The new pond and rock garden are now in (have been for a week and a half now)! So here’s an update.
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Category Archives: Green Living
*Gasp* I’ve been inspired to garden!!!!
Got inspired to actually do something in the front garden yesterday and today!
We’re not gardeners, we don’t like gardening and we’re no good at it 🙂
Eco friendly Gift Giving
How many rolls of paper wrap do you buy each year to wrap your presents??? If you’re like most people, a lot… How many packs of cards do you buy and receive… Sure, paper is recyclable… but it’s still incredibly wasteful. Some stats from Stanford university (yes, it’s American, but I’m too lazy to find if there are any equivilent Aussie ones, and it gives a pretty good indication of what sort of waste we “civilised” societies produce)
- 25 million tons of extra waste is produced in America during the Thanksgiving to New Year period. That’s 1 million tons each week more than the rest of the year.
- If every family used reused materials to wrap gifts, rather than single use paper, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields
- 2.65 billion Christmas cards are sold each year, and that is enough to fill a football field to 10 stories high.
- Sending just one less card would equate to saving 50,000 cubic yards of paper
Frankly, it’s horrifying…and I’m sure Australia is no better. But if you still want to give lovely wrapped gifts and cards though, there is are better options!!
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Cards
To be honest I’m not that keen on sending Xmas cards – I think it’s a terrible waste of paper, especially giving them to people I see frequently anyway… but since people tend to get snarky if you don’t send them, you can at least lessen the environmental impact…. Remember to recycle the cards you get, or give them to schools/playgroups etc. for craft.
- E-Cards – Electronic cards.. google “Christmas ecards” for heaps of links. Basically you just choose the design, type a message and e-mail it to your friends. Easy and no paper wastage.
- Recycled paper cards – Cards made from recycled paper. There are several out there to choose from, like these, these and these.
- Reuse Cards as post cards – Keep any cards you get where they have no writing on the inside cover, and cut off that front part. Use that as a post card to send to someone else the following year.
- Reusable Cards – Buy reusable cards (eg here, here, These are kinda cool, as they can get tracked so you can see where your card ends up [if people enter it in the website when they get it])
- Make Fabric/Felt reusable cards – My tutorial here These cards get sent to someone else the following year, instead of being single use.
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Wrappings
Everyone likes to open gifts, so just handing something unwrapped is a bit unexciting, but there are ways to make eco-friendly wrappings.
- Kids artwork – When your kids do paintings or drawings on large pieces of paper, keep those to use as wrapping paper.
- Butcher’s paper – If you get packages of meat from the deli/butcher that are wrapped in paper, carefully remove the sticker and keep the paper. It can be printed with stamps or kids can draw on it to make it snazzy for wrapping.
- Small Boxes – If you get boxes for tea, chocolates, shoes, tissues and other small things, save them to use for holding presents. You can paint them, cover them in fabric scraps or turn them inside out to get rid of any markings.
- Teatowels, handkerchiefs and facewashers – If you see these on special you can always use them to wrap items and they themselves become part of the gift.
- Squares of fabric – Buy Xmas print fabrics when on special, or use cheaper red & green poplin/lawn. You can even just cut them with pinking shears instead of sewing. Use them as you would wrapping paper, just tie with ribbon instead of using stickytape. Or use “Furoshiki” (Japanese term for how to wrap stuff in cloth)
- Fabric gift bags – Make or buy fabric bags to hold gifts. For kids presents, printed pillowcases make a great “sack”, and can be tied closed at the top with a ribbon. Tutorial here.
- Use paper gift bags instead of wrapping paper – gift bags are more likely to be reused. Or you can make your own.
- Newspaper – If you wrap it the right way, it can look awsome – see
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Gift Tags
Chances are you’ll be giving gifts to the same people year after year, so why not consider some reusable gift tags, or at least not buying tags. Some ideas:
- Make clay tags – http://www.elmstreetlife.com/2011/11/diy-reusable-gift-tags.html
- Make Tags from old Xmas cards or wrapping paper – Save nice cards/paper, and cut tags from them. utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aspoonfulofsugardesigns%2FrnqK+%28A+Spoonful+of+Sugar%29
- Make tags from cardboard – Buy a special gift tag punch (like this) or make a template and trace around it (if you make your template on some clear plastic, you’ll be able to see through it) and use it to punch out tags from anything – intesting bits of scenery from magazines, plain parts of cereal/cracker/tissue boxes… possibilities are endless!
- Make reusable felt or fabric tags – Embroider or fabric paint the names onto tags you make from felt or fabric.
