Plastic Free July Wrap Up

Well Plastic Free July is over for another year and here is almost all of the single use plastic that we accumulated over the month.  In addition to what you see here there were a few pieces that I did not save as they had contained meat.  There were also a few bread bags but in our house these get washed and used at least one more before being put to their final use of picking up the dog poop around the yard.

Some of the things that were in the dilemma bag that I am not so worried about were the packages for the home brew ingredients which make 25 litres of beer, the coffee pack with locally made coffee and I am not sure what I could have done about avoiding the band-aids since I decided to try and slice the top of my finger off.

There was also this little pesky thing that came around the top of a jar.  I am not sure what the manufacturers put it on for because it does not actually do anything functional from what I can see. Does anyone know what they are supposed to do?

Then there were the packages that the pet medication comes in and the lid from the home brew mix.

Finally there was the empty bag of dog food which we replaced during the month.  The old ones get used for bin liners so they do get a second use but they are a really good example of a form of plastic that we just could not avoid unless we made our own dog food.  making it is something I have considered, but of all the things that I want to do for myself it is a long way down the list.  Sometimes when you strive for a simple life you have to look at where you will get the most benefit in terms of making things yourself.  For me the 1 bag of dog food we buy every few months saves me what I imagine would be a number of hours which I could put to better use so in this case I am happy to buy it.

Overall I am happy with how the month went and now that I have found some where to take all my soft plastic for recycling  it makes me feel much better about the small amount we do end up with.  I will still work at reducing what comes into our house where I can and I really hope that everyone who reads this will at least start to consider how much plastic enters their home and what they do with it.
Yes it takes a bit more effort to save it up and take it to a location where they accept it for recycling but I would rather do that the send it to land fill.

How did you go during the month?

Slow Living July 2014

Linking up with Linda who has taken over from Christine in hosting the Slow Living Nine.  I am so glad this is continuing as it is great to hear what everyone is up to.

Nourish -Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.
There has been heaps of cooking and baking in the house over the past month and since we were also participating in Plastic free July it was all home made food for us.

Prepare - Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season.
Mostly we are making use of our stockpile rather than adding to it but I have been but I have been adding lemons and limes to the bag of them I have in the freezer.   I just throw them in whole and when citrus season is over I have them on hand.

Reduce - Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing.
This month we participated in Plastic Free July and this again made us focus on the waste we create.

Since I found out that soft plastics can be recycled  out rubbish volume has dramatically. We now have only 1 supermarket bag sized bag of rubbish in out bin most weeks.  We are dropping all our plastic off once a month and it is shocking to see how much there is even when you try not to bring plastic into the house.  I think that in generally we will have about 1/2 bag of plastic and 1 bag of actual rubbish each week.

Green - Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.
Just the usual happening on this front.  As it is citrus season I have a catch of citrus cleaner on the go but since there is just the two of us we do not go through that much of our cleaning products.

Grow - plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden?

The garden is producing lots of Silverbeet, cherry tomatoes and herbs, we also have plenty of citrus.  I am having another go at broccoli and mini cabbages but I may have gotten them in too late and I am growing spring onions, beetroot, fennel and celeriac. I also have some peas in but they do not seem that keen on growing so we will see if they amount to anything.

Create - To fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others.

Creations have been on hold this month and reading has taken over.

Discover - Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests.
I have been reading lots over the last month.  Liz lent me some great books and I am working my way through them.
This month I read about 10 different books including A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of the Night and The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness which I really enjoyed.  I will talk about some of the other ones in another post.

Enhance - Community
It is all systems go in organising the car show that I am involved in and things are just getting busier and busier in this area.

Enjoy - Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment.

Both Hubby and I celebrated our birthdays in July so we had a nice meal out with his family but other than that it was pretty quiet.

This is the goats milk and date panacotta I had for my birthday breakfast when we went out.
It was as good as it looks.

What have you been up to?

The Most Disturbing Thing On TV I Have Seen In A Long Time

In conjunction with Plastic Free July I would like to recommend that everyone makes time to watch this documentary.
I aired on Australian TV last week and at the time I did not see it so tonight I watched it online.  Within 10 minutes I felt ill, angry, revolted and ashamed to be part of a so called evolved and intelligent species.

The documentary which you can watch here (until the end of the month) is called 'The Men Who Made Us Spend'.

