Clean Bin Project - the movie

Ok, just a quick one because I'm supposed to be working on my part of the urban livestock policy as part of the Food for All initiative (more on that later).

But I thought it was important to procrastinate on that briefly to say "go and see the screening of The Clean Bin Project!". I went to see the Ottawa screening last night and it was really great. The Clean Bin Project movie is a documentary about BC couple Jen and Grant who decided to compete for a year to see who could make the least amount of garbage.

What I loved about this movie is the feeling of community I had at the end of it. I know there are lots of us out there struggling with the same things (like how to buy cheese without any plastic packaging). But to see it on the screen and to hear everyone cheering at the end, made me so happy. Makes me think we really can make a difference because there are so darn many of us!

Oh and there's also a great extended cameo by Chris Jordan (love!).

Here's the trailer...the next screening is in Wakefield at the Black Sheep Inn tomorrow night (Thurs Aug. 19). Then Jen and Grant will be continuing their cross-Canada bicycle tour with screenings on the east coast.

The Clean Bin Project - Trailer from Grant Baldwin Videography on Vimeo.

Plastic pollution in our oceans

Midway Atoll is one of the most remote places on earth. It is home to the majority of the world's Laysan Albatross and also a vast number of other birds and marine animals. Yet it has the misfortune of being near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Tragically, as a result, many adult albatross have been mistaking the plastic floating in the ocean for food and have been feeding it to their chicks.

A number of artists including the wonderful Chris Jordan are chronicling how plastic is devastating the albatross population on Midway. They have been sharing what they have found on their blog Midway Journey (and on Twitter).

The videos and images are often difficult to look at. But so very important.

In this short clip (the trailer for the film that is being made of their journey), Chris says "I don't think we act until we feel something".



These images were front of mind for me when I made a trip to the seaside while in the UK last month. A walk along a seemingly clean beach, quickly revealed a large amount of plastic garbage. Mostly bottle caps and plastic netting but also straws and pieces of hard miscellaneous plastic. As soon as I saw the first piece, all I could think of was that if I don't pick this up, it could end up in one of those images choking the belly of a baby albatross. Immediately I picked up a plastic bag that I found on the ground and started filling it with plastic. My whole family pitched in. We kept picking up garbage until we couldn't fit any more in the bag.

Here's what we collected:


We tied the bag tightly and put it in the garbage can as we left. Obviously it isn't great that this is all going to a landfill but I am so pleased to have taken it away from the ocean. And the albatross chicks.

Thank you Midway Journey team for your courage and for bringing your images to us.

Glass Dharma straws

I got a lovely surprise in the mail the other day.

For participating in Fake Plastic Fish's Show Your Plastic Challenge (the one where I collect and weigh all the plastic garbage I create), I was entered in a draw to win a set of Glass Dharma straws.

Amazingly, I won! :)

I'm so excited to use them although truth be told I might not use them for a few months. We're expecting snow tonight so I'm more in the mood for tea and hot chocolate than tall cold drinks. But I will start to carry one of them in my handy utensil case for those I NEED a cocktail days.


I wasn't surprised to see that Beth (Fake Plastic Fish) sent the straws to me without using any plastic. But I was certainly intrigued as I'd only seen bubble pack envelopes before (the bubble part being plastic) for this sort of thing. As you can see, not only are there no plastic bubbles but there is also no plastic tape. I dropped Beth a line to thank her for the straws and to ask what products she used to mail them to me. This is what she wrote back:

"I believe the envelope was a Jiffy padded mailer and the tape is just ordinary paper tape. It is water activated, but I don't use a machine to apply. I just run it under the sink. You could also run a wet sponge over it. I like the fact that it's not coated with plastic, as some paper tapes are."

I followed the link for the jiffy mailers and found out that they are made with 90% recycled content and 50% of that is post consumer. Nice. And I can definitely attest that the padding is effective given that I have 4 gorgeous unbroken straws in my dining room right now.

When I run out of the bubble pack envelopes I currently have (none are new - I reuse ones that are sent to me), I'll def. be buying some jiffy mailers. I will of course reuse this one from Beth first. :)

I'd also like to get some of that paper tape. Which has got me thinking about how I might wrap up Christmas presents this year without using plastic tape. Any suggestions?

Some food for thought on Buy Nothing Day

Thanks to These Days in French Life for this.

Some good news stories

This week someone tweeted a totally awesome article about how the largest contributor to climate change was the manufacture of goods. The article had a wicked pie chart which showed that buying less stuff would reduce our global climate footprint more than any other measure (e.g. if we all bought energy efficient appliances).

