Tag Archives: waste free

Save time, Save money and be eco #3 – Oranges and Apples

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So being Eco-friendly and sustainable looks too expensive? Takes up too much time? Doesn’t do the same job?

It can be – organic food can be double the price and also hard to find, sending you to different shops and vendors. And some more earth friendly products just don’t do the same job as they promise.

But you can change this by making products of your own, that do not take more than a couple of minutes!

Orange spray for cleaning.

Why orange for cleaning? It adds a nice freshness to the cleaning and it acts as a solvent so help remove tough stains.

How to make?

  1. Eat at least 2 oranges.
  2. Keep the peels and place them into a wide jar.
  3. Cover the peels with plain white vinegar
  4. Leave on the bench for at least one week, temperature dependant you may want to leave for longer.
  5. Decant into a spray bottle and use on kitchen benches, stainless steel and ovens!

Apple Cider Vinegar

Why make? Apple Cider vinegar can retail at quite a high price and it is sooooo easy to make! It contains bacteria good for your gut and adds taste to different dishes – just check out some great recipes and you will see!

How to make?

  1. Eat at least 3 large apples or 6 small ones.
  2. Place into a clean wide jar.
  3. Cover apple cores and peels with filtered water and cover with a cloth and rubber band.
  4. Leave for 7 days (temp dependant – may need longer or shorter so keep an eye on it!)
  5. Remember to burp every day and check apples are still covered.
  6. Once there is a vinegar smell, remove the cores and peels and leave to brew and use as necessary!

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Lunchbox musings

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As a parent I am swamped with what we should be giving our children for school lunches and also the importance of how they look.

Really? Do we really need to worry about how the food in our children’s lunch boxes look? Not only is this more pressure on parents to pack the perfect, fun looking lunchbox but it is also setting up our children to expect food to look certain ways. This could lead children down the path of only eating carrots if they are sticking out of an apples with sultanas for eyes…

So what should you be trying to put in your child’s lunchbox if it is not only going to be healthy but also better for the environment?

  1.  No single use plastic. You can use sandwich containers, beeswax wraps and smaller containers to pack food in.
  2. Think you need packaged food? Try making your own cupcakes, biscuits or muesli bars  as an afternoon activity. Children learn about measuring and different ingredients through this fun – albeit messy process.
  3. Less meat – try eggs, avocado, cheese twice a week instead of meat products.
  4. Aim for more fruit and vegetables cut into manageable pieces  – these leave a better impact on the environment and have no packaging!
  5. Fill up a drink bottle instead of packing poppers or bottled water. We don’t need more waste when we have access to fresh and clean drinking water. Worried about chlorine and fluoride? Check out these products.
  6. Ask your school to minimise the amount of waste created by students by removing bins, encouraging a waste free canteen and waste free events.

Go litterless

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Did you manage to catch the program War on Waste run on the ABC earlier this year? If you did you still might be a bit confused about how you are going to reduce the amount of waste you produce each year without compromising your lifestyle. Working, caring for your kids and then your own sanity are important – but isn’t the health of the planet also something we need to consider too?

The E-capsule, ‘Go Litterless’ created by Global Guardian Project, is a great place to start you and your family on their path to creating less waste in your household.

This capsule contains information about:

– What being litter less means

  • How we can recycle at home through our bin systems
  • How we can compost at home therefore creating less waste in our rubbish bins
  • Free downloadable to inspire your family everyday!
  • Simple family activities to get you thinking about the litter you create.
  • Recipes and ideas to inspire litter less lunches
  • Book reviews
  • Challenges to inspire and educate

For as little as $6.99 you can own this e-capsule and begin on your journey to becoming a Global Guardian. (and take off 10% through my discount code GGPVanessa)

So what are you waiting for?

‘Go Litterless’ is an inspiring and simple to use e-capsule. You might surprise yourself and realise that you are making small changes already. This e-learning magazine has free colouring in pages, colourful printable to stick around the house and family activities you can pin up on the fridge. There is no overload of information here but simple tips to start you on your journey.

Subscribe here today

Squishy Taylor and the Tunnel of Doom by Ailsa Wild and Ben Wood

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Do you love adventures?

Do you love the environment?

Well – Squishy Taylor and the Tunnel of Doom is the story for you!


Shortlisted in the EACL book awards for 2017, Squishy Taylor and the Tunnel of Doom not only takes the junior reader on an adventure through Melbourne’s stormwater drains but also highlights the importance of looking after the world we live in.

