EarthFriendly #3 : How I Re-Use Glass Jars

As part of my endeavours in the last few years to be more eco-aware, I've started re-using glass jars much more, and more mindfully. Here are some of the ways I use them.

1. Holding Food and Tea
All sizes of jar are perfect for holding dry foodstuffs and tea. The glass allows you to see what's inside. I especially love the giant jars that pickled cucumbers come in. If I can't remember how the food is cooked (or even what it is with some of the more exotic ones!), then I cut the instructions out of the packaging and stick them to the lid of the jar with some blutac or doubled-over sticky tape. Just a word of warning -- if the jar originally contained strong-smelling contents such as chilli or garlic, it might be difficult to get rid of the original smell. Do not use these jars for storing food or the smell may contaminate it.

2. Growing Cuttings
My favourite way of using glass jars! I've found I need to change the water once every couple of days for the cuttings to thrive. Maybe I'll do a full blog post on it soon.

3. Storing Craft Supplies
Any kind of jar that still has its lid is great for storing craft supplies. They can also serve an aesthetic purpose by allowing you to see your pretty beads, buttons, etc as well.

4. Making Spiritual Oils
I've recently become interested in making oil blends, and small jars are perfect for this. I can experiment with making small batches, and the glass is a good conductor for warming the oils.

5. Candle Holders
Certain shapes of jars are great for candle holders. You can even wedge a taper candle into the top of a wine bottle if you want to go full 1970s. If you want a holder with some wind protection, use a tall jar with a votive candle in it. Just make sure you have matches long enough to reach down into the jar to light the candle.

6. BONUS! Vases
Vases are just one of those things that I've never felt a need for in my home. Both Husband and I are allergic to fresh flowers, and we don't like artificial ones. Occasionally though, I might want to display some flowers, herbs etc that I've dried for a while before I use them. Here are some rose canes that I collected last time I was pruning and dried out in the sun. I've popped them in a pasta sauce jar that's lost its lid until I decide what to do with them.

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   EarthFriendly #1 : Plastic Bags             

EarthFriendly #2 : Ten Thrifty Things

Last year I started a very short-lived series called Enviro-Monthly. I keep meaning to re-start it, especially considering that it's on my list of 101 Things to Do in 1,001 days. (Not to mention the environment needs our help now more than ever!) After spending quite a lot on conventions and concert tickets last month, I had a sudden urge to be more thrifty too. In reading some thrifty blogs I found through Bunny Mummy, I noticed that almost all of the thrifty ideas are also environmentally friendly.
(The blogs were: Life After Money, Frugal Queen and Shoestring Cottage.)

It spurred me on to think about the series again. I thought about renaming it Enviro-Thrifty-Monthly or something similar, but it just didn't have the same ring to it. I don't want to be limited to posting about it once a month, so I decided to drop the 'Monthly' and just have a numbered series.

When reading the thrifty blogs I mentioned above, I realised there are already quite a few environmentally friendly and/or thrifty things I already do. Some of them I was taught as a kid, and others I invented myself as just sensible things to do. I thought I'd ease myself into things by listing some of them:

1. squish the last bit of the soap onto the new soap so it can all be used up.
2. collect plastic bags and food wrappers to put in the recycling bin at the supermarket (I wrote about this one last year).
3. bring lunch to work most days.
4. usually only buy food on sale.
5. re-use ziplock bags (as long as they're not dirty).
6. usually when Husband and I cook we make enough for at least 2 meals. We find creative ways to make the leftovers interesting. We NEVER throw food away.
7. use the slow cooker to make a week's worth of meals most weeks in Winter.
8. paid off my car loan 2 years early by transferring extra money to it each fortnight. I made sure to choose a car that cost much less than my upper limit so I was able to do this. Which was doubly a good thing really, because poor Tara only lived for another year after that, otherwise I would have had debt on a dead car. When we bought our replacement car, we had good credit from paying off the previous loan early.
9. work out the cheapest options for my daily public transport.
10. only put the heating or cooling on if I'm sweltering hot or freezing cold. (This is more of a preference than a conscious choice. I just don't notice heat and cold until it becomes extreme. When Husband is home it's a bit different: he's a lot more susceptible to temperature than I am due to his medical issues.)

Of course, we're not perfect and we could make a lot of improvements. I've identified many areas where I'd like to do better. Hopefully having a regular series will keep this in the front of my mind and motivate me to keep making changes.

Craft Is Important

Last year I wrote a post called Art Is Important. Of course, I believe that craft is important too, but I've suddenly realised that I'd lost sight of that in the last couple of years. I'd forgotten how important craft is in my life, and in society. I'd convinced myself that it doesn't matter if I use a five-dollar blanket from the supermarket instead of one I crocheted myself. That it's okay to settle for plastic coathangers in my wardrobe instead of ones with colourful knitted covers. That my clothes are so cheap and unloved, there's no point in embroidering them. I let impulse-bought junk pile up on my sewing table until it was unusable. I'd found myself saying things to my friends like, "oh, I'm too impatient to finish anything anymore." And I'd succumbed to the voices in my head that told me I can never make anything as nice as the things I see on the internet, so why bother even trying?

I tried to snap out of it with different plans and systems, creating elaborate spreadsheets with colour-coded sections and spending hours checking and tweaking them. I tried re-organising my projects to make it easier to access them. Nothing quite seemed to work. It would take more than a spreadsheet or fancy storage basket to change my mindset.

Slowly, a combination of influences has built up to create a change, though. Throughout this year I've been reading about fabric dyeing and embroidery on Rhiannon's blog, as well as many more talented crafters. I've had reason to go through my old blog posts from 10-12 years ago recently, and found myself thinking, "wow, I used to make so many good things!" Mentioning to my friend last week that "I don't finish anything anymore" was more than a little saddening, when I reflected on it. The "final straw" came a few days ago when I read a blog post by Bjørn Bull-Hansen: Your Viking Hands. He writes about the importance of knowing how to do and make things with your hands.

