Homegrown organic

Buying organic has been one of the things that I've given up in my new life. My new suburban mum version? Grow your own!

The biggest advantage of moving to the suburbs is that I finally have my own garden. Hurrah!

Thanks to my partner's fab mum, I was able to get a bit of garden going while heavily pregnant and then in the early days of having a baby. It's a bit weedy and chaotic, but I've kept it going by pulling out a few weeds here and splashing a bit of water around there in between feeds and nappy changes.

There's a bunch of herbs outside the back door:

A patch of Jerusalem artichokes that are looking good:

There's spring broccoli - we've had some already, and now the side shoots are regrowing:

And there's organic cherry tomatoes a-coming:

Now that I'm home with the baby, it's perfect having a hobby right here. I love that I can just step out into the garden for a few minutes while the baby's napping. And I love that I can still manage to get some organic food.

I'm already plotting what to put in for the winter season.

Modern cloth nappies

In my newly impoverished suburban mum existence, the obvious "green" things to do are the ones that also save you money - and luckily that's most "green" stuff, right?

First up, cloth nappies.(Yeah, this is strictly for the parents out there, so I'll stick everything in one giant post.)

To me, whether it's better to use cloth or disposable nappies depends on whether you can dry them on the washing line.

Environmental impact
Zerowaste NZ has a good roundup of the information about environmental impact of cloth vs. disposable nappies - essentially, cloth is better if you can line dry and use low temperatures to wash.

Costs and savings
If you compare the total costs of disposables and cloth nappies, the cloth ones are almost certainly quite a bit cheaper - though of course how much you save depends on exactly what all the costs are. Again, if you have to use a dryer that adds a lot to the cost of cloth. We use disposable nappy liners, which also adds to the cost (many are around 5c each) and the environmental impact, but for me is a good compromise as it makes dealing with the dirty nappies faster and way less icky.*


Laundering
So, is washing cloth nappies as yucky and difficult as it sounds? Not really, actually. Most of the poo gets thrown away on the liner. A few times a day a bit escapes onto the cloth and needs to be rinsed off - a little bit yuck but not too bad. All the dirty ones go into a dry pail (no soaking needed these days) and I just wash them in cold water every other day, about half a load each time. (I really didn't believe that this would work - wouldn't it stink etc? But it's fine.) Any stains get bleached out in the sun if you put them on the line, so there's no need to Napisan. So, it's mostly just a question of hanging out 20-odd items every couple of days. I can do that. Plus there is something wonderfully satisfying about a nice pile of freshly washed nappies all ready to go. 

Nappy types
It's hard to get your head around all the different kinds. (I found The Nappy Lady,  The Nappy Network  and the Snazzipants website useful sources. I didn't manage to go myself, but I reckon going to one of The Nappy Lady's workshops would be brilliant, so you could see the various nappies firsthand.)

I bought the newborn size of a few of the most promising-sounding types secondhand on TradeMe, so I could try them out before committing. That was a pretty good approach. It's when you start using them that you quickly notice the pros and cons and develop preferences.

Some are more absorbent but slower to dry. Some are a bit slower or more fiddly to put on - and, yeah, that does make a difference when you're changing nappies ten times a day. But suffice to say that THEY ALL WORK FINE.

My review
My favourites are Snazzipants fitted nappies with a Bummis whisper wrap cover. The velcro makes them as easy to put on as a disposable, and laundry tabs keep the velcro from sticking to other things and getting fluffed over in the wash. Poo-splosions sometimes escape the nappy itself, but the separate cover usually provides good containment and prevents mess getting on baby's clothes. They are nice and absorbent - the one disadvantage is that they are quite slow to dry, sometimes not even drying after a full day in the sun.

BabyFirst two-part nappies are really handy as they dry superfast - within a few hours on the washing line. However, I bought the second size of these and they still don't fit my approx 7.5-8kg baby too well - maybe they'll fit better when he's crawling and changed shape a bit. The dome fasteners are fine, but not as easy to use or adjust the fit as velcro.

Flat or prefold nappies with a Snappi were brilliant for a tiny baby as you can get them to fit snugly - I was able to use these from the first few days. I used them with a waterproof Bummis whisper wrap cover on top. However, now I find them a bit fiddly and harder to keep securely on an active older baby.

The Itti Bitti Tutto one-size-fits-all snap-in-two seemed like a great idea, but I found it unnecessarily complicated in practice. It has a bunch of absorbent pads that dome together in different combinations for different levels of absorbency - but who can really predict how much a baby will pee?


