Accord at COP15

It was exciting following developments at COP15 via Twitter last night—the first time I've ever been glued to the computer for news.

New Scientist did a great job of on-the-spot coverage (though I imagine this link won't be useful for long).

At one point I was watching a live webcast of the proceedings, marvelling both at the fact that I could, and that any progress is ever made through such a tortuous process.

Useful coverage in the New York Times (albeit US-centric).

And this, no doubt the first of many critiques of the accord.

My favourite tweet of the night, from @newscientist immediately after Obama's announcement of five-nation deal: "G77 block of poor nations crying murder over Obama's climate "deal". EU not signed, back in negotiations. Obama has left the building."

Aro Valley, peg o' my heart

I live in an urban-design utopia.

You know those urban-design or architect's drawings that show idealised settings where everything is tidy and beautiful and there are small knots people walking down the paths, sitting on the artfully designed seating and wandering on the grassed areas? And you know how you expect the reality to be desolate and windswept with clots of rubbish around the base of the trees and no people except a couple of squinty-eyed fourteen-year-olds shiftily smoking cigarettes?

When I walk out into Aro Valley, it actually looks like the drawings.

There are people on the basketball court playing basketball, toddlers playing in the children's playground with their parents, groups of people sitting on the grass in the park hanging out with their friends, more groups of people lingering next to the community centre because they've run into other people they know and stopped to chat.

I've heard that it's the most used public space in Wellington.

I walk three mins to the dairy, cafe, video shop. Stop in at the community garden. Nip across the road to the vegetable market on Sunday mornings, stopping on the way home to pick up a baguette at the bakery. Walk 10 mins more to work or into town.

Imagine if everyone could live somewhere like this. Then we'd really get somewhere on climate change without anyone even feeling like they were giving up anything (except being stuck in traffic).

And on a day when the our government's taking its "emissions reduction" intentions to Copenhagen while simultaneously announcing a $2.4 billion roading project, that's a vision I've got to hold on to.

What's going on in Africa?

First of all twenty thousand Ethiopian students marched on October 23rd for the 350 International Day of Climate Action—that must have been one of the biggest actions anywhere in the world.

Then the Africa Group walked out of the Barcelona pre-Copenhagen climate talks.

Now the African delegation are causing a stir at COP15. Tweet from 350 delegate Aaron Packard on Dec 8th: "African delegates took over the corridor, chanting "1 degree, 1 Africa. 2 degrees is suicide, We will not die quietly!"— and this video just in.

Which makes sense when you read about what climate change is going to do to Africa.

Plastic-free gardening

Before the garden shop incident, I was feeling very proud of how little plastic I'd used in the garden this year.

I planted:

• Awapuni courgette and pumpkin plants (sold wrapped in newspaper at New World)
• Sweetcorn, pea, cornflower, chickpea and annual bean seeds in paper packets
• Scarlet runner seeds saved from last year
• Koanga edamame seeds gifted from a fellow community gardener
• Cherry tomato plants from my dad
• Heritage tomato plants (sold wrapped in newpaper from the organic stall at the Victoria St markets)

Whoo, look at that: zero plastic. Frickin' brilliant!

Nat Rad on COP15

Good piece on the expected negotiations at Copenhagen on National Radio at an unfeasibly early time this morning.

Walk for the Climate

Went to the Sign On Planet A march to Parliament today. It was a full-on protest-style march—all placards and mass chants ("Come on John, can't you see; We don't have a Planet B"). There must have been a thousand people there. It was quite amazing to be in what was effectively a big climate change mob, hearing the roar for climate action.

Then, among the half dozen speakers at Parliament, a Samoan man got up to talk about what climate change means in the Pacific. He spoke about his family home near the sea and how it won't survive sea level rise, and about how Pacific carbon emissions are 1/300th of one percent of the world's. The whole crowd got very quiet.

You get so used to hearing all the dire facts about what is predicted to happen that it starts to feel normal. To hear someone speak from the heart about what they're personally facing made it fresh all over again.

And on Monday the Copenhagen talks begin.

Update on The Three Sisters

The beans and the sweetcorn are now neck-and-neck.

I'm rooting for the corn to get ahead.

No Impact Project

The No Impact Project takes the environmental "gateway" action concept to a whole other level.

