Archive for January, 2009
Weekly Round-up #4
So what did we talk about this week? What has been happening in the world?
Eco Lesbo Vego
We discussed:
- How and why local travel can dramatically reduce climate change – and why local travel is more fun than it’s often cracked up to be.
- Decreasing your environmental footprint and reducing your tissue usage by investing in some hankies.
- Second-hand furniture – why you should (re)use it and where you can source it.
- Why everyone is up in arms about using ethical metal, and actions you can take to use recycled metals and also recycle your own.
I also posted a vegan recipe – Apricot and Cashew Stir-fry. This stir-fry is a fruity, savoury combo that is cooked quickly at a high heat. It’ll take you back to the 90s, vegan-style!
Environmental News from Australia and Around the World
British hospitals are removing meat from the menu in an effort to reduce climate change. [hat tip: Yankee Elv!] As discussed in my Spotlight on the eco-impact of meat, the production of meat releases far more carbon, nitrogen and methane emissions not only from the animals themselves, but from the massive amounts of plant food required to feed them and the transportation needed to move them from place to place (including to the slaughter-house). This is a bold move by the health system and while I’m sure they’ll receive quite a bit of flak because of it, they get nothing but applause from me! Significant steps like these are the kind we must take if we want to have any meaningful impact on global warming.
In light of the Antarctic warming that was apparent news in last week’s round-up, this week the news is that the same warming, and subsequent melting of the sea ice in Antarctica could wipe out the emporer penguin population in less than one hundred years. Declining sea ice in the 70s already halved the population then, but it’s been stable since. Not anymore. The penguins need flat sea ice to hatch their eggs, and the food they eat in turn feeds off the organisms living underneath the sea ice. Antarctic warming = sea ice melting = penguins dying = bad. Bad!
Growing certain crops could help reduce global warming by more than 1°C each year as particular kinds of plants reflect sunlight better than others. Choosing certain species of the same food crops we already grow could be the answer. The article says that crops actually reflect sunlight better than natural vegetation… but I wonder, do they absorb carbon as well? And what about the impact of clearing the land to grow the crops? That being said, if we can replace what we already grow with species that are more eco-friendly, I’m all for it.
Competition for water could be coming sooner than we think, according to the World Economic Forum report released this week. Although only 3 percent of fresh water is consumed, much larger percentages are used in energy and food production. With the melting of the Himalayan and Tibetan glaciers, which provide drinking water for more than 2 billion people, expected to be complete in less than a hundred years, we are facing a global water scarcity which will likely force fierce competition amongst nations and neighbours. Doom and gloom? Maybe. But that seems to be what the news looks like this week. Are we too late to save the human race? The CEO of PepsiCo (hahahaha!) doesn’t think so – apparently collaboration between goverments and corporations could prevent all out war. Hmm. I sense a little bias there. I’ll keep getting my water from the tap, and saving it wherever possible. The state government also better get it’s arse into gear on the production of the desalination plant on the Gold Coast that was due to open last year.
Al Gore is set to talk with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about climate change and what can be done to minimise it. Read his prepared remarks here.
Scientists suggest that the carbon emissions we’ve made and will make in the future, even as we struggle to reduce and eliminate them, may have caused irreversible climate change. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado says that even if we eliminate our carbon emissions by 2050 (that’s within my lifetime), there will still be so much carbon in the atmosphere that sea levels will rise by one metre, glaciers will melt and average global temperatures will cool by only tenths of a degree. This is more of the doom and gloom I was talking about earlier – the news this week is full of it – and it’s got me wondering. Can we do anything to save the planet? (Or rather, the human race – the planet will be fine). I think every little bit counts, so I’m still going to do my part – maybe those tenths of a degree will be important in the future. I may start making more effort to learn how to be self-sufficient though, just in case. No, I’m not going to go move to the boonies and become an eco-hermit (although if I could afford it, the moving to the not-far-from-the-city boonies is quite appealing… not so much into the hermit thing though). But I might try growing some herbs again. I also might try using our home-grown chilies to make my sweet chili sauce rather than buying a new bottle when this one runs out – which will be a while as we have a massive bottle that Mr Teeny-bop got as a Secret Santa present at school last year. Yeah, it was weird.
Of course, there’s lots of other news, but that’s all I have time for today! Did I miss anything particularly important? Leave a comment and let me know.
