Archive for February, 2009
Reduce: Shower Time
I’m still feeling a bit meh, so this is just a short post – me trying to get back in the swing of things.
Wasting water is bad. The biggest water waster is the shower. Most people shower every day. Yeah, most. Hmm.
Anyway, you guys already know all this.
Showers are massive water wasters
As we’ve been in a drought for ages over here, most Australians are used to having to reduce the amount of water we use in the shower. Here’s how.
Take shorter showers. It seems pretty obvious, but it’s the most effective way to reduce water wastage. You can get clocks or timers which can help you keep to time. We have a clock from IKEA that attaches to the tile wall with a suction cap, and a similarly attached hourglass type of thing that goes for four minutes. Everyone got the hourglass with their newspaper, but you can buy them – an egg-timer even, would work.
Use a water-saving shower head. In Australia you can get rebates when you buy them – just Google. There are all different kinds – they don’t have to be that kind with the crappy water pressure or the kind with the sprays that bore through your shoulders.
Turn the water off when you’re not using it. For example, if you’re just putting shampoo in your hair, you don’t need to be under the water – so turn it off until you need it again.
Don’t brush your teeth in the shower. It’s much better to do it over the sink with the tap turned off. Just turn on the tap to rinse.
Only shampoo once. Apparently lots of people already did this, but I always did rinse and repeat, just like it says on the bottle. It’s a good idea to use less conditioner too – just condition the ends of your hair. These methods will require less water to rinse out.
Put a bucket in the shower to catch the water that comes out while it’s heating up. Just take the bucket out once the water is warm. You can use the water on your garden, or for any other purpose that takes your fancy. My friend’s cat used to drink out of her bucket!
Take cool showers as often as possible – that way you don’t have to wait for the water to heat up.
And my personal favourite – shower with your partner. While you’re shampooing, they can be under the water, and vice versa. At least, that’s the theory…
I’m sure people have other tactics – what do you do to save water in the shower?
Mental Health Moment #1
It’s been a long weekend and a long day and my eyes are sore and it’s hot and my head is stuffy and I’m sick of dealing with teenage angst and playing politics at work sucks.
My own issues seem petty when you consider that the death toll from the Victorian bushfires is at 130. It’s likely to rise. One of my Melbourne colleagues lives in Marysville – her house was only 8km from the fires. The fires in New South Wales (some only 70km from my friend’s place – fortunately southerly winds seem to have turned the fires back from her property) would normally be national news, but they’re lost amidst the devastation of Victoria. Ditto the massive floods in Far North Queensland.
I had lunch with a friend today who told me she was crying all weekend, the sight of the burnt out cars was too much for her. 12 people have died in the town she lived in as a little girl.
On Friday, I was in a phone conference with a guy in Melbourne who was casually mentioning he could see bushfires coming up alongside his building. We were asking if he needed to evacuate. ‘She’ll be right,’ he said. ‘We’re not in danger here.’ I bet he wouldn’t be so complacent today.
Super shit long weekend.
I’m going to get to a post – my Spotlight was meant to be on bottled water today, and I’ll get to it, but it might be later in the week. I’ll have to backdate it. I’m too mentally tired tonight to worry about it. Sorry guys.
I saw this today and it made me laugh. I think the fact that people from western countries tend to look at things top to bottom, left to right makes this even funnier. Funny is important when you need a mental health moment.
Mental Health Monday - LOLCats FTW
Tonight I feel lucky to be a Brisbanite, no matter how tired I am. Stay safe everyone.
Weekly Round-up #5
It’s a day late this week (sorry folks), but… what have we been talking about? What’s been happening in the world?
Eco Lesbo Vego
We discussed:
- The awesomeness that is strawbale construction.
- What to do when plastic shopping bags get phased out.
- Green shopping bags – why you should use them and how to remember to bring them to the store.
- The most effective type of recycling bin, and why it works the best.
