As the millionaire laird of his own Scottish island, he is a man who could surely well afford to splash the cash on his daughters at Christmas.
However, Roc Sandford chose to give his girls festive gifts of street rubbish, which didn’t cost him a penny, lovingly wrapped in old newspaper.
For Mr Sandford, 61, who owns the Inner Hebridean isle of Gometra, west of Mull, is a man on a mission to decarbonise Christmas, to help save the planet.
So instead of bowing down to consumerism and dishing out shop bought gifts Mr Sandford gave what he calls rubbish art – discarded rubbish – to his daughters.
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He divides his time between off-grid Gometra and London and as his daughters Savannah, 20, and Blue, 17, are spending Christmas Day with their mum, they celebrated early with their dad.
The unusual presents were handed over to the girls at an early Christmas lunch at Mr Sandford’s city home.
He said: “We couldn’t stop laughing when they opened my presents – pieces from the salon de refuse, which is what I call my museum of lovely bits of rubbish I’ve found in the street, wrapped up in old newspaper.”
He added: “My rubbish museum is causing a stir—two of my best pieces are on show at the moment in the Studio ExPurgamento art gallery near Camden lock, and someone is coming from the open university to study them. The pieces are made of cardboard pulp and are found rubbish objects.”
Mr Sandford added: “Our Christmas lunch was incredibly delicious, it was vegan and mainly local food, like sprouts and potatoes and carrots, because meat and dairy and stuff flown in from abroad, like avocados, have high embodied carbon. We also had mulled water.
“We wanted it to be freegan – where you go along after the markets have closed and pick through the rubbish for veg before it goes in the garbage truck – but no one had time so we bought it.”
The family ditched dining at the table to eat huddled round a low energy fire on the floor, hugging hot water bottles for warmth.
Mr Sandford, who has turned the central heating off to save energy, said: “We’ve already given up our car and flying, that was years ago.
“Now the gas central heating is off all the time and the room temperature has gone down to eight degrees, it’s just like being on Gometra.
“We use a small electric fire instead, it’s 800watts, which is the same heat as about 10 of the old lightbulbs.
“So far this winter the warmest room, which is the kitchen, has gone down to about 8 degrees – most people keep theirs up around 20 degrees.”
He added: “The electricity we use comes from wind and hydro. We wear quilted boiler suits and if it’s really cold, slip a hot water bottle inside.
“I’m not using hot water for the washing up and I haven’t had a bath for several weeks, ever since I heard that when you have a bath, 66,000 times more heat than goes into the bath goes to melting icebergs and causing floods and forest fires and hurricanes – killing real people, real children. Because when you burn fossil fuels, carbon dioxide gas goes up into the air and works like a blanket, slowly cooking us.
“I’ve rigged up a hosepipe outside, or else I have a quick shower at the gym.”
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