Biodegradable pen

Look at this!



No, really, it is exciting - look closer!



Who'd've thought it? A biodegradable pen!

Amazing.

This one is made by Lecce , who don't give away a lot about what it's made of (though I suspect it might help if I spoke Italian).

And what's more, this is just the tip of the iceberg - have a dekko at this array of biodegradable pens.

Plastic-free basil

Look at this marvellous piece of marvellousness!

Last year I had to buy basil in a plastic pot (grumble grumble) but this year I found basil seedlings for sale in a recycled takeaway coffee cup.

Good on you Grow from Here.

A message from Bangkok

I was excited to get this notebook from a Thai friend:



I can't read most of what it says, but if you look really close, in the top left-hand corner it says "Stop global warming."



It's awesome to think that in other parts of the world, in other languages, people care about climate change too.

Choose Your World - Local Elections 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNwBnHRZnTI

Conscious Consumers

This is a nice little initiative by the non-profit 42 Collective:

Conscious Consumers

It's a Wellington-based project to award cute badges to cafes that follow "sustainability" practices (fair trade, composting, organic, seasonal produce, recycling, allowing BYO cups, eco-friendly cleaners, free-range eggs, compostable packaging).

It's worth checking out the details of the badges on the website - requirements for earning some of them are pretty mild (for example, to qualify for the "seasonal produce" badge, only three dishes on the menu need to use entirely seasonal produce).

Cafes do get charged to belong, which might explain obvious omissions such as People's Coffee (who obviously could qualify for the Fair Trade badge). Badges are awarded mainly based on the declarations of the cafes, although 42 Collective "reserve the right to audit".

I've yet to spot the badges in cafe windows, but the website is handy for finding which cafes belong.

I'll definitely be more likely to go to Meow for my cafe treats - the closest cafe that promises to use organic milk!


Update Nov 2010:
Conscious Consumers is growing - People's Coffee have joined up and the website has about 20 cafes in total now. It's tipped to spread to Auckland soon!

But what can I do?

Sometimes I find all the bad news about the state of the planet overwhelming and start to think "But what can I do?"

In these moments I often find myself turning to a touchstone - a list of actions put together by Jared Diamond in Collapse.(It's buried back in the "Further Reading" section, pp. 555-560.)

He says there are half a dozen things every individual can usefully do:

1. Vote (and let your elected representative know your views).

2. Reconsider what you do and don't buy.

3. Draw public attention to the policies and actions of companies (he recommends praising the good as well as condemning the bad). He also points out that it's more effective to target retailers and brands that sell to the public, because they are the most sensitive to consumer pressure.

4. Talk to others who vote and buy.

5. Be involved in work to improve your local environment.

6. Donate money to environmental organisations.

I think it's a good list.

Where are your undies made?

I've been wanting to write a post on Made-in-NZ knickers for ages.

I've hunted down three brands:

Munro


Munro have the craziest website ever (yet kind of brilliant in its simplicity): http://www.munroclothing.com/

But I'm pretty sure they must be the same knickers described on the Greenlist as made in NZ out of fabric offcuts: http://www.greenlist.co.nz/Sustainable/Eco-Friendly/656/Underwear--Made-In-NZ-From-Fabric-Offcuts.aspx

Munro now has a shop on Cuba St, and is no longer selling them through Good Score in Island Bay.

Verdict:
Cute, bright, comfy, a bit more sexy than Fanny Adams.
$25

Thunderpants



Then there are Thunderpants ... http://www.thunderpants.co.nz/go/home/
The pair I bought were size "small", the same as I'd bought for the other brands ... unfortunately for me these were in fact size "too small".
The design is much the same as Fanny Adams, so they probably perform similarly. And the packaging is 100% plastic-free.

Available at Madame Fancy Pants ($28) and Frutti (where they're only $25) on Cuba St and The Vault and Voon on Willis.

Verdict: Love the fabric patterns (the only knickers I've ever owned with insects on!). They're probably excellent, if I'd gone for the more generous size.

Fanny Adams

[Photo coming when the washing is dry!]

But my favourite so far are Fanny Adams: www.fannyadams.co.nz
Like they say on their business card: no sagging, no riding up, no visible panty line. Perfection in a pair of undies!

I bought mine at the craft fair in Nelson, but you can buy them through their website too. Tempting ...

Verdict: Supercomfy and cute, plus they're the cheapest of the bunch!
$17

New Zealand Organic Report 2010

I picked up a copy of the New Zealand Organic Report 2010 pamphlet last week ("Data from the University of Otago" it says, in a reassuring authoritative way on the back).

