TTKD October meeting: The Story of Stuff

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October 2013 TTKD Meeting

The Story of Stuff

Thursday October 17

7.15pm for a 7.30pm start

Kenmore Library Meeting Room

TTKD May 2013 meeting: Reinventing the Toilet!

TTKD Meeting Flyer May 13

Thursday May 16

7.15pm for a 7.30pm start

Kenmore Library Meeting Room

Also of note:

Moggill Market Stall:
TTKD will be holding a stall at Moggill Markets on Saturday 1 June – people are welcome to bring any surplus home grown produce to share. We will also have some native plants from Moggill Creek Catchment Group for sale at $2 each.

Healthy Waterways Awards:
Here is a link to the Healthy Waterways Awards people choice voting page. Please note, our August speaker, Matthew Fullerton is a nominee in the Young Adult Encouragement award, under the Individual and Lifestyle Group (voting closes 20 May).

http://healthywaterwaysawards.org/award/peoples-choice-award/

TTKD April meeting- Permaculture: Sustainable Food

Reality Bites from Rachel Smith

Interesting article from Rachel Smith on her blog:

Reality Bites: Mass redundancies & sharing. 5 easy steps to ‘spend less + have more’

"The average power drill is used for between 6 and 15 minutes in its entire lifetime. We don’t actually need a drill we just want a hole in the wall. So why do we all spend large sums of our hard-earned cash and savings on things we rarely use?

In last Saturday’s Courier Mail Kathleen Noonan commented that people across Australia are too scared to spend money. That’s why in this week’s ‘Reality Bites’ I’m discussing sharing, renting, bartering and borrowing – or what some people describe as ‘access rather than ownership........."

Go here to read the rest.

TTKD September Meeting: Microalgae Biofuels

Thursday 20 Sept

Kenmore Library Meeting Room 

Kenmore Village corner Moggill and Brookfield Roads 

7.15 for 7:30 pm start 

Light refreshments provided 

TTKD Meeting Flyer Sept 2012

Supporting Local Businesses

I am amazed at how many businesses are home-based in our area. It is great to see as it is a wonderful way to enjoy a less pressured lifestyle and of course, lower your carbon footprint!

By supporting our local businesses we are building resilience in our communities.

I recently purchased a gift at the newly opened Art at Heart Gallery, 67 Sugars Rd, Anstead. It is run by renowned artist Jacqueline Hill and well worth a visit.

http://www.artatheart.com.au

Also a wonderful local eco business is Gumnut Hill, makers of environmetally friendly stationary. Perfect for that last minute Christmas gift. Contact them through their website http://www.gumnuthill.com.au They also have a stall at the Northey St City Farm Markets

Recipies from 'Domestic Goddess on a Budget' by Wendyl Nissen

Store cupboard

Apple cider vinegar

Baking soda

Castile soap (I use Dr. Bronners liquid and cake)

Essential oils

Glycerine

Sunlight soap

White vinegar

Spray cleaner for kitchen

1 litre water

1 tsp baking soda

a few drops of liquid soap

10 drops lavender or tea-tree essential oil

(add 1 tsp olive oil for wooden benches)

Dishwasher liquid mix

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup liquid castile soap

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

5 drops tea-tree essential oil

1/2 cup white vinegar

use 2 tbsp per load

Hand dishwashing mix

3 tbsp liquid castile soap

2 cup water

1 tsp glycerine

10 drops lavender essential oil

Stainless steel

Wipe with baby oil

Toilet bowl cleaner

Throw ~1 cup baking soda into bowl, add ~1 cup white vinegar, watch it fizz!

Leave ~10 mins then scrub with brush.

Spray tea-tree spray (1 cup water with 30 drops tea-tree essential oil) in and around toilet.

Liquid handwash

250 ml boiling water

2 tbsp grated Sunlight soap

dissolve about 10 mins, then add

2 tsp glycerine

2 tsp rose water

10 drops essential oil of your choice

Magic night face cream

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tsp apple cider vinegar

~1 tbsp water

3 drops lavender essential oil (optional)

I should have mentioned that this book not only has sections on natural cleaning products, natural beauty and health and the kitchen but also has sections on gardening, how to save money, how to reduce, re-use and recycle and how to manage your life! It’s a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.