It was such a great article. But I forgot to favourite it and now it is lost in the Twitter abyss. Unless anyone smarter than me favourited it and could send it to me? :)

In any case, what I really want to talk about are some very cool initiatives here in the Ottawa area that are helping people buy less stuff. They are both part of a great 'keep stuff out of the trash by resuing it' model. It's a model that works and that could and should be used more in Ottawa (both these initiatives are in communities just outside Ottawa - would be great to have something in the city centre).

First there is the re-use centre in MacDonald's Corners (800 10th Con Dalhousie) which collects perfectly functioning stuff in a 'store-like' centre that anyone can visit and take stuff away for free! It's similar to the Freecyle/Full Circles concept except this is a store that you can browse around and doesn't require having access to the interweb. It's open 3 days a week (Thursday, Saturday and Sunday).


Second there is the Wakefield Dish Lending Library. This library opened only last weekend and is currently collecting gently used, uncracked, unchipped, non-aluminum (and of course, non-plastic) dishes, cutlery and glassware. These items will then be made available to community residents to borrow for events so as to avoid using disposable items. It looks like the library is being run by the Wakefield Fair Trade Committee so I think they are the folks to contact for more info.

What I also like about both of these initiatives is that they seem to foster a sense of community. They are run by volunteers, and provide a service to a community, but they also provide a space for community to grow, and gather.

I have this card on my cork board that lists ways to 'build community'. Some of them are:
-leave your house
-know your neighbours
-greet people
-use your library
-share what you have

Check. Check. Check.

A new deodorant

We've talked about my deodorant challenges before. Last time I brought it up I'd recently switched to using baking soda on my pits.

Well it's confession time. After about 6 months of working like a freakin' miracle, the soda stopped doin' it for me. Just flat out quit.

So since then I've been back to the addidas deo. Not because I love it but because it's the only product I can find without aluminum that works.

But I have a problem.

I'm doing the plastic challenge over at Fake Plastic Fish (week 3 plastic garbage pic is on that blog here). And it was tough this week to include in that pic not one but two heavy, plastic, non-recyclable deo containers.

So this weekend I purchased this:

Its a locally made deo by my fave - Urban Forest. All natural ingredients. No palm oil (I got your back orangutans). Plus it's completely plastic free.

Tried it out today and it gets a mixed review so far (but it was ridiculously hot in the office today - has been for the last week), so I'm going to do a proper 2 week test drive.

Cross your fingers that it works. I don't want deo packaging to be in any more of my weekly plastic garbage pics!

Plastic challenge - week 2

Recyclable Items

1. Plasticized milk carton (part of the curbside program but unsure how it's recycled)

Non-recyclable Items

1. plastic lined can (can is recyclable but the plastic lining isn't)


2. plastic wrap from local cheese


3. bag choc chips


4. 1 piece saran wrap(was used to cover pie brought home from M&D's)


5. remains of a scrubber (used to wash dishes)


6. two labels from local beauty products (came in glass jars)


7. plastic top from sour cream


8. sticker removed from brother's guitar case (which I've adopted)


9. top and security seal from vitamin bottle (glass)


10. two cereal bags


11. wrap from eye drop box and 4 eye droppers


12. vitamin powder package


13. top of cheese curd package


14. misc plastic wrap (not sure what this is from)


15. 3 plastic grocery bags (for garbage)

Total number of items = 25
Total weight of plastic stash = 4.75oz
Tally analysis

• What items could I easily replace with plastic-free or less plastic alternatives?
  *milk (could buy in glass)
  *choc chips (could buy in bulk)
  *saran wrap from pie (could have brought a container to M&Ds)
  


• What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic-free alternative doesn’t exist?
  *cereal (I could make my own granola)
  


• How many of these items are from “convenience” foods that could be made from scratch with less packaging but might take more time to prepare?
  *sour cream?
  


• What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
  *eye droppers. I hated using them but it was a bit of a necessity this week
  


• What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?
  *make an effort to buy more food in bulk and maintain a good stockpile of food essentials to prevent last minute trips to our neighbourhood grocery store (which doesn't have any bulk food). E.g. choc chips
  


• What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?
  *non-bulk chocolate chips
  


• What did I do this week to avoid plastic?
  *Make cookies from scratch
  *Buy soap wrapped in paper
  *Brought my lunch to work most days and on days I didn't bought lunch from the deli that sells sandwich wrapped in paper.
  

Plastic Challenge - week 1

Here's the week 1 pic. As Beth (aka Fake Plastic Fish) suggested I didn't change any habits this week. This will be our baseline.