I daydream about leading a traditional lifestyle and enjoy reading about people who embody them. Bjørn's post is about Viking crafts, but it got me thinking about traditional crafts in general. I have a bit of a survivalist streak in me (more so recently), and I often think about things like permaculture, bartering, and local currencies. I realised that I haven't learned many of the traditional crafts that were vital to societies in the past, such as spinning, weaving and woodworking. I'm very glad I know how to knit, but I'd also like to learn crafts such as nalbinding, repairing clothes and bushcraft. I haven't even gotten around to learning how to light a fire yet! (Sure, I've been Bear Grylls do it on TV, but watching is very different to doing.)

Now I'm looking through the List of Handicrafts on Wikipedia for more inspiration. I did a ceramics class many years ago, and it would be nice to do some more, if I can get access to the equipment. I learned felting when I was a kid and the process is easy enough to remember, so I've got that covered. Basketmaking, bookbinding, tablet weaving and lucet cording look very interesting. Then there's the whole world of Japanese Crafts.
(I'm sticking to practical crafts in my thinking right now, not decorative ones.)

I got so excited that yesterday I ordered a drop spindle from Etsy. It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time, but if I don't do and learn things now, then when will I ever do them? In a world where it's so easy to spend a few dollars on something made thousands of kilometres away in near-slavery conditions, I believe we need to stand up and say, no, there's a better way. I want to be useful to society, not just for my ability to sit in a chair all day and check 10,000 lines on a spreadsheet, but for making practical things with my hands that will improve the lives of those around me.

EarthFriendly #1 : Plastic Bags

No. 42 on my 101 Things in 1,001 Days list is to do 1 eco-friendly thing and/or make 1 change per month. I have to admit I've been a bit behind on this one, so I decided to write a blog post each month to make myself more accountable. It seems appropriate to begin now, with Plastic Free July increasing in awareness.

I made the change I'll be talking about today about 6 months ago, and it has a bit of a backstory: my first project was to change my relationship with plastic bags, and it was spurred on by an experience I had at that time. Husband and I were driving through the countryside on the way to visit a friend. Looking out the window, I saw some strange animals in the paddocks. In the distance, I couldn't quite tell what they were. Were they white birds, perched in the trees? Some were lower though, sitting on the ground. Were they lambs? They were moving in a strange way though, sort of waving up and down. More and more began appearing as we drove further, until the paddocks were full of them. I suddenly realised they weren't animals at all. They were plastic bags, caught on the trees and grass, billowing in the wind. Just as I was wondering where on earth they could have all come from, we drove past the entrance to the local landfill. It made me very sad to see the huge number of plastic bags littering the countryside. I decided to make reducing their use my first focus.

The easiest way to use less plastic bags is to bring re-usable bags every time we go shopping. However, we have a big stash of plastic bags from the time before we starting being more conscientious. I didn't want to throw them in the bin, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. When we first moved into our house 2 1/2 years ago, we received brochures from the Council on how the bin collection and recycling work. The brochures said not to put any plastic supermarket bags in the bins as they can't be recycled. For a long time I thought this meant they can't be recycled at all. However, in my research I found out they can be recycled, it's just that our council doesn't have the type of facility to handle them.

The two major supermarket chains here in Australia, Coles and Woolworths (the 'Big Two' or 'the Duopoly' as they're often called), give out plastic bags as a matter of course unless the customer brings their own re-usable bag. I wrote to the Managing Directors of both companies, urging them to stop providing customers with plastic bags, or to at least charge a fee for them. (I've never written a letter like that before, so I was a little nervous!) I tried to see the situation from their point of view, and wrote about the benefits to their profits, public image, etc, not just the benefits to the environment. Both wrote back with very similar stock letters explaining why they will not change, which is, sadly, pretty much what I expected. However it's interesting to note that Coles only took a week to reply, whereas Woolworths took a whole month. The reason for this is possibly because I pointed out that (unlike Coles) I could not find any information on their website about their environmental policies. I guess it took the extra time for someone to check their website? It still seems to be the case 6 months later.

I actually found out from the Coles website about the REDcycle programme. This programme runs in both Coles and Woolworths stores. At the front of every store, there is a bin in which to drop off soft plastics, including plastic bags. The bins also accept any kind of flexible plastic packaging (e.g. pasta packets), as well as damaged re-usable bags. They are then collected and turned into things like park benches and children's play equipment. It took me a little while to find the bin in my local Woolworths supermarket at first, as it was down the far end behind a large advertising sign. Weirdly, it moves around a little bit, but it's always there somewhere.

We now use our stash of plastic bags to collect all our soft plastics in. I hang a bag above the bin on this convenient tea-towel drier one of the previous owners installed. As you can see, I use it for drying my rubber gloves! When the bag is full, I put it in the boot of the car. Next time we're at the supermarket, it's easy to grab it along with the re-usable bags and put it in the collection bin.

Of course, the ultimate aim is to reduce or stop using plastic altogether, but at least this is a start. And voting with your wallet makes a big impact as well. Even though it's further away, we have been going to Aldi much more in the last 6 months, especially since I became gluten-free. Most items there are cheaper, but the gluten-free bread in particular is about half the price. Plus I'm supporting a company that is more environmentally aware.

This post was a little longer than normal, but hopefully not too boring! I've been doing some more research, and topics I'd like to look at in the future include:

❖ DIY bath products
❖ alternatives to microparticles
❖ researching who makes my clothes