Friday Feast: Apricot and Cashew Stir-Fry
This is an old recipe my mum used to make back in the 90s – fruity stir-fries were so in back then, like casseroles had been in the 80s. Her recipe included chicken though, so I substituted by including more veges and some nuts. It’s sweet and saucy, but not too sweet – sometimes it’s just what you’re looking for!
Apricot and Cashew Stir-Fry
Apricot and Cashew Stir-fry
Ingredients:
[sauce]
400mL can apricot nectar
35g packet french onion soup mix (the dry, powdery kind you add to water to make soup)
[stir-fry]
vegetable oil
1/2 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, sliced (or approx 8 baby carrots)
1/2 red capsicum, coarsely chopped
4 shallots, sliced
6 (approx) button mushrooms, chopped
1 large handful snow peas, chopped into roughly 1 inch pieces
1 large handful dried apricots, chopped into quarters
2 regular handfuls cashews
cooked rice (enough to accompany veges/sauce)
Method:
- Make the sauce: mix apricot nectar and french onion soup mix together in a microwave safe bowl/container. Cover loosely (so that steam can escape) and cook for 10 mins on HIGH, stirring twice throughout. (If it doesn’t thicken to your liking (some soup mixes are less powdery than others and that can affect it) then you can whisk in a little cornflour/cornstarch, or cook for longer).
- After sauce is ready, heat oil in a wok/pan/pot over medium-high heat.
- Add onions and fry until they become soft and just start to brown.
- Add carrots and fry for several mins.
- Add remaining ingredients except nuts and rice. Stir-fry for approx 5 mins.
- Add cashews and fry for several mins. (Nuts should no longer be dry, shallots should be wilted, apricots should look squishier).
- Add sauce and bring to boil, stirring constantly.
- Remove from heat and serve with cooked rice.
Recycle: Ethical Metals
I like to wear silver jewellery. I don’t really mind much what it’s made of – but it needs to be silver-coloured. Some people prefer gold. I’m just a silver person. Of course, silver-coloured jewellery is made of metal. Yeah, you can get the plastic silver-coloured, but um… yeah. Really no.
Metal is natural, so that’s great! Go eco, go! Right?
Wouldn't it be great if they were made from recycled metal?
The process required to extract that metal from the earth is incredibly damaging to the environment. This is slowly becoming more and more well known. A few years ago, the ‘no dirty gold‘ campaign was introduced, encouraging people to buy only sustainably mined gold. The campaign was just the tip of the iceberg though, as not just gold but lots of other metals are mined unsustainably around the world. Don’t think the metals are just used in jewellery though. Metals are used in lots of things – gold thread in beautiful dresses, remote controls, mobile phones and other similar devices. And those are just the highest impact metals.People and companies are increasingly offering advice and alternatives which enable you to avoid metal mined in environmentally damaging ways. Almost all of them include recycling the metals we’ve already mined.
- You can recycle your mobile phone, as discussed in last week’s Recycle post.
- You can buy jewellery made with recycled metal.
- You can recycle lead from old car batteries. Service stations and car battery retail outlets will generally accept car batteries for trade-in. Be careful though – don’t empty out battery acid before taking the batteries for recycling.
- Scrap metal recyclers can take copper pipes, hot water systems, car bodies, metal appliances and other metals to be recycled.
- Remember kerbside recycling – putting cans into your regular recycling bin means the metal can be reused to create other cans, fridges and all sorts of other things.
To learn more about how metal mining damages the environment, check out this site or this one.
Note: The image of the rings is from Love and Pride.
Reuse: Second-hand furniture
I love a good bit of second-hand furniture. My boss (sorta) does too – she collects antiques. She loves them for their beauty and history.
I don’t collect antiques, but I do buy second-hand furniture – partly (and originally) because it’s considerably cheaper, and I have never been a wealthy person. These days though, the low impact nature of using pre-loved furnishings is the main reason I do it.
Second-hand furniture - For the Win!
Reusing furniture is great for the environment. When using pre-loved furniture, you avoid pollution from the following sources:
- Deforestation, water use and land use to make wooden furniture
- Chemicals/smog, drilling and mining from making plastic furniture
- Strip mining to get the metal to make metal furniture
- Quarrying to get rock and sand for stone and glass furniture
- Water and land use for plant-based fabrics
- Water use, land use and pollution from animal-based fabrics
- Excess water use in any type of furniture production.