As per the challenge rules, I need to answer some questions....
Week #:1
Name: Green grrl
Recyclable Items

1. 2 jugs (local apple cider) - recycling #2 - this is included in our curbside recycling

Non-recyclable Items

1. 1 potato chip bag


2. 1 package - organic sausages


3. 1 bag tortilla chips - bag looked to be paper but is fully plastic on the inside


4. 2 pieces saran wrap *


5. 1 plastic window from a bag of bread


6. 1 bag local cheese curds


7. 2 stickers from a box of choc


8. plastic security seal from eye drops


9. label from a glass bottle of juice


10. cough drop wrappers


11. 2 cookie wrappers*


12. 1 bag salad greens - opened badly so hard to reuse


13. conference name tag (printed on hard plastic like a credit card - grrrr)


14. conference name tag holder


15. styrofoam container - went to a restaurant that only served in styrofoam!


16. small plastic pot and lid


17. 4 plastic grocery bags (not depicted)

*items with a star are from my lunches at a conference I attended last week - I was going to bring my own but figured since they were making a lunch for me and the plastic would be going into the garbage anyway, I may as well get the lunch. Good decision?

Total number of items = 32
Total weight of plastic stash = 7oz
Tally analysis

• What items could I easily replace with plastic-free or less plastic alternatives?
  *sausages - bought from a butcher in butcher paper
  *choc box stickers - easy to get choc in non plastic packaging
  


• What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic-free alternative doesn’t exist?
  *potato chips
  *tortilla chips
  *any food served only in styrofoam at restaurants
  


• How many of these items are from “convenience” foods that could be made from scratch with less packaging but might take more time to prepare?
  *cheese curds?
  *perogies (was what was in the styrofoam)
  *bread
  


• What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
  *local apple cider (I know not really essential but so good and only available for a short period. Will keep looking for glass though)
  


• What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?
  *less junk food
  


• What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?
  *styrofoam
  


• What other conclusions, if any, can I draw?
  *I'm actually surprised there wasn't more plastic. I'm annoyed at the conference pass thing. Am going to write to the organizers to see if they can do it with less plastic next year (is an annual conference).
  

Personal description

• location = Ottawa, ON, Canada


• gender = female


• relationship status = married no kids


• work=in an office

**I totally encourage anyone else who is interested to also sign up for this challenge.

How to make a rug out of old t-shirts

Got a bunch of old t-shirts kicking around? Perhaps you bought them at concerts years ago, or perhaps you were given them for participating in a sporting event. Either way, we both know you aren't going to wear them. The most action they are going to get is being slept in. If they are lucky.

Meanwhile they take up room in your drawers making it hard to find the shirts you DO want to wear.

What's the solution?

Turn them into a rug!

It's super easy. First you have to turn the t-shirts into yarn. Here is a really easy tutorial for how to do that. The tutorial is for plastic bags but the concept is the same. Basically you cut strips from the bottom of the t-shirt and arms so that you have a pile of loops. Then you connect the loops like in the video and voila!



T-shirt yarn.

Then all you have to do is crochet it into a rug.

That's my rug at the top. The colours probably aren't ones I necessarily would have chosen but it was what I had on hand. Plus I was able to repurpose my most favourite but worn out plaid pajama pants (sexy!).

I used an 8.0mm hook, made a foundation chain of 30, and did 15 rows of single crochet. The end result is a small rug 3' x 1.5'.

Garbage check-in. Sortof.

Well it's no surprise but I've been a bit lazy about keeping track of our garbage. It's not that we are producing a lot, its that it's such a pain in the ass to weigh everything each week.

But I decided to do it this week because it's been 9 weeks (!) since we last took out our blue box (plastic and aluminum recycling). And while it is quite full, it isn't even that heavy - only 9lbs.

In order to get to 9 weeks, I started crushing everything that I put in the box - milk cartons, pop cans etc. It's amazing how much space that frees up. Imagine if everyone did that. Even without anyone changing their buying habits, I bet that alone would mean that the blue bin would only need to be collected once a month instead of once every two weeks. Think how much carbon would be saved from the garbage trucks being off the road.

Crackers and granola

I took the day off today and decided to try making my own crackers.

It's been on my mind for a while because I'd like to have crackers made from local flour. And also because I'm trying to cut down on the amount of garbage/recycling we are creating.

