little eco footprints

Why didn't we turn our lights off for earth hour?

They were already off...we were kilometres away...sitting in the dark munching on damper twists with golden syrup.

Sunday was filled with...the best coffee I have had in ages....

..inspection of the leech that fed on my big toe all night...

..throwing rocks in the creek...

..swimming lessons..

...and some laughs in the sun before returning home to reality.

Choosing sustainable seafood made easy

I’m a week late!

If I’d known about sustainable seafood day last Friday I would have celebrated it.

I have been purposely procrastinating regarding looking into sustainable seafood choices, as I didn’t want to find out that some of our favourite foods are not sustainable. We love seafood, with tinned tuna and salmon being lunch-time regulars and our Sunday night treat is typically locally farmed Rainbow Trout. To my relief, I have discovered a few resources that can help me make sustainable choices so that we can continue to enjoy seafood without the guilt.

The Marine Stewardship Council fishery certification program recognises and rewards sustainable fishing. All I have to do is keen an eye out for their blue certification label, unfortunately absent from the brands of tinned tuna and salmon I have been buying. I’ll have to switch John West tinned Alaskan Pink and Red salmon. Mmmm – Alaska isn’t very local! I’ll have to make sure we start seeing salmon as a treat. Perhaps we could replace some salmon with locally farmed smoked rainbow trout, although I will also have to look into how sustainable trout farming practices are.

Unfortunately, none of the brands of tuna available in Australia are currently MSC certified, nor am I sure how many of the certified fish species are available at my local fish co-op. Luckily there is another resource that should help me: Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide produced by the Australian Marine Conservation Society. This is the same group that is currently raising funds by auctioning off the rights to name a newly described shrimp species (the highest bid is currently at $3,000!).

I just bought the guide for only for $9.95. Looking forward to receiving it, as it apparently provides information about issues such as aquaculture, imported seafood, labeling, supermarket seafood, marine national parks and the sustainability of over 60 seafood species. Perfect! I’ll report back regarding how useful the guide is soon…

I am so thankful for all the easy ways to be green!

There are many things I am not doing at the moment, mainly due to a lack of time and energy.

I am unfortunately not...

...working in my vege garden. It is literally a sad sight of almost empty garden beds.
...planting the vege seeds that I have been meaning to plant for weeks.
...posting in this blog anywhere near as much as I want.
...posting comments on my favourite blogs. I'm still skim reading - so to all my favourites..consider your posts read and enjoyed.
...keeping to my gift recycled challenge. It was my mum's partner's birthday last week and I couldn't get my act together. I know what I am making him but I have not had the time or energy to make it - so sorry Steve! But you know we love you!
...researching my way down my long list of sustainable living decisions.
...uploading new Flannel Fings stock (have been ready to upload for two weeks!)
...riding a bike and skipping the car as much as possible like I had planned to be doing by this stage.
...starting any of the new eco challenges I plan to set myself.
...and i'll be honest, i'm not even keeping the house tidy these days- it’s a MESS!

Given all the things I am not doing I am so thankful for all the green things I do every day that require little or no effort on my behalf.

I am...

...using no coal-generated energy at home. We don’t notice the slightly higher rate we pay for 100% certified green energy, as paying extra motivated us to be better at switching things off when not in use.
...using tank water to wash our clothes, flush the toilet, and water the garden. We included the tank and plumbing to the house in an extension we did a few years ago. This required no extra effort on our behalf - just a little extra money.
...buying predominantly local food. We are lucky enough to have a farmers market within walking distance which is on most weekends, so we now make it our Sunday morning ritual to walk down there and buy all our fruit, vegetables, olive oil, eggs, bread and seafood. Our trash-bag cooler over the handle bars is perfect for keeping things cold. I also pick up a box of locally grown organic produce once a week from a local organic co-op.  

I am also...