You can get second-hand furniture for free from Freecycle. Sometimes though, what you want isn’t there, so you have to go shopping. There are a bunch of different places you can go to find second-hand furniture.
Op shops (also known as thrift shops or consignment stores)
Op shops, like Lifeline, St Vinnies or the Salvation Army often have big stores which carry a variety of (mostly crappy) used furniture. If you wade through the crap though, you can usually find a gem hiding in a corner somewhere. I’ve gotten a desk chair, wicker phone table and a bedside table from op shops.
Second-hand furniture shops
Second-hand furniture shops tend to have stuff that is a bit nicer than op shops, but it’s also a bit more expensive. Look out particularly for the kind that sell ex-display home pieces. The furniture looks good, has been hardly used and is significantly cheaper than buying new! They’re located all over – you’ll just have to search for them. I’ve gotten a coffee table and my dining table and chairs from second-hand furniture shops.
TradingPost, Craigslist, TradeMe, ebay or similar sites/newspapers
Online and print classifieds listing items for sale, from computers to textbooks, not just furniture. That being said, you can get some really good deals here, and often from places close-by.
Garage sales, Skip Dipping (Dumpster Diving) and Kerbside Collections
Garage sales, like Freecycle give-aways, are an excellent local place to go to find second-hand furniture. As the furniture is fresh out of someone’s house, it’s usually in good nick ad you don’t have to pay the middle man. Kerbside collections occur here once every two years, during which time everyone puts their unwanted junk on the footpath. It’s perfectly acceptable to take stuff you see – we’ve gotten lamps and a fan. If you’re lucky, you live in Canberra and have Second-hand Sundays. Skip dipping or dumpster diving (often not actually involving diving) is another perfectly legitimate way to get good stuff. We got a big couch when we were living in the USA by doing just that (clearly it was too big to be actually in the dumpster, but it was beside it).
Friends, family and colleagues
Getting furniture from friends, family and colleagues is the best idea in my opinion. You know they’re not going to rip you off and normally their stuff is in good nick and you can trust it. I, for example, have two desks, two sets of drawers, two desk chairs, a microwave, a fridge, a washing machine, a bookshelf, some massive chests of drawers, lounge chairs galore and other bits and pieces from friends, family and colleagues. Some things I’ve bought and others I’ve been given. Most often, people offer when they’re emigrating out of the country, moving generally or just don’t have the space.
So give second-hand furniture a shot – save the environment and your wallet!
Reduce: Tissues vs Hankies
What has the greater environmental impact, tissues or handkerchiefs? This is a question that’s been niggling inside my mind for some time, ever since I found out that Naturale were no longer producing recycled tissues, leaving Australia with no recycled facial tissues on the market. (I emailed them to be sure – they’ve definitely stopped.)
This post on Super Eco got me thinking about it again. Can I best minimise my impact on the environment by reducing my use of tissues and changing over to handkerchiefs?
I thought I’d weight up the pros and cons:
- Tissues are made of paper, the production of which involves chopping down trees. This action releases lots of carbon into the atmosphere, and also removes the forests that are the carbon sinks of our world.
- Tissue production, like all paper production, includes the use of lots of water.
- Tissues are disposable, so more trees are cut down for every single tissue you use.
- Tissues come packaged in cardboard (the ubiquitous tissue box), which involves the destruction of more forestry as they’re manufactured.
- As you are constantly throwing them away, you need to buy more and more tissues. This involves transport costs as the tissues are shipped to the stores, and then from the store to your house. It all works something like food miles.
- The tissues you throw away don’t get recycled, they enter landfill – and we all know landfill is bad, bad, bad!
Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it. All that stuff that’s bad about tissues must be prevented by hankies… right? Hmm.
- Hankies are made with fabric, usually cotton, which is one of the most water-intensive crops to grow.
- The harvest of cotton is also an environmental hazard.
- Cotton needs loads of pesticides, and as well as the environmental impact of the pesticides, there’s the impact of the planes that dump the pesticides.
- Hankies have to be washed, which uses more water still.
So now you see my trouble, although listing it all out like that does seem to point in a particular direction.
Go hankies!
Everyone else on the net seems to also back this theory up. Don’t ask me why it never occurred to me to Google this before. Yeah, I said shuddup. Yes, Jho… you. 