I used this recipe. I still can't believe how easy it was! Mix all the ingredients, roll out, bake and that's it! I used local spelt flour from Little Stream Bakery (bought at the organic farmers market), olive oil and salt. Using butter would have made them more local but I like the idea of having vegan crackers. Also I just found out that you can get olive oil in bulk at the Herb and Spice on Bank St. :-)

After baking you get to break the crackers up into random sizes which I quite like. And they were really tasty! Here's what the finished product looked like:


Then since the oven was hot, I also made a batch of granola. The recipe I use is a modified version of the granola I would make every Saturday morning at the health food store when I was in highschool. Here's the recipe:

4 cups of oats (large, small or a mix of both)
1 cup of oat bran
1/2 cup of chopped nuts (I used a mix of walnut and hazelnut)
1/2 cup brown sesame seeds
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup of sunflower oil
1/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup of maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix all ingredients. Pour into pans/cookie sheets so that it just covers the bottom of the pan and put in the oven. Stir regularly. After 10 mins start to keep an eye on it (granola burns quickly). Granola is ready when it is slightly golden. Remove pans from oven. Allow to cool and then break up leaving some chunks. Add dried fruit if desired (I often add dried cranberries).

Garbage check-in

Well it's been 3 weeks since my last garbage confession.

Here are the most recent stats:

Garbage: 17lbs
Recycling: 0lbs (this is mostly due to laziness - there is some out there, I've just haven't felt like taking it to the curb)
Compost: 6lbs 14oz

That means for the last 3 weeks we are at 18% of average. Not bad. :)

And for the last 8 weeks we are at 30% of average.
(28%+62%+12%+30%+28%+18)/6

Riot for Austerity - where we are at

Got a few bills recently so thought it would be good to do a proper tally of how we are doing in all the Riot for Austerity categories:

Electricity:
Not doing as well as last year. A number of factors have contributed to this
1. my health has not been great for the last 3 months. Getting better now but because of this we've had our electric heat in our bedroom turned up, and have been watching a lot of tv.
2. we did massive amounts of canning in the fall.
3. seems like it was colder than last year (certainly the cold weather seemed to start earlier this year).

Here's our most recent bill:



This gives us an average of 5.5kWh/day and keeps us at 17% of average (for now) for the last year.


Water:
Still doing well with water. Got another credit on our most recent bill.

Here it is:


This puts us at an average of 400L per day for the last year. Divided by the 4 people in the house, that is 100L per person per day or 30% of average.



Garbage:
Last week our totals were as follows:
Garbage: 3lbs
Compost: 4lbs
Recycling: 6lbs (was plastic and glass)

This puts us at 32% of average for the last 5 weeks (28%+62%+12%+30%+28%)/5


Heating:
We have used 1755 m3 of natural gas for the whole house for the last 8 months (we had a new meter installed in June so it's easiest for us to start from there - before that most of our bills were estimates). Divided in half that's 877.5m3 for each apartment. This puts us at 46% of average. Also I read somewhere recently that the average yearly consumption of natural gas for heating for Ontario is actually in the 4,000 m3 range (much higher than the national average I'm working with of 2,871 m3


Gasoline:
This is an estimate but here goes:

12 trips to work in the car during the bus strike: 192km
9 trips to work on the bus (yay!): 144km
1 trip to see family: 50km (divided this in half because hubby was with me)
1 trip to Toronto: 500km (divided this in half because hubby was with me)
random trips in the car: 200km

This puts me at 58.6L of gasoline so far this year or 35% of average.



Consumer Goods:
Still doing well with this.

So far this month I have bought:

1. tapestry needles (new): $2


2. 1 urban forest soap: $5

Total spent on consumer goods in the last 51 days=$111.78
This puts me at 6% of average (for now - big expenses still to come).


Food:
Have been totally sucking in the food category. Due to the health issues I lost a lot of weight (didn't really have much to lose in the first place). As a result I dropped all my rules and allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted (had to because I really didn't want to eat anything). Meant I ate a lot of non-local and overly packaged food. But I am on the mend. Appetite is back and so is my interest in cooking so I'm back on the local, homemade food wagon.
But all that to say my averages for food for the last 3 months have probably looked like this:
Local: 10%
Processed: 60%
Non-local: 30%

Weekly garbage tally

	Garbage: 4.5lbs Recycling: 5lbs (this week was paper recycling) Compost: 3lbs 12oz Total garbage and recycling = 9.5lbs (not counting compost as it is composted in our backyard) The average for 2 people is 32.2lbs. At 9.5lbs we are at 30% of average. So for the last 4 weeks: (28%+62%+12%+30%)/4=33% of average
Photo by Editor B

Weekly garbage weigh-in (2 days late)

Garbage: 4lbs
Recycling (plastic and glass): 0lbs *
Compost: 4.5lbs

*there were a few cans in the box but nothing worth weighing - I'll include these items 2 weeks from now at the next plastic and glass recycling weigh in

As far as the Riot goes, for this week we are at 12% of average.

