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Archive | October, 2014

Be an environ-RENTAL-ist – how to practise green renting!

for rent

We are living through the biggest property boom Australia has ever seen, and the cost of buying a house is unreachable for many. But renting doesn’t mean you have to stop being green! You may feel as if you have no control over certain things in your rental property, like water tanks, solar panels and space for gardening, but here are some things you can do to green up your rented home.

    1. Location – consider the location of your rental. Will it be near your work – does this mean you can potentially bike, walk or use public transport to get there? Being closer to places you frequent will obviously cut down on the amount of driving you have to do.  Also keep in mind where you do your shopping — is there somewhere close by that you can walk to? Are there bus routes that might work?
    2. Size – is your home too large? The size of your home will also add to how much you spend on heating and cooling, both money-wise and in terms of carbon emissions.  Try to find a rental property that fits your family’s needs, not necessarily wants! If you need help being convinced of this, just think: more rooms = more cleaning. Extra space might seem nice, but that could mean a rise in the time you spend vacuuming and dusting.
    3. Energy Offsets. Nowadays it is pretty normal to go into a rental and have to connect your own gas, electricity, phone line and internet provider. When selecting your suppliers, remember to choose ones that offer green options. For electricity, it’s easy to switch to a government-accredited Green Power option
    4. Weather Proofing – no more drafts! When moving into a new home it is always best to check for drafts or areas where the property will need a bit of weatherproofing. If you find there are drafty doorways, consider speaking to the landlord or real estate agent about the possibility of repairs. If not then you should grab some draft snakes such as this one by Julielion or make your own!
    5. Insulation. Check there is insulation in the ceiling before moving in. This will help  keep the indoor temperature in your house stable through changing seasons, reducing the need to spend money on heaters and air conditioners. If there is none, you should speak to the landlord about having some installed.
    6. Being smart with heating and cooling. In some older rental places you may not have high star rated heating and cooling systems. In some cases, you may not have any! Make sure you dress appropriately for the weather in your home. In winter, bundle up in warm jumpers and socks. In summer, close your blinds or draw the curtains early in the morning so warm air doesn’t enter your house. Simple things like this will make your rental property much greener. Check out our 5 weird tips to reduce your winter energy bill for more ideas.
    7. Water saving devices. If your property only has older shower heads, consider replacing them with water-saving shower heads. These are simple to install, and when you leave you can pop the old one back on and take it with you to your new house. Make sure none of the taps leak, and repair or replace any drippy offenders. If your toilet is an older single-flush model, you can place a full milk or juice bottle in the cistern to reduce the volume of water it uses for a flush.
    8. Bathroom water saving. Take shorter showers — under 4 minutes. Limit time spent in the shower to soap up, wash down, and rinse off. Shorter showers save on energy costs associated with heating water. Shave your legs before you hop in the shower and then rinse off once you’re in. If possible, lower the default temperature on your water heater to the level of heat at which you take your showers. This saves energy, plus you’ll spend less time fiddling around with taps while the water runs.
    9. Recycling . Make sure you use your recycling bins. If there are no recycling options in your building, consider checking if any of your neighbours would mind if you used their bin. Be sure to ask first — there is nothing worse than being caught red-handed trying to stuff your household waste into someone else’s bin!

      10. green renting

    10. Container gardening. If your’re renting an apartment or a property with no garden, make use of a container garden. You might not be able to produce a massive crop of potatoes, but herbs, flowers and small veggies like tomatoes are easy to grow in small spaces. There are many tutorials and DIY ideas out there for container gardens, and vertical gardening is really having a moment right now. Here are some good resources to check out:
      Better Homes and Gardens – Container Gardens
      My Green Australia Gardening Tips – Recycled coffee pod planters
      VERTICAL VEGETABLES: “Grow up” in a small garden and confound the cats!
      Milk Crate “Air-Pot” Urban Container Gardening
      Urban Organic Gardener
    11. Lighting. When you first move in, it’s best to replace any older incandescent bulbs with newer energy-saving models. These are much better environmentally and also have a far longer lifespan. Make sure to switch off the light in rooms you’re not using.
    12. Reusing water. If you are not able to have a grey water system in your rental property, there are still a few things you can do. Keep a bucket in the shower that you can empty onto your garden. If you’re rinsing vegetables or fruits, keep a bucket in the sink and then empty this onto the plants.
    13. The three R’s – Make sure you continue to buy products in packaging that is recyclable, or made from recycled materials. Choose products that are reusable instead of disposable, and try to reduce the amount of stuff you buy in the first place!

green renting

Here are some great tutorials from SaveWater.com.au on simple home DIY. Make sure you speak to your landlord before doing any of these!