Here are some great reads about why hankies are the winners over tissues:
- Use a Handkerchief Instead of Facial Tissues over at Planet Green
- Wipe Responsibly in 2006! at Treehugger
- Kleenex Kleercut – Trees for Tissues, also at Treehugger
- Kleercut – wiping away ancient forests, at the official Kleercut site, sponsored by Greenpeace
- Facial Tissues vs Hankies at WasteWearDaily
- Tissues vs Hankies – Gesundheit! at Tiny Choices
- Time for a little hanky-panky! at enviromom
- Handkerchiefs vs Recycled Tissues in the Battle Against Endless Toddler Mucous at The Green Baby Guide
Now I just have to get me some hankies! I’d like to make some, but I’ll have to get second hand fabric, or I’ll end up buying more material than I need. I wonder if flannel hankies would be even softer, for when you’ve got a cold? They sell large bags of flannel off-cuts for $6 each at Bunnings. But aside from flannel, where will I get some pretty second-hand fabric?
On a non-environmental note, I find it weird that I feel the hankies need to be pretty and girly. I wouldn’t call myself butch, certainly, but I’m not on the femme side of the lady spectrum. I wouldn’t wear floral or pink if you paid me (ok, maybe if you paid me). I don’t shave my legs or even own make-up. I like little pretty things though, they make me feel good, and girly in secret. My cloth pantyliners, the liner of my cargo pants and work trousers, Yankee Elv’s home-made earrings all have that effect. Anyway, pretty second-hand fabric must be available – my cloth pantyliners are very pretty, and Laura over at Amy’s Rag Bag only uses second-hand cloth.
Cloth panyliners from Amy's Rag Bag
Suggestions people? And does anyone have a hankie pattern? I don’t know if I can manage a hemmed square all by myself. 
Spotlight: Local Travel
I like going overseas. I’m not one of those folks who are all like: ‘Why would I want to go to another country, when there’s so many beautiful places right here?’ Don’t get me wrong – there are loads of beautiful places in Australia, many of them less than a day’s drive from me, but I can’t handle the whole ethno-centrism of never wanting to travel outside your own nation. I want to go to other countries. Australia is home, and I always want to come back here – but beautiful or no, if I don’t go overseas sometime, I’ll feel stifled and limited. I won’t get to experience the different cultures, people, food, architecture, religions and landscapes you can find in the world.
Travelling overseas, at least from our island nation, means flying or taking a mega-boat. I’m more apt to go with flying (have done, in the past), but we all know the impact air travel has on the environment. Just one measly flight will mess up your low impact lifestyle. That doesn’t meant I’ll never go overseas again. It does mean that overseas travel won’t occur until I’m wealthy enough to offset my carbon emissions. I know offsetting isn’t a sustainable option that can absolve all eco-sins. For that reason, I’ll also wait until I can take a good long time off work so I can go to lots of places at once. I’ll fly to either Asia, Europe or South America and then use land or sea transportation to get me around the continent. I wonder if I’ll feel a bit freaked out in the Chunnel, under all that water?
What to do in the meantime though? Clearly, I can’t work without a holiday for years at a time, until I’m ready to go overseas. I’m sorry, but I would go insane, and possibly end up going on a murderous rampage. Ok, not a murderous rampage really. But crazy, for sure. The work I do? Definitely.
So I go travelling around the countryside, which, as mentioned in the first paragraph, is indeed beautiful over here. I can’t recommend local travel enough, not as a replacement or even a supplement to international travel, but a valuable addition to your experience of life. Didn’t that sound sappy? But it’s true.
You can travel to local locales in a variety of ways. By car – the ubiquitous road trip – is the most common. Car travel has the advantage of allowing you to stop when and wherever you like. You can take a side road if it takes your fancy. Without it, you wouldn’t get the chance to see crazy things, like the Teepee Motel we Elves saw in Gulf Coast Texas, when we lived in the area. You can also see beautiful places, like Byron Bay.
Byron Bay lighthouse
Admittedly, Byron is also accessible by train and bus, so car travel is back to seeing crazy stuff. Like Mooball. But other places without public transport access need a car.
Mooball Madness
Another more eco-friendly method is public transport. Yes, this could be a Greyhound bus. I’ve never been on one, but I think there are more fun types of mass transit, like long-distance travel trains that go all over Australia. Those are pretty awesome. I took a tilt train to Bundaberg a lot of years ago and it was a pretty pleasant way to travel. I imagine the sleeper trains like The Ghan are even more comfy. You could get standard public transport though, it doesn’t have to be all special and holiday-esque. You can catch a regular train to the Straddie ferry, for example.
