Options for eco camping?

[stinky_pete]

What can you actually do to camp it up in a green way? Presumably, unless you're trucking around in a big caravan with central heating, Sky and hot and cold running Pepsi, you're actually using much less energy than you would in a house?

[Laura]

It's true that you will need to use up a lot of energy to match what you would use at home but it's still a good idea to be environmentally aware when camping. What are the practices of the campsite you are staying at? Are they particularly wildlife friendly? Do they do anything to offset the extra energy they require to run the campsite? Can you do anything differently when camping such as having a solar powered caravan or following the 'leave no trace' guidelines when wild camping. All these things and more can be considered when thinking about being an eco-friendly camper!

[Pebs]

If you're using a caravan there are now 'green' toilet chemicals, they are formaldehyde-free and break down waste biologically instead of chemically. I think quite a few campsites are trying to encourage people to use these as an alternative to the blue toilet chemicals in use.

[campitup]

Examples of eco-friendly campsites please?

[Pebs]

Deepdale in Norfolk use solar panels on their toilet and shower block.

[megadave]

Try:
http://www.southpenquite.co.uk/
http://www.sharphamfamilycamp.co.uk/ (bio-dynamic farm, don't you know!)
http://www.keveral.org/
http://www.huntstileorganicfarm.co.uk/
http://www.big-green-gathering.com/

Most seem to be organic farms with camping. Credit to http://ecostreet.com/blog/sustainable-l ... -children/ for links.

[jonnie]

Examples of eco-friendly campsites please?

Hello,

I hope to be running an eco-friendly campsite in Denmark this year. My wife and I are previous hotel owners ( fairly eco friendly in Pyrenean mountains France - 95% of visitors did not fly ).

The campsite we have purchased ( paper work going through now ) already has Green ratings on account of dilegent recycling.

We plan to further this considerably.

One option is to take advantage of Danish government grants and have a small wind turbine on site, we are fairly serious on this option subject to fine tuning of actual location of the turbine and any impact on the visitors.

We are planning to build chalets. I have already located CO2 neutral cement from the UK for foundations, I am sure people are already aware that cement is one of the worst CO2 polluters but these clever guys have come up with a new formulation using different chemical processes and this stuff absorbs CO2 during the curing process resulting in a product that is neutral overall. Here is the link...

http://www.novacem.co.uk/

We also are planning an admission reduction for cars that are towing caravans where the CO2 emissions are below a certain level. It is impractical to know the emissions of everysingle brand of car but we will be working from a carefully prepared list of the most popular makes and will give the benefit of the doubt if we cannot identify a vehicle.

We plan deep reductions for tent owners who arrive in electric cars, hybrids, cycles or on foot. In Denmark the hybrid car argument is slightly different to in the UK since DK is very advanced in terms of turbine deployment and so creating demand for renewable electricity in Denmark really does have an impact. ( Some folk pooh pooh hybrid cars on the argument that the electricity still has to be generated and if a country relies on coal then hybrids arent really CO2 effective ).

We are very interested in buying a hybrid vehicle as our main business vehicle although our business mileage is not likely to be very high.

I have an engineering background and have prototyped a simple solar water panel design ( to save costs ) we will be doing further research into the finances of building serious quantities of these panels and then using them to drive underfloor heating which already exists in the toilet block. Danish campsites tend to be high spec and underfloor heating in toilets is common place - I basically like this idea but I am concerned that with doors opening and closing all the time toilets are generally heat lossy and so I would like to try if possible to ensure that any energy wasted is derived from the sun as much as possible.

Finally we plan to devote a high profile page on our campsite website offering manufacturers of relevent green products free advertising space - for instance we plan to give Novacem mentioned above free advertising on our website.

We are always trying to think of additional ideas so doubtless more will be added to the list.

Best regards
Jon
http://www.buymydreamhotel.com ( our website for advertising small tourist businesses for sale ).
and a direct link to campsites for sale http://www.buymydreamhotel.com/campsite ... xx_lang=EN

[jonnie]

Hello

I posted a reply somewhile ago before my wife and I took over the campsite we are now running in Denmark.

We have a dedicated page for our eco initiatives
http://www.guldagercamping.dk/green-camping.php?zzz_lang=EN

I think the most important ones are...

1/ We pay a premium to buy 100% guaranteed wind generated electricity.
2/ We encourage all guests to recycle and have bins for glass, card, tins and so on.
3/ Energy saving bulbs everywhere we can use them.

We are always thinking of new initiatives, for instance we still generate some of our hot water from gas and the
obvious solution is to install an immersion heater so that we can run on electricity or gas and so reduce CO2 further
but also have a fallback option when one form of heating fails.

We are not perfect but we taking steps in the right direction one at a time.
Jon

http://www.guldagercamping.dk