What are your ideas for renters who are trying to be green and environmentally friendly?

mga logo

Thanks to My Green Australia for this post!

Photo credit
For rent – ABC
Potted herbs – Maggie Hoffman (CC)
Recycling – Steven Leith (CC)
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Good Gadget Guide: 8 ways to shrink your e-waste footprint

 

appliances

At this stage, we are well and truly a society of gadget nerds. Computers, mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, and dozens of other electronic devices proliferate, and we use them for almost everything. Hype around the release of new models is huge, and you’re encouraged to update your gadgets regularly or risk looking like a backward fogey who’s more familiar with Morse code than txt spk. The ethical cost of continuously updating these devices is large, but there are a few things you can do to swim against the tide and use electronics in a more sustainable way.

Know your rights

Often, the decision to buy a new piece of electronic equipment happens when the old one carks it. This might be the timely death of an heirloom television, but sometimes electronics break before a reasonable amount of time or usage has elapsed. It’s always worth checking with the seller or manufacturer before you put it out on the nature strip for the council to pick up.  The Australian Consumer Law clearly sets out your rights when it comes to broken or faulty goods, and if you’re entitled you might be able to squeeze another year out of your smartphone by having someone else foot the bill. For a simple, amusing explanation of when to ask for a repair or replacement, watch this clip from ABC consumer affairs show The Checkout. Unfortunately, most electronics retailers don’t know or choose to ignore the law. See this CHOICE investigation on the subject, and make sure you don’t let sales staff railroad your legal entitlements. This guide from Lifehacker on how to get Apple to replace a defective phone offers handy tips for what to say to retailers when you’re asserting your rights.

 Donate your cast-offs

If you absolutely must have the newest computer model and your old one is still in working order, donate your computer to a charity electronics organisation. These groups will take your gently used computers, spruce them up, and give them to people or groups in need who aren’t concerned about having the latest and greatest innovation. That way your old computer can eke out its retirement somewhere it’s truly appreciated, and community groups buy one less new computer. For donation options in your location, consult the Give Now electricals page.

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 Recycle your e-waste

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is shaping up as one of the biggest global pollution problems of the coming century. Computers and mobile phones contain a laundry list of hazardous and non-biodegradable materials like plastic, lead, cadmium and mercury. Entire towns in China and Ghana are covered in e-waste, and the people who live there are forced to do dangerous and low-paid salvage work to re-sell the residual components of dumped devices. For more information on the human cost of electronics disposal, see this Guardian piece on the town of Agbogbloshie. To avoid your old computers, phones and TV sets contributing to this problem, check out free tech recycling schemes like the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme and Mobile Muster.

 Electronic ethics guide in your pocket

For brick and mortar shopping, print out a copy of Baptist World Aid’s tiny summary of their Behind the Barcode report into electronics companies. The report investigated dozens of popular electronics brands on labour rights, worker treatment, and living wage, assigning a grade from A to F.  It’s trustworthy, simple to understand, and covers most brands you’re likely to find in electronics and department stores. None of the brands received an A grade, but some got as high as B+. Even if you only use it as a cheat sheet to avoid purchasing from the brands that got a low score, it’s worth tucking inside your wallet, especially if you buy a lot of electronics for personal or professional use.

 Choose trustworthy refurbs

Refurbished goods sometimes get a bad rap, but if you’re interested in savings and know where to look, they can be a great choice that’s less harmful than buying new. It’s important to make sure your computer has been refurbished by someone credible, rather than being given the once-over with a can of compressed air in the back of a truck somewhere. A good choice might be buying direct from the manufacturer: Apple, Dell, Acer and some other brands have website sections where you can buy refurbished electronics at steep discounts.  You can also buy from reputable third parties like GreenPC, which provides very low-cost PCs to charities and people on low incomes.

 Spring clean your computer

If you haven’t given your computer a bit of TLC recently, look into how you can extend PC’s lifespan and make it a little more enjoyable to use.  PCs can become crammed with malware and unnecessary software, which may inhibit their processing speed and generally make your computing experience miserable. On the hardware side, PC towers can be incredibly dusty and grimy places. This stops the fan from working at its best, which can lead to overheating and performance issues. Check out how to treat your computer right at Lifehacker.