In it is a nice fact: organically farmed soils store 28% more carbon.

That alone makes me feel good about buying organic food.

Winter

Rain. Having the heater on. Coming home from work in the dark. Wearing your woolies. Baked potatoes. That's what June's about.

I miss the garden.

(Love the wintry list of produce that's in season though.)

Hard-wearing shoes

Shoe lovers, I have two words for you: Minnie Cooper.

My discovery of the week - I bought a pair and I'm besotted with them!

They are:
- made in New Zealand
- all leather, apart from the heel and the sole plate they recommend you get put on
- repairable-looking - you could replace the heel and the sole plate when they get worn

They're not cheap, but I'm optimistic they will last long enough to make up.

And did I mention pretty? :)


Other notes I've gleaned about good and bad shoe brands:

Wore out quickly:
Hush Puppies
Miss Sophie
All Stars

Seemed to last well:
DV8
Sole shoes

Picking up rubbish at the beach

I love that when I start picking up plastic rubbish from the beach, people don't laugh at me and tell me I'm weird. They start picking it up too.

Even more plastic-free takeaways

I've updated the plastic-free takeaways post again, this time thanks a hasty dinner at McDonalds.

Although my quarter-pounder and fries were in fact plastic free, I did notice that I was eating 75% of my daily fat allowance in one sitting. But I leave that part of the choice up to your nutritional conscience :)


Also interesting to see a strong split between food styles: fish and chips, pizza and burgers come out generally low in plastic; various Asian takeaways (Chinese, Thai, Indian, sushi) seem to be mostly plastic-y.

Hill St farmers' market

It was my first visit to the Hill St Farmers' Market yesterday.

First thought: So that's where the organic vegie stall has gone to from the Victoria St market.

Second thought: Hmm, it is a bit of a chichi, high-end market, aimed at the eco-affluent rather than a dirt-under-the-fingernails farmers market (stalls with chocolates, cupcakes, olive oil etc. rather than earthy vegies and half sides of sheep).

Third (excited) thought: Fish?!

And there it was: Splashzone, a van selling fish caught locally off the Wairarapa coast. They say they're a family business and catch under the quota management system.

I asked and they said they catch the fish either with lines (for hapuku and one other species) or with nets. What kind of nets? I asked. They looked at me like I was a little crazy and said they had nets with different-sized holes for different species.

I guess I was thinking: gillnet? purse seine net? They didn't really give me quite enough information to know, but from the photos on the website it's clearly a small boat with small nets, so I'm thinking this isn't bottom trawling or one of those operations with nets so big you can fit a fleet of aeroplanes through the mouth. So I reckon it's probably not too bad as commercial fishing goes.

And they gave me a scoop of chipped ice in the bag to take my smoked lemonfish home in. Nice.

Plastic-free meat

If you ask at the deli counter at the supermarket (New World, anyway), they'll just wrap your meat in paper.

New shoes, new ideas

After blogging about throwing out shoes, I've been thinking about solving the problem at source – when I buy.

Recently I needed new sneakers, so after a bit of humming and ha-ing I bought some Vejas from Starfish. These are super eco-shoes: soles of wild natural rubber from the Amazon, organic cotton and vege-tanned leather uppers. I was surprised the box didn't play me the sound of the rainforest when I opened it.

They were also quite expensive.

I was reminded of this post on green fashion by Chris Lawrence (who really needs to change the name of his blog to something more positive).

And I reckon he's right.

I don't need fancy organic-this and recycled-that shoes with a cleverly written label to make me feel good and prop up my eco-cred. I just need to find some good, hard-wearing shoes that don't look like instant landfill fodder.

Oh, and did I mention pretty? :)

So what's a girl to do? Where can I get long-lasting shoes? Any ideas?

No plastic bags anthem

Ok, I admit it: It's a little old, but I totally love this!



It's an absolute, straight-up-and-down total pisstake, right? Utterly brilliant.

And after you've stopped laughing, I bet you can't stop humming it for the next two hours.

Deodorant 2.0 update

Reporting back on deodorant 2.0:

During the height of summer I found 50:50 baking soda and cornflour didn't seem to be quite effective enough, so I switched back to regular plastic-y deodorant.

But now daylight saving is off and we're back in "winter" mode, I'm going to try deodorant 2.0 again.

Double glazing

Excited - getting secondary glazing installed - right now as I'm typing.