- Make Chalkboard tags – you can buy chalkboard fabric, or just make heavy card or wooden tags and paint with chalkboard paint. – http://commonthreadskingston.blogspot.com/2010/12/re-usablechalk-board-gift-tags.html and http://www.prettyhandygirl.com/2010/12/creative-gift-wrapping-day-4.html
- Make newspaper or book page tags – http://www.curbly.com/users/chrisjob/posts/9507-how-to-make-easy-literary-leaf-gift-tags-free-template-included
- Make plain paper tags and laminate them – Get some nice paper and cut tag shapes, then laminate them. Use a permanent marker or whiteboard marker to wrote the names on (permanent marker will rub off with a little metho on a cloth)
- Make paper tags with names already printed on and laminate them – this is what I have done, I made basic tags with all the names of people we give presents to (and some people like the kids I made more than one tag so I could wrap a few presents for them), cut them out, laminated them and punched a hole in, and I thread a piece of string through the hole and that goes on the ribbon for their gifts. I collect them and the fabric wrapping to use for next year’s gift. You can download my gift cards here.
Reusable Fabric Cards
It’s coming up to Xmas time again, and again I have the struggle with the phenomenal wastage that occurs. We’ve already switched to reusable wrappings (fabric bags and roll-hemmed fabric for using like wrapping paper) and gift tags (I printed out a tag for everyone we’re likely to give gifts to, laminated them, and use them and the bags again next year) for all gifts, but the card situation always poses a problem.
I’m really not that into cards. Any cards. 9 times out of 10 I don’t bother with birthday cards and such… I find them a waste…. Other than collecting them to put up somewhere and go “look how popular I am, I have all these cards“, really…. what purpose do they serve? but the problem is, they are expected by a lot of people…. So I have to participate or be considered anti-social…. So I’m always left wondering what to do. Do I go buy expensive recycled paper ones that won’t be as glossy and interesting (and are a lot more expensive).. do I just buy cards like everyone else and take solace in the fact I and some of the people I send to will recycle them… or find another option…?
So I’m going to give fabric reusable cards a go.
Homemade Cleaning Products
I’ve been meaning to take the plunge and make my own cleaning products… for ages…. and just haven’t got around to it. Well, finally I did.
This is some “Citrus vinegar” brewing away.
The idea is that you 3/4 fill a jar with white vinegar, shove as many citrus peels in the jar as you can, put the lid on and leave it be for 2-3 weeks…. then strain out the peels and use the vinegar 50% diluted with either water or regular vinegar as a sort of “spray and wipe” substitute. I plan to do that, but also use it in other cleaning recipes that call for vinegar… since I love my hot chips with sauce to smell like vinegar, but my house… not-so-much.
Good thing I started saving all our pasta sauce jars! I was intending to fill them with nuts and rainbow cakes for Xmas presents, but this is much more fun!
I’ve written on the jar with whiteboard marker to date when the jar was filled, so can start the 2-3 weeks countdown. Which I can wipe off later, so it’s not spoling the jar. (I actually turned the pasta sauce jars around so you can’t see the mark, but was too lazy to turn the red-seal jar lol). I’ve been making a bit of lemonaid recently, from the lemons on our tree, so I have lots of lemon peels… Hubby takes an orange with his lunch every day, so I’ve asked him to save his peels, and encouraging MiniObsi to eat more oranges so I can keep an orange one happening… but I love lemon scent in cleaners, so I don’t mind if it’s mostly all lemon vinegar I make.
I first off just put the peels in as they came, but then I tried chopping them smaller so I could fit more in the jar… hoping to make it a bit more concentrated. I’ll see how that goes. They look very pretty though!
The came some Laundry liquid. (which isn’t as pretty to look at)
I used the recipe from here – http://down—to—earth.blogspot.com, but without the borax because we divert all washing water out onto the garden.
- 1 cup grated soap
- ½ cup washing soda (“letric soda”)
- ½ cup baking soda
I wasn’t sure if baking soda was needed as a replacement to the borax, but I figured it can’t hurt to pop it in. I already had grated plain olive oil soap from when I was making my own rebatched soaps, though it’s smelling a little “old” now (it’s a few years old) and it has gone yellow… I figured it would work fine for this. Maybe if I’d added a few drops of food colour it might have made a slightly more appealing looking liquid 🙂 but who cares
Very easy to do… just put that above in a saucepan with a litre and a half of water… heat it until the soap has all dissolved. Then pour that into a large bucket and add 8 litres of water.
I wasn’t sure how tightly packed the 1 cup needed to be, so I didn’t pack it tightly, but the mixture didn’t thicken really… so after leaving it overnight and it still wasn’t thick, I figured I’d probably only done the equivalent of half a cup, so I poured a litre of that mix back into a pot, added another loosely packed cup of soap and melted that down, mixed it all bath together.. and that thickened up nicely. So make sure your cup is a tightly packed one if you’re using hand grated soap that won’t be as fine as using pre-grated or flaked soaps.
