Waste

Plastic Free July – Week 1

PowerfulOwl1 Comment

Last weekend, I excitedly decided to jump into Plastic Free July and do so with my family.  I mean – really, how hard can it be?

Very hard. I feel as though I have spent the first week in shock. Shock by the realisation that plastic is literally everywhere and changing  that is going to be really really hard.  I’ve had many failures this week. Here are a few:

  • Caving into hunger when offered a little pack of cheese and crackers;
  • Milk – where can you easily find an alternative to plastic?
  • Same goes for bread;
  • Bin liners. Despite seeing things online about paper lined bins, I am not going there yet;
  • Italian chocolate in its wrapper!

Despite these failures though, I am feeling good.  It feels as though my house is going through some sort of detox.  I have however spent the first week finishing off food items that had plastic containers and I’m not sure how to replace them all.

I sent my poor husband off to practice Plastic Free July during the weekly shop.  The result? The shop took twice a long because of the to-ing and fro-ing between different shops (baker, butcher, greengrocer etc) and cost more.

It’s also going to take some more practice to buy some things where we’re relying on others’ participation. For example, last Friday I made my kids chicken and was feeling pretty fab to ditch the pre-packages by going to the butcher. When I got there though, I had to explain that I didn’t want the chicken in a plastic bag after which I was told that I could take in my own container. I returned with the container, only to have the butcher take the chicken out using a plastic bag! so it kind of defeated the purpose of the container! It honestly was a bit of a comedy routine.

Even though we went shopping yesterday, our fridge is nearly empty because so many things that we buy come in plastic (no berries for July and no cherry tomatoes!).  While we’re trying to figure a lot of things out, we’ve also found some things are easier to get than we thought.

For example, I’ve discovered a shop in Lane Cove called ‘Source’. It has everything from different types of oils, to a wall of different types of chocolate, flour, legumes, cereals, shampoo, cleaning products  and soap.  While I’ve  been there sometimes from time to time, I will probably return more even after July.

For week 2, I’m going to follow some of the tips my son put together:

  • Bring your own shopping bag (also your own container if buying things like meats, olives etc);
  • Don’t buy bottled water;
  • Bring own KeepCup to the coffee shop;
  • Don’t use single use straws;
  • Don’t use plastic cutlery;
  • Try to avoid food in plastic wrap (easier said than done. I have no idea how I’m going to buy cheese!);
  • Carry your own box for leftover food;
  • Join the Earn and Learn program (in NSW);
  • Buy bread without a bag or with a paper bag;
  • Clean with vinegar and water;
  • Use a bar of soap instead of a plastic dispenser;
  • Use a stainless steel lunchbox;
  • Instead of getting takeaway smoothies, make your own!
  • Make your own icy pole instead of buying ice cream; and
  • Don’t use plastic plates.

With that – i thought I’d sign off with some ways to avoid some of the tough plastics like bin liners:

The tipping point?

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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.

 

Climate_change_human_sign_stkilda_beach_Cloud9

 

 

 

New Year Resolution – Give your Coffee Pods the Flick

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source: http://theconversation.com/what-our-love-affair-with-coffee-pods-reveals-about-our-values-30068 

I was never much of a coffee drinker until fairly recently. I never liked the taste – not really through university and not really in my earlier days of working. At the moment however I enjoy a cup of coffee a day. It’s more the habit of it that I enjoy. I like taking the time out to prepare and drink it.

My husband on the other hand is a coffee drinker from way back.  Every day without fail he’ll have a cup at about the same time.  Over the years the standard of coffee drunk has increased. From the instant coffee to buying his own beans, grounding it and using various methods to extract the coffee.

When we moved to the UAE, he bought a cappuccino maker. We felt very fancy. Then it broke and after some reading I bought him a better one for Father’s Day one year. He broke it! then I arranged to get it fixed – then he broke it again and again! In the end we had to get rid of the cappuccino maker.

When we moved back, we managed to acquire my sister’s cappuccino maker – which my husband promptly proceeded to break. So after that I had to put my food down and say no more cappuccino makers. This happened to be about the time that the coffee pod machines became super cheap and stores like Aldi started to sell the pods very cheaply too. Despite my reservations my husband bought one and thankfully in a way he’s managed to not kill the machine. Except that every time we made a cup of coffee it was filled with guilt. Guilt about all the pods we were throwing in the bin. The plastic that was never going to degrade and the mountains of coffee pods that must surely be filling up landfills.

Some facts about coffee pods:

  • Australians are consuming about three million pods a day.
  • More than 1.5 million households in Australia own a pod machine, a number forecast to double by 2018 with reports the capsule coffee market is on track to overtake the grocery bean market.

