Tackling this issue at scale

Newtown Cottage is a site designed to share a few ideas that renters can do to reduce, reuse, recycle etc.

I've now embarked on a much more ambitious undertaking which looks at giving people tools and thinking models to be resilient and lead resilient organisations. If you're conciencious and looking for something meaty to sink your teeth into, I'd recommend having a look: http://www.resilientfutures.org

I've also set up a feed in the right hand column of this site to pull recent stories out.

The story of stuff

An incredible useful video which explains a range of things which get people thinking more deeply about sustainability. It's about 20 minutes of short segments, and well worth the time and effort to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqZMTY4V7Ts

Worth a look

I found an article about a couple in Christchurch New Zealand who are attempting to live for an entire year without contributing to landfill. It's an interesting concept, and logistically very difficult to the point that I can't imagine myself being able to pull it off in an urban environment. Worth a read.

Also from their site, I found a brilliant 20 minute video called The Story of Stuff. This is one of the best pieces I've seen on this - although it's a little skewed, it definitely makes things very clear and is worth a look.

Enjoy

T

Retrofitting your old Weber to run on gas

You can't have a backyard in Australia without a BBQ... in fact I'm not even sure if you can have a apartment balcony without having a BBQ.

About 6 or 7 years ago I got given a used Weber steel kettle. Webers are great things - I had one on my roof in New York - when the twin towers came down and parts of steel Ibeams knocked down our fence, the Weber was still waiting ready to go - like cockroaches they'll survive the next Holocaust - marvelous... as I understand it Henry Ford created the charcoal briquette from the wood scraps and sawdust from his car factory which then ended up being the precursor to the Charcoal Kettle.


Anyway, after lending my Australian Weber to a bunch of randoms a few years ago I'd ended up with it back in my possession, by which time it occurred to me that briquettes are really painful to work with (which must explain why I still haven't had a housewarming BBQ), but also must be really bad producers of CO2. The end result is that I should really switch over to gas.

These days you can get a new fangled BBQ in steel with a range hood and all that good stuff for around $200-300, which is great, but it means you are consuming more steel, and have to worry about what to do with your old Weber. Will someone else use it as a charcoal consuming CO2 machine?

A quick bit of research showed me you can buy a tailor made gas kit for about $100, which had heaps of appeal, so I went out and bought one of those at my local AGL shop instead. Installation was easy, with about 4 screws holding the whole thing in place. They say that you get a similar flavour to the heat beads, so I'll try that out later and post the results.

A few pics of the installation are shown below for posterity and anyone thinking about buying a new gas BBQ. The whole job took me about 15 minutes, most of which was spent scratching my head needlessly, and it was all done on Australia Day - how appropriate.


Picture 1: use up the the last of your toxic heat beads
Picture 2: leave it for a few days then throw the gas burner in
Picture 3: work out which screws to use, and realise they're all the same and it's impossible to stuff this up - secure your bits
Picture 4: done deal, anyone got a full gas bottle?

Sustainable agriculture

A bit over 200 years ago, Mathus predicted that the world's food supply would not be able to keep up with population growth. To date he's been proved wrong but a number of things are now threatening to change all that - including climate change, less predictable weather patterns and now the use of crops for fuel instead of as food.

This was a lead story on the national broadcaster last week: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/17/2140619.htm?section=world and if you follow this sort of thing is worth a read.

As part of my ranting and occasional campaigning on this sort of thing, I've become involved in a business which rejuvenates degraded landscapes and implements sustainable agricultural techniques to dramatically increase the productivity and drought resistance of that land. Irrespective of where your interest lies in the subject, it's worth a look, particularly if you are an active property investor or farmer: http://www.agricominvestments.com.au/.

Who on earth cares - election campaign

I just received this link this morning and got on board straight away. I've got to say of all the campaigns on the subject, this one is great because it makes it really easy for you to do something and to stand up and be counted. Definitely worth a look:

http://www.whoonearthcares.com/

This was the customised bit I put into my letter, in the context that I sit in a safe ALP seat:

I am also concerned that the ALP is directing it's preferences to Family First instead of the Greens. I understand the practicalities of the preferencial voting system and why the ALP may consider this necessary, but it sends a very odd signal to send preferences to a party which normally would be diametrically opposed to the ALP's traditional values. I would have through that the Greens were more ideologically aligned with the ALP's core values.

The worm farm

About 12 months ago, possibly more, a mate of mine showed me his worm farm and the idea really caught my imagination. Since then I’ve been giving people worm farms as Christmas presents… Once people get over the initial shock of it being an odd gift, it’s something they really get into and appreciate and share with the kids/grandkids. Check out the look on Wolfy’s face at Christmas 2006. He came around.

The problem

No matter how prudent you are with what you buy and what you eat, there’s always something left over. Whether it’s the ends of vegetables, the limp or dirty lettuce leaves, coffee grounds, tea bags, eggshells or when you’ve cooked too much, there’s always these bits and pieces of scraps and off cuts which would normally be on their way to landfill.

The problem of course with all this is that in Australia, fertile land is not particularly plentiful and every time a farmer crops, you’re taking valuable nutrients out his soil which he then has to replace, probably with chemical fertilizers. And any residual nutrients in your leftovers go into landfill to be lost forever rather than being recycled back into that productive land. And you pay Council rates and transportation for the privilege, while generating greenhouse gases in the process. Doesn’t sound particularly sustainable does it?

The solution

Worm farms are amazing little things. Essentially you put your food scraps into a container with worms, they chomp away on it and give you a by product of pH balanced castings (like a top grade potting mix, but probably better) and pH balanced liquid fertilizer. And all of this happens without taking much space or any offensive odour. My first worm farm was on my balcony in the Surry Hills! With topsoil such a precious commodity, the ability to create your own is quite dazzling. Charles Darwin reckons worms are the most important species on the planet for this reason.

Our tips

As far as I can tell it’s pretty difficult to get a worm farm wrong if you follow the instructions which come with your kit. You can get a worm farm and your worm starter pack at most nurseries, although they’re probably a lot cheaper at K-Mart. If I recall rightly, my worm farm cost me $79 and my box of worms cost me $39. Most councils in the area have worm farming courses – these probably don’t tell you much more than the instruction book, but you can ask questions or show off to everyone that you’ve read the book.
Some suggestions to optimize your setup based on my experience:

• Make sure you start with a box of at least 1,000 worms. You can start with less, but it will slow you down.
  Don’t overfeed them – if the food starts building up, let them get through it before you add more.
• If the worm farm is out in the rain, leave the tap fully open draining into a bucket. I went travelling up the coast during some heavy rains and thought I’d left the tap partially open. When I came back the active levels had compressed and the worms couldn’t get between levels. They were okay, but it’s slowed them down a lot. (see pic – still going strong, but have got some catching up to do).
• Your worm farm is a natural incubator for seeds. If things sprout, plant them. If they take, you’ve got free plants.
• Lastly, in winter, try to keep them warm. Guidebooks suggest putting a Hessian sack over the top. We’ve got a storage hot water system at our place, and putting the worm farm next to the hot water system allows them to tap some of that wasted warmth and also allow me to capture and dilute the fertilizer with runoff from the hot water system as we go (see pic).