Other stuff you don't think about...

So after my garbage audit I looked around the house to find other stuff lurking in hidden places under the stairs, in long forgotten draws and frankly in quite obvious places I had chosen to ignore. We just bought a new bed and the amount of waste the packaging generated was a bit over the top. And after all that polystyrene parts of the bed were still damaged. When something is made a million miles away it's no wonder it gets damaged with all the other beds, wardrobes and furniture stacked up high in warehouses. Anyway now I have a heap of polystyrene piled high.

You could almost say that in some things I am a hoarder. This tendency has arisen in me because I don't want to throw something in the bin and I don't really know what to do with it but I'm sure that there must be some way to recycle it. Essentially what I am doing is procrastinating in finding a solution to this stuff but I don't like to think I procrastinate! My partner, brendan's incesent bugging has finally got me off my butt to do something about it.

Not quite as bad as this fellow!

Previously I was determined to recycle a pile of procrastinated polystyrene I had hoarded since we moved into our new house. Brendan had threatened me with throwing it all in the bin before I finally did something about it. I found the only place in Melbourne where the public can recycle polystyrene. It's in fitzroy on the other side of town. So one day I packed the entire car with ever scrap of polystyrene and drove it to fitzroy. It was a mission and I have vowed to find an easier way this time.

So now I'm thinking about all those furniture stores that accumulate huge amounts of polystyrene and wonder if a truck comes and picks it all up and takes it to the recycling place. Maybe I could drop off my bundle there? Would they let me do this out of the goodness of their hearts? Could there be something in it for them?

So time to be proactive and find out!  Will let you know how I went.

Over and out!

Dirt Girl :)

Garbage Audit

Time to get down and dirty!  I have gone through the garbage bin to find out the type of stuff we throw away.  Although i'm generally pretty careful about what goes in the bin I find myself a little upset that some things that can either be recycled or composted are still finding their way into our bin.  Also, I was confused and felt a little hopeless about some items as I didn't know what to do with them.  I really, really, really didn't want to throw some things away but there wasn't any other option.  I felt torn and ultimately depressed at the hopelessness of garbage and "stuff"!  Every time I go shopping all I can think about is the stuff I will have to throw in the bin - I think I'm a little obsessive!

Lets take a look shall we?  What's in my bin

• Plastic - the number 1 item comes in many forms

• plastic bags from large purchases like a new computer and food packaging
• foam meat trays
• random hard bits of plastic from a furniture purchase
• the plastic bits that hold tags onto clothing
• bin and bread ties
• take away containers
• Random food and letter packaging which is a combination of plastic, paper and foil
• Smelly fish left overs in foil and plastic
• Chicken bones and wooden skewers
• A coffee cup
• An old pare of shoes
• An old rag
• Paper
• A television cable
• Dental Floss

I think the thing that most concerned me was the amount of organic stuff in the bin that could obviously be composted.  Unfortunately my partner objects to putting bones in the compost (as a lot of people do) but I argue that it is a covered black bin and therefore pests like dogs and cats and rats cannot get into it.  However he isn't happy because bones last a long time...  Yes this is true but imagine what they will find in 1000 years time when our house is an archaeological dig!

...."Hmmm interesting - it looks like this primitive family ate un-genetically modified chicken!"

So I gathered up all the paper, chicken bones and wooden skewers and snuck them into the compost bin when my partner wasn't looking!

I couldn't bring myself to throwing away my old shoes so I donated them to St Vinny's (not sure what they will do with them - throw them in the bin perhaps?)

I threw as much as I could in the recycling - the coffee cup (and berated my partner making sure he puts it in the recycling in future) and the small bits of plastic that I thought could be recycled such as the clothes tag plastic, the take away containers and I thought the random hard bits of plastic might be able to go in there too (any type of plastic that is bendy can go into our recycling. This is something that I learned while doing the sustainable homes program through my council).

Also a note on plastic bag recycling - you can recycle your plastic bags (and plastic wrap) at coles or woolworths in their plastic bag recycling bins.  I want to do more research on this.  Unfortunately I think they bundle all the plastic up, send it to China to be refined to make more plastic.  This means that it is recycled, however it has to journey over the sea in a shipping container that could fall off a boat and end up with all the other plastic in the ocean.

I'm afraid I threw the fish stuff in the bin - I just couldn't bring myself to opening the plastic bag, removing the organic bits, washing the foil and disposing it in the recycling bin.  I will try to do better next time.

The television cable I took out and put with my pile of electronic waste (E-Waste).

But I was at a total loss what to do with the dental floss, the old rag and the random food and letter packaging that was a mixture of plastic, paper and foil.  I was in a spin - what the hell do I do about dental floss?  I had to throw it in the bin.  Now I am torn every time I go to floss my teeth.  The dentist thinks I need 12 fillings because I don't floss my teeth.  Can someone please tell me is there any compostable dental floss out there?