Apparently, the inventor of the coffee capsules, K-Cup, who sold enough capsules in 2013 to circle the earth nearly 11 times, wishes that he never created them in the first place and is said not to use them himself “No matter what they say about recycling, those things (K-Cups) will never be recyclable,” John Sylvan told The Atlantic. “The plastic is a specialised plastic made of four different layers…I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it.” (http://www.ecocaffe.com.au/news/3-million-pods-a-day/ )

Lately we’ve justified the use of our machine because there is a recycling point in Lane Cove. While this is better than disposal, the multiple layers of plastic and aluminium used means that it is in fact very difficult to recycle coffee pods and in many cases unless the aluminium pods are collected by TetraCycle who have specialist way of collecting and recycling the pods, they are not recycled at all. Certainly the plastic pods are not recyclable, therefore end up in landfill.

Then there is the compostable or biodegradable coffee pods. These are a lot more expensive than the average coffee pods and again there is no simple way of throwing them in your compost bin and hoping for the best. You need a special commercial composter to compost them. If they’re thrown in the bin in the hope of biodegrading in landfill they end up emitting methane – a very powerful greenhouse gas.

In short, the whole thing stinks and with 3 million pods being used every day, it doesn’t take much of an imagination to see that this is big problem.

About six months ago though I decided that enough was enough. Being an eco-mum, I wasn’t just concerned about what to do with the pods afterwards. My concern was about the use of resources to manufacture the silly pods in the first place. So I decided to go back to the way coffee is made in other countries like the Middle East and Italy – using the Moka Pot. This is a stove top coffee maker where water boils in a lower chamber and the steam creating pressure that then passes the vapour through the coffee to an upper chamber. It’s kind of like magic really!

I bought myself one of these pots along with organic fair trade coffee. The results have been good. Taste wise I like it and I especially like the process and the aroma that drifts through the house.  Time wise- it does take longer, but from a waste and materials use point of view it really is the way to go.  Especially as I compost all my coffee grinds and apply that on my vegetable patch.

IMG_20160204_114758785

 

My husband on the other hand remains unconvinced. He swears that he likes the taste of the coffee pod machine more and while he’s usually very supportive of my eco-ventures. This is one where he is standing his ground – excuse the pun! I on the other hand will continue to put forward the case that our house needs to be a pod free house.  I urge the millions in Australia and beyond to follow suit.

With the new year just recently started, I ask everyone to make a pledge for the planet and enjoy a guilt free cup of coffee and if you make the pledge try and convince someone else to do it too!

IMG_20160204_120031675

For more information on why coffee pods are harmful, please go to:

http://theconversation.com/what-our-love-affair-with-coffee-pods-reveals-about-our-values-30068

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/apr/10/rise-coffee-pod-machines-nespresso

Eat more- waste less: Mushy rice experiment!

PowerfulOwl1 Comment

My kids are those annoying children that are super fussy when it comes to eating. At first doctors and professionals told me not to worry as they would grow out of it. Well they aren’t. In fact, they’re getting worse. I honestly have no idea on most days what to cook or make for school lunches. Too many days whole sandwiches come home. So I’ve taken to making a meal plan for breakfasts, lunches and dinners to ensure some sort of nutrition is reaching those little bellies.
On Thursday I was to give my son and daughter sushi. I thought I’d get all organised the night before and make the rice, and that’s when my rice disaster began.
Instead of having sushi rice, I had a lump of mushy rice. I tried to somehow make it work, but it didn’t. Instead I had to give them store bought sushi, but that still left me with my mushy problem. I couldn’t make myself throw it out, but I couldn’t eat it as it was, and so began the mushy rice experiment.
Kiana Dec 14 007

My mum suggested that I make some sort of stuffed rice number. This is my recipe:
1 bowl of mushy Jasmine rice;
2 tablespoons of turmeric;
Olive oil;
1 small onion;
A cup of sultanas (I salvaged these from the little box of sultanas that you can buy from the supermarket. My daughter stopped eating them. They became a bit funny, but I kept them for cooking);
¼ cup pine nuts;
A pinch of cinnamon;
A pinch of salt;
Method:
Add a tablespoon of turmeric to the rice and set aside.
Chop the onion and fry over low heat until golden. Add the sultanas and fry for a few minutes.
Add the remainder of the turmeric, cinnamon, salt and pine nuts. Fry for another 3 minutes or so.

Kiana Dec 14 008

Kiana Dec 14 010

This is the tricky part. You will need a bowl of water close by to stop the rice sticking to your hands and a bowl of flour.
Grab a small bit of rice and flatten in your palm. Add a little of the sultana mix to the rice, then add a little more rice, so that it becomes encased in the rice. You may need to dip it in flour to stop it being too sticky.
Then fry until it is quite crunchy on the outside. It should be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. So the taste test?? It tasted good and nice to know that I avoided throwing them out.

Kiana Dec 14 013

You can use other fillings. Get creative, but mostly try to avoid mushy ride. Remember not to overcook rice and add too much water to it to make sushi!

