Posts tagged ‘food packaging’
In Vitro Meat
In Vitro Meat (IVM): bring it on.
Check out this article from H+ magazine (ok, number 6 is gross and sensationalist, but otherwise…).
It’s cheaper, healthier, better for the animals, better for the planet… I think we should go for it. I also think governments of nations highly dependent on agriculture (like Australia) need to start diversifying, stat. Build an IVM factory, start farming hemp, build some solar or wind farms, something… cos those huge cattle stations are going to dry up with the drought.
Yikes. Creepy but cool.
Update Again
I haven’t posted since the big dust storm, which seems ages ago now. We’ve had a couple more since then, but nothing like that first big one.
I’m sorry I’ve neglected the blog, but it’s just been a bit crazy crazy. Here’s an update on the latest goings-on.
Diva Princess broke two of her toes and has been stuck inside for a month with a bandage on her foot that she insists on trying to rip off. She looks so pathetic with the cone around her head that I try not to make her wear it unless she’s getting really crazy with the bandage pulling. She’s also had an ECG to check on a mild heart murmur we just found out she has.
Diva Princess is highly disgruntled that she is stuck inside with a bandage on her foot.
There are new white Tim Tams. Yankee Elv is obsessed. There have been a lot of Tim Tams in our house. Yankee Elv’s mom is obsessed too, except she lives in America, so it’s hard for her to have lots of Tim Tams in her house. Fortunately for her, they’re staring to sell them in the US soon. There’s lots of excitement about that, on both sides of the Pacific. I feel bad that the Tim Tams come in a plastic tray, in a plastic packet. They need to make eco Tim Tams that come in cardboard and paper. Plastic or not, I still eat them. Bad hippy. Bad.
Dog/cat/turtle-sitting is over. A great time was had by all. We introduced the dogs to a new dog park, which is full of very friendly people and is split into a section for big dogs and another section for little dogs. Loodle was not very sociable with the dogs but wanted everyone to pat him. Everyone loved him. Pseudo-Marley was simultaneously scared of the big dogs and desperate to play tag with them. Everyone loved him too. I like how they supply all the dogs with biodegradable poo pick-up bags.
I got a long-awaited promotion, Mr Teeny-bop has become a Drama-king (lots of school plays) and Yankee Elv has gone back to school.
I walked to the supermarket last weekend (for exercise and to reduce car trips – I took my green shopping bags too). Loodle can’t walk that far with us anymore, but Mr Teeny-bop came on his scooter. It was nice to walk along with him. We’re keeping our eye on a mango tree in a park along the way. In a couple of months we may be able to score some free mangoes. Yum!
Mangoes!
Loodle is getting into shaving season. He’s a North American dog all the way and doesn’t handle the heat, so we have to shear him like a sheep (although he ends up looking like a pink piggy when we’re finished). Shaving will occur this weekend. The first shave of the season is always very laborious, but not as bad as the weekly bath. The arthritis in Loodle’s hips is getting so bad he needs to sit down for his bath now. 
Yankee Elv and I celebrated (quietly to ourselves) a year of using menstrual cups and cloth pantyliners instead of disposable ‘sanitary products’. Going for reusuable menstrual items is one of the best decisions I ever made and I don’t just not regret it, I celebrate it – every month, every time I walk past tampons in the shop, every time I see an ad about pads and every time some poor girl tiptoes up to me at work and whispers “I don’t suppose you have an extra tampon in your bag, do you?” (I actually do keep a few tampons in case of emergencies so they are always lucky.)
Diva has figured out how to open the screen door and Loodle has figured out how to open the gates. I love having smart pets but this kind of extreme Houdini-style behaviour is a bit much. We’ve had to institute some counter-measures. Now our gates rival Fort Knox and the screen doors are always locked. That doesn’t stop Diva climbing them, and with summer coming we can’t close the wooden door all the time. Any suggestions?
Yankee Elv went blonde (partially). Anyone know what the ecological impact of bleach is?