Do the two installers realise they are eco-heroes, part of the new green economy? (Err, I reckon not, they are clumping around in a tradesman-like way with tape measures and step ladders, squinting at the windows and muttering techie-sounding stuff. But anyhoo.)

High up in an existing apartment building with floor-to-ceiling windows, retrofitting actual double-glazing was never going to happen - way too expensive. And my view is way too awesome for that short-term shrinkfilm stuff.

But this seems like a good answer - sheets of perspex that are attached to the inside of the window frame. I had the bedrooms done last year - the view is perfect during the day (though there's some kind of reflection that gives me a double-image of the lights outside at night). And it has worked brilliantly - noticeably warmer and NO condensation.

The other nice thing is that if you get any condensation between the panes (sometimes a problem with double glazing), you can break the magnetic seal and let it dry out.

So, excited that the living room's happening today. Just in the nick of time for winter.

Celebrating six months of building-wide composting

It's hard to believe but Kai to Compost has been operating at our apartment building for about six months already!

I'm thrilled that it has been going brilliantly, with very few problems. Lots of residents have been using it, which is fantastic.

We get the bin collected once a week. There haven't really been any problems with smell or flies - there have been one or two flies around the rubbish room over the summer, but that's normal. We do ask people not to put meat or fish in the compost bin to try and minimise problems.

As with our recycling bins, a few people put the wrong stuff in the wrong bin. I think that's inevitable and should lessen as people become more familiar with the system.

Most people wrap their food scraps in newspaper, so we have this tidy pile of newspaper packages in the bin every week. I think we must have the neatest compost bin in Wellington!

Although the body corporate board was very skeptical and hard to convince at first, even they're sold now.

Fish & chips

Went to see The End of the Line over the weekend. Although it is an eco-propaganda movie, it's actually pretty good – it presents a lot of scary information but doesn't beat you over the head too much – and there's the compensation of lots of stunning underwater fish footage.

I have been trying to avoid fish & chips, but after a long day dinner tonight ended up coming from the Aro Valley fish & chip shop. I asked them what kind of fish they use: it's warehou, all three species of which (blue, silver and white warehou) are better to avoid.

Next time I'll ask for the tarakihi option, which is a wee bit better.

Want to save the world? Take a kid into the wild.

In my random and slightly omnivorous reading, I came across something interesting yesterday:

"Tanner (1980), in his work on significant life experiences and environmental values of dedicated, environmentally aware and actively committed individuals concluded that childhood experiences in natural areas were key in shaping and developing these interests."

Tanner, T. (1980). Significant life experiences. The Journal of Environmental Education, 11(4), 20-24.

(The quote is from Barker, S. Ecological education: Reconnecting with nature to promote sustainable behaviour. In D. Zandvliet & D. Fisher (Eds.), Sustainable communities, sustainable environments: The contribution of science and technology education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

And here's some follow-up on practical ways to do it:
Special places for young children

DIY Peanut butter

Another idea that *might* be a plastic-reduction exercise or might just be a fun try-making-it-for-yourself project — DIY peanut butter.

Super easy: I just get a bag of salted, roasted peanuts (sold as snack food in supermarkets), throw it in the food processor and drizzle in some vegetable oil as it runs. Once it's reached the texture you like, it's done.

I could go really hard-core and try and source peanuts that aren't packaged in plastic, but I figure a flimsy little plastic bag is still way less plastic than a whole jar + lid.

A $3.89 400g value pack of roasted peanuts makes a 400g jar of peanut butter - that's about the same price as the cheap made-in-China stuff.

Beach clean-up

It was great to see forty or fifty people out on the Cobham Drive coast yesterday, picking up rubbish for the Forest & Bird Seaweek beach clean-up. Older people, younger people, kids—all pitching in.

There was a heap of rubbish wedged among the rocks. Plastic drink bottles galore.

At least 10 rubbish sacks were filled in the couple of hours I was there.

Most interesting find: Barbie's shoe

Most ironic find: a tie between an "NZ Natural" plastic water bottle and a plastic city council rubbish bag

Sealord comes through with the info

I managed to get hold of Sealord today.

Having finally got through to Hannah, she was pleasant and helpful and told me what I wanted to know (and apologised, saying she hadn't got the message to call me back earlier).

She tells me that the Sealord tuna fishing method is purse seine - so I've updated the canned tuna post.

She also said the tuna are caught in the Western Pacific and processed near Thailand, and that Sealord are reducing their catch of the less plentiful yellowfin tuna in favour of skipjack tuna.

Sealord

On the last Thursday or Friday of March (25th or 26th) I called Sealord to ask them how their canned skipjack tuna is caught.