I also posted a vegan recipe - Creamy Red Curry. This is is a sweet, creamy curry of doom!
Environmental News from Australia and Around the World
IKEA’s environmental policy is moving from a top-down to a seamlessly integrated approach. Already, IKEA is a reasonably eco-friendly company. 71% of materials used in IKEA products are recycled, recyclable or both. Many stores are running on some form of renewable energy. Over 1000 environmental audits are performed on materials suppliers every year. IKEA only aims to achieve more. Although I still believe second-hand is the way to go, if you’re unable to find what you need in a second-hand furniture shop, IKEA may be a good alternative.
A recent study from the University of Minnesota has found that the production of corn ethanol is more damaging to the environment than gasoline. Now I’ve been saying for a long time that biofuels are not the way to go and here is just another piece of evidence to prove that. Although the emissions caused by ethanol are much lower, the impact of clearing the land, planting, growing and harvesting the corn and then turning it into a biofuel, end up having a massive environmental impact. I think something like hemp biofuels would be considerably better than petrol though, so the plant choice would make a difference.
The Australian Federal Government has announced an initiative which will allow Australian homeowners a free solar hot water system or ceiling insulation valued at up to $1600 per household as of July 1, 2009. The stimulus package is intended to help ward of recession and improve environmental conditions at the same time. Naturally, insulation manufacturers are delighted, although some predict that there could be long waits between ordering and installation.
The biggest news at the moment is, of course, that Australia is screwed right now. Here in Brisbane we’re safe, but we’re between two extremes. To the north of us, 60% of the state is flooded. Queensland is pretty big – that 60% is 100 million square kilometres (24 710 000 000 square acres). For the love of God and Pete, don’t go out anywhere unless you’re in a tinny – where the water is, so too are the crocodiles. To the south of us, 84 people have lost their lives in Australia’s biggest natural disaster on record – the Victorian bushfires. 750 homes have been destroyed but it’s the stories of human tragedy that have the most impact on people. Bob Brown (Australian Greens leader) rightly believes climate change had something to do with the magnitude of the fires and that these events will increase if we don’t arrest global warming now. He’s right, I think. Although country Australia has always been prone to bushfires – some of our trees are even germinated by fire – this fire is unbelievably huge and ferocious. Everyone’s thoughts are with the victims of both the fires and the floods.
Of course, there’s lots of other news, but I’m just too short of time this week. Did I miss anything particularly important? Leave a comment and let me know.
Friday Feast: Creamy Red Curry
One day Yankee Elv decided that the Chana Masala she was making just wasn’t going to cut it for her. She wanted another curry as well. So I tried to find one on the internet that we could make using whatever we had in the house. Although I found plenty that were mostly good, none of them really worked for me. So I made one up. Invented it from scratch (yes, I have moments of awesome, admittedly far and few between)… and it turned out SO well! Many noms.
I used Lamyong soy nuggets. Soy nuggets are our favourite fake meat – possibly because they don’t taste meaty and have a nice chewy texture. Lamyong is an Australian company that sells vegetarian products. They whup Sanitarium‘s arse and don’t get a tax break for being a church-run company, so I like them. You can buy their products in Asian supermarkets and some restaurants (like Tea Master or City Wok). If you can’t get Lamyong, use any faux chicken type of thing you can find – gluten or mushroom based would also work well I think. You could also use tofu or beans.
Creamy Red Curry
Ingredients
300g Lamyong soy nuggets
2 large carrots, cut into 5cm long sticks (try to get the thickness even so they cook evenly)
1/2 cup soy milk
2 tabs vegan margarine
2 tabs plain flour
vegetable oil (for frying)
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup water
2 tabs tomato paste
1 onion, very finely diced
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 & 1/2 tsps turmeric
3/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika
handful of sultanas (optional, but super yummy)
Method
1. Fry soy nuggets in a non-stick frying pan until defrosted and slightly browned. Remove from pan and set aside.
2. Make a bechamel sauce (yeah, I know it’s Indian food, but trust me on this):
a) In a small saucepan, melt the vegan margarine.
b) Add the flour and stir rapidly to combine, ensuring there are no lumps.
c) Add 1/4 cup of soy milk, stirring continuously to combine and thicken.
d) Add the other 1/4 cup of soy milk and repeat.
e) Once mixture has thickened considerably, remove from heat.
f) Continue stirring for one minute as the pan cools. Set aside. (It may be a bit oily, if you dislike this, reduce amount of margarine).
