this is my ... recycling

Yeah, back on board with this meme too!! 

Had to think about this one for awhile before posting ... recycling, what is my version of recycling. Hmm, we recycle all the obvious household items and our food scraps go into the worm farm. Like many sewers in this meme, I too thrift fabric and use recycled fabrics; some of the first pieces I sold were partly made from recycled Japanese kimonos. Much of our furniture is reclaimed and done up by Andy, or second hand or built with timber from his parents block, with trees replanted. And like most mums our craft box is filled with bits and pieces reclaimed from all manners of household items.

One thing we don't do that is now quite popular is recycle our grey water, when we first came into stage 4 water restrictions here I tried to but actually found there really wasn't any where in our garden I could, or wanted to use grey water.  When we planted out our garden  back in 2001 we planted an all native garden, with a focus on indigenous plants. It doesn't need to be watered and hasn't been for over five years. Our lawn is in the same situation, we've never watered it, it survives. And I wouldn't pour grey water on an area where kids play anyway. Our lawn does get some water from a subterraneous watering system that comes from the downpipes of the studio.  The only thing left was the vegies and fruit trees (both totally organic), again I'm very hesitant to water them with grey water; they do get the first off the shower water though, and our fruit trees just have to be tough, although they do occasionally get a dousing with Lily's bath water LOL

So, I've decided to go off on a slightly different tangent, just a little, and say that my idea of recycling is to work on reducing my impact initially so that I don't have to rely on recycling as much. Recycling household waste still uses a huge amount of resources, so things like being conscious of the packaging your goods are in, saying no to plastic bags ~ supermarket ones as well as those from chain/fashion/other stores (disappointingly despite the move to green bags nearly one billion more plastic bags were used in 2007 than in 2006), reducing the amount you consume, focussing your consumption on more ethical options; basically aiming to reduce your carbon and environmental footprint. 

Ok, to explain the pics.  The first one is of Lily quite some time ago in  a cloth nappy; a bamboo terry nappy from Cherubs Kiss to be precise.  Using cloth nappies can drastically reduce your environmental footprint, particularly those made from such environmentally friendly fabrics such as hemp and bamboo. 

One of my big dislikes are so-called disposable products, but I particularly dislike disposable products like so called "eco-disposables".  I consider these to be green-guilt-cleansers; false ones though that are so terribly misleading in there advertising it's wrong. Yes, they are biodegradable, but here's the thing; they don't biodegrade in landfill any faster than other  single-use nappies; which in case you're wondering, is estimated to take about 500 years. The only way they do biodegrade is in a composting system, and unfortunately your average household compost system is seriously incapable of coping with such a load. Even worse is that some "eco-disposables" actually use more resources in their production than other single-use nappies.  We won't even go into the ridiculous amount of oil that is used in the production of such nappies or how many Olympic swimming pools full of nappies your child contributes to landfill after their time in nappies using single-use nappies.

Cloth is easy, environmentally friendly, a much cheaper alternative and far cuter.  

Secondly, fish and sustainable seafood and fishing.   The ocean is the lungs of the earth, and seafood form an integral part of its operation. And quite frankly, we're stuffing it. If we don't change our fishing habits now by 2040 things are going to be very very bad indeed. Unfortunately, as humans while we're happy to bang on about and get extremely concerned about endangered and threatened species on land, the same can't be said of sealife. Many people consciously eat free-range, organic and local but how many people consider the environmental effects of eating seafood?  

Next time you pick up a tin of tuna in the supermarket I would love you to think not just about whether you're choosing dolphin friendly tuna (isn't even the choice made here between two different species an interesting one ~ because heck, it's certainly not tuna friendly is it!!!) but also about the state of the fish species itself; some subspecies of tuna are considered threatened or endangered, including those that the Australian tuna industry is based on.  Consider also that the harvesting of tuna has a similar environmental footprint to farming beef.  

Think also about your choice of sea food and whether it is sustainable. Don't kid yourself that just because the fish is farmed, it's a more sustainable option; it's not. There are only I think about three fisheries in Australia that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as sustainable.  Here's a good link to packaged products that you can buy in the supermarket that are a good environmental seafood choice.

Anyway, if you'd like to know more about sustainable seafood visit here and purchase a shopping guide and help support the Australian Marine Conservation Society.