They, of course, weren't able to tell me, but said that if I give them my details "Hannah can call you back with that information."

So I politely give them my name and phone number. Have I heard back? No.

Last week I tried to call them a couple more times, both times got a recorded "we're not available right now"-type message.

So, Sealord, what's up with this? Why so cagey?

Seaweek: canned tuna

This week is Seaweek. So, a few fishy posts.

I've been trying to figure out if there are any canned tuna products I feel happy buying.

Background:

The Greenpeace fish red list and Forest & Bird Best Fish Guide both highlight tuna as fish to avoid eating because of low numbers.
When you look at the details, some species of tuna (bluefin, yellowfin, bigeye and others) are worse off, while skipjack tuna are more plentiful. But it depends on how they are caught.

Greenpeace's While Stocks Last report says:

"Anyone buying tuna should select skipjack tuna, but make sure it is either from the New Zealand fisheries (where the cooler waters avoid the bycatch of other tuna species) or from Pacific catches that use trolling or pole and line. Skipjack from
the Pacific purse seine fisheries, particularly those using fish aggregation devices (FADs) should be avoided because of large catches of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin that school together with skipjack."

Albacore tuna are not as good as skipjack, but more plentiful than some of the other tuna species.

With this criteria in mind, I've been checking out the canned tuna in the supermarket:

Ocean Pure - White albacore - location of fishing not explicit (assume NZ?) - hook and line caught (dolphin-friendly) - canned in Blenheim
Factsheet from Natural and Organic Imports

They don't yet have a website up at www.oceanpure.com

Talleys - White albacore - NZ-caught - fishing method not stated ('dolphin-friendly')- appears to be packed in Vietnam
http://www.talleys.co.nz/seafood.htm

Greenseas - Skipjack - Western Pacific Ocean - purse seine caught
http://www.greenseas.com.au/environment.asp


Sealord - Skipjack - Western Pacifc Ocean, Indian Ocean - purse seine caught
http://www.sealord.biz/faq.asp?id=147

Not enough information:

ChopChop! Tuna - Davies Foods - species, source, fishing method unstated - manufactured in Thailand.
http://www.daviesfoods.co.nz/Chop-Chop-Tuna.html

Trident - I haven't found any info to date.


Nothing seems perfect. Ocean Pure might be the best option of this lot, but for now I'm going to keep on avoiding buying canned tuna.

NB I've found it hard to find out adequate information. As a general note, Te Ara/The Encyclopedia of New Zealand says "Most canned tuna in New Zealand is imported skipjack or yellow tuna."
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/oceanic-fish/2/1

Late summer

I love this time of year—when, if you turn your back for a moment, the garden gets away on you.

Today I got a fistful of fat beans and a zucchini that was making a break for marrowdom.

Tank bread

I've discovered the Tank loaf at Aro Bake.

Yes! Finally a boughten bread that meets my criteria:

1. Wholemeal
2. Reasonably priced (@ $3.80 a loaf, it works out only slightly more expensive than Vogels)
3. Not sold in plastic (it comes in a nice paper bag)

I've wanted to cut down on non-recyclable bread bags for ages. I do bake some of my own bread (using an awesome sourdough starter from a friend) but, realistically: baking all my own bread? Yeah, right!

So, chuffed with the Tank loaf.

Solutions are everywhere, once you start looking.

Individual change vs political change

After reading through the No Impact Experiment handbook this week I was thinking harder about how I could cut down on the rubbish I generate.

Because I was noticing every item I threw away, it actually crossed my mind that I could go really hard core and take my own dried peppermint leaves to work to make herb tea instead of using the imported, individually foil-wrapped teabags in the tea room.

It's not that crazy. The teabags are just dried mint and we have a ton of mint in the community garden. It would save some unnecessary packaging. It would make me feel good.

Then this same week our Sustainability group got revved up again at work. An awesome bunch of people. Someone raised the issue of the heavily packaged teabags (we've started getting a new brand recently—the kind we used to get (Twinings) aren't individually wrapped).

We decided to talk to the tea purchaser about it. Turns out, they were happy to switch back. Just like that, we saved the foil packs from 50 people's cups of tea.

Political change. A million times more useful than me bending over backwards to be just a tiny bit greener in my own life.

Shoe solutions

Tidying out the closet I found not one but two pairs of shoes that I'd loved but had worn out to the point that they had holes in the bottom. Holes that let the rain in.

I hated the idea of just throwing them out though. What to do, what to do?