Wendyl also has a website http://www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz/

I’d love to hear how these recipes work out for you and any other recipes that you would recommend.

TTKD November meeting: Reskilling (+bring your bike)

An important part of the Transition philosophy is making sure useful skills are passed on within, and around, the community.

Hence our November meeting focuses on skills and reskilling. Come along and learn how to:

• make your own home cleaning products

• maintain your trusty bike

• how to use the old Vacola bottling and preserving kit

• and even spin your own wool!

PLUS....... we would love YOU to bring along or share some activity you do that could help others on their steps to sustainability. The presentations already organised are from members of Transition Kenmore, so if you have something you want to share you are most welcome (and qualified) to do so.

PS: Jeremy, who will be doing our bicycle maintenance session is encouraging everyone to bring their own bikes along, especially if you have questions. As it's much more useful to be shown how to do maintenance on your own bike, not someone elses.

Wed 17th 7;30pm
Uniting Church Hall
982 Moggill Rd Kenmore

Green Buildings and Retrofitting - Helping the economy and the environment

With energy use in buildings making up a large amount of worldwide CO2 emissions (some 40-45% in the USA for example) it's no secret that making new buildings Green and Green retrofitting provides a clear path to combating climate change.

The benefits of such activities are obvious, using less energy and water means lower bills, less waste and less exposure to rising prices without even considering the environmental benefits. While there are productivity and physiological advantages of, for example: buildings schools that don't fry in the heat in a state like QLD.

Of course the question that everyone asks about Green buildings is: Won't it cost a lot more?

Well according to Gregory Kats and his new book Greening our built world the answer is NO.

Working with ~100 "architects, developers, green building consultants, and building owners" Greg and his team surveyed 170 Green buildings from schools to laboratories, residential complexes to offices and found:

Green buildings—designed to use fewer resources and to support the health of their inhabitants—are commonly viewed as more expensive to build than conventional buildings. For example, a 2007 opinion survey by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development found that, on average, green buildings were thought to cost 17% more than conventional buildings. But we found this widespread perception—that greening costs a lot more than conventional design—to be wrong. In fact, the green 170 buildings analyzed for Greening our Built World cost, on average, less than 2% more than conventional buildings; moreover, green buildings provide a wide range of benefits—both direct and indirect—that make them a very good investment.

So not only do Green buildings not cost much more, but because they create large energy savings that pay back multiple times over there are a good investment too.

More info and plenty of graphs can be found here.

Electric Bicycle Buying Group

Our upcoming meeting is on electric bicycles. Garry Willett from Sustainable Jamboree, will be talking about the e-bike bulk buy he is organizing. For those considering this offer, here is some more information about the bikes available (taken from the Sustainable Jamboree website).


"Please let us know if you’re interested to buy an electric bicycle for $1600 ($700 off)! Models on offer include the eZee Sprint or Torq.

We’re in the process of organising a buying group in partnership with Glow Worm bicycles but we need 50 people to order one with them through Sustainable Jamboree.

http://glowwormbicycles.com.au/store/product/ezee-torq
http://glowwormbicycles.com.au/store/product/ezee-sprint
http://glowwormbicycles.com.au/faq

Those interested can contact Garry for an order form etc: garry [at] sustainablejamboree.org

For information about the Queensland Government’s position on e-bicycles see: http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Registration/Registering-vehicles/Wheelchairs-and-small-devices/Motorised-foot-scooters-and-motorised-bicycles.aspx#motorised_bicycles

This buying group does not constitute a product endorsement. Please do your own research before making any decision."

TTKD May Meeting: Water recycling with Kevin Venville from H20 Pure Plus

This month our speaker will be Kevin Venville, Managing Director and Founder of H2O Pure Plus.

"H2O PurePlus® is a unique non-chemical water treatment and reuse system that has worldwide domestic, community, commercial, agricultural and industrial applications".

This system achieves dramatic water savings by naturally cleaning both grey and black water for completely safe reuse inside and outside the home and work place and is approved by the Australian Governing bodies (see here for example).