I keep forgetting to water the herbs and veges regularly, so while they are not dead, they are not flourishing as they should be. The Spanish onions down the side of the house are growing best – they are out in the sunshine (but not too much sunshine) and the rain. I have had a tarp down beside the driveway for a couple of months to kill off the grass and hope to create a proper vege garden over the next couple of weekends. I think between exposure to the rain and my haphazard watering, they should fare better.
I got my empty witch hazel bottle refilled at the local organic shop. The cost was nearly three times what I pay for a whole brand new bottle in the supermarket. I don’t think I can justify spending that money to save buying a recyclable plastic bottle, which makes me really sad.
Yankee Elv has been helping me avoid buying lunch at work by cooking up big batches of food and freezing it. It’s like I have a restaurant inside my freezer that I get to go to every morning. I love that I’m saving money, eating super tasty food and not getting a bunch of disposable containers and cutlery each day.
Many, many grapefruit.
We got rid of about 80% of our grapefruits from the fallen branch via Freecycle, which I love! There is no way those hundreds of grapefruits were going anywhere otherwise. There are still hundreds more on the tree – the possums and bats are stocked for the summer. The passionfruits and pawpaws will be out before we know it too (if the morning glory doesn’t choke them), and then they’ll have dietary choice. I hope this choice encourages them not to eat anything out of my vege garden-to-be though. My colleague tells some lovely stories about possums eating her herbs and capsicums and her mad spraying with garlic and chili water (first the plants in an attempt to stave off the eating, and then the possums in retribution).
Cheeky possums eat everything, including bread, grapefruits, passionfruit, pawpaws and people's herb and vegetable gardens. They especially like the flavour of chili and garlic.
We’re planning another local holiday – south this time, just after Christmas. It should be good! No tents for a change. I need a break from holey air mattresses and tarps. I really hate putting up tarps.
So that’s what’s been going. Life has been interfering with my eco-life, which kinda sucks. Why are there so many things I wanna do, that I can’t do, cos I don’t have time, energy or money? (Mostly the first two.) Has anyone managed to find a balance? I could really use some advice.
Recycle: Polystyrene
I bet you thought you couldn’t recycle polystyrene. I know I thought that!
You can recycle this kind of polystyrene, but not the little 'packing peanuts' or the kind used for food packaging (I think).
Today in my Freecycle Cafe daily digest email, though, I got the following message:
———————
Just thought I’d let people know that it is apparently possible to recycle polystyrene in Brisbane. The details are at link A and link B but basically you can take polystyrene produce boxes for free recycling at the address listed in Acacia Ridge. They apparently charge for recycling other packaging types of polystyrene and I’m not sure of the details.
As I often see these boxes advertised on freecycle I thought I’d let people know what to do with them if they don’t get any takers. You can also post it to:
REPSA
PO Box 211
Richmond Vic 3121
if you’re feeling super green that day!
happy recycling!
———————–
(Someone also mentioned that you can use the polystyrene boxes to grow herbs and veges in, which my mum already does.)
Super awesome, huh? The Brisbane EPS recycling place is in Acacia Ridge, so that’s definitely local. Thanks Freecycle Cafe lady!
Newsflash: Bottled Water Sales Fall
Good news on the bottled water front – bottled water sales are on their way down! Check out these articles, from Consumerist and Twilight Earth for more info. I think it’s probably partially due to the recession, but if folks get used to not buying it, then it will be much easier to convince them not to start up again when the money starts flowing once more. Kinda like how even though the drought is over in Brisbane now, everyone still uses water saving devices and I haven’t seen anyone hosing their garden or washing their cars. We all just got used to it.
In case you don’t know why bottled water is bad for the environment, here are the key points:
- More plastic bottles are created (which means more fossil fuels burned), most of which are not recycled.
- Increased fossil fuels are used to transport and refrigerate the water (especially those fancy kinds that come from natural springs in Fiji).
- The water is not as regulated as town water, so it can actually be of poorer quality than what you get out of the tap.