*Cue interval on google.*

What do you know? Turns out Nike takes back sports shoes to recycle into artificial sports surfaces. Awesomely enough, they even collect shoes in New Zealand. That's pretty cool.

I didn't have sports shoes though. Hmm.

*Cue interval staring into space with pensive expression on face.*

My solutions:

1. Earthquake shoes! I took one pair to work to keep in a drawer in case I need sensible shoes in an emergency.

2. Repair! (This is yet another one of those "green" ideas that's really rediscovering something that your grandparents did but feeling like it's new again.) For some reason I had the idea that my shoes were the non-resoleable kind, but I took them into the shoe repair shop on Ghuznee St and there was no problem at all.

Twenty-five bucks and it's like I've got a whole new pair of shoes.

Loving the lovely shoe repairman right now.

The best garden shop ever

Completely shameless plug for Grow from Here, now my favourite garden shop ever.

Not only did they get in the exact thing that I wanted (Awapuni newspaper-wrapped leek seedlings), but, when they saw me testing out the weight of bags of compost, they lent me a trolley to get a 20L bag home with.

Wish I had a big garden and therefore a reason to rush out and buy heaps of things from them.

Hmm, maybe I could turn the living room into an indoor jungle ...

Plenty more fish in the sea

... or not.

For ages I've felt bad about eating fish because of plummeting fish stocks. Meanwhile, you're always being told how healthy eating fish is, so, simultaneously, I feel bad about not eating fish. In a word, I have felt torn.

So this morning I was interested to hear an interview on National Radio saying clearly that we can't rely on fish as a source of omega-3s. (It's not available on their website, but this story from CBC late last year covers the same ground.)

(NB Whether you think GM soybeans are the solution is another question altogether.)

What are your other options? Flaxseed oil, hempseed oil, soy/tofu, walnuts and eggs (if the chickens get to eat greens).

And, interestingly for us in New Zealand, grass-fed meat and dairy products have more omega-3s than their grain-fed equivalents, so maybe we're not doing so bad anyway.

The year in review—guest post by Bridget Jones, Compost Girl

Apartment-building-wide compost schemes 1 (v. g.)

Global climate action treaties 0 (poor, but surely cannot be held personally responsible for actions of 192 countries at the UN? [God, did love it though when Ed Miliband started striding about all sexily and telling other countries to pull their acts together when it all looked like it was falling apart right near the end. Mmm ...])

Emissions trading schemes botched 1 (I think—surely no normal person can be expected to understand all that complicated kerfuffle about free allocations, phase-out periods, "stationary energy sector", "trade-exposed industries" etc. etc.)

Emissions reductions targets set 1 (0–20% reduction—slight variation on the recommended 40%)

Bathrooms cleaned with baking soda and vinegar 1 (v.g.)

Minutes spent thinking about buying tissues 357

Minutes spent using tissues 17

Takeaway meals consumed 11 (but necessary for research)

Plastic bags avoided 417 (hurrah)



All in all, a creditable year.

Hmm, must try to get one of those "I only date boys who vote green" badges.

The Christmas present challenge

Yes, I found it hard to reconcile Christmas with trying to be "green". For example: present shopping.

You don't want to give someone a crap present, right? And you don't want to be all sackcloth and ashes and puritanical, because it's Christmas and you're supposed to be celebrating, right? And yet ... there's all this other stuff you care about, so what to do?

A clever greenie friend has a good solution: make sure to give people things they want. She asks people what they want and tells people what she wants.

This is in fact what we always did in my family, and it's a good system. Even when you (obviously) can have a good guess that it's coming, opening up the paper on a gift that you really really want is still a great feeling. And likewise, it's pretty satisfying giving someone something that you know that they're thrilled with.

However, as a veteran I can give a key tip to avoid disappointment:

1. Don't pick an item that requires the exercise of personal taste. As a teenager I asked my (predictably) unhip middle-aged parents for new jeans for Christmas ... Result: misery.

Edible hedge

The new feijoa hedge around the council flats on Aro St is flowering.

Edible hedge—what a brilliant idea.

Tramping

Here's a thought: plastic-free tramping.

Imagine. No polypro, no quick-drying nylon shorts, no lightweight rip-stop tents, no plastic pouches of freeze-dry, no plastic bags keeping everything dry and separate. No Goretex. No snowfoam.

Yikes.

On my tramp along the Abel Tasman this summer, I realised that if I'd left all the plastic behind I would have been wearing a sunhat, a t-shirt and an Icebreaker top and carrying my unpackaged food in my bare hands.

But people used to tramp before plastic, so there must be a way.