 Investigate DIY repairs

For the more confident electronics consumer, there is a wealth of resources out there that show you how to repair your own electronics. This can be risky, and always check with the seller or manufacturer first to see if they’ll repair or replace your item. But if you damaged the item yourself, or you’re simply a free spirit with a broken television and nothing to lose, it’s worth attempting to repair your item before you junk it. Replacing cracked laptop or phone screens, for instance, is a common DIY job that most people can do by themselves. For a database of repair guides, see iFixit.

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 Change the trends

Instead of buying the latest smartphone upgrade, consider joining the vintage mobile phone brigade. Mobiles that we recognise from a decade ago are surging in popularity, and it’s not hard to see why when you compare the weeklong battery life of a mid-2000s Nokia with the paltry 24 hours of a new model iPhone. If going off the grid appeals to you, consider buying one of these vintage wonders so you can keep in contact and break your Twitter addiction in one go. For klutzes and clumsy people these phones can be a real boon – their lack of glass panels and sturdy plastic casing make them virtually immune to everyday accidents that can total more modern specimens. Sellers include Vintage Phones and Unimobile.

Photo credit

Chechi Pe, Electrodomesticos (CC)
Mosman Council, E-waste collection (CC)
Alper Cugan, Differance (CC)
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No more grainy tomatoes! Replace pitiful produce with seasonal superstars

 Eating seasonally is an easy way to be gentler on the planet, improve your health and shrink your grocery spend. So why don’t we all do it? Daile from The Confused but Conscious Consumer peers into the produce section.

eating seasonally

Picture this – you walk into a grocery store on a wintery July day. Maybe it’s your local farmers’ market; it could be a chain supermarket or even a fruit and veg shop. There are so many options – beautiful looking fruit and vegetables on display. The tomatoes are red and juicy, lettuce green and leafy. An apple so shiny you want to bite into it on the spot, just to hear the loud crunch and feel the sweetness burst in your mouth.

You may come shopping armed with a very specific list of items to purchase, based on the cookbooks you scoured prior to your shopping adventure; or perhaps the knowledge of ingredients for a family favourite. You grab a basket and fill it to the brim with zucchini for a frittata, asparagus for a weekend breakfast cook-up, sweet potato and pumpkin to make a nourishing soup, strawberries and mangoes to add to your post-exercise smoothies and some mint for Mojitos because no one is THAT perfect when they go shopping.

The asparagus has been imported from Mexico, the mint is out of season as it’s winter and the strawberries and mangoes are horribly expensive but still grown in Australia… although how far away and under what unnatural circumstances?

As consumers, we demand that the fruits and vegetables we want to eat be available for purchase at all times. Especially if we have seen it as a key ingredient on a TV cooking show the night before. We will pay top dollar for out of season fruit and vegetables, and not bat an eyelid at a bunch of greenery flown 14,000 kilometres to be sold en masse.

But how are we supposed to know what is in season? I’m no agricultural guru, and to be honest have a difficult enough time keeping a cactus alive let alone a vegetable garden. I have done a basic amount of research and know there are handy guides such as this one for Australians, this for the US and one for the UK. I have no doubt Google will point you in the right direction for whichever country you are in.

Seasonal eating information is out there, and sometimes common sense comes into play as well. Winter is the time for root vegetables, summer is perfect for stone fruit and spring is the sound of strawberry picking.

Eating seasonally is not that difficult but sometimes it means putting down your recipe book, turning off the TV cooking show inspiration and tossing out your old favourites. A great idea is ordering a farmers box every week and discovering new recipes based on the surprises found in the delivery. Think of it as a Masterchef Mystery Box in real life.

eating seasonally

Tips for eating seasonally

– Shop at farmers markets. Talk to the vendors selling the produce, find out where the delicious food you are about to buy is grown and ask for their recommendations.

– Buy your fruit and veggies first. After you have stocked up on enough fruit and veg for the week, pull out your cookbooks or do a recipe search with your main ingredients. This will guide you with a list of non-perishables to buy to complete your meal plan.

– If it seems expensive, don’t buy it. There is a reason avocados are $4.00 in autumn. Not buying overpriced produce is a great way to eat seasonally as well as reduce your weekly spend.

– Experiment with food. So what if the recipe calls for potato and you bought turnip instead? You may discover new favourite flavours and surprise yourself. Breaking the rules is fun.

– Follow interesting food blogs to keep inspired all year round. I have listed some of my personal go-to blogs – Inspirational food blogs for cooking seasonally.

So, how often do you actually consider where your food comes from and how it came to be glistening at your produce market? Do you have any great food blogs you want to share? What about tips on how you eat seasonally at home?

Photo credit
KBR, tomato salad (CC)
Elizabeth Thompson, Vegetables on display (CC)
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