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100 miles of food

I love the Good Living section of the SMH even though we don't eat out as much as we used to. We tend to cook at home more these days. Which is why I was fascinated to read this article about the couple who embarked on a 100 mile diet - committing only to eat foods sourced within 100 miles of their home in Vancouver.

Both Simon and I read the article with interest and we both had the same reaction - we could never manage that. I think it's because the restriction was on every ingredient in every food had to be sourced within 100 miles of home. I don't know too many wheat farms in the Sydney basin and we are undeniably a gluten-based family (the kids couldn't go a day within consuming pasta in some form).

But even if we don't source absolutely all our foods locally, perhaps we can start asking our providers where they source their food from, so we can opt for the locally grown stuff whenever we can. I think we can also switch from buying bread and dairy which are shipped all over the country (Lawsons Bread comes from Victoria, how can that be?). I will be on the look out for locally Sydney based bakers and dairy from around NSW.

That also strengthens my resolve to shop at the Farmer's Market on Addison Road in Marrickville every weekend instead of when I feel like it. Even though it's not 100 miles from home, the Saltbush lamb they have there is worth the journey alone.

freecycle works, and how

After building the garden bed out of recycled packing pallets, I became a little recycle-crazy and decided the whole back corner has to be recycled. So I joined up to freecycle the community  of people who give stuff away and get other stuff.

We use our hallway and hall table to store things that need to be given away - either given back to people who lent them to us or given away. Bags of clothes for the St Vinnies sit there until they bug me to take them to the charity shop. Piles of books taunt me to return them to their owners. A few things have been haunting the hall for weeks, waiting for me to take them down to Reverse Garbage.

Instead I freecycled them. I took some digital snaps, posted them online and in less than 24 hours they were gone! Some were collected by people in the local neighbourhood. One, a heater with a broken control panel (dangerous for the kids but otherwise working) I gave away to a freecycle user who lives up the street from my Mother in Law (owner of the taunting books) so I dropped off the heater and the books in one go.

Nothing was left to take to Reverse Garbage but my hall table is clean.

Here is how freecycle works:

1. Go to www.freecycle.org.au
2. Sign up, give yourself a user name and password
3. List your contact details (email is probably best, phones are too risky)
4. List your suburb - this is really important because most of your interest will be from locals
5. Offer something to give away for free. You can't list "wanted" ads on freecycle until you have offered something to give away.
6. If you want to get rid of something fast, take a photo of it. The things which go first are the ones with photos. but take the photo using a fairly small setting on your camera because the site won't let you put up high resolution photos.
7. Other users will contact you by email. You can then arrange to have the goods collected.
8. Take your ad down as soon as your stuff is gone (to avoid getting emails after the goods are no longer available)

Now I am hoping that someone has some concrete pavers to give away so I can finish my back corner garden.

recycled garden bed

On the weekend we filled our new garden bed with soil ready for planting up with late winter crops. The garden bed has been part of our on going project to turn the weedy, dejected, hidden back corner of the yard into a productive paradise. Let's just say it's a work in progress.

It's a hard working corner of the garden because it has two water tanks, a clothes line, the compost bin, the worm farm and now, a garden bed for veggies. The longer term plan is for one more garden bed, some pavers under the clothes line and some gravel paths in between. All that in 4mx4m!

Here is a little video showing how we made the garden bed out of old packing pallets.

We then filled it halfway up with old leaves, newspapers, cardboard boxes (to suppress the weeds). We then filled the top 40cm or so with premium potting mix to give the veggies the best start we could. We have planted brocili and peas at the moment. Zac says he wants carrots "of his very own" next.

Greenpeace ratings for electronics companies

Yesterday Greenpeace released the latest of their quarterly reports on electronics manufacturers. They rate them depending on use of toxic chemicals, energy efficiency and e-waste policies (see all their criteria here) and only two companies, neither of them major PC manufacturers, achieved over a 5/10 rating. That means almost every electronics manufacturer failed. Consider this list next time you purchase electronic goods.

Looking forward to spring already

Today was that rare occurence: clear, warm winter's day and a day at home with no plans. Nell and I hauled out weeds, discovered that our orchid (very, very pot bound, but still thriving) has 6 flower spikes and began filling in our new veggie bed.

Soy and I decided to clear part of our back corner to put in veggie beds, using as much recycled material as possible. Soy found packing pallets on the street which he pulled apart and reconstructed into a (slightly rickety) raised bed surround.

