The Begining

Ok, so I’ve decided to live a bit more Green

I’ve gotten to the stage where I wonder why I’m suddenly eating more junk food, driving my car more, and just generally being a consumer, rather than a producer. I look at my bedroom and see it covered with clothes I’ve never worn, books I’ve never read and a general assortment of crap I don’t need, really want, or is anyway remotely useful to my daily life. My consumerist tendencies also mean that I barely save any of the money I earn, and take 30 minute showers in the middle of a drought.

Things have to change here. It’s time to start living with a bit more consideration for the planet, and my bank balance.

Hopefully along the way, I’ll learn something.

Car

I have a 1989 Toyota Cressida, and I love it, but it does cost me money to run and keep well-maintained, and while Myka is a hell of a lot more environmentally friendly than a lot of the petrol-guzzlers on the road, it still leaves quite the environmental footprint.

Living in the outer suburbs of Melbourne makes it difficult to catch public transport, with buses late and trains often cancelled without notice. Working at night also means risking life and limb on one of the most dangerous train lines in Melbourne early in the morning and late at night.

I haven’t been on a push bike in years, and my adventures lately with push bike riders getting knocked down by cars and trucks really makes me dread getting on a bike without designated bike lanes and at night.

Where possible, my goal is to use public transport, walk or carpool, especially for the short trips down the shops and the train station. It’ll reduce the wear on my car, the damage to the environment, and the risk of an accident.

Food.

I started really think about how much I spend on food today. My meals at work are rarely under the $10 each mark for what’s essentially tasteless and fatty foods full of sugar. The only food available within walking distance at 2.30am happens to be the local 24hr convenience store with it’s dazzling array of healthy options…… or not.

Starting with packing my lunch (and remembering to take it with me, or, failing that, having something in my desk instead) should save me about half the monetary cost, and about have the dietary cost. It also means I can be more lazy and not have to leave the building to walk down for a sausage roll.

My other goal is not to throw out as much food as I do now, by putting leftovers in the freezer and using slightly damaged fruit and veggies in casseroles and salads. Groups like Food, not Bombs and many freegans go hunting in those great bin rubbish bins that the supermarkets have and use the food thrown out in those to eat. And I can see why, with Australians currently spending 6 Billion on food, and throwing out about 1 Billion dollars of it annually.

I’m not at the stage of “Dumpster Diving” for my dinner, but I intend to grow a lot of my own food, making it a damn site better for the environment. Most of the fruit and veg in the supermarket is trucked thousands of kilometres from Queensland, and there’s no real guarantee of any food being “organic” unless you’ve grown it yourself.

In the garden.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that in times of financial crisis, spending on fast food goes up (along with hem lines apparently). Funny thing is, food is one thing that doesn’t have to be expensive. Growing veggies from seed is one such way to save money, help the environment, and teach the kids about how things grow.

I germinated veggies and herbs in a storage container in the backyard to plant into the veggie patch. It started out as an experiment to see if I really could grow things in one of those storage containers, and as it turns out, it’s dead easy!

I set myself a limit of $50AUD to start up, and using a 40L storage container, a bag of cheap potting mix, a water saving peat moss brick, and seven packs of seeds (Basil, cucumbers, capsicums, eggplants, radishes, pak choi and parsley), managed to keep it all around the $35 mark, although I already have a lot of gardening stuff at home, including a ready supply of rain water, a worm farm, and a compost bin.

All I did was soak the peat moss in a bucket of water, mixed it in with the potting soil in the container, planted the seeds in it, and shut the lid, leaving it in full sun. The heat from the sun, and the water that had soaked into the peat moss made the container incredibly humid, keeping the water trapped inside the container and making it ideal for germinating seeds. In 3 days I had cucumbers and basil poking up green bits, and the other plants weren’t too far behind (I know it was 3 days, because I was on 3 night shifts that week, and slept while the sun was up!).

About 10 days ago I planted the radishes, and I planted out the eggplants and the cucumbers about 2 days ago, which I’ve mulched heavily with sugar cane mulch. They are doing very well in the veggie patch.

This started as an inexpensive little experiment to see what I could grow in a box has yielded far better results than I could have hoped for! I’m pretty damn proud of the effort (or lack thereof) I’ve put into it. It’s been so successful, I started another box last week with Thai Basil, Lettuce and what was a packet of unmarked seeds. These mystery seeds have turned out to be more cucumbers.

By the way, the fertiliser I use on the plants is roughly 30mL of of seaweed or carp emulsion and the same of worm farm water (“worm juice!”) in a watering can, applied liberally once every 2 weeks. With the Sugar Cane mulch, this does wonders.

Computer

I currently own 2 computers. One is a Linux based 7 inch Eee PC (The Black Box) I go travelling with, and my other computer is a Ubuntu desktop (The Frankenputer) that I use as my everyday computer. For the geeks out there, Black Box runs on a Debian/Xandros hybrid Asus designed, while The Frankenputer is currently running Ubuntu 9.04 (old I know, I’ll be updating to Karmic Koala in the next few days). I bought Black Box on sale, and The Frankenputer was a mates that he was giving away a few days ago.

The Eee PC isn’t too bad environmentally. Being only 7-inches, it’s damage to the environment is minimal. And it pretty much runs on battery power when I use it. The Frankenputer is another story. With it’s CRT monitor, it takes up a lot of space and energy. That said, CRT monitors do use less energy than the flatscreen LCD monitors on the market by a considerable amount.

I do want a flatscreen monitor in my room for the space-saving factor, but I plan to buy the most friendly one I can find, and to hit the power switch when I’m not using it, reducing any energy wastage.

Turning off computer monitors also means saving a considerable amount of money on the energy bill….

I should have some more ideas on what I can do to save money and be more environmentally green in the next few days, til then…

Stay green!

Murasaki-Claire