- Five times as much water is used to create a plastic bottle as actually goes inside the bottle once it’s made – talk about waste.
- Increased reliance on bottled water means decreased reliance on free town water; this means less importance will be placed on the upkeep of town water and so it’s quality will decrease.
- We shouldn’t have to pay for water! (Especially when it costs more than petrol).
- You can use a filter on your tap if you really like that ‘pure taste’ (most of which comes from additives in the bottled water) or if you live in an area with water that is of dubious quality (not many places in Australia). I must say, I would use a filter if I was living in an area with bore water, just cos I think it tastes funky.
You can find out more at the Bottled Water Alliance. They have some interesting facts there. I didn’t know, for example, that restaurants are required by law to provide you with tap water if requested (you can’t be forced to buy a bottle if you want some water).
Other folks have already jumped on the bandwagon too – No Impact Man, for example, who has pledged to Break the Bottled Water Habit and uses a glass jar as his water bottle. I’m not really into using a jar (although kudos to him) – the mouth is too wide and I’d spill it down my face, and if I got a narrower one, it would bump my nose. Yes, I’m a bit un-co. My buddy, Dyke Mike, is looking at buying a stainless steel water bottle to use and refill.
In the effort to create less waste and buy less stuff if I already have something I could reuse, I am using glass juice or iced tea bottles (that I had already saved) to contain my water.
Two glass bottles, sitting on a sill...
I am running into a problem with the insides of the metal lids rusting, so if anyone has ideas on how to combat that, let me know. I really need to use some kind of bottle with a lid when I’m out, but also by my bed or out on the verandah, cos I am super clumsy and knock things over. When I’m at work, I just refill my big glass (heavy-bottomed so it doesn’t tip if I bump it!) a lot. More water bubblers around the city and on the bikeway are good too – I have scoped out a few, if I need an emergency water fix whilst out shopping or walking home from work.
I’m definitely all about avoiding the plastic right now, but as a decidedly not-wealthy person, I never liked the idea of paying for what I can get for free! So I know that my purchases aren’t really making an impact on this drop in sales… but I’m glad sales are dropping nonetheless.
Reduce: Breast or Bottle?
I read this interesting article about how breastfeeding is the greenest choice. Of course, I agree – and when (some years down the line), Yankee Elv and I have more kids, we’ll try to share breastfeeding of the babies. There are herbs and medications you can take to induce lactation even if you’re not the birth mother, and just a small amount of breastmilk each day can significantly increase the child’s immunity. It’s the best choice, although naturally not the only choice.
What if you can’t breastfeed though – what then? Yankee Elv couldn’t with Mr Teeny-bop, so he was bottle-fed and grew up just fine. It’s not as eco-friendly as the breast though. So is there a way to make bottle-feeding greener?
- EcoMom has written a very comprehensive article about all the things you should consider; bottle, nipple, liners (don’t use them!), formula and water. She includes some product suggestions too.
- Great Green Baby does lots of product reviews – search the blog for ‘bottle’ and you’ll find several. The Babylife Bottles are my favourite, from a purely aesthetic point of view.
- Safe Mama reviews organic baby formula, Earth’s Best. I’m not sure if it’s available in Australia.
- Of course you’ll want to use town water, rather than bottled.
I know this doesn’t really impact me at this point in time, but I find it interesting nonetheless!
The Elves in Melbourne!
I had to go to Melbourne for work on Monday, so I booked a flight for Yankee Elv and we went down a day early to take in the city. It was a good way to amalgamate travel costs and reduce emissions. We flew carbon neutral, which was surprisingly cheap, only $3.08 per flight, which is about a third of a tonne of emissions. It’s the first time Yankee Elv has been there, so it was fun!
So what kind of ELV-esque stuff did we see?
The Queen Victoria markets have a really big open-air section for fruit and veg, and one whole big aisle of it is for organic food. It was huge and pretty cool. If we lived in Melbourne we’d definitely shop there. In contrast, the West End markets up here have only a few organic stalls and they all cost a fortune. The ones in the Queen Victoria markets were fairly reasonably priced. Yankee Elv bought an orange for breakfast the next day.