What to do with over ripe pears?

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Some pears looking to be saved from the worm farm!
Some pears looking to be saved from the worm farm!

What to do with overripe pears? My sister works for Batlow apples, so I am always well supplied with apples and when my son surprised me one day by declaring his love to pears, I inherited a lot of pears. We have slowely been making our way through the pears, but yesterday I noticed a few were looking particularly sad and had been placed in the sink, ready for their journey to the worm farm. But, rather than give these to my worms, much to my children’s chagrin (looking at the worms in my worm farm is like the highlight of their day. They stand there squealing with delight at all the wriggling, squirmy and squishy action!), I decided to ask some friends for ideas on what to do with them. I mean I had no idea for recipes really. Some suggestions that came in were:
– Banana and Pear Loaf;
– Danish; and
– Muffins.

So I decided on a Banana and Pear loaf which my niece and daughter delighted in helping me back. This is the recipe that I followed:

I followed this recipe overall except that I used 2 bananas, used more pear (about 2) by grating them into the ‘wet’ mixture and lastly, I did not add walnuts because my niece is allergic to nuts.
Thank you Alchemy Kitchen (http://www.alchemyinthekitchen.ie/2012/05/banana-pear-and-coconut-loaf-reason-to.html)
Banana, Pear and Coconut Loaf
250g very ripe bananas, mashed (that’s about 3 medium bananas)
100g sunflower oil (or other flavourless cooking oil)
100g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
250g plain flour
50g dessicated shredded coconut (unsweetened)
10g baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 soft sweet ripe pear, such as Rocha, chopped into small pieces
a little butter to grease the loaf tin
1. First, lightly butter and base line a 2 lb loaf tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas roughly using a fork or a potato masher. Add the oil and caster sugar and stir together until just combined. Next add the beaten eggs, again stirring until just combined.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, coconut, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt and fold these dry ingredients into the egg mixture until just incorporated and no dry mix remains. (To fold, add dry ingredients to wet and taking a spatula or a metal spoon, cut through the centre of the batter. Move the spatula or spoon across the bottom of the bowl, and back up the side and across the top bringing some of the cake mixture from bottom to top. Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat. Keep folding the mixture and turning the bowl until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the batter. Folding avoids overworking the batter, giving a tender crumb in the finished loaf.) Finally, mix in the chopped pear, making sure it is well-distributed throughout the mixture.
4. Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf tin and place in the preheated oven. Bake for about 50 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. A cocktail stick inserted in the centre should come out clean. If there is batter clinging to it, pop the loaf back in the oven for a further 10 minutes then test again. Leave to cool in the tin. While you can eat it straight away, this cake is best wrapped in cling film and left for 24 hours before eating. A wonderful alchemy takes place and it becomes more banana-y, pear-y and utterly delicious.

In the oven
In the oven
Yummo!We did not wait 24 hours to enjoy this treat!
Yummo!We did not wait 24 hours to enjoy this treat!

World Environment Day Blog Off!

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Okay, so I am not a selected blogger that the United Nations Environment Program has shortlisted in its Blog Off prior to World Environment Day (5 June 2013). This year’s theme is food waste ‘Think. Eat. Save’ and they are having a competition between bloggers: 

http://www.unep.org/wed/blog-competition/bloggers/ 

This is an issue that I am particularly passionate about, as I see there should be no reason for wasting food. To me it is a waste of resources and I feel terrible throwing away food when there are people going hungry.

So, while I am not a shortlisted blogger, I am a blogger nonetheless and earlier this year, I put forward this ‘letter’ to an editor as part of my attempt to be accepted into a sustainability leadership program. Here are my thoughts on food waste and if you’d like to know what other Bloggers think about it and to vote for one, please visit the UNEP website at the link I provided earlier.Image

What should the horse meat scandal have brought to light? Apart from the ethical horror of eating what many see as a beautiful animal, it should have brought to light the globilisation of food and its consequently large ecological footprint. While there are complex and interconnected reasons for the large amounts of water and energy that go into producing our food, the value of food and what you and I are willing to pay for it is something that is yet to be discussed in great depth by the mainstream media.

Increasingly we are spending proportionally less of our income on food and therefore there is the expectation that our food will cost less.  What this does is place more strain on smaller farmers in favour of large corporate agricultural produce and the rise of the major supermarket chains and their homebrand products. 

While some consumers may be happy with the super low prices, this reduction in the value of food could be one contributor towards the significant amounts of food wasted globally (it is estimated that at last half of the food produced around the world goes to waste).  Feeding the 925 million of the world’s hungry, addressing climate change and global water shortage may be a daunting task, but there is something that ordinary people can do each time they go to the super market and each time they cook. I’m unsure however that a greater number of people will ask these questions when faced between a $1 carton of milk against the sometimes higher prices that smaller scale locally grown produce may demand.