I also added some eucalyptus oil to the mix, though next time I think I’ll use lavender, as I’m getting a bit sick of eucalyptus as I put it in most loads of laundry I do… But I think next time I’ll put the essential oil in after pouring it into bottles so I can make each bottle different (maybe lavender, lemon and eucalyptus ones)
You need to leave space to shake the mix before you use it, as it goes sort of clumpy and separates a bit – like you can see below….rather than a smooth liquid, but a bit of a shake fixes that. So I poured mine into 3 3litre milk cartons and one 2litre one… so that there was plenty of shaking room.
The recipe says to use 1/4 cup in a load, but I’m used to using less than recommended, and our clothes aren’t generally very “dirty” as such… so I think I probably used maybe 1/8 cup in the load I did to test it out – which was a cold water wash (I only wash in cold) and included my cloth pads…. and everything looked and smelled fine…. I call that a success!
Some people complain that their whites go grey with this – as it doesn’t have whitening chemicals added… but that doesn’t bother me because not only have I never used a laundry detergent that has brighteners added, we don’t own much white clothing anyway because it’s a stupid colour for clothing 😛
So, next on the agenda is to make dishwashing liquid…. and a cleaning spray when my lemon vinegar is ready… And a liquid soap (though I still have a lot of natural shampoo base I’ve been using as liquid soap as well, so I’ll wait for that to be used up before I make my own.
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I’ve made a little homemade recipes booklet of interesting recipes like these that I’ve found online. You’re welcome to download and print out. It prints to an A4 page, which you then fold in half to make a smaller booklet. It prints front and back, so you’ll need to print page 1,3,5,7… then grab that stack pop it back in the printer (the correct way) and print pages 2,4,6,8.
It’s got recipes for laundry liquid, laundry powder, dishwashing liquid, dishwasher powder, liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner, spray cleaners, bath products, moisturiser, lip balm.. and more.
Some eco-xmas ideas
Well, it’s this time of year again, where we waste an EXTREME amount of paper wrappings, packaging and cards!
Blue Eggs!
Some happy and some sad chicken news….
I have a pile of dirt!
see!!
This isn’t exciting for anyone else I admit, but buggerit…..
I’m pretty damned excited!
Chooks (again)
Lots of rambling about Chooks!
Luckily the friend I chookswapped with to get the silkies, had a rooster in her flock and ended up with 20 little chicks! So we got to take 5 of them. 2 blacks, 2 black/white ones and one white one. They are unknown gender, and one is a lot bigger than the others and more inquisitive.. I think it’s a rooster… we’ll have to see…. I currently have more than the allowed 10 poultry anyway, so we’ll have to rehome some, so if 2 of these end up being roosters, that’s fine. Ideally I’d like to have a black and a black/white left, because I like to have each chook look different – makes knowing which is which easer.
Then a few days before Xmas (the 20th), I picked up 3 Lavender Araucana chicks…. Purple chooks! (well grey with a slight hint of lavender but bah – that is “purple” in my book)
(I admit, they don’t look purple at all here)
DIY bird feeders
So we got some new chicks – So, to whip up some cheap feeders…I’ve given up on floor based feeders, they, being chickens, walk through and fill the containers with sawdust instantly… So hanging containers really is a must… but I’m on a budget….and the ones you buy are more than my budget will allow…
Food….. A simple 1 bottle feeder… I used a 600ml bottle, but you could make a larger one from a 2 litre bottle.
Just cut the bottle in half. With the bottom half, cut an opening on both sides. Then put the top half into the bottom half. I used duct tape to stick them together… and a hole punch to punch 2 holes in the top part, to thread a string through. You’ll want the opening of the bottle to be just above the level you want the feed to be at, as it will replenish once the food level drops below the bottle opening.
If using outside, you could put a plate on top
Water….. I googled and found this http://www.waldeneffect.org/20090831water.jpg – Which is a great idea, except it’s on the ground….The idea is that the full bottle won’t actually leak out unless the water level in the container it’s in, is low… so it should create a self feeding water system, without just all pouring out.
So I knocked this up (I originally made one using a peanut butter jar, but while the plastic was thicker and more sturdy, I thought the holder container needed to be taller so it wasn’t so rickety)
I’ve highlighted the cutout with purple so you can see it…. but it’s just a 125lt coke bottle with the top cut off and a window cut in… holes in the sides to hang it… and a 600ml bottle inside…. I’ve found a skewer inside the 600ml bottle elevates it a bit, as I was having trouble with it sometimes not having a gap enough to refill. And a tip…. to save mess when you replace the inner coke bottle… put the lid on, then remove it when it is in place 😀
It is a little prone to leaking, not refilling itself and being spilled when I go to add more water, so I confess, I did end up buying a waterer….. but I did buy the cheaper floor one, and used wire to make it a hanging one.