You could sail or take a ferry to local islands. We have a trip to North Stradbroke Island booked for later this year, and we went sailing to Peel Island last year. I learned that I don’t do so well with sailing. Motion sickness. My friend Jho didn’t pass me the bucket fast enough. Yeah, not fun.
This is not me. I am not so relaxed when sailing.
Don’t feel restricted to holidays and long weekends, either. With local travel, you can go any spare moment you have. Last summer, we went to Cedar Creek Falls at Mt Tamborine on a hot day. The water was glorious. I did fall rather ingloriously at the top of the lower fall when the strap on my overstuffed bag broke. I learned not to take so much stuff when rock-climbing. Jho had been there before and could have told me that before we started… I’m sensing a theme here. Don’t get her talking about the incident with the olive. Really. Don’t.
Cedar Creek Falls at Mt Tamborine
The next place we want to go is Tallebudgera beach – there’s an off-leash dog exercise area there, so Loodle will love it, and the salt water is good for him. Where after that, and Straddie? I don’t know. The Daintree appeals, but that’s quite a trip. I do know, though, that thanks to local travel, I get to relax and see new things and new places and spend time with my family. I like that.
One of the 'new things' I saw at Cedar Creek Falls
Where do you go, if you’re travelling locally? How do you get there?
Weekly Round-up #3
So what did we talk about this week? What has been happening in the world?
Eco Lesbo Vego
We discussed:
- Telecommuting, and how working from home and global business can reduce your carbon emissions.
- Ways to reduce your summer cooling costs – especially important in the light of increasing heat waves due to global warming.
- Yankee Elv’s latest creations – earrings made from computer circuitry, a great way to reuse your e-waste!
- Why it’s so important to recycle mobile phones.
I also posted a vegan recipe – Spicy Bean Chili Stew. It’s tasty and hot, like the weather – but it’s a one pot meal that doesn’t require standing over the hot stove for ages. Add in some cornbread and have a tasty vegan meal this week. 
Environmental News from Australia and Around the World
Antarctica is feeling the heat, just like every other part of the world, due to global warming. Although it seems bizarre to me that this is news (I just assumed global warming was, you know… global), apparently some people thought that only the coastal areas of Antarctica were melting. I’m trying really hard not to be sarcastic about the fact that this is news. What is interesting is that some parts of Antarctica are melting more rapidly – and Australia will bear the brunt of the ensuing impact, due to proximity, especially the southern states. I hope our local government is taking this into account with their town planning – it’s possible that as a northern state, Queensland could expect a rapid spike in Tasmanian migration. O_o
South Korean researchers have developed a way to produce biofuels from seaweed. Biofuels, while natural and renewable, are not a favourite of mine due to the amount of land and food crops used to create them. These crops could be used for fuel. For this reason, I think the seaweed biofuel is a potentially good idea… but what will the impact on the ocean be? Doesn’t seaweed capture carbon and release oxygen? How will this affect the fish and other ocean life – will they still be able to breathe? Does anyone know anything more about this?
Obama has put a stop to all of the last minute legislation Bush was trying to push through before his Texan village got back its idiot. That’s a pretty good of Obama actually – the laws Bush was trying to push through included lots of stuff that could impact the environment. Stuff like:
- New fuel rules for car manufacturers
- New rules for the disposal of bio-waste and emissions from farms
- Power plant restrictions and allowances (such as exemptions from installing pollution controls)
- New rules on genetically engineered everything (except humans)
- Uranium mining permits near the Grand Canyon
- The removal of grey wolves from the endangered species list.
Biofuels are now being investigated as a serious alternative to rocket fuel. The rocket scientists figure that eventually we’ll run out of oil-based fuel, so they’re looking for something to replace it. Job security, perhaps? Eco-friendly job security is the way to go, for sure, but who cares why they’re doing it – just that they are. It’s true, I’m a bit of a space nut. I watch Star Trek, Firefly, Alien and the Matrix (I know the latter isn’t space, but it’s sci fi and they have ships so it kinda blurs the boundaries). I honestly believe there is someone else out there. Logically, it just doesn’t make sense that there isn’t. When I had a desktop, I even had it linked to SETI. So the fact that we may soon have an eco-friendly way of exploring the final frontier tickles my fancy. Keep in mind that biofuels aren’t as great as some people make them out to be though (see above). Oh well, maybe one day we’ll achieve warp. Surely anti-matter plasma is a cleaner way to fly? (Yup, I just lost a bunch of readers who now think I’m nutty.)