3. In a large pot or pan over a medium heat, fry onion until soft. While frying the onion and garlic, measure out spices onto a bowl or plate.
4. Add garlic to the pan and fry for about 30 seconds. Reduce heat to low.
5. Pour spices into onions and garlic and stir fry to combine. Cook for several minutes. Do not allow spices to burn!
6. Add tomato paste and coconut milk and stir to combine. Cook for several minutes.
7. Add bechamel sauce (which will have thickened quite a bit now that it’s cool). Mix very well to combine. The sauce may need to reduce in viscosity over the heat, so just keep stirring until it’s combined.
8. Simmer on a low heat for about 3 mins, stirring occasionally. Try to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the pot.
9. While the sauce is simmering, fry the carrot sticks in a separate pan to partially cook.
10. Add carrots to the sauce and stir in well.
11. Add water to the sauce and combine.
12. Simmer uncovered over a low heat for two minutes, then cover and continue simmering for 5 minutes.
13. Add soy nuggets and sultanas (if using) and simmer, covered, for a further 5 mins.
14. Serve with basmati rice. Yum!
Recycle: Bin Types
The talk of the eco-interwebz this week is a study by Sean Duffy and Michelle Verger, who work in psychology at Rutgers University. After noticing a pattern in the number of items recycled properly and the type of bin used, they completed a study; a series of experiments. Apparently, if a recycling bin has a hole in it to put the recyclable rubbish through, it is 34% more effective than a bin that looks like a regular rubbish bin. That is, the recyclables go into the right bin (not the general waste bin), but also that the general waste doesn’t go into the recycling bin.
Um. Weird. More organisational psychology craziness!
Seriously though, this seems legit. So I wonder why this is? I can see why people would have trouble recycling properly, if you get bins like the ones shown below, and described at Treehugger. They’re just so poorly signed.
Poor signage - picture from Steven de Sousa on Treehugger
But what if the bin is signed properly? Is it really the childlike delight at poking something through a hole that makes that type of recycling bin so much more effective, as suggested by Duffy? His study found that signage had nothing to do with it.
Our work recycling bin, the one my Environment Team colleagues and I organised, has a flip top lid. It is appropriately signed and the lid is green though. Perhaps it’s the colouring that is making these bins a success? Regardless, people are using them… even without a hole to poke the rubbish through.
Guess I don’t need to get out my stanley knife and cut a hole in the lid just yet.
Reuse: Green Bags
Ok guys – this post is kind of a continuation of yesterday’s post on reducing plastic bag use. Yes, I know it’s lame and unoriginal, but when this post appears on the blog, I’ll be in Perth for work so I’ve had to write some posts ahead of time. This is the last one left, it’s nearly midnight at my flight leaves in less than 8 hours.
So seriously… let’s reuse our green bags.
Reusable green bag from HEB in Texas (we used to shop there... cos there was nowhere else to shop)
Why? Cos it’s, you know, the right thing to do. See yesterday’s post for more detail on the why. Today, I’m more interested in the how. That is, how do you remember to bring them to the shop!?
The grocery stores have taken to putting up signs reminding us that green bags only work if you remember to bring them. The only thing that does is make me feel guilty that I’ve forgotten. A sign at the shop is a bit too little, too late, you know what I mean? As I mentioned yesterday though, before we switched to a mini-rubbish bin, I used to use way fewer plastic bags, and thus used green shopping bags all the time. I had some secret ways of remembering to bring them.