To find out more and talk to this Brisbane innovator join us on:

Wednesday May 19th

7:30pm

Uniting Church Hall

982 Moggill Rd Kenmore

Food Connect - connecting you with farmers, to provide sustainable, local food

Many members of Transition Kenmore are part of an increasing number of people from around Brisbane using Food Connect to provide them with fresh local fruit and vegetables.

Food Connect makes it easy to support local farmers, cut down on "food miles", eat food that's fresh (not stored for months in a refrigerated warehouse), expand your fruit and veges horizons with their wide range of produce and much of the food is organic to boot.

Food connect does it by establishing relationships with local farmers and then, every week, brings their fresh produce to the city where it is packed into boxes and sent to each suburb for subscribers to collect. Food connect also guarantees farmers a fair price for their produce, while maintaining affordability for their subscribers.

Food connect are more than just food suppliers though, they also work hard to decrease the city/country divide by running farm tours and profiling many of the farmers they work with. They have a great website where you can learn all about them, their philosophy, sign up and manage your account.

So, if you want to spend less at the supermarket and more on fresh, local food, making the change is just a click away.

Catherine Mohr - Building a truely green home - Another great TED talk

In her quickfire (6 minute) TED talk, Catherine Mohr explains how she is using embodied energy (the amount of energy required to make something) to guide her decisions in building a green house. You can find more info on her own blog.

In cutting through the waffle and examining the numbers Catherine shows how the places you can make the biggest savings might not be where you'd expect. And also answers the question, will building a new energy efficient home save energy in the long term or should I have kept my old place?
You'll have to watch it to find out.......

In the discussion on the TED site, Catherine also responds to questions about whether building the house cost more:

"The five main areas I identified as saving embodied energy turned out to be either cost neutral or cost savings over traditional. Deconstruction cost more in labor, but there were salvageable materials whose value offset the labor. High flyash concrete was cost neutral, the cellulose insulation was cheaper than either foam or fiberglass, the wood windows were cheaper than the vinyl (although maintenance will make that advantage disappear), and the wooden and concrete floor could be cost neutral to carpet, but I chose reclaimed wood for its beauty"

So I guess the answer is not really, if you do it right.

Green Earth Festival - this Saturday 13th of March

This Saturday the Green Earth Festival is on in the city botanic gardens. There will be stalls from "green" businesses, NGO's and community groups (including Transition Brisbane), food, speakers, music and hopefully fine weather.

Some of the speakers look quite interesting including Tim Lang from Northey St city farm talking permaculture and Dr Sarah Lantz from the University of Queensland talking about her book Chemical Free Kids, as well as people talking on a variety of topics from animal rights to climate refugees.

The event runs from 10am to 6pm so plenty of time to go after the permablitz for people who have the energy. Here's the flyer, click on it to enlarge.



From the site:

"Green Earth Festival is a free, family orientated, community event which aims to stimulate awareness by bringing environmental, green, health and lifestyle, cruelty-free, recycling and sustainable issues into the public eye; encourage people to make simple changes in their everyday lives to help our environment and the world we leave for generations to come.

The festival will comprise live bands/performers, a second stage for demonstrations and speakers, a food zone, kids' zone, video zone, art and fashion displays, roving entertainment and many stalls to create a full-filled festival atmosphere strongly supporting the promotion of local grassroots communities, multiculturalism and the Indigenous people and their culture."

Rain causes flash flooding in SEQ (again) - A case for "Green Roofs"?

The massive downpour that drenched parts of Brisbane and SEQ on tuesday caused flash flooding around the city, disrupted roads and public transport, submerged cars and caused damage to homes and businesses.
This seems to be the usual outcome of heavy rain as the storm-water system and creeks around the city are overwhelmed.
But could these effects and the damage and financial costs they cause be eliminated or at least substantially reduced?

One potential solution to urban flash flooding are "Green Roofs" ie: roofs covered in plants. We had Geoff Wilson the convener of Green Roofs Australia talk at our TTKD meeting back in Sept 09. Green roofs have a number of benefits including producing food, acting as insulation and reducing urban heat island effects.
Importantly Green Roofs also moderate the effects of heavy rain. Green roofs absorb the rain water and act to slow down and reduce rain water run off. Slowing runoff is critical as it acts to prevent the spike in runoff after heavy rain that overwhelms storm-water systems and causes much of the flash flooding.

