"That," I said proudly, "is a recycling bin. We're going green."

"No it's not. No we're not. We're not having a bin in the living room with a load of cardboard junk in it. It looks horrible. Anyway, that's the nappy bin."

That stopped me. A man who doesn't recognise the nappy bin is, arguably, a man insufficiently acquainted with nappies.
"Right!" I said, Basil Fawlty-style, chucked the contents in the green bin outside, and returned the 'nappy bin' to the nursery.

So you could say I tried to go green, although I admit you couldn't say I tried very hard.
I can get another bin, but where will I put it?

If it can't go in the living room, then it will have to be the kitchen, as the hallway is already an assault course of shoes, pram, stray nappy bins - as well as brightly coloured bits of plastic, which startle me by bleeping and singing when I tread on them.

But there's no room in the kitchen either.
To be green, you need space.
You need it for your recycling bin, and for storing empty bottles, and then space in your car for taking them to the bottle bank.
To have more space, all you need is a bigger house. To have a bigger house, all you need is ... Ah.

There's no getting away from it. Going green is a luxury that many of us can ill afford.

In 2006 the Lib Dem councillor Ann Denham inadvertently insulted the whole of North Kirklees by saying that people there needed more help with going green than those in the south.

This was widely interpreted as snobbery, but Coun Denham had a point. There are larger families than mine living in smaller homes in North Kirklees. If I have trouble finding space for an indoor 'green' bin, what hope have they?

And going green inevitably comes lower on the list of priorities for those who are anxious about how they're going to pay the rent.
This happens on the larger scale too. A year ago green issues were close to the top of the political agenda. But now that the news is all maths and misery, there's talk of cutting fuel tax.

Global warming doesn't go away just because credit is tight. But in lean times, saving the planet becomes a lower priority for an insecure government than saving voters' spending money.

Sooner or later we're all going to have to accept that we can't carry on as we are. We'll have to fly less, drive less, generally consume less.
David Miliband, when he was environment secretary, announced a plan for carbon rationing. This would enable those who consumed less energy to sell carbon credits to the jet-setting rich.

But the policy has been scrapped after a Defra report warned that it would be unpopular and was "ahead of its time".

There's a warning in that phrase; expect such policies in the future.
I suspect the successful governments of tomorrow will be those who can make going green in our financial interests. If they can achieve that, my wife might take a more flexible approach.