I have resolved to buy things that aren't packaged in un-recyclable packaging.  Its funny how attached you get to different types of food.  For instance, I could just feed my son porridge from whole rolled oats, but he loves this baby food which is basically the same thing ground up with flakes of dried banana in it.  The problem is that it comes in a plastic composite packaging that just can't be recycled.  It's a difficult choice but it must be done.  If only I could find a whole foods shop in my area I would be right - but the only ones I know of are in Smith street in town: Friends of the Earth and the Wholefoods shop across the road.  Tips anyone?

So where to from here.  

1. Firstly I can try to control what goes into our bin a little better stopping organics from ending up in the bin - still not sure what to do with the bones. I will have to think about that one and do some research.  
2. Everything that can be recycled should be recycled.  And lastly limit the amount of composite and plastic packaging that I buy in my local shop.  It means that I need to find a way to buy things at a whole foods store.  More research required.  
3. This will also limit the amount of plastic bags used in shopping.  No matter how many green bags I take with me there always seems to be a plastic bag creeping in when I buy beans or something similar.  And of course grow my own food which limits the amount of packaging.  I've just planted the carrots today so I'm back on track and getting my winter crop together.

Dirt girl - getting down and dirty!

What does a tree do and how can my house copy it?

So how can my house be like a tree? Let's investigate a tree a little further.

A Tree

     

• Produces oxygen and filters the air 
• Cleans and stabilises the soil helping to build soil structure when it's leaves and fruit compost into the ground
• Produces shelter for the earth and habitat for animals and insects
• Uses it's waste as food for the next cycle
• Filters water
• Turns the sun's light into energy
• Produces food for animals and insects supporting diversity and Eco systems

So can my house really be all of those things?  Well no..., I guess not - however i'm sure I can make changes that will bring my house closer to what a tree does.

Take for instance a tree creating energy from the sun's rays - this is something our house already does with our solar panels.  And if I take in the entire block my house sits on then I can incorporate things like our veggie garden that we use to produce food, and the trees that I have planted that will help improve soil structure and filter water.  

In this way the little bit of land that my house sits on can be part of an eco system - my house's eco system, that in turn will tie in with the larger eco system in our neighbourhood.  This is the way I will approach my challenge. 

However the main area I am interested in is the way a tree uses it's waste as food for another cycle.  Therefore I will investigate how my house's eco system can use the waste that it produces as food for different cycles.  These will include finding cycles inside and outside my house where items we use can be recycled at the end of their life such as composting and metal recycling etc.  

In line with what a tree does I will also investigate the following:

1. Air quality of our house's eco-system
2. Soil health of our house's eco-system
3. Water capture and filtration
4. Energy use and production
5. Food Production

Anything i've missed - feel free to let me know and I will add it to the list to be investigated.

Dirt Girl 

Cradle to Cradle Principles – Not too hard to get your head around

So... Cradle to Cradle is a process whereby a product can be disassembled at the end of its life to become nutrients for the next product life cycle. There are two product nutrient streams: 

The Biological  and Technical Streams. Biological, meaning organic substances that biodegrade and decompose and Technical, meaning chemicals and metals. The idea is to create a "closed loop cycle" from these nutrient types. Biological nutrients will breakdown and become compost (food) for another biological system – for instance cotton or wool at the end of its life could be composted and become nutrients for another crop. Technical nutrients would follow the same "closed loop cycle"  however instead of biodegrading they would be recaptured and used again in a similar cycle that it was initially used for. For instance cars could be created in such a way that at the end of their life they have been designed for disassemble so that valuable technical nutrients such as copper in the wiring is captured and can be reused for wiring, instead of being melted down with all the other types of metals and turned into an alloy of lesser value and ultimately ending up in landfill.

So don't these kinds of systems already exist? Well yes and no. Sometimes they do with Biological nutrients. Your food scraps end up as compost in your garden and feed your plants. That is a Biological nutrient returning to the earth they way it is supposed to. But let's just say that you live in an apartment and there is nowhere to put your veggie scraps so you throw them in the bin. Now all that lovely food is thrown into landfill where it creates methane and not one little tree or even a blade of grass can take advantage of it because it is buried in a deep, dirty, smelly hole that no one will touch for 1000 years or so. That's a nice thing to leave to our decedents to sort out!

How come this closed loop system isn't already in place you might ask. Well you see when the industrial revolution hit it became a lot easier to make things quickly and as the economy grew people's demand for more and more stuff grew too – (see the story of stuff). In the early days of the industrial revolution people thought that the earth's supply of nutrients was boundless and nature was something to be tamed. So they cut down the great big forests and at first it didn't make much of a dint. But all in all nature was thought to be resilient and could supply us forever. So you see it simply wasn't necessary to think about the end result of a product. We could just throw it "away" and buy a new one. Now you will notice that "away" is catching up with us as the sea becomes toxic from plastic and the new stuff we buy has a built in redundancy so it only lasts a few years at best. We still have the same mentality but I think people are starting to wake up and say "hey we can't keep digging up the earth forever" and "where does my garbage go" or "hey the tip near me really stinks!"