The organics aisle at the Queen Victoria markets.
Melbourne is known for it’s cafe culture, so we tried out a place I’d never seen before – Hudsons Coffee. It looked like a one-off sort of place, but once I got inside and started ordering, I realised it was some kind of franchise, not dissimilar to Starbucks (with better atmosphere), which was a bit disappointing. It was cosy and warm in there though, and we’d already paid for drinks, so we stayed. I couldn’t figure out why they served our drinks in paper cups and our food in paper bags, rather than using crockery since we were eating in the cafe. Weird – and wasteful.
Disposable junk at Hudsons.
Speaking of cosy and warm, Melbourne is cold, and apparently even the locals agree. Why else would you see restaurants with signs advertising heated couches? I wonder how much energy that wastes…
Heated couches!
Public transport is pretty good in Melbourne, and a fair number of people ride bikes… probably about the same as Brisbane.
Trams and cycling and horses, oh my!
I’m not sure how I feel about the use of electric trams. I think they’re better than diesel or even natural gas buses (are they? fossil fuels still go towards the production of electricity), but the wires look ugly and they make the road rules weird! Plus, they scare the horses.
The trams scared the poor horses. Horses shouldn't be in the city anyway!
When I was working on Monday, Yankee Elv checked out this little veg*n fast food place called Lord of the Fries, right on the corner of Flinders St and Elizabeth St. She loved it – apparently the nuggets were particularly awesome. I like that there’s a veg*n food venue in such a populated place. It always seemed to have plenty of customers. I wonder if that’s because they don’t seem to advertise too much that they’re veg. When I was first in Melbourne and looking for a place to eat, I didn’t realise they were veg and I asked if they had any vege burgers. Needless to say, they looked at me a bit weirdly. At the time I felt like Indian though, so I didn’t get anything from there. I will next time though!
Veg*n fast food, Lord of the Fries.
And of course, no trip to Melbourne is complete with a stop at Taco Bill for dinner. Be warned though – although they make the most awesome chocolate mousse ever in the entire universe (that I’ve tasted), it’s not vegan (just vegetarian). I’m not an official convert yet.
Taco Bill and me.
Tell me about your favourite ELV-ish place in Melbourne!
Recycle: Glass vs Plastic
Question. Is it better to buy a smaller glass container or a larger plastic container?
Answer? I don’t bloody know! I can’t decide. Help!
We buy Bertolli olive oil (extra virgin, fruity taste) and we go through it quite quickly. The Elves like a good EVOO, yes we do. Bertolli sells it in either a 1 litre glass bottle, or a 2 litre plastic bottle. So far we’ve been buying the glass one, but which one is more environmentally friendly?
We are currently buying the 1 litre glass bottle of Bertolli EVOO.
Glass is better for the environment, I think – it’s made of sand, silica and limestone and while it doesn’t biodegrade easily, it can be recycled over and over again, forever. I’ve also seen pieces of glass at the beach, all smooth and no longer resembling whatever they originally were. It takes way less energy to produce (especially if it’s recycled) and if it gets dumped, you know it’s not going to leach toxins or hurt an animal (unless it’s broken and they get cut). The eco-downside is that because it’s heavier, it takes more energy to ship, and it can break more easily during shipping, causing greater waste. Apparently it takes more energy to recycle than plastic too, but I think maybe that’s not considering fancy glass recycling plants like the Visy plant in Melbourne.
Plastic is made from petrochemicals and doesn’t biodegrade. It’s made of all kinds of nasty toxic stuff and hangs around killing animals for ages. Production almost always includes nurdles as a by-product, and let’s not even talk about the floating plastic continent of doom. It’s lighter and more durable and consumes less energy when shipping though.
I’m inclined to go for glass, but if we buy glass, it comes in a smaller package, which means more packaging to get the same amount of oil. I think they sell it in a 5 litre tin too, but our tiny house is not made for storing significant bulk food purchases, as much as I like the idea, so that won’t work for us.