...walking on our gorgeous recycled timber floorboards. A little extra cost but I love that our hardwood floorboards have extra character and history.
...using cloth nappies, many of which are made from recycled fabric or second hand. Given that we use tank water and green energy - Little Eco's nappies literally have little to no ecological footprint. I thought about leaving cloth nappies out of this list as it probably doesn’t meet the "little to no effort on my behalf" criteria, but seriously it’s not that much extra effort. I wash only two loads of nappies a week (every 3 days or so) and as I type Daddy Eco is folding nappies whilst watching TV.
...needing no extra heating or cooling other than ceiling fans due to the energy efficient design of our living area (north facing with wide veranda), heavy curtains, pale-coloured roof and ceiling insulation (I’ll be honest – we have a small air conditioner in Little eco’s room, but it’s never on for more than half an hour at a time, even in the heat of summer).
...eating mostly vegetarian meals and eating no red meat other than Kangaroo once a week or so.
...buying everything second hand or 'made-from-recycled-materials' when practical (I’m trying to think of something we have bought new recently and can’t think of anything).
...using recycled toilet paper. It took Daddy Eco a while to get used to it, but he has thankfully stopped complaining.
...growing tea herbs (mint and lemon grass) by my back door and replacing every second cup of tea or coffee with a home-grown herbal tea instead. I also don't buy tea bags and use a reuseable tea diffuser instead.

 
...and lots of other little green things without even thinking about it. e.g. using reusable drink bottles, never buying bottled water, and buying almond oil in bulk as a petrochemical-free alternative to soap and moisturiser.

I love that all these green things don’t require any effort from me. Does anyone have other ideas for ways I can decrease my ecological footprint with little to no effort? Hopefully i'll be back to being happy to put in more of an effort soon...but for now I am just happy that it is easy to be green in some way every day....

I have been converted to e-books

This week is International Read an E-book week. The week is dedicated to encouraging readers to discover and celebrate electronic books! It worked on me!

I have been really struggling to resist buying books. I have a huge list of books on my 'books to read list'. I would prefer to borrow from the local library as it costs nothing and it is much kinder on the environment for books to be read by more than one person. However, most of the books on my list are unfortunately not held in the local library.

My husband and I already have a huge collection of books. We have always loved books and prior to Little Eco coming along would regularly spend hours browsing second hand book stores. Unfortunately, due to renovations taking much longer than planned and a lack of space, most of our books have been packed away in storage boxes for years. I just went to take a photo of the boxes, but couldn’t even find them! How sad is that!

Like many people, I have not been tempted by e-books because I love real books too much. I love holding a book. I love reading in bed or sitting under a tree. I enjoy turning the pages, folding over a page to mark a point that interests me, and much to Daddy Eco’s frustration I have even attacked particularly inspiring books with a highlighter! My books look well read. An e book would not give me that feeling, but at least I could find it!

So I have been converted to E-books by not only their environmental benefits, but their convenience. Imagine having 200 of your favorite books at your fingertips! In our small house it also means considerable space savings.

It looks like the range of available e-books is amazing. I started working my way down my 'to read list' thinking that most would not be available electronically – but they are. And the best news is they are around half the price of a real book. Dangerous! There are also a number of sites where you can download free e-books. I’ll just read them on my lap top initially, but will save up to buy an e-book reader. I’ll reduce the ecological impact of my reader by using it for as long as possible (i.e. not being tempted to upgrade to the newest and latest model) and recycling it once I have finished with it.

Good on the Salvos...

...for going plastic bag free. I popped into one of my local Salvos stores today to buy some Winter clothes for Little Eco. I buy all her clothes second hand, or if I want something 'new' for a special occasion I buy 'new' clothing made from recycled materials (I love Vintage Vibes).

 

Not only is buying second hand great for the environment, but it also saves lots of money. I got this bundle of clothes for only $12! They are all winter clothes and look like they have hardly been worn. The only time I am ever tempted to buy new clothes is when I need something in a hurry (like when we had a cold day recently and NONE of Little Eco's long pants fitted her!). Buying second hand can be a little more time consuming than ducking down to your local department store, because you cannot always find what you want, when you want it. So I plan ahead - hence buying winter clothes now. You can find more hints on buying second hand clothes here...

Anyway...back to the Salvos. The store had a sign up saying "salvos stores are now plastic bag free". They have cloth bags available for sale if you need them. I wasn't planning on going shopping, so didn't have a bag on me. The sales assistant just handed my bundle of clothes over to me neatly folded. No apologies for not having a plastic bag and no trying to sell me a cloth bag. Lovely!.