Posts tagged ‘alternative usage’
Cycling: The Way of the Future?
The Netherlands is the land of dikes dykes bikes. The land is flat, and huge numbers of the population use bikes to get around. Check out this article, written by someone in Amsterdam at the moment. There are just bikes everywhere. The author wonders if this is the way of the future. It looks like an incredible future to me. Huge, free bike parking lots, filled to bursting.
Bikes in Amsterdam (photo by Annalee Newitz).
We have a bike station in Brisbane, in the city, but I don’t know how well used it is. The website says 420 cyclists use it daily. I do see plenty of cyclists taking their chances amongst the cars and buses, and zipping along the bikeway by the river. Not like in The Netherlands though. (Incidentally, lots of the commenters on the original article talk about how in some places it’s too hot to cycle everywhere. That’s why you have showers in the bike stations, like we do in Brisbane. Duh.)
I really like the idea of a city full of bikes… if only I could ride one without falling off.
I can only go in a straight line on flat ground. If I’m having a good day, I can make a really wide turn. That’s pretty much the limit of my ability. I think part of it is the type of bike I’ve been riding. I used to do ok on the bike I had when I was 12. It was an old, classic kind of bike. No cross-bar (a lady’s bike for the dyke, thanks!), upright handlebars so I didn’t have to lean so far over to ride it. Sitting up works better for me. I notice that lots of the bikes in the picture in the Amsterdam article have handlebars like that too. My bike woes really started when I got too tall for my classic bike and Dad bought be one that was on sale… it was a pink (!!) cross-trainer with the skinniest tyres in the history of the modern Earth. The falling began. Yankee Elv’s mountain bike isn’t much better, it’s one of the ‘bend yourself in half to reach the handlebars’ type.
I can’t scooter, skateboard, roller skate, roller blade or ice skate either. Balance is not my forte.
So far, I’ve stuck to walking… but as the bikes zip past me on the bikeway, I wonder if I should give it a try again. They all make it look so easy and fast. I could try a classic bike, like these ones. Or maybe an adult trike?
Does anyone else cycle regularly? How do you find it?
Reuse: Meat for Heat
Tesco, a UK grocery chain, is not producing any waste. They’re recycling or reusing any excess stuff they use, don’t sell or otherwise produce. That’s pretty super awesome, especially since they’re not even required to do this by law.
Potentially overshadowing this very cool fact, howerver, is the fact that one way they’re achieving this is by turning meat that is too old to sell into electricity. Apparently enough electricity is produced per year to heat about 600 homes – from about 5000 tonnes of manky meat.
Gross.
Tesco - the UK supermarket that reuses or recycles all waste.
Veg*ns across the UK (and angry sympathisers worldwide) are all up in arms, and I can’t say I totally blame them. It would be pretty nasty to find out that, as a vegan, your good deeds were essentially cancelled out by the fuel used to light and heat your home. Of course, one would hope you’d be purchasing green energy… but who knows how this meat-power is marketed? Technically, some people might call it green – it’s not oil- or coal-based.
I do think it’s good the meat isn’t just going to the dump. That would be worse than using it for electricity, in my opinion. At least it’s getting used – waste is the worst thing. I gotta ask though… why is so much meat being produced (aka, animals being raised, slaughtered and transported in an environmentally unfriendly manner) that there’s such a large amount of leftovers that don’t sell? 5000 tonnes of meat per year is a lot of animals. It’s a lot of pain and suffering for them. It’s a lot of crops used to feed these animals, that could have been used to feed humans. Alternatively, the land used to grow the crops and house the animals could have been left wild. It’s a lot of methane produced. It’s a lot of carbon emitted to transport the animals (both alive and dead). It’s a lot of antibiotics and hormones and offal and waste and pollution and manure. Ew.