I also saw this – http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/its_for_the_bir.php Which is a bird feeder made from a pringles can and a sardine tin (though I imagine other things could be used). Maybe I need to make one of those… course, it would involve the sacrifice of eating said tin of pringles…. 🙂 and I might need to make another waterer if I did…. necessitating another coke…. Mmmmm yeah!
Reusable Christmas Gift Wrap
Make your own fabric wrappings! You can do what I do, and ask for your fabric wrappings back again… then you can use them year after year. If the recipient will be willing to switch to using cloth wrappings, then gifting them a wrapping will help boost their collection, and then next year you can get one of theirs, and your collection will grow and change 🙂 To go completely reusable, think about making gift tags too. Something like felt or fabric with the person’s name embroidered (or fabric painted) on…. so that it can be reused again next year too.
Natural Playdough
I thought I’d share my playdough making secrets 🙂 This makes a no-cook playdough that actually works 🙂 doesn’t involve the microwave… and leaves you with a natural and non-toxic (although horribly salty so not very tasty) playdough.
Ingredients:
1c plain flour (use organic flour for an organic version)
1tb Cream of tartar
½c Salt
1tb Oil
1 cup boiling water (straight from the bubbling kettle!)
Method:
Mix everything but the boiling water together in a food processor and put the kettle on. When the kettle has boiled, quickly (and carefully) measure out 1 cup and pour it into the food processor and quickly turn it on. If it’s not boiling water, this won’t work. Within seconds, the mixture will harden (you can tell by the fact the food processor won’t be happy mixing it any more and it becomes one lump), tip this out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it to make sure it is mixed through (you may need to wear rubber gloves if you don’t like warm hands). Because the foodprocessor does most of the work, you hardly have to knead it at all.
Naturally Coloured Playdough!
Yep, it’s possible, though not as vibrant generally as the chemical versions, all these colours below are completely natural!
Blue – use the Queen natural food colouring blue
Green – use 2 crushed Spirulina tablets (or ½ tsp powder)
Brown #1 (lighter) – use 1 cup STRONG coffee instead of the water
Brown #2 – Use 1-2tb cocoa powder
Yellow – use a tablespoon of Turmeric
Apricot – Simmer a handful of Annatto seeds in water for 10 mins, use this liquid instead of water
Pink – Use beetroot juice (either tinned, or simmer a cut beetroot in water)
Red – Use concentrated beetroot juice (simmer to reduce it down)
Pinkish purple (not shown) – boil purple cabbage and use the liquid instead of water.
Purple – Mixture of the beetroot/cabbage pink and some blue food colouring
When using a liquid colourant, such as beetroot juice, boil that liquid in a saucepan and use that instead of the boiling water. Remember that “heated” is not hot enough, it needs to be boiling.
Textured Playdough
Other than adding colour, think about adding some texture for interesting effects.
Poppy seeds – add 2 tb (or so) poppy seeds to the mixture and don’t colour it for a cool black and white speckled effect.
Salt – If you use coarser cooking salt, you get an interestingly grainy texture
Lavender – Add some lavender flowers for a bit of texture
Scented Playdough
You can add essential oils to give a slight fragrance too. Personally I’d avoid foody scents (like lemon, orange etc.) because it might entice the kidlets to eat it… so I’d stick with lavender, Eucalyptus and scents like that.
Or, you might be able to use boiled floral waters such as rosewater or lavender water. (you can buy rosewater from Asian/Indian grocery stores.
You could use a synthetic oil (“dewberry” and the like), but then your playdough isn’t natural.
“Snot Rag” Bucket
I’ve just made the switch to hankies……… more eco-friendly and less wasteful than using tissues….. but I’m still icked out about snot (sorry mum, “mucous” :)) mixed through the washing *shudder* so I want to wash them with towels or something, not with clothes or teatowels…..I was going to go buy a container to hold the used hankies until wash day, but then I thought I’d make a fabric one to save buying something.
I decided to use a jeans leg as the outer, and PUL (waterproof fabric) as the inner so it’s wipe clean – although the bucket is washable (there is an additional layer of a really stiff fabric inside as an interfacing type thing) I did have to cut the jeans leg along the side seam so I could open it out to do the applique (which because it’s holding used hankies, I thought an appropriate applique, in appropriate colour was in order, then I decided I’d use the lime PUL to match).
