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Waste Free Living – Guest Blog

PowerfulOwl1 Comment

It’s very cool when your 11 year old comes to you and you brainstorm a Personal Interest Project. My son is very interested in technology so we thought creating an APP would be a good personal interest project and of course I had to put my eco-mummy twist on it, so the APP became about how to create a waste free life.

My son researched and wrote the content for the APP and spent afternoons with my brothers putting it into code.  I thought ;d share his insights – so today, he is my guest blogger!

Live Waste Free 

Waste is responsible for 3% of global carbon emissions (https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/), releasing methane which is a stronger greenhouse gas than Carbon dioxide.  There is so much that we can do to eliminate this – and I’m here to show you how you can live a waste free life to help save out planet!

About our waste 

Waste composition

Food waste 

APPLE!

What is it?

Food waste is food that is thrown out, lost or uneaten.  It makes up over half of all waste disposed of at landfill. Wasting food is not only bad for the environment, but its also bad for your hip pocket. Australians throw out around $3,500 worth of food every year!

Want to have zero food waste?

  • There’s so much you can do to avoid food waste. Here are my tips:
  • Buy only what you’re going to eat!  People buy too much food and it goes off – better not buy too much.  Take a list and stick to it 🙂
  • If you do buy food and it starts to go funny, there are recipes that will help you use it up instead of throwing it out. Check out: https://foodwastefeast.com/recipes/ for some ideas.
  • Store your food properly. You can freeze things like bananas and berries and make shakes for example.  Store thing in air tight containers to keep them longer.

Also check out these websites to find out more about avoiding food waste and take the zero food waste challenge:

Recycle

Once you’ve done what you can to avoid and use up all your food, anything left over should be put in a worm farm. Luckily, you can make this yourself at home: LINK

Plastic 

transparent-plastic-bottle-500x500

What is it?

Plastic is a really useful product. It’s light, flexible and doesn’t break. The problem though is that a lot gets thrown out and ends up in our oceans, rivers, streams and bushland which causes pollution.

Australians love plastic so much that we use more than 10 million plastic bags a day and over 85% of soft plastics ends up in landfill!

Thankfully there are so many things that we can do to reduce our use of plastic.

Want to have zero plastic waste? 

  • Firstly you should avoid plastic by using a reusable water bottle; and taking your own containers and bags to fill up at the supermarket;
  • Use beeswax wraps or lunch boxes instead of cling wrap for your lunch;
  • Where you can, reuse your bags and containers as much as you can; and
  • Take your soft plastic waste (wrappers, bags etc) to the supermarket for recycling (like some Coles and Woolworths stores accept this).

Check out these websites for more information and take the zero plastic waste challenge!

Paper and cardboard 

What is it?

Paper and cardboard are made of trees.  It also uses water and energy to produce.  In fact, Australians use around 230 Kg of paper each year (https://waster.com.au/recycling-facts-australia/).  Luckily Paper and cardboard waste should really be a thing of the past.  Here’ what you can do:

  • Avoid using paper – work on line, double side print and where you do have waste, use the paper as scrap paper;
  • Recycling paper can have loads of other benefits too. Recycling 1 tonne of paper saves: 13 trees, 2.5 barrels of oil, 4m3 of landfill, 31,780 litres of water and 4,100 kilowatts of electricity.

Here are some other tips:

Garden waste 

Green-Wallpaper-11

What is it? 

My family has a big garden, so all the leaves, the grass clipping and trimmed branches created garden waste. When this ends up in landfill it creates methane which is a greenhouse gas.  Garden waste though can easily be returned back to the garden as mulch or compost.

Here are some ways that you can have zero garden waste:

  • Compost, compost, compost! here is how you can make your own compost bin: Compost

Electronic waste 

Circuit board. Electronic computer hardware technology. Motherboard digital chip. Tech science EDA background. Integrated communication processor. Information CPU engineering 3D background

I’m really excited because I just got my first mobile phone and for school will get my first laptop.  While I’m excited, I’m also aware that electronic waste is a really big problem.  In Australia, there are more unused phones than people in Australia and unfortunately we only recycle about 10% of our old phones.

Unfortunately a lot of electronic waste ends up in poorer countries like Uganda, China and India where people including children go through them to get out precious metals.  These areas become really polluted and it affects people’s health.

Electronic waste can also include other things like TVs, printers, DVD players, fridges and other electronic appliances.

What can you do?

  • Think twice before buying electronics. Do you really need the latest phone or laptop?
  • Donate – but please don;t dump. There are charities that will accept electronics in good condition;
  • Sell it – Gumtree and Freecycle are a good place to start;
  • Repair it – find a mobile or electronic repair centre near you;
  • Recycle: Contact your council to find out if they take electronic waste or find a drop off spot for your old electronics: https://techcollect.com.au/;
  • Take it back to the maunfacturer. Some manufacturers have a free return service. Call yours to find out.