I don’t eat meat, but I don’t automatically write off all people who do. I do have a lot more respect for people who eat meat ethically and consciously though; really knowing where their meat comes from and how it got to their plate. Typically these people tend to eat organic meat. Folks who just mindlessly grab the mass-produced stuff off a shelf in the supermarket are not making an informed choice. This ‘meat for heat’ practice is encouraging that – basically suggesting that there’s no impact. There is an impact, a big one, and people ought to be encouraged to think about that.
So good on you Tesco, for going so far with your environmental efforts. I’m not even being sarcastic. However – take it a step further. Ask the energy companies to clearly identify who is buying electricity sourced from meat. Reduce the amount of meat you purchase, since not all of it is selling. Help the environment just that little bit more.
Cos seriously Tesco. Meat as electricty = gross symptom of climate change. Really gross.
Spotlight: Cow Farts
Cow farts are a major source of greenhouse gas, predominantly methane – in fact, the leading source of methane emissions in Australia. According to this video from National Geographic, the manure from an average dairy cow (in the UK, though) equates to about 1.5 tonnes* of carbon dioxide – apparently about the equivalent of a commuter driving to work alone every day. I do wonder if that commuter is driving short distances in the UK, but with heavy traffic. It might be different in different parts of the world. It also depends on what the cows eat. In Australia, most cows are just put out to pasture, although often their feed is supplemented in times of drought. In other countries, it’s very common to feed cows on wheat, maize, soy beans, sugar beet and other similar foods.
Suffice it to say though, 1.5 tonnes is about five times as much carbon dioxide as we offset on one flight from Brisbane to Melbourne last week. Dairy cows and farts. Yeowch.
A cow sniffs at a photographer's camera in Hamburg, Germany. Photograph: Ulrich Perrey/EPA
There is the obvious solution – don’t eat beef or consume dairy. Clearly if even I, a super hardcore greenie, is having trouble giving up cheese, the rest of the world won’t necessarily love this idea. So a more complex (yet, actually quite simple) solution has been put forth.
Feed the cows a diet that is more natural. This means mixing finely-cut straw and hay in with their food. Apparently, this natural diet means the cows are chewing longer and more, increasing saliva production and fermentation in the stomach – thus less gas. Other benefits include increased milk yield (more food is digested so can go towards making milk), the cows are healthier and happier. All this even though the cows aren’t particularly keen to eat the straw, so it has to be hidden in their ‘regular’ (read crops, not pasture) food.
Folks in the UK and New Zealand particularly are getting on the bandwagon – even major chocolate producer Cadbury is keen.
I still want to reduce anything produced using animal products (I drink soy milk, don’t eat yoghurt, custard or sour cream, and I’m dramatically reduced my chocolate and ice-cream intake… it’s really the cheese that is the kicker). At least in the meantime though, and for all the other omnivores in the world who can’t imagine going vegan, this is a better thing for the cows and the environment.
Of course, you could always convert the cow manure to biofuel and use it to power farm trucks like they’re doing in California. I might take a pass on the methane-catching back-pack for cows though. I kinda feel sorry for the cow.
*Note: Some other sources put this figure much lower. For example, the article about Cadbury puts it at 80kg – 120kg per cow per year; clearly much less than 1.5 tonnes.. yet strangely, still the equated to annual carbon emissions from your average family car.
Reduce: Cotton Tips
What can I do to reduce the number of cotton tips (q-tips) we go through? Although the ends are made of cotton (biodegradable), the stems are plastic, I think, so you couldn’t compost them.
I used to at least buy them in cardboard boxes, but these days I can only find them in plastic containers… and I don’t think it’s the right kind of plastic to recycle either. I tried keeping the containers to reuse, but I just don’t really have anything to use them for. Maybe I’ll try Freecycling them.
These are the cotton tips I bought most recently from Coles.
I can’t think of a replacement for the thing we use them for the most – nothing else cleans your ears quite the right way! Even Yankee Elv, who has the cleanest ears ever, uses them to itch the ear her hearing aid goes in.
