Green Co-Living
I don’t look like a hippie, you will not find flowers in my hair very often (there’s not much hair!) and I’ve not worn tie dye clothes for a very long time. But in my heart, mind and business it’s all about Peace and Love! When it comes to Co- living it was always going to be Green Co-Living !
Choose Green Co-Living
There are many options for accommodation in Bansko. You can make a huge difference by choosing a Green Co-Living space. We live in a very fragile mountain environment and we can all make a difference by choosing where you stay. Every choice we make can help protect our mountains.
What do I mean by Green Co-Living ?
I run the Avalon on the best possible ethical principles. FIRST is Right Action second is profit.
Heating a building like the Avalon in the Balkan winters is a massive task. The cheapest way is to burn brown Ukrainian coal, Eeeww sulphur rich smog inducing filth. Some big hotels in Bansko do this ” Un-Luckily” for Bansko. The next few options, fuel oil and electricity are equally unpleasant just less visible.
At the Avalon we burn wood pellets for the central heating and some of the hot water. Not just any wood pellets but wood pellets made from the waste from a bee hive factory in the next village. This is waste wood from sustainable sources reformed into heating ! Yes it involves more work, yes it is more expensive but most importantly Yes it is better for the environment!
The sun shines a lot in Bansko, winter and summer and we use this free bounty to the max! We fitted a huge bank of solar panels in 2003 to generate 1000 litres of hot water on a sunny day! Made locally these monsters are not the most delicate panels you have ever seen. Bomb proof beasts they have kept us in hot water for 17 years!
For the geeks reading this , hot water solar is the most cash efficient way you can do something for the environment. Heating water is shockingly inefficient in all the conventional ways however using sunshine to heat your water is amazingly efficient. Our panels have been providing “free” hot water for 15 of their 17 year lives. With only a 2 year return on investment I am always surprised more people do not fit them!
Probably the easiest yet most expensive and least visible choice we have made is with our electricity supply. As a business in Bulgaria you can choose where your electricity comes from, it is a simple process that takes 15minutes on line. There are three basic choices, 1) The state monopoly (expensive) 2) the new suppliers (cheapest) 3) Green sources (middle priced). I get our power from green sources! The actual process is slightly complicated but simply put I can sleep easy knowing that ever kilowatt I use is green!
Green Co-Living Walking the Walk
Insulation, Double glazing, Energy saving light bulbs all these little details cost more and give nothing back in a purely capitalist way. Doing the right thing isn’t financially the best bet unless our guests value it.
When you are in Bansko choose Green in whatever you do. Support those businesses with solar panels, paper straws and clean energy. If a business has a chimney pumping out thick brown smoke or serve plastic straws don’t use them and tell them why. Your hard earned cash can change the world. Walk the walk don’t just Talk the Talk!