4lbs (us) /32.2lbs(average)= 12%

Or

28%+62%+12%/3=34% of average over 3 weeks.

Weekly garbage tally

6lbs garbage
3lbs compost
14lbs recycling (paper)

So that's 20lbs total (not counting compost). Yikes. We didn't do so great this week. In my defense we did decide to clean out the filing cabinet. Still I've always known we have too much paper recycling. Now I'm really motivated to do something about it.

As far as the Riot goes, this week we are at 62% of average

16.1x2=32.2 (for 2 people)
20/32.2=62% of average

(28% (last week)+ 62% (this week) ) / 2 = 45% of average over two weeks

The good news is that we produced 1 lb less compost so we are doing well for Crunchy's Food Waste Reduction Challenge

Our love affair is over rubber gloves

Isn't if funny how sometimes the obvious things are the hardest to see?

I've always used rubber gloves to do the dishes. Always.

Never even questioned it.

Even though I regularly punctured the right glove within a few weeks. Even when the pile of still intact but useless left gloves piled up. Even when I threw the torn/punctured gloves in the garbage. I continued to buy more gloves.

But no more. Rubber gloves, you and I have had our last dance.

You are plastic. You are disposible. You and I are through.

Photo by How can I recycle this

Garbage weigh-in

	According to my fab remodeled bathroom scale, between the two of us, we made the following waste this week: Garbage: 5lbs Compost: 4lbs Recycling: 4lbs (this week is plastic and glass) That means we made a total of 9 lbs garbage which puts us at 28% of average.
Photo by Editor B

While we aren't counting our compost waste, we are going to try to reduce that as well and have signed up for Crunchy Chicken's latest challenge - the "Food Waste Reduction Challenge".

Cabin fever

So I'm well into my second week of sick leave. And I'm bored.

I can't sleep anymore. I just can't. And I've watched more tv in the last few weeks than I think I did all last year. The only upside from that is that I got to watch the entire series of Freaks and Geeks. Do yourself a favour and watch this show. But I digress....

In order to deal with the absolute boredom that is sick leave I started a project.

About a month ago a good friend of mine freecycled to me this old scale.

I instantly fell in love. I mean come on! It's PINK! (not that I necessarily love pink but there is just something so gorgeously retro about pink enamel).

But it was kind of grotty. It had been well loved and used over the years and the pink carpet top was a bit worse for wear and the dust on the inside was so thick that it was hard to see the numbers on the dial. So I decided to give the scale a makeover.

First I scraped the paint splatter from the top of the scale.

Then I took it apart to deal with the dust.

This is what the inside looked like:
And this is what the inside looked like all cleaned up:
And this is what it looked like all put back together: Hello beautiful!

Putting it back together was not as easy as I thought it would be. Basically if you are doing this you need to make sure the 4 arms inside the scale come together (and connect) in the middle. This will ensure that no matter where you step on the scale you will get the same reading. I did not do this the first time. This resource was helpful when I was trying to figure it out.

Once I got that sorted, I got to fixing the top. I pulled off the carpet and then made a new top out of an old shirt I had (that had a rip in it I couldn't fix), the stuffing from an old pillow and some cardboard.

Here's a montage of how that went:


And here's the finished product:

I'm not entirely satisfied with it though and I'm not sure why. Perhaps the top is too puffy? OR maybe its that too much of the pink enamel is covered up? Or maybe it's the fabric? If I was buying new fabric I'd have bought something white with big pink and maybe turquoise polka dots. But anyway, it will certainly do for now.

Most important is the reason I got it in the first place. To weigh my garbage. Yep, that's right, a full year into the Riot and I'm only now getting around to weighing my garbage. Don't worry, I'm not going to put the garbage on my pretty scale. I'm going to put me on the scale while I'm holding the garbage. First official garbage weigh in will be this Sunday.

No more paper towels

Inspired by Peak Oil Hausfrau's Zero Waste Kit that I found thanks to Unstuffed, I thought I'd make myself a hand towel to carry around.


My embroidery leaves something to be desired to be sure (but practice makes perfect right?). The towel itself is made from an old t-shirt.

Now I just have to remember to carry it to the bathroom and kitchen at work. In the meantime I apologize to my co-workers who have to grab wet door handles because I left my towel at my desk!