Hotels are reducing their complimentary offerings in an effort to reduce waste. This includes fruit variety at breakfast, having guests order breakfast rather than holding a buffet, not including complimentary lotion, shower caps and sewing kits in the rooms and eliminating free coffee and bikkies. Some folks are complaining, but I think it’s a great idea. I never use those things anyway, and you’re more likely to get what you want for breakfast if you order anyway (I always sleep in so I’m left with cornflakes, stale muffins and bananas, which I hate). Now all we have to do is get them to offer vegan and vegetarian options to reduce their environmental impact even more!
The internet is buggering up the world with massive amounts of carbon emissions. That sucks. One new Google server alone, currently under construction, will need a 103 megawatt powerline in three years, enough to power 82,000 homes. That really sucks. The good news is, lots of internet businesses are researching alternative power sources, like solar and wind power. And frankly, I think the internet, even with all it’s carbon emissions, is still doing more good than harm. That’s not a hard statistic, just my opinion, but think of all the paper that’s not being printed and the travel that’s not occurring thanks to telecommuting. Tell me the last time you even thought about buying a set of encyclopedias. I think going with renewable power sources is essential though. Is there anything we can do, as consumers to encourage that? Aside from using Blackle?
Australian researchers want to fertilise the ocean off the east coast of Australia, hoping to dramatically increase the growth of plankton and thus achieve the Prime Minister’s carbon reduction targets for 2020. Some talking points:
- It’s not that hard to reach the targets the old fashioned way because they are appallingly low.
- Fertilisation could lead to increases in other species, as well as plankton (like algae).
- Plankton may actually absorb heat to the point where it accelerates global warming, rather than contributes to its reduction.
- Increased plankton could lead to altered migration patterns, and who knows what impact that could have?
I just think it’s a bit short-sighted.
Of course, there’s lots of other news, but that’s all I have time for today! Did I miss anything particularly important? Leave a comment and let me know.
Friday Feast: Spicy Bean Chili Stew
I found the original recipe online at epicurious here. It’s a tasty, if somewhat runny, chili with beans, spinach and butternut pumpkin (squash, for Americans). Yankee Elv tweaked it and made it for me.
Now, the original recipe calls for 2 tabs chili powder. I didn’t trust this, because the recipe was on an American site, and chile powder in the USA is way different to chili powder here. Chili powder in Australia is ground chili peppers. Chile powder in the USA is usually Texan or Mexican chile powder, and it’s a combination of ground chili peppers, ground cumin, majoram, mexican oregano, cayenne pepper sometimes… all kinds of things. My point is, it’s nowhere near as spicy. So I told Yankee Elv I thought it would be best to reduce the amount of chili powder. She did so – by half, the first time she made this dish.
That stuff still burned me to death. I was literally crying, I had to eat with a box of tissues beside me, blowing my nose every other bite. Now, I’m wimpy with spiciness, but not THAT wimpy. This was hardcore. Even Yankee Elv (who I think has a mouth made of teflon or something) thought it was spicy, although she was less affected than me. It was also more liquidy than a chili normally is, so every breath I took, a little of the liquid went to the back of my throat and threatened to go up my nose… so even that part of me was burning.
We drained it and tried it as a pasta sauce. I stirred sour cream into it (I was still eating that back then, but I’m not now). I ate it with cornbread. These things helped, and they tasted good too. My mouth, however, still felt like it was on fire.
But oh, if you could get past the burn, it tasted SO GOOD!
So next time, Yankee Elv reduced the amount of chili powder to about 1 tsp. That was still pretty spicy for me – but yummy spicy, instead of crying spicy.
Try it if you dare!
Spicy Bean Chili Stew
Spicy Bean Chili Stew with Cornbread
Ingredients
- 2 tab olive oil
- 2.5 cups onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2.5 cups butternut pumpkin (butternut squash if you’re American), peeled and chopped into 1/2″ cubes
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 3 x 400g cans beans, drained (black beans if you can get them, but we used kidney beans, butter beans or cannellini beans and mixed beans)
- 2.5 cups liquid vegetable broth (don’t make this up using dry stock and water because it turns out too salty)
- 400g can diced tomatoes, with juice
- 3 cups fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
- Saute onions and garlic until tender and golden (about 10 mins).