Ideas? Anyone? Beuller?
EDIT: Jun, aka Beuller, commented below that in Asia people use reusable metal ‘ear diggers‘ (nice name) to clean their ears. Thanks Jun!
Spotlight: Digital Dumping Grounds
I knew developing countries were, to a degree, the rubbish dumps for electronic waste (e-waste) shipped in from developed nations, but I didn’t know how bad it was. I watched this episode of Frontline World this morning that really made it hit home for me. Here’s the promo:
You can access the full 20 minute segment about Ghana here. Sorry Deafies, there are no captions (which annoys the shit out of me – c’mon PBS!), but underneath the video there is a transcript of the segment (if it’s not exact, it’s pretty close). You can also see some photos with captions here on Jane Hahn‘s site.
It’s not just Ghana either – Vietnam, Pakistan, Malaysia, China and lots of other third-world nations are being taken advantage of. In fact, the segment discussed how the average computer-owner (and dumper) is also being taken advantage of, by companies who say they’re dumping responsibly, but who ship out unusable computers for reuse. Clearly, since they’re unusuable, they’re only going to become scrap, but labelling them ‘for reuse’ enables their export courtesy of a legal loophole.
I have a bunch of e-waste here at my place that I was looking to dispose of responsibly, but now I’m unsure how I can do that if I can’t even trust the recycling companies. Plus, I want to make sure no-one has access to my data (that image of the FBI guy smashing the hard drive with the hammer also make an impression on me). Is it really best for the environment for me to be smashing stuff up, regardless of how cathartic that may be? However, is it best for me to not smash it? Ghana is one of the world’s leading areas of cyber crime, after all – there’s has to be link between that and the dumping of e-waste, it’s too convenient a co-incidence.
The one ‘positive’ thing to come out of the whole thing isn’t even very good. I wrote a while ago about the impact of metal mining on the environment (here and here). Trawling through the e-waste for scraps of copper and other precious metals does at least eliminate the need for so much mining… but at what cost? The toxic fumes produced by the burning needed to scavenge this metal is detrimental to both the environment and the unsuspecting people who participate, not to mention every man and his dog who lives nearby.
Aside from making pretty earrings, and giving away old items on Freecycle, what can we do with this stuff? Does anyone know of a recycler who actually recycles stuff responsibly without exporting it?
Reuse: Old Bras
Who has ideas on how to reuse old bras?
I’ve had my current ones for about 4 years and they are all on their way out. I’m not one to buy bras regularly as I hate bra shopping so tend to buy several at once to get it over with, which means they all tend to go caput at once as well. As a result, my bras become something of old friends – I know just what shirts they go best under and how comfortable they will be. I have favourites (doesn’t everyone?). I wash and dry them carefully to make them last (as shown below, when a rainy day prevented me from using the regular clothesline).
Regardless of my preferences, I’ve had to buy a new one today, and will be looking around for more over the next few weeks. I have one that I can salvage (it’s only 3 years old and still in reasonably good nick). The left wire broke, so I’m going to to take the wire out of the bra in the most disastrous condition, and put it into the still good bra as a replacement. That will definitely mean disaster-bra is dead though, not even able to be used as an at-home bra, so what should I do with it?
I could probably take off the hooks to use in some sewing project. I could remove the other wire and save it in case another one needs replacing. The material of the cups is black satin and still in good condition so perhaps I could make something from it? A new menstrual cup bag? I could use it as an accent on the toilet roll holder bag or drink bottle bags I’ve been thinking of making (when I get time, which is never, so really I’d just be increasing my stash). The elastic across the back of the bra is really dead, I’m not sure anything could be done with that. The straps might be ok, but I’m not sure for what!
I guess I could donate it to my sister, who is getting her wisdom teeth out soon, so she could use it as an ice-pack holder for her jaw, but she really might prefer to use her own bra!