It is an eye opening account of how products are designed to fail so that we need to replace them and how we are encouraged to spend.
Sadly there is some graphic evidence of what happens to all the electronic waste as our society constantly upgrades, including all of the brand new un-opened boxes of computing equipment, that is thrown out as it becomes 'outdated'.

I know how different the life we live is compared to many people and that we are quite a long way removed form what is the norm (although far from what I call normal).  But one of the facts I found staggering was that over the 1990's to 2000's people in America went from buying approximately 34 pieces of clothing a year to 67 pieces which equates to a new piece of clothing every 5.4 days.
I don't think I have purchased that many new pieces of clothing in the last 5 years.

In the next episode they will explore how our emotions are manipulated and our anxieties exploited so they can sell to us which I think will be very interesting.

If you have already seen it what did you think?

Plastic Free July - My KeepCup

This month I am participating in Plastic Free July and this week I thought I would let you know a few of the things I have started or been doing differently this month.

Recently I was lucky enough to win a KeepCup from Bruise Mouse over at Living a Little Greener and it has been getting a bit of a workout.
The KeepCup is such  great Australian product and you can completely customise yours by picking the colours for each part.  There are a range of sizes to choose from and they are designed to be the same as a regular take away coffee.
I mostly work from home but even at home I love the fact that because of the cups design (and it has a lid) it means my tea/coffee stays hot for ages.  Every month I go into the office for a few days so last week when I worked in the office I took my cup with me.  Not only was it coveted by a number of my colleagues but I also got a 60 cent discount at the coffee shop for using it.  So now if I do want to buy a coffee when I work in the office I do not have the dilemma of crating waste.
The other great use I have found for my KeepCup is for tea/coffee on the road in the car as the passenger.

Here are some good reasons to get yourself a KeepCup.

DISPOSABLE CUP FACTS

• 500 billion disposable cups are manufactured globally every year; that’s about 75 disposable cups for every single person on the planet.
• Half of the plastic used in the world today is for single use items.
• On average, each disposable cup contains 5% of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it.
• In the United States alone, 58 billion disposable cups are thrown out annually, with the majority ending up in landfill; that is, 158 disposable cups for every US inhabitant.
• The 500 billion disposable cups used in the world each year placed end to end could circumnavigate the earth 1,360 times.
• World paper use has exploded by 400% in the last 40 years. Now nearly 4 billion trees or 35% of the total trees chopped down are used in paper industries on every continent.
• 98 tonnes of resources are used to make 1 tonne of paper.
• Globally, we go through about 300 million tons of paper each year. Most of that paper is made from virgin pulp.
• Very little recycled paper is used to make disposable cups because of contamination concerns. Because most disposable cups are coated with plastic, both composting and recycling of disposable cups is uncommon.
• Most of the world’s paper supply, in fact about 71%, still comes from diminishing forests, not tree farms or the recycling bin.
• Urban rubbish has increased tenfold over the course of the twentieth century, from 92 to 1242 pounds of pure product waste per person per year. At this rate, we discard approximately 14.4 times our body weight in waste every year.
• Taiwan discards 1.5 billion disposable cups annually. Landfill issues have given rise to new rules for establishments, to give discounts to all reusable cups. It is expected to produce a 30% reduction of disposable cup use annually, or 450 million cups, saving 110,000 trees and reducing carbon emissions by 15,000 metric tonnes.

Are you as staggered as I was when you read those facts?

A Plastic Free Month -The Challange

Well I have no doubt this is going to be a challange.  I have signed up for Plastic Free July.
The challange is to attempt to buy no single use disposable plastic in July.

This is an initiative of Earth Carers a group in Western Australia.

The Rules

• Between 1 – 31 July, attempt to buy no plastic packaging that cannot be recycled.
• Remember its not going to be easy, but  its a challenge, not a competition so don't worry about being perfect.
• Collect any plastic packaging you do buy. Keep it in a ‘dilemma bag’ and share a photograph at the end of the challenge. 

For a while now I have been trying to cut back on the plastic entering our house that is not able to be recycled.  I have an arrangement with our butcher that I can take in my own containers and he will tare off their weight and fill them with what I need.
I have long given up plastic bags at the green grocer and instead use some old onion bags that I collected.  They weigh nothing and can be used over and over again.

I think that it is going to be a hard month and I am not optimistic about my "dilemma bag"  being empty at the end of the month.

I will be reporting back weekly about my efforts, struggles and the "dilemma bag".

If you have any suggestions about being plastic free please let me know.