I'm kind of tempted to try this. But maybe not this week, when I evilly have to fly to Rotorua and Auckland for work.

Ooh, new garden shop! *wriggles toes happily*

Very excited about Grow from Here, the garden shop on Abel Smith St that just opened TODAY!

Although I've been doing extremely well on being plastic-free in the garden this year, I thought I'd show them some support (and divert my dollars to help create the world I want—ie one where there's a garden shop five minutes walk away :) by buying a basil plant in a (plastic) pot and a (plastic) bag of potting mix.

Did make me laugh when I got to the checkout after thinking about all this and they carefully asked me if I needed a plastic carry bag instead of automatically giving me one, saying "We try not to use too many plastic bags."

Makes me realise that I've moved on from just thinking about plastic bags to noticing disposable plastic everywhere.

Some people are dismissive and say that focusing on not using plastic bags is a waste of time because it lets people feel they are being "green" when in fact plastic bag use (or not) has only a very small impact. But I think that maybe taking a reuseable bag shopping is a gateway action, like drug scaremongers say marijuana is a "gateway" to harder drugs. Making one (easy, obvious) change makes you realise that change is possible, and gets you thinking about stuff.

Good on you Grow from Here. Bless your little heart for taking that first step.

Plastic-free Evans Bay

I filled a plastic supermarket bag (ironic, no?) with bits of plastic picked up off one of the beaches on Evans Bay Parade this weekend. Still thinking about the Pacific Garbage Patch.

That'll be 0.000000000000001% of it fixed, then.

Apricot, nectarine and peach season

Ah ha, brilliant find on the interweb:

I have always felt unsure when apricots, nectarines and peaches come into season. I think of them as summer fruit, but they seem to appear in the markets at a time that I still think of as spring, making me suspicious ...

Have just found a brilliant summer fruit calendar, listing when each one comes into season. And—hooray—apricot and peach season is just around the corner. To celebrate, I'm adding them to the "in season" list, even if it is maybe just a teeny bit early.

Note to self: The Three Sisters

As an experiment I planted The Three Sisters in the garden this year—that's a traditional Native American system where sweetcorn, beans and pumpkins all planted together. It's amazingly efficient—the beans grow up the corn stalks and the pumpkins grow around on the ground between them.

I wasn't sure how to do it so I planted everything together. It looks like I should have waited for the corn to grow a bit before planting the beans—right now the beans are zooming ahead.

Glimmer of hope

HOLD EVERYTHING!

Baking soda PLUS cornflour!

I'll let you know how deodorant 2.0 works out ...

More plastic-free takeaways

I've updated the plastic-free takeaways post, thanks to some info from a friend :)

I'm thankful for the timing, because lately I've been thinking a lot about Beth Terry's line "There is no 'away'" (I usually think about this while I'm throwing some piece of plastic "away" in the rubbish bin), and also about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre.

Someone recently told me that this is like an iceburg—what you see on the surface is only a tiny portion of what is below the surface. The thought of all that plastic rubbish floating around in the ocean makes me want to rush out to the nearest beach and start picking up every bit of rubbish I can see.

Homage to Aro St minimart

The Aro St minimart rocks. Not only can you get Vogels, organic Purebread and organic milk there, it is one of the only places in Wellington that I have been able to find organic, free-range eggs. (Supermarkets usually only have organic barn or cage-free eggs.)

You can even get Architecture NZ in the magazine section.

Aro Valley is the best!

Plastic-free courier packages

Hooray, I've been able to update the Plastic-free actions post.

I use couriers a lot at work, and recently I've discovered that you don't need to use the plastic TrakPacks, you can just use a regular (paper!) envelope and stick a courier sticker on. Since I courier stuff at least a couple of times a week, this represents quite a saving on plastic.

I guess if you're a dyed-in-the-wool greenie this would seem obvious, but I had always assumed you need to use the official plastic bags.

Now I know there's another option it seems obvious to me too.

Plastic tally for one week

This is the plastic I threw away during the week in July when I was keeping a record of it:

window envelopes x 4
magazine wrappers x 2
polystyrene meat tray and plastic wrap
boughten sandwich gladwrap x 2
bread bag
cookie packet

The polystyrene meat tray was an old one from out of the freezer.