Charming isn’t it 🙂
I also made a bunch of multipurpose wipes in different print flannelettes, which we’ll use as hankies and cloth wipes, facewashers etc….. I’ve been finding the small hankies I made for MiniObsi to be a much better size for me than the standard size I’d made, so now all the ones I’m making are small (about 4-5 inches square). And a drawstring bag to put them in 🙂
How to Tidy up your Eco-bags
If you are like me… you’ve got those eco-friendly (“green”) supermarket bags stuffed in a cupboard and/or the boot of the car, and they are messy and take up a lot of space… Or perhaps you’ve folded all the bags into one bag (they never seem to stay neatly folded… URGH!), and it’s neater but still taking up a lot of space. Or you’ve resorted to using elastic bands to hold the folded/rolled up bags together.
Or maybe I’m the only one with bag issues….. but anyway….I’ve come up with a nice neat and compact way of folding these bags, so they take up a fraction of the room… without the need of elastic bands or anything – they stay rolled! Easy to stick one in your handbag, or just neaten up your collection of bags. So I thought I’d share 🙂
DIY laundry liquid
http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html
Going to have to give this one a shot I think!
Origami Bin!
http://www.origami-club.com/en/newspaper/garbagebin/garbagebin/index.htm
http://www.instructables.com/id/Origami-trash-can/
What a cool idea! Not so hot for squidgy garbage, granted, but as a recycle bin it’s a fantastic idea – just take out the garbage including the bin!
you could also make small versions as a decorative box…
Interesting articles on Vaccinating
Cupcakes & Christmas
This year I declared I would not use paper wrap. We do still have like 5 rolls left over from previous years, but I won’t be buying any more, and only 2 things were wrapped in paper this year. Everyone else got cloth wrappings!
See how pretty it all looked under the tree? I was hoping to get the wrappings back to reuse again, but some people wanted to keep them to reuse, so that’s good too. I’ll have to pick up more xmas fabric in the post-xmas sales.
And I made some festive mini cupcakes…. and carried them in MY NEW CUPCAKE COURIER! (yes, they are tiny ones, so they don’t fill the spaces)
Arty shot by hubby
And look what I got for Xmas….
A scarecrow! MiniObsi’s idea, made with help from her Daddy 🙂
(it even has cork earrings, a belt buckle and drawn on fingernails)
and my rose bush decided to grow a bunch of roses in the centre of the bush…. for some unknown reason…
And lastly…. Because I won the last round of cupcake competitions, I got to pick the next recipe. Chai Cupcakes! (I did one half with vanilla frosting and half with the chai frosting, but we like the chai better)
Chai Latte Cupcakes
(Makes 24 large cupcakes)
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups milk
2 black (normal) tea bags
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of ground black pepper
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cup castor sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla essence (or vanilla bean)
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups Plain flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
Method:
1). In a saucepan, heat the milk until just before boiling. Add the teabags and spices (including the split vanilla bean if using this), cover and remove from heat. Allow to stand for 10 minutes, then give the milk a stir and remove the teabags, squeezing them to remove as much tea flavour as possible. (and remove and scrape the vanilla bean). Allow to cool. Measure out 1 1/4 cups of this, adding extra (plain) milk if some has evaporated off (I needed to add 2 tb).
2). Beat the sugar and butter until creamy. Add eggs. Sift together the baking powder, salt and flours.
3). Gradually add the spiced milk and sifted flour mix alternately, mixing well.
3). Spoon mixture into baking cases and bake at 190C for around 20 minutes, or until cakes are cooked (skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean). Allow to cool before icing.
~ If you would prefer to use Chai teabags instead of the spices, use 3 Chai teabags and do not use the spices or black teabag, however the result will not be the same flavour as using the spices. If you really like Chai, try the Chai frosting, or if you prefer something more subtle, perhaps a plain vanilla frosting. ~
Vanilla Chai Frosting:
100g softened butter
100g softened cream cheese
Whatever you need from 3 cups icing sugar)
1 tsp vanilla essence/paste (or 1 vanilla bean)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Beat butter and cream cheese together, then add spices, vanilla and enough icing sugar to make the right consistency. Halve the spices for a more subtle flavour.
Green Christmas Gift Wrapping
This year I’m not buying paper wrap any more. I’ll use up what I have, but I’m switching to cloth wrappings. In Japan, wrapping gifts in cloths is called Furoshiki, and there are many ways to fold a square of cloth to carry almost anything, it’s quite cool.
http://www.env.go.jp/en/focus/attach/060403-5.gif
http://layersofmeaning.org/wp/?p=325
I’ve made some bags with ribbons sewn into the side seams, as well as squares of fabric with overlocked edges.
I do like this idea, but your gift would have to be the exact size for it to work (would be nice for a book or something boxed).