So as you start the new year – remember to take the zero waste challenge and help save the planet.

By JayBro

 

 

The tipping point?

PowerfulOwlLeave a comment

 

climate-change-picture

Any day now, the earth will pass a new milestone.  Far away from where most of you live, but not so far from me, in a remote location of Tasmania, Australia, there is a place called Grim Point.  For decades now, scientists at Grim Point have been collecting air quality data, which includes concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air.

Well the latest record related to our atmosphere that we are breaking, is that for the first time in recorded history the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has reached 400 parts per million (PPM).  Why is this so significant?  Mostly, because it is so remote, it is said that Grim Point has the world’s cleanest air. Hence this new milestone is being seen as a point of no return for humanity.

For non-scientists, parts per million is a measure of the concentration (mass) of a chemical in water or in this case, the air. So for example the 400 ppm means for every 1 million gas molecules in our atmosphere, about 400 are carbon dioxide molecules.

It’s important to note that as well as the carbon emissions continuing to go up, every day there are stories about the earth heating up.  This month another record has been broken – the warmest April on record. That’s seven months straight of record warm global temperatures.  2015 was the warmest year in recorded history also.  Some people might think – yippee, endless summers and hey, I like summers like the next person, but when I hear that the the coral in the Great Barrier reef is bleaching and that Greenland ice sheet has started to melt early this year (http://www.smh.com.au/environment/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-has-started-early-20160429-gohx1z.html) I start to think hold on, all of this is very troubling and is pointing to an uncertain future if we don’t start seriously looking at carbon emissions.

What is a safe level? Before the burning of coal, the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air was measured at 275 ppm.  The organisation 350.org however states that 350 ppm is a safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  This would equate to 1 degree global temperature increase.

CLOVELLY_LANERN-WALK

These new milestones were discussed on the radio the other day and lo and behold, there was a climate change sceptic on the radio and while I agree that we need to have a balanced view, I couldn’t get over the arguments put forward about whether there is any proof that carbon dioxide emissions are changing the earth’s climate.  Despite the many many scientists that acknowledge that carbon emission are altering the earth’s atmosphere resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, there are some that refuse to believe the facts.  It also annoys me that we still have to going to the lowest base as far as discussions are concerned.  Rather than getting on with it, we have to keep arguing the facts and justifying any action at all!

I recently watched a documentary called Ice and the Sky / La Glace et le ciel (2015). This documentary follows Claude Lorius and his many expeditions to the south pole to study glaciers.  During his studies he put forward a theory that the glaciers were able to tell us about the earth’s climate because they had layers similar to tree rings.  He was also able to see that the air bubbles caught in the ice sheets were the fossil remains of the earth’s atmosphere, so he began studying them.

Claude Lorius

The story is a great one – through his studies and ever bigger machines he was able to dig deeper and deeper into glaciers and what he was able to see was the correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and the length of warm and cold periods.  He was able to go back 800,000 years and his conclusion was the proof that carbon dioxide emissions were related to global temperatures.  I don’t want to give away more than that, but really recommend the documentary.  If you want to know more about the science behind how this important discovery was made, then please watch it.

You could even sneak it in as viewing to any climate change sceptics that you know.

Apart from getting into the nitty gritty of the science of climate change, we can all do our bit to help get carbon emissions down to 350 ppm. The mantra of ‘Think global, act local’ really can make a difference.  If we do our part, collectively we can make a difference.

Do what you can around your home:

  • Turn off lights and appliances when not in use;
  • If you can, install solar panels and make your own energy!
  • Buy accredited Green Power (sourced from renewable sources);
  • Start walking, cycling or catching public transport instead of driving;
  • Reduce, reuse or recycle your waste;
  • Get composting or worm farming!
  • Grow your own food;
  • Support your local community and buy local;
  • Discover the wonders of your local op shop (second hand store);
  • Plants trees;
  • Check out your local Council for any local action groups.

 

Spread the word:

  • Keep up to date with what organisations like 350.org (http://350.org/) Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/) World Wildlife Fund (http://www.wwf.org.au/) or Australian Youth Climate Coalition (http://www.aycc.org.au/) and spread the word. Talk to colleagues, your family or neighbours.
  • Contact your local Council to see what they’re doing to address climate change. Are they making considerations of climate change risks in how they plan developments and how they design and construct stormwater systems for example?
  • For those in Australia, contact your state or local MP to see what their policies are in relation to climate change. There’s an election on right now and scant discussion about this very important topic.

 

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