Green Drinks and a Giveaway

All over the world, generally hidden out of sight, there are groups of people gathering to listen to inspirational speakers sharing their knowledge and experience about sustainability. These events are Green Drinks.

In Perth, Green Drinks take place about four or five times a year. The most recent event sounded like it was going to be amazing, so amazing that this free event booked out before I managed to register.

I had wanted to listen to Rebecca from Plastic Free July talk about how the campaign originated and how they built it to the great success that it is in three years.

Imagine my excitement when I found that some incredibly wonderful person had recorded the talks and put these up for the world to see.

This years focus of PFJ is on reducing the use of takeaway coffee cups with the campaign 'Bring one, get one tree'. To help promote this, I thought I would run a little giveaway. If you would like to be in the running for a Keepcup leave a comment below and tell me one type of plastic (apart from coffee cups/lids) that you could live without in July.  The winner will be selected at random on Sunday 22 June at 8pm AWST so that you can get the cup in time for July. Edit: Thanks for entering, ladies.

If you are interested in having a look at the other talks from the evening, try here and here.

Take care

Green Cleaning Workshop

Over the last few years there have been so many new 'green' events popping up around the city. It is really promising.

There is a great green cleaning event taking place this Friday organised by ecohub. Unfortunately I can't make it but thought I would pass it on to any Perthite that might be around the city at lunchtime.

They have also compiled some information about non-toxic cleaners including recipe.

If anyone manages to go, I'd love to read about it.

Take care

Plastic Free July with Jude Blereau

Late yesterday morning I jumped on my bike and headed 20 kilometres down the coast to the Plastic Free July event at The Grove. (Gav, if you happen to be reading this, I think you would love this building. It is amazing.)

The Grove Library has recently been beautifully designed. So much thought had gone into every aspect of the building, even the fact that the toilet systems are linked into the gardens. My family and I were involved in some of the planting of the gardens last year with Josh Byrne from Gardening Australia. It was a great day and the gardens are looking amazing now.

Yesterday was the Jude Blereau plastic free cooking event, and as usual, she was full of so much information and great recipes. 

Jude kneading the Barley, Wheat and Rosemary Crackers

I have included here for you a link to the notes from the session from the Earthcarers site. There are some great tips as well as two delicious recipes, both of which we were able to sample at the session. The notes also make mention of some recipes from the Nova website, so here is the link.

I must say I am a bit of a cereal fiend, and on some evenings, cereal for dinner is a possibility, so my ears pricked up at the idea of Homemade Cinnamon and Coconut Toasted Oat Muesli. Jude prepared this alongside a fruit compote. This is now on my 'to do' list (I am just trying to track down some Brown Rice Syrup). I thought I could get a start on the compote so squeezed a few oranges, cut of some dried fruit and threw in a cinnamon stick for good measure.

The plan is to add these to some slices apple tomorrow and cook it up into one big fruity concoction. With a spoonful or two of yoghurt, this should be a fairly substantial breakfast. The muesli will just have to wait.

After the 40 kilometre round trip yesterday I ended up falling asleep in front of a DVD at about 9pm. Although I only managed about 20 minutes of the movie, I still managed to pick the 'bad guy' without seeing the remaining one and a half hours. Woohoo!

I hope you all had a great weekend. What did you do?

Take care

Plastic Free July

It is that time of year again. This was something that I really wanted to get involved in last year but it seemed to coincide with leaving Australia. During a seven hour transit in Kuala Lumpur, it was difficult not to buy a bottle of water.

My annoyance at the consumption of single-use plastic isn't a new topic, in fact it was the topic of the first real post I ever wrote. Not only is the production of single-use straws, cups, cutlery and bags a huge drain on the earth's resources, but the disposal, or just as regularly littering, causes problems on the land, in the oceans and waterways, as well at to so many animals.

Strawwars.org from Myoo on Vimeo.

Plastic Free July is a great way to commit to reducing your use of plastic. When signing up, you can start with something such as reducing you consumption of plastic in one shopping trip up to an entire month. As usual the Earthcarers think of everything and provide great support for those who feel a little uncertain. I am particularly looking forward to a talk by Jude Blereau on Wholefood Cooking - Plastic Free in a fortnight. No matter where you are, feel free of join. I was just reading that someone from Egypt has joined!

For some, eliminating plastic completely may seem too huge a challenge. Encouraging those around us to reduce their use of these products is a great way to raise their awareness.

I've signed up.

Take care

Please feel free to add your comfort food link to this post.

Assembling My Dalek Army

This year I have undertaken a bit of study and decided to do a Diploma of Sustainability. I'm not really sure what I want to do at the end, but needed a bit of a change in direction.

The current assignment involved designing and implementing a program the supports a behavioural change. I have decided to go with a topic that I am really passionate about; composting. For my assignment I am hoping to change the behaviour of five households and get them to eliminate all food scraps from their kerbside collection.

This is where my Dalek Army comes in.

In the weeks leading up to the assignment I kept my eyes out on Gumtree, the Quokka and even bulk rubbish pickups, and managed to collect five preloved bins for less than the cost of one new bins.

Asking people to undertake this sort of change could have been a little tricky but being able to tell them that I had everything ready to go made it a little easier.

With the barrier of 'not having a bin' sorted, I am now going to each household armed with a bin, newspaper, straw, food scraps, cow manure and some of my own compost to help select a site and get the program started.

It is interesting that when I was trying to find people to be my guinea pigs participants, quite a few said that it was something they had thought about but weren't really sure how to get it started. With the chance to get someone to come and help them take the first steps, all four people I approached said yes straight away. My fifth 'composter' overheard one of the conversations and actually asked to join!

There are so many great sites out there offering suggestions on how to get started, but I am a big fan of these girls.

Each of us has some amazing skills that can be passed on to others. Perhaps you could see if a friend if they need a hand getting a compost bin started. Help them overcome that first hurdle of not knowing how to start.

One setup complete, four to go.

Take care

Update
I have just returned from the morning school run and managed to score another bin in the bulk rubbish collection. Woohoo!