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 March Meeting: Waste Management: Past, Present and Future

 Deana Nichols is Brisbane City Council's Waste Management Education Officer - she will give us a comprehensive insight into waste management in Brisbane.

TTKD Meeting Flyer Mar 13 2013

Thursday March 21

7.15pm for a 7.30pm start

Kenmore Library Meeting Room

Infographic: Plastic Bags and the World

Click the link below for the info:

Infographic: How Plastic Bags are Suffocating the World

TTKD August meeting: Water Recycling – Facts and Myths

Water Recycling – Facts and Myths
Guest speaker - Troy Walker

Synopsis

The presentation will look at water recycling in Australia and around the world.  It will look to answer:

·         What are the different kinds of water recycling?
·         What are the technologies that are used?
·         Is it safe?

Biography

Troy Walker is the Technical Manager for Veolia Water in Australia.

He has worked in the water industry in Australia for the past 18 years, working in the operation of water treatment plants, the design and construction of water treatment plants and the manufacture of water treatment equipment.  His speciality is membrane processes such as microfiltration and reverse osmosis, especially in their application for sewage recycling applications.  He has worked on a number of these types of projects in the United States, Singapore and Australia.

He is a native of Sydney, but in 2007 emigrated to Brisbane to work on the landmark Western Corridor Recycled Water Project, which is operated by Veolia.  He lives in Mansfield with his wife and two young daughters.

And yes, he has, and will again, confidently drink recycled sewage.




TTKD Aug 2012 Meeting Flyer

To encourage recycling, it pays to learn from zer best.

The Germans are well known for taking their recycling seriously, helping this along has been coming up with effective ways of encouraging people to recycle. Leo Hickman reports from Neustadt an der Weinstrasse where 70% of waste is recycled.

So how do that do it? Simple really, residents pay for every bag of rubbish they create, while recycling collection is absolutely free. The charge for waste is separated from rates so people know exactly how much money their rubbish is costing them. So, the less waste you create, the less you pay.

The reason for Neustadt's success is simple, says Weiss. "It's all about providing financial incentives and education. We don't charge citizens anything for the recycled waste they leave out. And the less waste you put out for incineration – we've had no landfill in Germany since 2005 – the less you pay.

"Having no incentive to reduce waste is poisonous to your aims. We have a separate, visible fee that is intentionally not embedded within a local tax."

Clearly the scheme works. And why wouldn't it...

A car towing a trailer full of construction waste pulls up at the weigh-station by the entrance gate. Weiss wanders over to inspect the contents. "This weighs about half of tonne. If will cost €270 to dump it as it is. Or if the car owner sorts it into separate types of waste — timber, paper, plasterboard etc — it will cost him just €17. That, in summary, is our system. We provide a major incentive to recycle."

Good bills want to become good laws - Container deposit legislation and Palm oil labelling

Parliament has been back in business this week and I have noticed there are two bills that have either just been introduced or under consideration in areas Transition Kenmore has previously spoken up about.

The first is container deposit legislation (or trash into cash as the SMH so wittily puts it), which would provide a 10 cent rebate for bottles, cans and cartons like they have in South Australia. Such a law would boost recycling rates and stop millions of these containers going to landfill everyday, or being left to litter the landscape. We supported a petition back in February to introduce this in QLD, the answer to which was basically, "we're thinking about it at a national level". Well, The Greens are trying to get a federal law past, but despite it being popular with the public, things are moving very slowly. If you'd like to see this made law, then a brief email to, or chinwag with, the new Environment Minister Tony Burke would be a good place to start.

Second up, many readers will be aware of how deforestation and habitat destruction on a massive scale has been occurring in Indonesia and Malaysia to clear rain forest for palm oil plantations. This is causing not only enormous greenhouse emissions but is also threatening species such as "the orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Asian elephant, Asian rhino and other rain-forest species with extinction". Palm oil is literally in everything, but currently it's difficult to know which products contain palm oil or whether the palm oil is actually from a sustainable source.
Enter Sen Nick Xenophon with his truth in labeling bill to make food products which contain palm oil say so, as well as allowing responsible companies to state they're using sustainable palm oil. Informed choice is a good thing and we've supported a similar petition previously. A message to our new local MP supporting this bill might be a good idea.

Waste not.....

Two problems facing Brisbane gardeners are what to do with the palm fronds (most gardens seem to have them) and all the prunings, a natural by-puct of lush growth. One of the things I find upsetting is to see these being disposed of in the normal rubbish bin. This means they go to landfill and hence produce methane. Green waste constitutes 30% of landfill here in Brisbane.

BCC is now instigating a green bin system. You have to apply and there will be a small fee but it will be collected from your home, composted and used on council gardens. To find out more go to HTTP://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:BASE::pc=PC_5992

Meanwhile, as we have lots to mulch on our own place we recently invested in an 80 year old

chaff-cutter.

It loves palm fronds and most other prunings as long as the stems are not too thick. It is fun to find a great use for this solid old piece of machinery.

Qld Recycling E-Petition - Sign the petition to introduce a 10c refund on bottles, cans and cartons

A petition has been launched to introduce a 10c refund on a number of recyclable items in Queensland to help prevent littering and help increase rates of recycling, similar to the scheme in South Australia.

Since this has been talked about at Transition Kenmore meetings as something we would support, you might like to sign the petition online here and let your friends and family know as well.
Signing the petition is open to Queensland residents, citizens and electors. See the website for more details.