Due to their multiple benefits Green Roofs are becoming increasing popular overseas and have been popular in parts of Europe for decades. Perhaps it's time to seriously consider them here and try to reduce this "rain-flood-clean up damage-repeat" cycle we see here so often.

Saying goodbye to single use plastic water bottles

Plastic water bottles come in for a lot of stick these days, but are fairly ubiquitous in our society as people have come to expect to have water on hand.
After-all it's a fair question to ask how necessary it is to buy spring/ filtered tap water/ branded tap water in the first place when you live in a first world country with safe water. While single use plastic bottles pretty much epitomize the silliness of our throw-away culture and despite recycling a lot of plastic still makes it way into the environment and end up in places like the great pacific garbage patch.
The final bottled product also carries the embodied emissions of manufacturing the bottle, sourcing/filtering the water, transport, chilling etc etc.
One way to reduce the impact of plastic bottle is to reuse them, which for a lot of bottles isn't what they are designed for and so you risk bacterial growth and potentially degradation of the bottle over time.


So what are the alternative options for those of us who like to have a drink bottle handy? Luckily options abound with varying degrees of usefulness

1) Use drinking fountains (ok in some cities, not so good away from them)
2) If it just sits on our desk at work, why not use a glass bottle.
3) Buy a proper reusable drink bottle that won't break, leak and leach and is recyclable. You could get a proper plastic drink bottle but make sure to avoid plastics #3 and #7 as they can leach toxins into the water. An increasing popular option is to buy a steel or aluminum bottle. Reputable brands of steel/aluminum bottles includes Sigg, Nathan, Klean Kanteen and Thermos. From the customers perspective these have the advantage that they last years, shouldn't contaminate the water and are just as useful hiking in the mountains as they are on your desk.


From an environmental perspective one metal bottle is obviously worse than one plastic bottle, so what's the break even number? I couldn't find a published life-cycle analysis comparing the two, but the New York Times had a piece last year which stated that for greenhouse gasses after your metal bottle has displaced 50 plastic bottles it's better for the climate and after it has displaced 500 plastic bottles it's better for the environment in all aspects (and that wasn't including the impact producing the water present in the plastic bottles). Given how long a metal bottle last (unless you lose it) it should eventually be better for the environment.

So, if you like drinking water and you like water bottles, consider getting a steel/aluminum one and say goodbye to plastic bottles.

Sustainable businesses in Brisbane part 1: Biome and their blog "Accidental Greenie"

Every once in a while it's good to give a hat tip to other websites and businesses promoting a sustainable lifestyle. So here's an interesting blog to read and related eco-business to consider supporting.

Tracey Bailey who founded the eco-store Biome, which operates both online and from two Brisbane locations has a blog called Accidental Greenie where she writes about various "eco" topics and also gives information on some of the products biome sells.

We have previously profiled the reusable Onya weight bags that can be bought from Biome but the store also offers a wide variety of other eco-products ranging from jewelery to stainless steel water bottles, school supplies to skin care products. So if you are in the market for some mineral makeup, a bamboo cosmetics brush or some reusable sandwich wrap for your childrens' school lunches, this is the place to go.
Biome has stores in Paddington (part of the Paddington Green Precinct) and the city, plus online (which means they deliver).
On their website Biome claims their city store is the Greenest retail store in Australia, containing, amongst other things, a floor made from recycled tyres. Which is certainly an innovative way of putting the three R's into practice.

I recommending checking out both the blog and the store.


Note:
Personally I'd like to promote and profile other businesses especially those in the Pullenvale area where we operate (but also in greater Brisbane) that are either selling eco-products/ promoting a sustainable lifestyle and/or conducting their business in a sustainable manner. The more promotion and therefore custom we can give them the better.

If anyone has any suggestions please get in touch, or feel free to write your own profile.

Making furniture from cardboard

Here at Transition Kenmore we like to promote the three R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. Plus extra ones such as repair. Making some of your own furniture is one way to put some these principles into practice.

It doesn't have to be complicated either, if you have cardboard, string, some cloth and a needle and thread (which should be most members of our community group) then you can make an attractive looking foot stool.
Hat tip to the creative geniuses in the family, my wife and her brother for showing us how it's done.