Dairy products and carbon emissions

About a year ago I switched to organic butter because it tastes (and keeps) better.

When I went to the emissions reduction target consultations and heard that some 16 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions come from nitrous oxides from nitrogen fertilizer use, I switched to organic milk as well (plus you can now get a low-fat version at Moore Wilson's and New World).

Now that Ravensdown and Solid Energy want to build a plant to convert lignite (brown coal) to urea, I'm going to break down and start buying organic cheese as well.

I never understood before that some fertilizers are literally made out of fossil fuels.

Why would we make fertilizer to grow more food to feed more people based on a resource that's going to run out one day? That's five kinds of crazy.

Global Climate Wake Up Call

This is the international clip for the Global Climate Wake Up Call on September 21.

See if you can spot Civic Square.

Deodorant update

So, risking this being Too Much Information, yet feeling the need to show journalistic integrity by following through with the whole investigation:

I've abandoned the whole baking soda deodorant approach - it was the most effective deodorant I've ever used, but after a while I got funny red patches under my arms. They weren't uncomfortable or itchy, but it just seemed like funny red patches couldn't be good.

So, back to plastic-y commercial roll-on. Sigh. It's really not as good.

A once-only plug for Starbucks

Normally I am anti Starbucks and all that it stands for (slick characterless multinational peddling overlarge overly calorific drinks in throwaway plastic cups) but in a personal lapse today I supported their profit margin by giving them my money. And yes, getting a throwaway plastic cup did make me feel a bit yucky.

(Did I mention their greenwashing with their token fair trade coffee? They talk up their fair trade drinks in their marketing material but if you look carefully at the menu you'll see that only one or two items are actually made with fair trade coffee. Ooh that bugs me.)

But (and here's the once-only plug) while I was there I figured I would pick up one of their bags of used coffee grinds for the garden. I have thought about it before but the bags were always too heavy and I didn't like that the grinds came in a plastic bag ...

Well, today I discovered that the bags aren't so heavy any more AND when I got it up to the garden the plastic bag turned out to be a bag the original beans came in that had been reused (at least, that's what it looks like it is—the top was cut open roughly and there was one of those little coffee bag "breathing" valves on the side).

So I might be popping back there again. Not to buy any drinks, you understand, just to pick up the coffee grinds :)

DIY lip balm

So, I admit this was more of a fun project than a serious plastic-reduction exercise :)

Three of my lip balm containers were running low so I decided to make my own to refill them rather than buying yet another plastic container.

The recipe is at bleuarts.blogspot.com(and check out the awesome knitted Princess Leia hair!)

I used beeswax, olive oil, vitamin E oil and orange essential oil. I had most of these already so the only cost was $9 for a bottle of essential oil—and there's heaps left over for other projects.

It took a bit of fiddling to get the proportions of ingredients right (my first try was solid-as so I had to add more oil ...).

Mmm, the final result smells yummy and orangey. And it seems to be just as good as the bought stuff.

Asparagus season, mmm ...

I've triumphantly added "asparagus" to the list of vegetables in season.

I harvested the very first spear of the year from the garden on Wednesday. It was the best-tasting asparagus I have ever had :)

The Triumph of Compost Girl

After a long campaign, the board of directors has finally agreed to allow a compost collection service for our building.

I'm getting my compost scheme!

It's amazing the things you can do with baking soda

So, like I said: I don't use deodorant, I use baking soda.

I did not believe this would work, but it really does. (I did the sniff test, taking a brisk walk up the Brooklyn hill to movies at the Penthouse, and then, AFTER sitting through a 90-minute movie, asking my companions if I ... er ... smelled. They said I smelt fine.)

Just dust on a little dry baking soda with a powder puff.

And that's one less plastic throwaway item to dispose of.

Plastic-free actions

I've been trying to gradually change my shopping habits one by one to reduce the amount of plastic packaging I buy.

These are my plastic-free actions (a la Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish—I'm not as impressive as she is!)

