‘fan’ that Gretel made mention of. It’s used for cooking and drinking water and the basic concept behind it is extracting moisture from the air, purifying it, and then making it available for use. The Queensland climate is perfect for this sort of thing.
Big Brother has also installed a range of bins for different types of material which can then be recycled or disposed of if recycling isn’t a viable option.
Well done to Big Brother for implementing these (and several other) environmentally friendly features into the house. Now if only they could make a slightly bigger deal of it on television so more people take notice…
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