In conclusion
We've used disposable nappies exclusively for a few days one or twice (e.g., on holiday) and, man, does it create a crazy amount of waste, as well as chewing through the money. I really hate it and much prefer my cloth nappies.  

* I've recently discovered rinsing out and reusing the liners if they are just wet. Works fine!

Trevally

While I was pregnant I let go of some of the dietary changes I had made for environmental reasons. I ate fewer vegetarian meals and more dairy and fish. One thing I held onto was that I still tried to buy the best fish I could according to the Forest & Bird Best Fish Guide. 

It's pretty hard to find fish species from the green section of the guide, especially at supermarkets. One of the best fish I bought was trevally, from the fish shop at the top of Cuba St. 

It's pretty under-rated, I reckon. I served it up to dinner guests one night and it was great. My guests liked it so much they even asked what kind of fish it was.

Suburban Compost Mum

It's been a long time since my last post and in that time my life has radically changed.

Since January I've moved in with my partner - which has involved moving from an inner city apartment to a house in the suburbs of Lower Hutt - and we've had a baby.

This has been a huge challenge to many of my "green" practices. I'm no longer a free and easy singleton who has plenty of disposable income, makes all the decisions in their domestic life and lives within walking distance of everything. Now our income has halved, I have to negotiate a compromise with my partner on all the household systems (recycling, grocery shopping, cleaning) and it's a mission to go anywhere without driving. Plus I've got a baby to think about.

Meanwhile climate change hasn't gone away, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch hasn't got any smaller and species are still becoming extinct. How am I going to figure out how to keep sustainability a part of my life as a suburban mum?

Plastic-free international travel

While I was on my big trip I still tried to find ways to avoid using plastic as much as possible. Beth Terry blogged on this a while ago - all good ideas, but more appropriate for travelling within the United States where she lives, rather than spending a couple of months travelling around on the other side of the world.

I wasn't heroic enough to try to work out how to take all my own food on a 12-hour flight leaving from a foreign city! But I tried to do what I could.

The things I found to be simplest and most effective:

• Taking your own snacks/lunch on buses and trains.

Usually the only food available to buy on trains or at stations is heavily packaged (and expensive). I regularly bought a supply of stuff like small blocks of cheese, packets of dried fruit, chocolate and crackers, which will all keep for a few days, then added bread and fresh fruit on days I knew I would need a lunch. I took a small lidded container to keep opened packets in. It was handy to have a Swiss army knife to cut up cheese, bread etc.

• Eating before you head to the airport or taking your own food

Again, most food at airports seems to involve a lot of plastic and you inevitably get hungry during all the waiting.

• Taking your own water bottle and refilling it from the tap at your accommodation each day.

I also refilled it in airports after going through security, like Beth. This was good everywhere that the tap water is drinkable. In Bangkok it was different! I also found out why they drink bottled water in Paris - the tap water really isn't very nice. Luckily they do a good line in drinks in real glasses at all those cafes.

• Taking a reuseable shopping bag.

I wished I'd thought of this before I left New Zealand, because a reuseable bag is just as useful for supermarkets, street markets and various other purchases when you're travelling as it is at home. However, it took me several days to find one to buy in Spain. Eventually I got a cotton one that folds up small for packing.


Overall it wasn't too hard to avoid plastic in France and Spain. For example, I also took my own collapsible cup and knife, fork and spoon set, but only used them a few times because most of the time I ate in at restaurants that used real cutlery and china.

Unexpected plastic did pop up in a few places though - like the ice cream in a cone that came with a little plastic spoon in Madrid, or the little plastic cap protecting the ice cream on the Spanish version of a Trumpet. That's just a part of travelling.

Unpackit - cute packaging awards

Wanaka Wastebusters have come up with a cute packaging award website to out the worst packaging culprits in the country (and shine a light on the best).

The nomination that resonates most with me is the packages of individually wrapped prunes - crazy stuff.

Plastic-free picnics?

I bought this beautiful picnic lunch in Paris, at the local shops in Montmartre, where I was staying.

It was a charming experience. I bought the bread from the bakers; the incredibly smelly but quite delicious cheese from the little cheese shop; and the fruit from the fruiterers.

And the photo shows 100% of the packaging involved. The cheese was just wrapped up for me in a piece of paper and the blueberries came in that little cardboard tray. I popped the bread straight into my own cotton carry bag, no problem.

Voila, plastic-free picnic.

Whole other story in the UK. This is the picnic I bought from Marks & Sparks in Inverness:



This was the least-plastic-packaging lunch I could come up with after probably 20 mins of prowling around the aisles. And, y'know, supermarkets - really not so charming.

Guess which one was yummier??