- plastic shopping bags—take my own reuseable bags
- plastic produce bags—take my own bags to the vegie market
- polystyrene meat trays—only buy meat not on a tray (vacuum-packed or bagged; good sources: Moore Wilsons, Commonsense Organics, Prestons, the deli counter at the supermarket)
- margarine containers—switched to butter in a paper wrapper
- washing-up detergent bottles—refill the bottle at Commonsense
- laundry detergent—refill the bottle at Commonsense
- deodorant—use baking soda
- pads/tampons—Mooncup
- Gladwrap—use Tupperware containers; put leftovers in a bowl and cover with a saucer; or put the whole casserole dish in the fridge
- soap—buy unpackaged Ecostore soap (Commonsense or health food shop in Cuba St); in the supermarket the best choice seems to be Red Seal brand, which comes in a cardboard box
- toilet paper—I buy the recycled Safe brand, which comes in a paper wrapper.
- courier bags—use paper envelopes and courier stickers

Plastic-reduction actions
- toothpaste—buy biggest size tube (I figure this is less plastic per volume of toothpaste)
- nuts/dried fruit—buy in bulk in reuseable zip-loc bags at the supermarket bulk bins

My goal is to be able to come back and add to the list.

Eating in season

I'm amazed at how hard it has become to tell what's in season by looking in the shops.

I was downright dumbfounded to see asparagus in New World the other day. I'm hanging out for the asparagus in the garden to start sprouting, but that's months away. (When I looked closely there was a tiny "Produce of USA" label.)

I've got some sense of the rythmn of the seasons from gardening, but it's getting really confusing with everything available all the time. Sometimes I see produce for sale—say, peaches and apricots in early summer—and think "I don't think that's in season", but I know that I don't really know.

So I've added a list of what's in season to WellingtonCompostGirl, over there on the right hand side.

I'm tempted to add another list: what's NOT in season, although it's still right there in the vegie market—tomatoes, capsicums, papayas ...


Looking at the list, I feel quite pleased by how closely it resembles the fresh fruit and vegetables I currently have in the house. Mmm, must make leek and potato soup ...

Building-wide compost a step closer

Yahoo! An excellent meeting of the composting working party tonight. They are keen to take a couple of composting options back to the board of directors.

Everyone was enthusiastic about the city council's Kai to Compost service, which collects food waste like a regular wheelie-bin rubbish collection—except that they compost the food scraps instead of dumping them.

"I can't see why it wouldn't scream through the board," said one person.

Emissions target consultation announced

The government has announced public consultation on the emissions target it should take to Copenhagen in December.

Oxfam and Greenpeace advocate a 40% reduction in 1990 emissions by 2020.

The Wellington consultation meeting is on 6 July at Te Papa.

The people around me are awesome

From the friends who are trying to find ways to compost although they don't have gardens, to my dad who helped me adapt the brackets on my curtain rail so I wouldn't have to get a whole new one, to the guy next to me on the plane who got his own bottle refilled with water instead of getting a plastic cup—you all rock!

Sign On

I've signed the Greenpeace petition, Sign On.

The site is worth poking around in too, there's some good information.

BTW, when they say "40% reduction in emissions by 2020", they mean 40% of 1990 levels.

Do green cleaners kill germs?

It did cross my mind to wonder if I was endangering my flatmate's health with my green cleaning approach. If I don't use Harpic is she going to catch something off the toilet seat?

But a health officer of my acquaintance tells me that vinegar should work well enough, because an acidic environment works to kill bugs. (The same reason that pickling preserves food.)

So, no guilt.

Buying tissues updated

After a phone call to Kimberly Clark, I've updated the post on buying tissues.

Compost working party

My apartment building's board of directors has agreed to establish a working party to look into composting schemes.

Non-toxic cleaners

The Greenpeace blog gives a good rundown on non-toxic cleaners:
http://weblog.greenpeace.org.nz/personal-action/green-cleaning/

I generally just sprinkle baking soda on a sponge to wipe surfaces, then sprinkle the sponge with vinegar and wipe off. In the shower I sprinkle the baking soda directly on the floor and scrub, then sprinkle with vinegar and rinse.

I have also been using these two recipes:

Floor cleaner
4L hot water
A squirt of liquid soap (I use Dr Bronner's)
A cup of white vinegar

Toilet cleaner
Throw 1 cup baking soda and 1 cup white vinegar in the toilet bowl. Leave 10 minutes then scrub.
Wipe seat etc. with tea tree oil on a damp cloth.