- Have quite a lot of bags so you can have bags in different places.
- Keep a bag in your work bag/backpack for emergency shopping on the way home from work. You only need one, as you don’t normally buy much on the way home from work when you have to carry things on the bus.
- Keep some bags in your car boot – we normally take the car when we’re going shopping for lots of stuff.
- Keep some bags inside the house in case you want to walk to the shops. Keep them out of reach of naughty cats who pee on things. Trust me on this one. Don’t think the top of the fridge is safe, either.
- Have spare bags so you can keep on using them while you’re mending the older bags that start ripping.
- Have at least one insulated bag so your cold stuff stays cold while you’re walking home from the shops – this is most important in hotter climates like Queensland. Yes, I know we’re not the ones having a heatwave this summer (sorry Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney), but normally it’s hotter up here. We also have an insulated backpack, which works better if you’re cycling, scootering or skating to the shop.
- Put your bags back where they go as part of your grocery-putting-away routine. For example, after a big shop, gather the bags up and put them back in the boot of the car. Otherwise, you’ll get to the shop next time and realise you left them on the kitchen bench. That sucks. Once it’s part of your routine it will seem normal.
- It’s ok to buy the odd new green bag, but don’t go crazy. That’s emergency times only, and only if you’re a bit low on green bags at home.
- You can use any old bag, not just a green bag, if your groceries will fit. I’ve carried lots of stuff home in my laptop backpack before. It also makes it easier to carry on the bus.
- Enlist other people to help you remember and help you put the bags away as part of your routine. If you’re too lazy tired old busy doing incredibly important things, you can always have the kids do it.
How do you remember your green bags?
Reduce: Plastic Bags
Plastic bags. Everyone loves to hate them. Me too. But I’ll let you in on a secret.
I still use them.
Plastic bags are the devil... right?
OMG OMG OMG! I know. Don’t scream at me, I know it’s bad and I want to change my ways. I mean, I used to use green bags really consistently so I know I can do it. But first, don’t you want to know why a staunch environmentalist doesn’t already always use green bags (which, mind you, are made from plastic anyway). I don’t always use calico bags either. C’mon… wanna know why?
I use plastic shopping bags for my rubbish bin. We make such a small amount of waste that the big bin with the big bags wasn’t working out for us. We switched to a much smaller bin, and why buy bags (with all the additional packaging) when I can get shopping bags for free?
I also use the bags as poo pick-up bags. We don’t walk Loodle much anymore; he’s old and his hips tend to protest if he walks around too much. When we do walk him though, the plastic bags are a definite must. There is, always, poo.
The last thing I regularly use the bags for is to carry my lunch to work. I pack my lunch in old takeaway containers and sometimes they leak. The plastic bags prevent my laptop bag from getting curry or stir-fry sauce all through it.
I must say though – I feel really uncomfortable getting plastic shopping bags at the grocery store, like I’m a bad environmentalist. Aside from the fact that everyone can see me being a bad environmentalist, I also know full well that plastic bags, even the biodegradable ones, don’t really biodegrade properly because landfill is too anaerobic to allow for proper decomposition. But I have these dilemmas, listed above… so what should I do? Here’s my thinking.
Avoid using bin bags altogether. I don’t use bin bags for my recycling bin, or any bin except the kitchen bin. With the introduction of a compost bin/worm farm (no, I don’t have one yet – we’re in a rental house on a very low budget, but it’s in the works) I should be able to prevent food scraps from being dumped. Then all I have to do is manage the plastic waste (pretty much everything else is biodegradable). At the very least, I can dramatically minimse the number of plastic bags we use in the bin.
Poo-pick up bags. I don’t know how this will work for everyone else, but Loodle is just about over going out walking anymore, so this isn’t a huge issue for us. He mostly poos in the backyard, which we clean up by doing a big poo-pick up every few weeks. The poo goes into one of his empty food bags and then into the wheelie bin. I wonder if you can compost dog poo… and if that would be nasty. Maybe nasty. Or maybe good like manure. I must research this. For people with dogs who are young and go for walks lots, you could try:
- Taking a small bucket or container with a lid (and a little shovel?)