- Stir in pumpkin pieces and cook for about 2 mins.
- Stir in the chili powder and cumin and cook for about 1 min.
- Stir in the beans, vegetable broth and tomatoes. Bring to a boil.
- Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for about 15 mins, until the pumpkin is tender.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Add spinach and combine. Cook for another 5 mins. (Don’t allow the spinach to get too wilted).
- Serve with rice, pasta, toast, cornbread , tortillas, corn chips, guacamole or whatever else takes your fancy.
Note: This dish freezes well, although the pumpkin gets a bit mushy.
Recycle: Mobile Phones
Mr Teeny-bop is starting high school next week. He’s going to be catching the bus (the regular city council bus, not a school bus) by himself back and forth. His school isn’t far away, but it’s pretty central, on busy streets, lots of people. So Yankee Elv and I decided it was time for him to get a mobile phone, so he can contact us, or vice versa – just in case. He’s been wanting a phone for ages, so he is very happy!
Aside from the fact that new phones are expensive, for environmental reasons, we wanted to get a second-hand phone – so we have one on it’s way to our house right now (go ebay!). It’s all about the reuse.
Yankee Elv has been wanting a new phone herself for a while now too – one with a strong vibration, since she’s Deaf and can’t hear text messages or alarms. Since we were already on the phone hunt, we’re looking on ebay for her too. What should we do with her current phone though? We can’t just throw it away (ok, technically we can, but we won’t).
So we’re going to recycle the phone. Why? Well, let’s look at what happens when you recycle mobile phones.
- Some companies refurbish and reuse the phones if they are in good enough condition
- The batteries are taken apart and the nickel, cadmium, coltan, zinc, copper and cobalt is extracted and used in new batteries and other products
- Circuit boards have the gold, silver, copper and lead extracted and reused
- Any other heavy metals, like mercury, beryllium and arsenic are smelted and disposed of appropriately
- Plastic from handset casings is used to make fence posts and pallets
- Paper packaging is sent to standard recycling stations
- Other parts (including plastic packaging as well as pure and impure metals) are either recycled or go into landfill.
Yeah, I hear you. Why is it good that these items are recycled or reused?
- Many of the heavy metals used in mobile phones can negatively affect your health and the environment if they enter landfill or are not disposed of carefully
- The demand for precious metals to use in mobile phones and other similar devices (like remote controls) has led to war over the rights to the metal, mostly in the Congo and surrounding African nations
- Thanks to strip mining, the sourcing of a tiny amount of metal involves the displacement of tonnes of land
- Plastic doesn’t really biodegrade, so reducing and reusing is the best we can do (no need to contribute to the Pacific plastic soup)
- Recycling paper has a far smaller impact on the environment than creating paper from scratch.
Here’s a video, if you want more information:
I must say – it was only within the last year that I found out the impact of not just releasing but sourcing precious metals. I knew about blood diamonds of course – but never imagined that the phones, remote controls or jewellery I was buying were impacting the lives of all these people, caught in the fight for resources. I resolved then and there to minimise my use of new metal. That involved buying second-hand, recycled or sustainably sourced metal, and recycling whatever metal possible.
So why not try it? Don’t become a statistic, hoarding your phone in the back of a drawer. Hand in your old phone when you upgrade.
Besides, recycling makes you feel good. Promise.
Reuse: The Little Things
Have you ever broken something, and hated throwing away the broken pieces? What about when you upgrade your computer or mobile phone? Even though there are e-waste recycling centres, doesn’t it suck to have to toss stuff just because one little chip chucks a hissy fit? Wouldn’t it be great to reuse some of this junk?
So why don’t you? Yankee Elv is. Right now, her thing is making jewellery – earrings mostly – out of whatever odds and ends she happens to have lying about. She uses old beads from broken necklaces, or from a gaudy beaded purse we picked up from a Freecycle giveaway. Sometimes she uses her leftover cross stitch thread to make anklets. Her most recent creation? E-waste earrings.
Brown e-waste earrings
Blue e-waste earrings
Aren’t they awesome? She’s in the beginning stages of opening a shop on Etsy to sell some of her creations. I wore a pair to work today and all the girls loved them, and loved them more when I told them what they were originally (circuitry). Geek chic!
A friendly giraffe modelling the blue e-waste earrings on a bookshelf
It feels so much better recycling your e-waste you know you’ve really gotten everything you can from it.
Recent Comments