Which one should we buy?
Spotlight: Dilbert’s Take on Paper Cups
I like the Dilbert comic strip. It reminds me a little of my office, which reminds me of when I first found out I’d be working in an office (as opposed to teaching in a shitty classroom). I felt all sophisticated. Ha. Oh, how we grow. And oh, how our cynicism grows. Hmm. Nah, I don’t hate it that much really.
Anyway, I actually subscribe to the daily Dilbert comic strip, but for a while there I wasn’t checking my reader, so I missed them. One of my colleagues gets the daily strip emailed to her every morning by her sister (who in turn gets them from someone else), and when I expressed my liking for Dilbert, she started sending them on to me. I’ve since begun accessing my feed reader again, but haven’t had the heart to tell her to stop, so I get my daily dose of Dilbert twice. I like how sometimes the strips build on each other. The following two came through this week, and I they got me thinking.
The first strip makes me think of the way a lot of people commonly view eco-friendly items that replace the things they’re used to. The prevailing opinion seems to be that they’re not as good as the original version (squirrel, anyone?). Is this true? In my opinion, not usually. I think that often the producers of eco-friendly goods go to considerable lengths to ensure the newer version at least meets and often outperforms the original. Sometimes it’s something else (original) that is the problem. For example, until we got new printers at work a couple of weeks ago, we weren’t able to use recycled printer paper as it caused paper jams up the wazoo. The new printers are fine with it… which I think means it was really the old, out-of-date printers that were not so good. No-one has complained about the paper coffee cups though, but I guess I hardly ever see anyone using them.
Which brings me to the second strip. Just like Dilbert, we actually did introduce paper cups in our offices Australia-wide this year, to replace styrofoam and plastic cups. They’re recyclable and made from recycled paper. But, just as Dilbert says, it’s not so clear how that helps the planet. See, no-one really used the disposable cups in my office anyway (not sure about other offices around Australia though). Everyone already used reusable mugs, which is really awesome cos I’m reading this book called true green @ work that I got from the library and it says that over the life of a mug (about 3000 uses), you make 30 times less solid waste than if you use a cardboard cup. (Whoa, talk about a run-on sentence. Yes, I edit for a living.) You also create 60 times less air pollution. Considering that as of the time of publishing (2007), Australians were using around 400 million disposable cups per year, think of all the eco-savings. And of course, paper cups are better than plastic and styrofoam, so if you thought those stats were bad, just imagine…
Of course, you could always make like No Impact Man and use a jar instead. I do wonder how that would go down in the corporate culture though. I think my boss might think I’m insane. Then again, I get the impression that my new boss may have tree-hugger hippy potential (in an affluent boss-y way), so you never know. (I’m already reusing glass juice bottles as my water bottles, but I think it’s more socially acceptable to drink from a bottle).
Regardless, I think the introducing-recycled-and-recyclable-paper-cups-initiative is a good idea, even if it is just a drop in the bucket and not as effective as getting rid of disposable cups entirely. It does raise visibility… but how much is it really helping the planet?
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.
Recycle: Cleaning your Recyclables
I’m trying to get back into the swing or writing regular posts after an unplanned almost week off. Work is still ugh, but today I escalated some stuff that has been a concern for a while, and it does feel good to get it off my chest and also no longer be potentially accountable for any wrongdoing. That is really good. Today I even had time to empty the work recycling bin. Yay!
Recycle - even the dirty stuff!
On the topic of recycling, I found out last week that you don’t have to have perfectly clean recyclables. This is a good thing, because the people at work cannot rinse the milk bottles out to save themselves. It’s also good for me at home though, because even though I rinse my soy milk cartons, this means I don’t have to spend ages and waste water scraping peanut butter from inside the jar (although Loodle the hungry puppy often helps me with that anyway).
So yeah – rinse, but don’t do so to the point where it really wastes water. The recycling gods are not going to reject your items cos they’re a bit nasty.
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