Things to do with citrus peels
http://www.users.on.net/~arachne/peels.html
- Dry and use to light open fires
- Simmer peels in water and use water to add to bath or rinse hair
http://www.natureshop.com.au/Nature%20Shop%20Lemon%20Peel%20Powder.htm
“Lemon Peel powder can be used as a facial, in hand-made soap recipes or to create an infusion by steaming and subsequent condensation.”
- Astringent
- Toner
- Acne
Green Living – Our steps
I’m more into this than hubby is, but I’ve always has an interest in the environment (and natural health).. and I am a Pagan, so the Earth is more important to me than just the planet we live on.
We’re already doing a lot, but I know there are more things we can do… so I’m making a list, since I might be more likely to try to do more when its all written out, and I might inspire someone to make a small change in their lifestyle too.
What we do is try to use less water, less chemicals, recycle and reuse more…. but not in an overboard way – just simple things we can do to save water, power or use more natural things.
When Out and About
What we do
- Try to limit car use when possible
- Take reusable grocery bags
- Use reusable produce (fruit & veg) bags
- Try to buy natural/organic and less packaging where we can
- Try to take our own drink bottles to avoid buying drinks
What I would like to do:
- Use car less and walk more
- Make sure I always carry more reusable shopping bags
At home – In the Garden
What we do
- Created a pond and overgrown garden surround to create a safe home for frogs (not any in there yet though 😦 ) We have a diverter from the drain pipe so water from the roof can go into the pond to keep it topped up (and we can potentially divert it into a tank later)
- Divert water from the washing machine onto the garden
- Don’t have a fussy garden that needs a lot of water (we don’t water it from the hose)
- Bucket out water from the bath, collect water from the shower and kitchen sink (when rinsing veg or waiting for the tap to heat up etc.) onto the garden
- Keep the lawn longer so it doesn’t dry out as quickly
- Compost (not that we have much to compost between the dog and chickens)
- Green waste – our council provides a wheelie bin for us to put lawn clippings and other plant matter waste into, so what doesn’t go in our compost bin (or to the chooks), goes in there and is mulched up by the council.
- Sweep up leaf litter off the footpath/driveway to use as mulch for the garden so we don’t need to buy mulch
- Use old soft drink bottles in those spike things to help keep plants watered without using too much water
- Growing (or attempting to) some of our own fruit and veg
- Not using chemicals on the garden/pests
- Have chickens to provide us with eggs and manure for the garden – which also recycle kitchen scraps for us. They are fed on loose grains (and food scraps) rather than mystery composition pellets (some pellets contain chemicals to artifically colour the yolks deeper yellow for example). They free range sometimes…. but we pick them grass to eat when they aren’t free ranging, and their coop is big enough to allow them plenty of area to scratch around in , its just not got grass anymore.
What I would like to do:
- Install a water tank – can’t really afford it, but my father bought us a 200lt drum that we plan to hook up to use on the vegie patch one day
- Divert bath/shower water (other than bucketing it out)
In the House
laundry
What we do –
- We divert all washing machine water into the garden
- Use the water saver setting on the washing machine and do only full loads, no prewash loads
- Do not use stain removers, soakers, disinfectants, fabric softeners etc. just eco-friendly detergent (usually soapnuts) with a splash of eucalyptus oil for freshness if needed
- Try to stop the machine before it does a rinse cycle when using soapnuts to save water and power
- Don’t own a dryer – dry all laundry outside on the line or on racks inside.
- Rarely iron… hang washing well to avoid wrinkles
- Wear clothing more than once (unless it’s looking dirty) to limit amount of washes.
What I would like to do:
- Make my own laundry liquid so that we don’t have to buy one to have on standby (for when we don’t want to use soapnuts)
Kitchen
What we do –
- In Summer we usually keep a small bucket in the sink and 2 larger buckets on the bench (marked “for garden” and “for pond”) and when running the hot tap we collect all the water and put it in the bucket for the pond – to keep that topped up.. and when rinsing vegetables, or our hands, that water goes into the “garden” bucket which is then used to water the garden. I even collect water from rinsing crumbs off a plate, or rinsing out a coffee mug… so we collect a lot of water that way (when we’re good).
- Rarely use the microwave (which is switched off from wall when not actually being used so the display isn’t wasting power).
- Recycle all recyclables and try to buy food with less packaging
- Try to make food items instead of buying prepackaged ones. Baking cakes from scratch instead of using cakemix, baking crackers and muesli bars instead of buying school snacks etc
- Use a reusable sandwich wrap/bag or plastic lunchbox instead of using cling wrap.
