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.