Source: Nissen, W. (2008). Beyond elbow grease. Heritage New Zealand. Summer, pp. 18–19.


There are more recipes on Channel4.com:
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/diy-self-build/diy-build-advice/a-z-of-diy-building-guides/eco-cleaning-08-05-20_p_1.html

I love my shower squeegee

Although I am trying to reduce the plastic in my life, it's not all evil. My all-time favourite piece of plastic is my shower squeegee.
At risk of sounding too 1950s housewife, cleaning soap scum off the shower glass was the bane of my life, and nasty chemicals seemed essential. Now I just squeegee the water off after every shower and the problem is gone. I haven't cleaned the shower glass for months. Yahoo. Embrace freedom!

White vinegar

Recently I've been trying to use non-toxic materials like baking soda and white vinegar to clean the house.

Hence I've also been looking for a good cheap source of bulk ingredients. Today I found 10L containers of white vinegar at Moore Wilson's for $6.55—by far the best option I've come across to date.

Otara

Work sent me to Manukau Institute of Technology for a book launch on Friday.

For notorious South Auckland it was nicer than I expected.
Down Otara Rd there were loads of citrus trees in front gardens.
Ngati Otara Kura Kaupapa had a splendid bed of winter vegetables (silverbeet and brassicas). That cheered me up immensely.

Then it was worse.
At the end of the road Ngati Otara Park backs on to Otara Creek. There was a sign up saying "Warning: Polluted. Do not swim, do not fish."

I felt quite shocked. Even worse, Manukau City Council says it's due to industrial pollution:
http://www.manukau.govt.nz/tec/catchment/otara_pages/otara_background.htm

Compost run

After days of rain it felt like a treat to take the compost scraps up to the community garden this morning. There was quiet sunshine, the worms were writhing merrily in the worm farm, my endive seedlings were thriving in the new cloche. Worth being late to work for :)

Plastic-free takeaways

I hate when takeaways come with extra guilt (like: I'm already being too lazy to cook, do you have to give me polystyrene boxes and plastic #5 containers to feel guilty about as well?) Sometimes even traditional old fish and chips spring surprise plastic on you.

So I want to make list of good takeaway places that result in no rubbish to landfill:

- Aro Valley fish'n'chip shop
- Pizza Pomodoro
- Hell Pizza
- Kapai
- Rice Bowl Burger Bar, Newtown [at least if you order fish & chips]
- most kebab places [at least if you order falafel]


Takeaway places with potential for plastic-free options:

- Offbeat Originals, Left Bank [if you get a burger, not a milkshake]
- Burger King [if you get a burger and/or fries and no drink]
- McDonalds [if you get a burger and/or fries and no drink]
- Nando's [if you get a burger, no drink and refuse the extra sauces in plastic packing]
- Burger Fuel [but watch out for the aioli with the fries—it comes in a wee plastic tub]
- Subway [if you can avoid the plastic bag they automatically put your paper-wrapped sandwich in]

And here's a list of takeaways to avoid because they have plastic elements:

- Chok Chai Thai takeaway in Newtown, much as I love the food
- Higher Taste, Old Bank Arcade
- Wishbone [most containers are nonrecyclable #5 plastic]
- most Chinese takeaways [though I'd love to know exceptions]
- most Indian takeaways [though ditto]
- most takeaway sushi [ditto again]

Help! Most of the ones I can think of are plastic-y. Any advances?

The Compost Chronicles #1

Late last year I made a proposal to my building's body corporate board of directors for an apartment-building-wide composting scheme. They turned it down. ("There's not enough space in the rubbish room for another bin.")
But I've talked to almost half the residents and a good two-thirds want composting.
So I'm going to the next board meeting to ask them to look at it again.

Feel the Heat

Oxfam has a petition to pressure the New Zealand government to agree to an effective climate change deal at the Copenhagen talks in December:

www.oxfam.org.nz/feeltheheat

Buying tissues

Trying to make conscious consumer choices can be hard work. For example, buying tissues. Once I would have just bought the ones with the least-ugly box, but now I'm in the paper-products aisle for twenty minutes, blocking the aisle with my trolley while I read the fine print.