- Use a silicone baking sheet instead of aluminium foil or baking paper
- Food scraps (peelings etc.) either to the dog or the chickens
- Make homemade pet food for cat and dog sometimes
- Use lemon juice and bicarb to scrub bench tops instead of cleaning products. The multipurpose cleaner I use for lazy days is natural.
- Rarely use the dishwasher
- Switched to eco-friendly more natural dish washing liquid
- Wash the floor with just Very hot water, a little lavender essential oil and a little dishwashing liquid – no disinfectants
- Use knitted dishcloths that last longer than sponges and can be washed in the washing machine
- Limit use of paper towels to only soaking up excess oil from foods
- When shallow frying, pour oil into a container rather than down the sink
What I would like to do:
- Buy more organic foods
- Make a Solar Oven
Bathroom
What we do –
- Use organic/natural shampoo & conditioner (tried BS and ACV, didn’t work), Herbal toothpaste, natural soap, deodorant, moisturiser etc.
- Clean with BS, vinegar and lemon juice
- Run shower into a bucket to collect water while heating up (to go in pond or on the garden). Sometimes I’ll shower with a bucket in with me to collect more water for the garden.
- Bucket out bath water for the garden
- When MiniObsi was little and home all day we had a container of water and (organic) soap in the sink so we could wash our hands through the day without running the tap.
- Turn off the tap while brushing teeth – use it just to wet the toothbrush and to rinse the brush after.
- Shorter showers and less often
- Replaced shower head with a water saver one (council did it for free – yay!)
- Dye my hair with Henna instead of chemical dyes.
- Use more natural mineral makeup where I can, instead of commercial stuff (not that I wear makeup a lot)
- No hairdryer.
What I would like to do:
- No more commercial deodorant for hubby (he’ll probably not agree though)
- Getting together more of a supply of natural mineral makeup (getting there)
- Make reusable cotton balls (eg make circles of cloth to use instead) for the few times I use them
- Use more Hankies instead of tissues
- Remember to turn the shower off while shampooing to save a bit of water.
- Get a shower timer to help stop hubby taking long showers
Toilet
What we do –
- Buy recycled toilet paper
- Use baking soda and vinegar to clean the toilet (most of the time)
- I use cloth pads
- Use cloth “wee wipes” as toilet paper (for #1 only!)
- recycle toilet rolls (and use them to plant seedlings)
- “If it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down”
What I would like to do:
- No more chemical toilet cleaner
- No more chemical air fresheners for toilet (make my own from a spray bottle and essential oils?)
- Get a dual flush toilet, or better yet one of those fancy new kind with the sink above it.
Rest of the house
What we do –
- Switched most, of the light globes to energy saver ones (think only the outside spotlight ones are still normal. We tried LED lights, but hubby said they weren’t bright enough)
- Try to turn off lights when we’re not in the room
- Avoid using flyspray
- Close doors/windows to keep heat in/out… try to use a fan instead of airconditioning in summer (we have one airconditioner, not ducted)
- Used Cloth Napies on my daughter (when she used nappies)
- Put an extra blanket on the bed (and wear more clothes) instead of using the electric blanket
- Try to keep things that don’t need to be on (extra tv etc.) off/unplugged until needed.
- Set up computer to go into power saver mode after a short period of time of inactivity, and turn off at the wall when turning it off.
What I would like to do:
- Turn off more stuff at the wall
- Don’t use electric blanket as much
- Look into renewable energy
In my business
What I do
- Well firstly I’m mostly selling eco-friendly products 🙂
- Try to limit car use when possible – I go out to post only twice a week unless I was already going out anyway… rather than every day.
- Use only recycled paper for the printer (I’ve just started using 100% wheat pulp paper)
- Reuse old printed on paper for printing orders for my own records (print on the side that wasn’t printed on previously
- Limit printed materials that go with orders and have instructions online
- Stickytape used to wrap orders is biodegradable cellulose tape (when I can find it)
- Instead of using plastic prepaid satchels which most people don’t re-use, I put the orders in ziplock bags which are more likely to be reused (as well as the fact I can squeeze the air out and often post things cheaper). I use plastic over cellophane bags because they are more durable (so more likely to be reused)
- Posting envelopes are mostly 100% recycled paper (I occasionally need to use a larger size than I have, which I use ordinary paper ones for). I only use plastic satchels when I have to.
- I write addresses on the envelopes rather than printing an address label
- Fabric scraps are sometimes donated to kinders/child care centres rather than thrown out
- I get some fabric scraps from other businesses, to help use fabric that would otherwise be thrown out.
- Some of my fabric is organic cotton.
What I would like to do:
- Find cellulose packing tape for sealing the envelopes
- Find recycled or at least unbleached tissue paper to wrap orders in (google searches only find toilet paper…)
- Buy a treddle sewing machine – ok, more for the coolness factor, but still….. sewing some things under treddle power would be cool.