Squishy and her Bonus sister’s afternoon at the park takes a mysterious turn when they stumble upon some hazardous waste hidden in some nearby drains. Squishy and her sisters may be young but with problem solving and determination they are determined to get to the bottom of this horrible mess – and save the place they live in from destruction.

Ailsa Wild writes with enthusiasm and pace and younger readers will enjoy reading this on their own, especially with great images by Ben Wood to accompany the detective girls at work. Within this great story there is a message to young children that they can make changes that improve the world they live in and do not always need to rely on adults to make those changes.

There are currently 8 novels in the Squishy Taylor series – an excellent read to inspire some future detective work!

 

Plastic Free July

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 July is Plastic Free July and throughout this month we all need to try and make an effort to make our lives full of less plastic!

Why do we need to start using less plastic?

Plastic has been an amazing invention and has so many wonderful uses but the problem today is that we are overusing it in places where we don’t need to.

Do we really need plastic bags for our fruit and vegetables at the supermarket?

At the checkout?

Do we really need all that pre packaged food when we can make our own?

Does everything really need to be wrapped in plastic before we take it home? Especially when home isn’t that far away? 

The simple answer is no and although it may seem hard to make these changes, you can – slow and steady if that is what it takes.

But how? Try this module out – Only $2.99  – an inspiring start to getting rid of the plastic in your pantry! 


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You can also just start with some simple swaps.

Not sure how to empower or educate yourself or your child? The following books are excellent reads to help encourage the use of less plastic——- check them out:

Ada’s Violin – True story picture book – Paraguay’s recycled orchestra. Discussion: Why is there so much in landfill and how can we reduce this?

Out of the Blue by Alison Jay – Wordless picture book. Story of looking after the ocean. Why is there rubbish in the ocean? What can you change in your life so you make less of an impact on sea creatures? (what do you flush down the drain that is harmful?)

10 little rubber ducks – Based on the true story of a shipping container which broke in open sea and unloaded thousands of rubber ducks. Where might they be now? How is this an environmental disaster?

My Green Day – Simple tips on how you can have a greener day.

The Seagull – A seagull is tangled up in fishing wire and a young boy rescues him. Why is there discarded fishing wire on the beach and other rubbish entangled in it? How can we use less single use plastic?

The Lorax by Dr Seuss –  

This book looks at how greed can cause us to waste materials and cause damage to the earth. By thinking about what our plastic does after we use it we can start to see why we should use less.

Compost Stew by Mary McKenna

By using materials that can be composted – not thrown into landfill we are creating a better place and creating better soil for future food and plants!

The tomorrow book by Jackie French

With imagination, creative thinking, problem solving and open minds, tomorrow can be a wonderful day where we harness the sun’s energy, we repair things instead of throwing them away, we each have our own veggie patch and wind power is just another form of easy to use energy. This book looks at how children can make a difference in the world they live in – not just rely on the adults!!

Whatcha Building by Andrew Daddo

Have you ever thought about reusing something instead of throwing it away? This is a wonderful story to get your creative side into gear.

 

Let me know how you go – can you maintain your plastic free ways? 

Ada’s Violin by Susan Hood

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How does music allow us to connect with others?

If waste did not exist, how would your lifestyle be changed?

Poverty is a necessary evil – do you agree or disagree?

Ada’s Violin (The story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay), written by Susan Hood and illustrated by Sally Wern Comport is a true story is told about the people who live in Cateura in Paraguay, a town on the edge of a garbage tip.

Have you ever wondered what happens to all of the rubbish you put in your bin?

I am sure many of us never put a second thought to it, especially if you live in a developed country where tips are away from human habitation.

What we put in our bins should be on our mind as landfill is taking up more space with more things that will never break down. In a perfect world there would be no landfill as people would make their own food, recycle, reduce consumption and reuse products themselves or gift to others what they don’t need.

In the story of Ada’s Violin, The main character who is a young girl named Ada lives on the edge of the tip and often views the garbage truck as a vehicle of surprises – it could be full of toys, jewellery or even plastic which had a going rate of ten cents per pound.

Ada’s grandmother notices a sign up for music lessons and promptly enrols Ada but a large problem arises – the lack of instruments to learn on.

It was the creativity and persistence of Senor Gomez , Tito Romero and Senor Chaves that led to the creation of instruments made totally from junk !

After many hours of practise the Recycled Orchestra was born! This orchestra has since toured the world, enthralling audiences with their talent, amazing sound and ability to rise up from the poverty that bequeathed them.

So what can you do with this story?