- Getting a pooper-scooper
- Going to dog parks (they have biodegradable bags available there, at least in Brisbane)
- Using paper bags (not sure how well this would work – there may be seepage)
- Using empty bags or packaging from other products.
The final thing I regularly use plastic bags for is to protect my bag from food leakage. I think this wouldn’t be an issue if I used proper lunch containers and lunch bag/box. There are lots of different kinds, but my current favourite is Harold the lunch monster!
Harold the Lunch Monster from Ones and Zeros Fashion
A bit expensive, especially with the exchange rate, but awesomely cool. I’d still need to use lunch containers though… maybe that could be another use for jars, if I have something that might leak! Jars are pretty air/water-tight. I like that idea.
So I’m really going to make an effort to reduce my plastic bag usage. Before too long, we won’t have a choice anyway – shopping bags will be phased out as of 2011 or sooner here in Australia.
I just have to remember to take my reusable shopping bags with me!
Spotlight: Strawbale Construction
In a post a couple of weeks ago (Reduce: Summer Cooling Costs), I waxed lyrical about the Queenslander style home. The Queenslander is designed for our hot, humid climate and allows us to manage summer without heating costs. Our winters are so mild that we don’t much have to worry about heating either. When I ‘grow up’, buy some land and get set to build my own house, I’m going to build a Queenslander. Sort of. Really, it’ll be a strawbale Queenslander-esque house o’ dreams!
Strawbale, for the uninitiated, is a type of construction in which the main building material is bales of straw. The bales are stacked on top of a waterproof foundation, trimmed as required, and then rendered to produce a stucco-like wall surface. They’re sturdy – no huffing and puffing to blow these houses down!
Strawbale home - from www.nicklangfordconstruction.com
Originally developed over 100 years ago on the prairies of Nebraska, where grass was the only plentiful building material, strawbale construction is experiencing a resurgence in popularity as part of the growing low impact movement.
Strawbale houses are popular with environmentalists (including me!) because:
- Thick strawbale walls provide excellent insulation – keeping you cool in summer and warm in winter without the need for electrically powered temperature control.
- Building materials are all natural.
- No significant quarrying, mining or deforestation is required to build the home.
- Straw used for building is not burned like most straw is (considered a waste product by food-crop farmers).
- Straw used for building does not release methane by decomposition.
- Rendered walls reduce the need for environmentally damaging paints and solvents.
- Construction waste is minimal and can mostly be used in the garden, meaning it doesn’t need to go to landfill (a large percentage of waste in landfills globally comes from the construction industry).
- Building materials can be grown sustainably in one season and don’t release massive amounts of carbon during harvest (which occurs as part of food-crop harvesting anyway).
- Building materials can generally be locally sourced.
Strawbale pre-rendering - from http://home.howstuffworks.com/straw-bale-house1.htm
Other benefits of straw bale homes:
- Strawbale is one of the most fire-resistant types of structures due to the closely packed straw (not enough oxygen to feed a fire).
- Strawbale can be built by the owners – experts are not required – which makes it much cheaper.
- Professionals are available to build the home if desired, and it’s still cheaper than conventional home-building.
- The two-foot thick walls allow ample space for benches, window seats and shelves.
- Walls can be erected quickly – in a single weekend.
- Walls are somewhat soundproof, so the inside of the house is peaceful and quiet.
- Straw is naturally termite (white ant) resistant (most species).
- Strawbale houses are durable – there are some almost 100 years old in America that are still going strong.
So my awesome house-to-be will be strawbale, for sure. In addition to all the environmental and financial benefits, I just like the way it looks. You know it’s going to have wrap-around verandahs though!
What do you reckon? Strawbale housing for the win?
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