One of the biggest hurdles for Cradle to Cradle is what Michael Braungart and William McDonough, the authors of Cradle to Cradle call "Monstrous Hybrids". They are products made from both technical and biological streams fused together without any thought of how they will be disassembled. An example is a polyester cotton shirt. Polyester is a Technical nutrient and cotton is a Biological nutrient. At the end of it's life the cotton in shirt cannot naturally biodegrade and the polyester is not easily retrieved. It is a Monstrous Hybrid. There are many Monstrous Hybrids in your life right now. Have a look around you, can you find them? Does life look the same now? Now are you starting to see all the stuff in your life through different eyes?

However Cradle to Cradle goes beyond simply products – it can extend to everything we do. You see it is a way of reconnecting with nature and natural cycles, a way in which we as a species become responsible for everything that we do. Cradle to Cradle emphasises that life is about abundance – nature works in abundance and the motto Reduce, Reuse and Recycle is not necessarily helping our current crisis, it is just prolonging the inevitable – a slow death as opposed to a quick one.

Can you imagine a society that:

• Safely and effectively handles its own material wastes and those of other species
  
• Grow and harvests its own food while nurturing the ecosystem of which it is a part
  
• Construct houses, farms, dumps, cemeteries, living quarters, and food-storage facilities from materials that can be truly recycled
  
• Create disinfectants and medicines that are healthy, safe and biodegradable
  
• Maintain soil health for the entire planet
  

'M Braungart & W McDonough, Cradle to Cradle, 2009, USA, Vintage, 2008 Edition, pg 79'

Well guess what – there is a species on this planet that is already doing all of the above – the humble ANT. And there are many more ants in the world then there are humans. Think about it. Millions of little critters all around us working in harmony with the earth and thriving. What if humans could be the same? Then we wouldn't have to be so concerned with restricting what we do because we would know that the earth was benefiting from the things we did.  Is that utopia?

Can my house really be like a tree?

Hello and welcome! The reason I am writing this blog is to challenge myself by following some concepts from a book that really inspired me. That book, my bible, is called Cradle to Cradle written by a Chemical Engineer and an Architect. It has changed the way that I view stuff in this world. From the nappies that my son goes through to the chair that I'm sitting on now – it's all part of a wonderful new world that I hadn't seen before. In this new world everything is part of a cycle. 

Currently the cycle that most of these products belong to is the "Cradle to Grave" cycle where once used the product cannot be turned into anything else and all those precious resources that were dug up to make it end up in a landfill. They may take a turn somewhere along the way and be recycled, say for instance with the chair. It could be collected by someone off the side of the road on council hard rubbish collection day and used for a little while longer, but sooner or later it will end up in the dump. What a tragedy! So much energy and all those resources for one chair and in the end we bury it in a grave with a bunch of other stuff putting precious resources back into the ground where we can never get at them again. 

And that's why this book has changed my thinking. It has inspired me to think in a different way, and yet this new way is not really different, just different to what we in the industrial world are used to. You see, nature has been working this way for EVER! Yes it's the Cradle to Cradle way – a product whether it is organic or synthetic belongs to a stream, a path if you will. Let's just take that chair again – at the end of its life the manufacturer takes back the finished product and turns it into a chair again! Not a lesser quality chair but a new fan dangled, brand spanking new chair! The design may have changed to keep up with customer demand for new pretty things but essentially it is still the same chair – BRILLIANT! All those resources used in the first instance have been re-used and can be re-used over and over again. A valuable resource stream has been saved from landfill. Hooray!!!

Getting back to nature and the title of this blog – If you investigate a tree you will see that a tree never produces waste. It grows leaves and then blossoms and produces fruit. Much much more blossoms and fruit than it needs to but to give it a chance to reproduce itself it does this. With all that yummy food, insects and animals feast on the trees bounty and leave special presents behind for the tree. I hear you say, 'hey isn't animal droppings waste?' But no you would be mistaken. Then the fruit falls to the ground and starts to rot and soon it is autumn and the leaves begin to turn and fall off the tree. I still hear you saying that all this is waste but I'm afraid you are wrong. You see all that 'waste' is actually food! Yes FOOD! Valuable nutrients for the tree's next bountiful cycle. AMAZING!

So... the question is can my house really emulate the cycle of a tree? There are many different aspects to a house yet I think it is possible. This is my challenge over the next 12 months. Come and join me on my journey and you may even learn something along the way! I would love to hear from you, what you think, suggestions or just general comments. I will also be posting tid bits of info and other things that I come across on my journey that may be of interest and make you stop for a moment and think about the stuff we all use.

Happy following!

Dirt Girl :)