Nell and collected all the dried leaves, remnants of mummified guavas and other garden detritus and began filling in the bed. We then laid two cardboard boxes (from home shop, I wish those online people were a little better about saving packaging) and newspaper which Nell then assiduously watered in with tank water. We then went out to get some cow manure and potting mix. Of course we couldn't resist buying some seedlings to spur us on to finish the bed on the weekend.

As soon as it is done I will post photos of our recycled garden bed, filled with spring onions, brocili and pea seedlings. Hopefully they will last the winter and give us an early spring crop, before the tomatoes go in around September.

Suddenly winter isn't feeling that bleak after all.

cyclin' stylin'

I was intrigued to read a story in the SMH today about the Danish ambassador's attendance at a bike exhibition. The ambassador said that in Denmark cycling is a way of life, cyclist have their own lanes, lights and end-of-ride facilities.

After loving cycling all this week (no rain! hooray!) I felt a little jealous of the Danes for whom cycling is a viable form of transport for everyone. I would love to see Australia's love affair with the car end and our bikes take more priority.

Green washing coal

Today Greenpeace released its report on an energy revolution, saying the Australia's largest contribution to greenhouse gases is through the use of coal-fired power stations. It also says that 'clean coal' is a total furphy, it can't be produced in the timeframe necessary. Revnewable energy is our only alternative.

I really thought that this government would be in favour of renewable energy, but in fact its policies, on photo-voltaic panels at least, are backward. Under the guise of 'fairness' they have in fact just made the subsidy pointless for everyone.

Hopefully enough people will read the Greenpeace report to realise that electing a Labour government who ratified Kyoto really hasn't made one iota of difference to the real climate change problem.

the future is very f**king expensive

Thank you to our friends over at Get Up! who have made this fantastic ad about the fuel watch scheme, and environment policy generally.

Petrol prices - adding insult to injury

The whole hoo-haa about petrol prices is an argument Australia shouldn't be having. Our petrol prices are already lower than many OECD countries. As the SMH reported in its front-page scare mongering story on petrol prices last Thursday, Australians will have to institute lifestyle changes to deal with the rising cost of fuel. This was reported as a bad thing but actually it's going to do us a lot of good in the long run.

The thing that Australians need to realise is that the days of cheap fuel are over. This surge in the price of oil is not being caused by some temporary problem like the Gulf War, it's because China and India have an insatiable apetite for fuel. Petrol is going to be this expensive from now on and cutting fuel excise or GST on fuel is going to be a bandaid measure at best.

The other point is that higher fuel prices will force people to make lifestyle changes. And higher prices now mean we will make changes now. If we use less fuel (because, say, the prices of petrol is so high we collectivley stop buying so much) that can only be a good thing. Maybe motorists will become public transport users, maybe they'll become cyclists. Maybe people will start shopping at local markets or think about buying cheaper produce that is grown locally.Who knows?

But I can only see that rising fuel prices, if they do kick along social change instead of political panic, could be a very good thing.

Solar panel subsidies - why the government has got it wrong

While the new Labor government has been priding itself on its environmental credentials (and with groups like Get Up! giving a helping hand to their campaign you should hope that they have some credentials) I have been very disappointed by the decision to place a $100,000 income cap on the subsidy for installing solar panels.

Solar panels are expensive. The cost saving on energy bills (assuming that prices stay at or around current levels) are not enough to justify spending the money. Unless you have enough money to meet your basic food, shelter and transport needs and a little to spare making your carbon footprint smaller. Those people are likely to live in households earning more than $100,000.

Those higher income earners are the only households who really have anychance of paying the $5,000 odd it costs to install solar panels after the subsidy, but even those households will struggle to find $13,000 (quite possibly more than 10% of their income) in any one year. You can absolutely bet that households below $100,000 will probably have used most of that income just to support themselves, without leaving $5,000 over to pay for panels so they are not going to be using the subsidy anyhow.

Under the previous system of uncapped subsidies really the only people able to afford solar panels were the wealthier families earning over say $150,000 per year. Now no one other than the very, very wealthy will be able to afford panels.

The ultimate environmental outcome is that very many fewer solar panels will be installed (indeed businesses installing panels reported huge cancellations in recent weeks). So our carbon emissions remain high and probably grow as more people demand electricity.

Subsidies are not welfare. I agree that welfare should not be going to the already well-off, but subsidies are designed to do something entirely different: they are designed to encourage people to do something. In this case to adopt solar technology. By capping the subsidy the government is heavily diluting the effect of the tool. In an effort to keep up the appearance of not helping rich people, this government is throwing out the environmental baby with the bath water.