The petition statement is as follows:

"Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House:

1. the increasing (dangerous) occurrence of broken glass, cans and associated refuse on roads, footpaths, cycleways and public space;
2. the escalating amount of recyclable drink containers going to landfill and overloading public refuse bins; and
3. the success of CDL in South Australia.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to introduce (CDL) legislation in Queensland as done in South Australian (12 February 2008) to ensure a 10 cent deposit/refund for every (glass, bottle, can, PET bottle, fruit drink and flavoured milk carton) drink container. (In consultation with the drinks manufacturers.)"

H/T to Ngaire from Sustainable Jamboree for bringing this to my attention.

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.

Recycling Fest - Sunday 15th November

The local pièce de résistance of national recycling week (9th to 15th of November) is Recycling Fest put on by the Cubberla-Witton Creek Catchment Network in Moore Park, Indooroopilly.

The theme, naturally, is reduce, reuse, recycle, as well as wider aspects of sustainability.
There will be heaps of stuff on the programme including:
- An art show of "waste" products
- Sustainable fashion
- Food and Music
- Op shopping
- Our mates from Food connect
- Storytelling, theatre and face painting for the kids
- Recycling, composting and wormfarm info
and a whole lot more including Transition Kenmore

So head on down, should be fun and you'll no-doubt learn something new about the three R's and hopefully the fourth - repair.

For more info see the Cubberla-Witton Creek Catchment Network website

Where: Moore Park, Indooroopilly
(access from Western Freeway bikeway, Russel Tce or Taringa Parade)
When: 10am to 3pm Sunday 15th of November

Phthalates and PVC – the not good, the bad and the ADHD

At our last meeting, TTKD set up a packaging group to encourage companies to use less packaging, recyclable packaging and as this post will detail, non-toxic packaging. The case in point being the presence of Phthalates in PVC plastic.

Phthalates are added to some Polyvinylchloride (PVC and no.3 plastic) to make it more flexible and soft. However the phthalte molecules are not bound to the PVC and are able to leach or evaporate out. Some products made from PVC include food packaging, vinyl flooring, children's chew toys, pacifiers and children’s bottles.

Phthalates are also found in a wide range of other products (see the Wikipedia page of phthalates for an overview). While daily exposure to phthalates from a single product may be quite low (1), exposure to all the phthlalates that find their way into indoor air, foods, dust etc, from the many products containing phthalates, means the cumulative daily dose may exceed the safe maximum daily intake. Eg: In one study it was found that the "tolerable intake of children is exceeded to a considerable degree, in some instances up to 20-fold" (2).

Phthalates are endocrine disruptors, which essentially means they are reproductive and developmental toxins. Exposure to phthalates has been linked to a number of different adverse effects including:

Autism in children (3).
Asthma and allergies in children (4).
ADHD in children (5).
Obesity (6).
Abnormal sexual development due to prenatal exposure in males and because of this effect phthlates have been linked (along with other toxins) to the observed decrease in male fertility (7).

While many of these studies are very recent and need to be replicated they show a growing concern about the safety of phthalates and how they might “synergise” with other endocrine disruptors to cause significant deleterious health effects. Countries are now putting bans or limits on phthalates because of this and it would be sensible at an individual level to avoid products containing phthalates, which brings us back to PVC.

Currently PVC products are not marked at to whether or not they contain phthalates, meaning all Plasticized PVC (PPVC or just PVC) should be assumed to contain them and should be avoided.

So to summarise, products containing phthlates (of which PVC is one) are not safe, with children (both post-natal and pre-natal) being most sensitive to their deleterious effects. Because of this household use of PVC (no.3 plastic) should be avoided.


References (click to expand)

(1) Corea-Téllez KS et al 2008 Estimated risks of water and saliva contamination by phthalate diffusion from plasticized polyvinyl chloride. J Environ Health.
(2) Heudorf et al 2007. Phthalates: toxicology and exposure. Int J Hyg Environ Health.
(3) Larsson et al 2009. Associations between indoor environmental factors and parental-reported autistic spectrum disorders in children 6-8 years of age. Neurotoxicology.
(4) Jaakkola et al 2008. The role of exposure to phthalates from polyvinyl chloride products in the development of asthma and allergies: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Environ Health Perspect.
(5) Kim et al 2009. Phthalates Exposure and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in School-Age Children. Biol Psychiatry.
(6) Desvergne et al 2009. PPAR-mediated activity of phthalates: A link to the obesity epidemic? Mol Cell Endocrinol.
(7) Hu et al 2009. Phthalate-induced testicular dysgenesis syndrome: Leydig cell influence. Trends Endocrinol Metab.

Focus on Waste and Recycling at next TTKD meeting: Wed Oct 21

Our speaker for this Wednesday's meeting is Michelle Prior who will be talking to us about Recycle, Re-use and Refuse as ways to lower our carbon footprint.

Michelle is an Environmental Researcher and Principle Advisor to IOSS (Integrated Open Space Services) and has a degree in Natural Resources as well as in Urban and Regional Planning.

And remember if you want more information about what you can and can't recycle on Brisbane you can check out recycling information found on the BCC website.

Well also be discussing a range of other topics at the meeting including how to get involved in the upcoming 350.org events this Saturday, opportunities for future Guerrilla Bagging and of course finding out who gets this months prize of a packet of TimTams for the lowest GreenStreet score.
And, as always come along and tell everyone what you've been doing to live more sustainably and your ideas for future group actions.

Wed Oct 21st
7:30pm Uniting Church Hall
Moggill Rd
Kenmore

All welcome, see you there