Sustainability 

OI.3: Sustainable patterns of living rely on the interdependence of healthy social, economic and ecological systems.
OI.4 : World views that recognise the dependence of living things on healthy ecosystems, and value diversity and social justice, are essential for achieving sustainability.
  • Investigate where your landfill goes in your neighbourhood. Are their any tips that recycle rubbish?
  • Investigate how long different items take to break down.
  • Investigate poverty in the world – how many people in the world are living on the edge of a tip? How many people live off a tip. Is it fair that people live like this?
  • Reflect on your own waste habits – do you do enough to minimise landfill? Keep a rubbish diary and note how much you throw out to waste for a week. How much do you recycle? Use for compost/wormfarm/backyard animals?

Music & Science

  • Create your own instrument out of rubbish. How can you make it solely of rubbish? What can you use for glue? binding?

Literacy

  • Investigate the word ‘recycled’. What does it mean to you? What did it mean to Ada? Explore how we can go beyond the meaning in the dictionary depending on perspective and context.
  • Investigate the word ‘orchestra’ .  What does it mean to you? What did it mean to Ada? Explore how we can go beyond the meaning in the dictionary depending on perspective and context.
  • What does this quote mean to you? They had discovered the surprise waiting in the landfill. Buried in the trash was music. And buried in themselves was something to be proud of.

  • How do the illustrations help the story? Explore different pages throughout the book to highlight how they work together.

    ** Create your own recycled instrument, write a description of it – how it looks, how it is made and the items you would need to create it.

    ** This is a story about music. Does it make music throughout the story? How does this book sound? Explore musical words and sounds throughout the story.

    Two lessons for you: 

    Lesson One

    To help students re ne their understanding of the word recycle, have them complete a concept wheel about the Recycled Orchestra. Have students answer the following questions on the appropriate section of the wheel, using both words and illustrations:

    • What does recycled mean? What does orchestra mean?
    • Who recycled? Who is part of an orchestra?
    • Where did this recycling take place? Where can orchestra’s be?
    • What did they recycle? What music did they play?
    • Why did they recycle? Why did they want to be in an orchestra?
    • What were the results of the recycling? What were the results of creating this orchestra?

    Lesson Two

    In order to create the Recycled Orchestra, Favio Chávez had to solve several problems. Explain how he solved the following problems:

    • Problem #1: There were not enough instruments for the children.
    • Problem #2: It wasn’t safe for the children to have expensive instruments.
    • Problem #3: There were no classrooms.

    • Problem #4: The children struggled as they learned to play their instruments.

     

Home made Bath bombs

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Christmas is a time of giving and there are so many ‘things’ to give people that involve plastic and waste.

We decided that instead of buying our friends different presents, we could make our own.

Bath bombs were high on the list after being given some last year and we found out that they are quite easy to make.


There are many different recipes out there so I tweaked what I found and here is my recipe:

HOMEMADE BATH BOMBS

  • 1 1/2 cups bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 cup citric acid powder (We bought ours from Aussie Soap Supplies)
  • Food colouring
  • Lavender oil
  • Sparkles, potpurri (anything to add some surprise to the bath!)
  • Coconut oil
  • Silicon moulds.

  1. Line silicon moulds with small amount of coconut oil.
  2. Mix Bicarb soda and citric acid powder in a separate bowl.
  3. In another bowl add your food colouring.
  4. Use half a cup of the powder mixture and add to the food colouring – make sure you stir quickly so it does not fizz!
  5. Add a couple of drops of lavender oil
  6. Add a large teaspoon of coconut oil.
  7. Mix together with your hands until you can scrunch the mixture and it sticks together.
  8. Add sparkles etc.
  9. Place the mixture into a mould and leave for 36 hours.

Banana flour pancakes! 

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I’ve posted some books recently on the topic of bees and honey AND I have many more to come. However, today’s blog post is on the best way you can use honey and that is on pancakes!

We love pancakes and I especially love homemade, waste free and gluten free pancakes!

Today we made Banana flour pancakes.

My Banana flour is made in Australia by some ingenious banana farmers who needed to use up some green bananas rather than letting them go to waste. Banana flour is a great prebiotic and is fantastic to bake with. It is a great alternative to flour and is nut free so great for lunch boxes.

Banana flour is great for the environment as it reduces the waste of the green bananas just ending up in the compost, it lessens the reliance on wheat flour and is better for your health!

Here is a great recipe, I hope you enjoy it!

1 cup of Banana Flour

3 tablespoons honey

3 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

150 ml coconut milk. You could also use almond milk – or a combination!