1) Take a bunch of old cardboard



2) Start cutting out identical sized pieces










3) Stack



4) Stabilise with cardboard retainer round outside, hold in place with string



5) For a bit of comfort, cover with dacron, sew up













6) Cover with fabric



7) Enjoy



So, sure you can just recycle your cardboard, but why not put it to use as something functional? Reusing some "waste" products and reducing the number of trips to Ikea.

An alternative to plastic bags: Onya weigh bags

To reduce the use of plastic bags a lot of people have switched to using "Green" bags when shopping in general, however putting loose fruit and veges into separate plastic bags at the supermarket or local farmers market is still very common.
Personally I don't have any problem with my broccoli hanging loose with my corn and apples etc inside one big "green" bag, but realize it's not as convenient when getting things weighed at the checkout. To the rescue comes Onya Weigh bags.

Onya weight bags are super thin, ultra lightweight, transparent bags, contained within a pouch. They are they are strong and durable so can be used over and over again.

Onya weight bags are made of a fine mesh meaning you can use them as a collander and wash your produce while it is inside the bag. And if the bags get dirty you can put them in the wash and afterwords they dry almost immediately.

As the Onya website says
"So you have remembered your reusable bags, but still need to use plastic for your fruit 'n' veg.....Not any more"!

*This Turquoise pouch contains 5 strong Tulle bags (each can easily carry 2 kilos of produce)
*They are incredibly lightweight, so they don't weigh anything on the scales
*Being see-through, shop assistants know what's inside
*Because washing fruit 'n' veg is important, these bags are designed so you can use each one as a collander washing the produce inside
*Most fruit 'n' veg store better not sitting in a plastic bag where they can sweat

Other uses:
*Just as useful in the Health Food shop for: nuts, grains, rice and lentils etc
* Laundry bag.

Onya bags come in sets of 5 or 8 can be purchased from onyabags.com or from biome stores
For more information see the onya bags website

Environmentally friendly laundry: Washing with balls

Doing the laundry is a necessary household chore and part of life, unless of course you're going for that dirty, smelly, unkempt look. Modern laundry methods can use a lot of water, power and phosphate/bleach containing cleaning products which are not very grey water safe. So, without going back to a washboard and homemade soap how can we "green" doing the laundry?

Clearly a good starting point is an energy efficient front loading washing machine, this will act to significantly reduce both the electricity and water used to do a load of washing.
But how to clean the clothes without chemicals that we really shouldn't be putting down the drain willy-nilly?

Luckily for you, we have been experimenting. Here are our results (with thanks to Char for writing the report of our laundry results):

"For lightly soiled laundry items (clothes, sheets, towels) I wash using an Enviro Washball ($49.95, available online here). Enviro Washballs are recyclable plastic balls containing small ceramic stones (no detergents/chemicals/bleaching agents) and last for ~1000 washes).
The stones raise the pH level of the water, which softens the water and opens the weave of the fabric. Water moves through more easily and effectively, removing dirt naturally.
Washing with the Enviro Washball cleans lightly soiled items very effectively however you don’t get that ‘fresh laundry smell’ that is due to fragrances in laundry detergent, so I add a teaspoon of Bosito’s Eucalyptus Oil to the wash. (Although we haven't tested it, it is claimed eucalyptus oil can also be used for a number of other purposes including as an antiseptic, a massage oil, a stain remover and a cleaner).

For medium soiled laundry (dirty clothes, exercise clothes) I use the Enviro Washball and one tablespoon of Earth Choice Front Loader Laundry Powder (phosphorous/petrochemical/bleach free, grey water safe, from Coles).
While for heavily soiled items I first soak them with the Enviro Washball then spot treat any stains with the Enviro Stainstick ($3.95 available online here). I then wash with the Enviro Washball and 1T laundry powder."

So although we haven't been able to completely stop using detergent, we have been able to reduce it significantly using the Enviro Washball (which we supplement with small amounts of grey water safe detergent when necessary). All in all we have found it remarkably easy to make doing the laundry more environmentally friendly and would encourage everyone else to consider how they could do the same.