The wrap strap!
In an effort to have something interesting for lunches rather than sandwiches (and trying to cut back on bread), we had mountain bread wraps the other day (that really thin bread stiff, like a tortilla)…they were quite nice -some cooked brown rice, grated carrot and chopped cucumber, The wee one had ham, tomato and snowpea sprouts, I had tuna and some hummus.
Anyway, she couldn’t hold it together, so I wrapped some baking paper around it, but she couldn’t fold it down as she ate down, so that wouldn’t be a working idea for Kinder lunch…. so then I thought about making bands to go around it – since I get heaps of coated paper strips off the envelopes I use, I put one of those around and stickytaped it closed, Figuring that would be easy for her to slide off… no, the kinder teachers had to help her. Probably because as I found out today, the paper goes a bit soggy and doesn’t slide as easy as it does when first put on (though it does make ripping the paper off very easy)
So then I thought perhaps I could make a PUL strap with velcro on it, that I could reuse and she could easily undo to take it off. brilliant!
So I happened to have some PUL scraps someone sent me in a nice bright kiddy pattern, and some thin velcro that a friend unpicked off some nappies and I had to keep because throwing it out seemed wasteful…. and here is the result! and nicely made from all reused stuff – yay!
(now to make a bag/wrapping thing to wrap it up to go in her lunchbox.)
I can hear my best friend saying“that’s exactly what McGyver would do if he had a wee one who couldn’t keep her mountain bread wrap together”. Indeed I think he would (if he also happened to have PUL, velcro and a sewing machine)…. though I was pretty impressed with myself over the envelope paper band, shame it wasn’t as removable as planned. Still it gave it another use before being thrown away, so that’s always good. Though it does pose the question if how safe the envelope paper or PUL for that matter is to be in contact with food…. but while I love a good “that’ll give you cancer” story as much as the next paranoid person… I do think that sometimes you just have to live in blissful ignorance on some things.
Ohh… someone just told me that you can buy direct, cheaper and free delivery http://mountainbread.com.au and you can use it instead of pastry… how cool (and hopefully better for you). Nifty. and an extra bonus is that it’s flatter than pastry so won’t take up as much space in the freezer. looks like this will be my new addiction!
Eco Footprint
I finally found a fairer calculator. I’ve yet to find one that is sufficiently detailed….
We use so little water in our household it’s sure to make an impact. We don’t water the garden with drinking water – only grey water…. have short showers (and less frequent), wash clothes less, are water conscious (flushing only when really needed, collecting water to use on garden while taps are heating up, water saving setting on washing machine etc.). And we compost/recycle/feed to the chickens most of our rubbish, so produce little waste…. From what I can tell, we use less power and gas than the average home too. We do however need to switch to green energy…. I’m pestering hubby about it…he’s not as environmentally caring as I am though. Most of our eco-footprint goes on food, because we eat a lot of meat and dairy. I had to answer that we eat meat/dairy for every meal because we either have cheese, milk or meat in every meal (or with every meal)… if you think of cereal for brekky (milk), cheese and salad sandwich for lunch (cheese), something with meat or cheese in for dinner…. it’s every meal. But we do have chickens for our own eggs.
So, according to This Calculator (the flash one is more detailed) this is our results:
3.7 global hectares / 2 Earths (6.7 tons C02)
The average for someone in our state is 8.1 hectares/4 Earths. So we’re doing pretty damned good!
According to Here, a tree offsets .33 tons C02…. So we would need 20.3 trees per year to be carbon neutral. hmm…..
Solar cooking
Hmm… how very interesting…. I’ve just been reading up on solar cooking – basically cooking in a dark pot surrounded by shiny surfaces to make the food cook. I want to give it a shot.
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/windshield-cooker.htm <-ghetto cooker – but seriously, cheap and simple, you have to admit that sounds good.
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker <– easy box cooker
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/easylid.htm <-nice looking more complicated box kind
http://www.solarcooking.org/images/tirecooker.jpg <– interestingly simple…. use along with the windscreen cover idea and have the neighbours think you are poor – and here http://www.instructables.com/id/S0O4SN1FT7PUEB2/
http://www.freewebs.com/sunnycooker/funpanelcookerplan.htm <– large and interesting
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/Presentacio-forn-solar-cob-en.pdf <–WOW permanent proper solar oven (I’m jealous!!)
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/index.php…… <– This one looks good…
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Clear-Dome-Solar-Clear-Box-Ove… <– This shows them using one of those black metal roasting pans, inside a plastic box, with reflector panels…. I wonder if the roasting pan idea works, because I have 2 of those…
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2679/ – cheap box one
Obsidian's Ramblings.... 