But I think I've finally got it sorted. The last two times I chose Kleenex: Two-ply, not ridiculously huge. Made in Australia from "plantations and sustainably managed forests that meet appropriate forestry codes". Far from perfect, but seems to be the best there is.

Why aren't there any Made in New Zealand? Don't we have forests here?

Updated 28.5.09:

Perhaps I should switch to Sorbent ...

WWF report on this issue:
http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/forests/our_solutions/responsible_forestry/forest_conversion_agriculture/tissue_issue/

(This 2006 independent assessment of major European brands rates SCA best, Kimberly Clark fourth of five. The others were not assessed.)

Kleenex (Kimberly Clark)—Made in Australia; raw material sourced from "plantations and sustainably managed forests that meet appropriate forestry codes"; bleaching method not stated; recycled cardboard box.
Updated 10 June—Phone call to Kimberly Clark information line: oxygen (not chlorine) bleached; fibre is from pine plantations
website: http://www2.kleenex.com/au/
Updated 11 July—Follow-up phone call from Kimberly Clark: NZ and Australian tissues are made from pulp sourced from a mill in South Australia, or imported from Thailand or Italy. Most pulp is PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) certified.
From corporate website: Wood is South Australian planation pine, South American eucalyptus and North American softwood. Around 10% is not certified.
Corporate website is: www.kca.com.au

Symphony "Sneezes" (ABCtissue)—Made in Australia; no info on source of raw material; "chlorine free"; great environmental claims on company website for other ABCtissue brands (Earthcare toilet tissue).
Updated 10 June—Emailed ABCtissue for information about bleaching method and fibre source 28 May 09; no reply to date. I'll let you know if any information comes through.
website : http://www.abctissue.com/web/nz/

Sorbent (SCA tissues)—large box = Made in Australia; small box = "Made in New Zealand from local and imported materials"; five-year plan to have all fibre from certified sources; oxygen (not chlorine) bleached; and some waste-reduction programmes in manufacturing process (see their website).
website: http://www.sorbent.com.au/
Update 11 July: Further digging on their website. SCA is a Swedish company. Certification internationally is FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council). Two mills in Australasia—Kawerau in NZ and Box Hill in Australia. At least some of the pulp for the Australian mill comes from Brazilian plantation eucalyptus.

Pams and Budget—Made in Malaysia and make no claims for greenness on the box.

And in all this—a simple, old-fashioned soft-on-the-nose reuseable cloth handkerchief is good! (Unless you have an actual cold and are germy ...)

Baby beets

I made my first purchase at the new organic stall at the Victoria St vege market last weekend. A bunch of baby beets—$2. They have a good variety of potatoes too.

Watties

I felt depressed in the canned goods aisle looking for actual canned New Zealand produce.
So I rang Watties to ask what "Made from local and imported ingredients" meant on the back of their cans of pears (they have the worst customer service line, by the way—you have to give a million personal details before you can even ask a question).
Hooray—they said that yes, they use local fruit, and (claimed) they would state specifically if they used imported fruit.

Home-dried fruit

I've been trying out drying fruit in the oven.
The result? The. Best. Dried Apple. Ever.
Tangy and full of flavour, way better than the stuff you buy. (What's up with that? Maybe it's fresher, or perhaps I just used better apples?)

Method:
Peel and slice fruit.
Lay out in a single layer on wire racks in the oven.
Turn the oven on as low as possible (< 90 C). (If you have it too hot the surface seals and moisture from the inside can't escape properly.) Wedge open the door with the handle of a wooden spoon.
Leave for ages until the fruit is leathery and you can't squeeze out any moisture (about 10 hours for the apples).
The Joy of Cooking says you should "pasteurize" the fruit once it's dry - bake at 80 C for 15 minutes.

Granny Smiths - highly recommended.

Here's the thing

So here's the thing:
I believe Jared Diamond and Hazel Henderson when they say (and I paraphrase) that when you shop you choose the kind of world you live in.
And I believe that I should try to be green and live more sustainably.
But what I want to know is: what does this actually mean for me, living here in my apartment in Wellington?

One

Why Compost Girl?
Well, this year I started collecting compost scraps from neighbours in my apartment building. When my new flatmate moved in, she got into a conversation with someone in the lift and told them which apartment she was in. Their response: "Oh, with Compost Girl!"