Has anyone else had this dilemma? Is there something you can do with an old bra? What if you aren’t all Crafty McCrafterson and don’t want to sew anything?
Op-Shop Art and Puppetry
We (the whole human Elvish family plus the Dyke Mike) went to see a marionette show tonight at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts. It’s called The Grimstones (watch a trailer here) and was presented in English and Auslan. Yankee Elv is Deaf, so this was particularly cool as she could understand everything that was going on- mostly at least, as Auslan is different to ASL after all – which is not often the case with live theatre. I was extremely impressed, it was so well done. I really liked the way the humans (puppeteers) and marionettes interacted with each other, but not in a creepy ventriloquist way. The movements of the marionettes were life-like, and the sets were incredibly intricate. It made me imagine what watching silent films must have been like, but with voiced/signed narration between scenes, rather than text appearing on screen.
Marionettes from The Grimstones
Another thing that really impressed me was that most of the sets were made using reused materials. For example, an old candlestick was revamped (cushion added, painted etc) to make one character’s sewing stool. A bottle in the apothecary was made from an old bottle top. I liked the sustainable nature of it all.
It wasn’t commercial, the way so many types of mass-produced forms of entertainment (like movies) are, which also appealed to me. Afterwards there were drinks (including a really nice Cabernet Merlot from Kissing Bridge) and fancy nibblies, such as cute, tasty cupcakes. We wandered around backstage, looking at posters outlining the production of the sets and marionettes, and at the book the artist published. We also had time to chat with the artist, Asphyxia and co-star/partner, Paula (they met as circus performers in Melbourne years ago), while Dyke Mike was cornered by a lady talking very determinedly about perfume, and Mr Teeny-bop vacillated between the snack table and the posters. We rounded off the evening with a rather expensive tapas dinner (a send off for DM, who is leaving the country on Thursday), some fruity sangria and a silly train ride home.
When I got home, I briefly looked up Asphyxia’s blog, only to find out that she’s a big environmentalist. No wonder the show was sustainably produced! We’re everywhere, I tell you.
All in all, a good night was had by all.
Reuse: Tea Bags
I’m Australian and I drink tea. All kinds. My favourite is rooibos and I also quite like green. Sometimes the girls at work will bring in some special blends (the last ones had black, green and rose, and rooibos, green and orange peel). If I’m stressed I drink chamomile. Jasmine and chrysanthemum are good too, and peppermint or lemon if I’ve got a cold. There’s a tea for every occasion. I only drink my tea with water – no sugar, no soy or oat milk.
Nerada's Rooibos with vanilla is my favourite kind of tea
Tea is a hot drink and the weather is getting cooler, so I’ll be drinking more and more of it as the year goes on, but that doesn’t matter really – here in Australia, we drink it year round.
You can get tea that doesn’t involve tea bags – loose leaf and things like that – but typically, I use tea bags. I don’t drink enough to worry about making a pot, and the mesh tea balls aren’t ideal for someone who typically brews tea in a hurry. The tea bags are kind of wasteful though, so I like to reuse them.
At work, my colleague and I make a cup of tea each using the same tea bag. At home, I put my used tea bag into a clean glass and set it aside on the bench to save for use in my next cup of tea, and sometimes the next after that. I don’t leave it too long though, or I think it would get manky. Sometimes Yankee Elv and I, and sometimes Mr Teeny-bop, share tea bags, but mostly we drink different kinds of tea so the glass of tea bags is well used. I guess you could put it in a glass jar with the lid on, but I don’t think it would be good to contain the moisture too much, and especially not for too long.
You can reuse the tea bags in other ways too. Cool, they are soothing on (closed) tired eyes. Apparently a chamomile tea bag is very soothing on freshly pierced skin and scars. And after you’ve finished with your tea bags, you can compost them, or even put them into your worm farm if you have one. They’re only paper and leaves – but be sure to buy local and organic (so I choose Nerada) if you can.
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!
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