The shape of things to come
A brighter future for people and planet
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve finally been able to get a start on the gardens here at the Cottage. What a sorry state they are in! The soil’s horribly compacted and woefully lacking in organic matter (with the exception of last year’s potato bed and a spot where mint had gone feral) and decidedly lacking in worms. There are a few of the lovely crawly things about though, and I noticed lots of tiny little wormlings when I gave the compost a good a stir on Sunday.
Aside from planting out a few potted herbs that desperately needed proper dirt and transplanting some self-sown seedlings I’ve discovered about the place, my gardening activities have largely focussed on weeding. Not your usual keeping-the-garden-beds-clear type work, but serious weeding on the slash-and-burn scale. You see, like many older rental properties my garden is home to grand collection of well established declared and noxious weeds.
My place is less cottage-garden and more weed-topia at present…
What is a declared weed? One that’s listed under relevant legislation banning it from sale and requiring active management to control it’s spread. Here in Tassie it’s the Weed Management Act 1999, and legislation decrees that:
(a) A person must not import, or allow to be imported, into the State any declared weed except with the written approval of the Secretary.
(b) The tolerance level for declared weed seed in imported grain will be 0 seeds per kilogram.
(c) Landowners and managers must take all reasonable measures to control the impact and spread of a declared weed.
(d) A person must not propagate, trade or otherwise distribute declared weeds or anything carrying declared weeds except –
I. transport for purposes of disposal and
II. sale or transport for purposes other than disposal where authorised by the Secretary.
(e) A declared weed must be disposed of in a manner which will not result in further infestation.
(f) A declared weed must be eradicated from areas of the State where this is considered feasible.
(emphasis is mine)
So far I’ve found 4 weed species in my garden that are listed as declared or of concern in Tasmania: fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), mirror bush (Coprosma repens), English ivy (Hedera helix) and cottoneaster (Cottoneaster sp.). It’s going to take a lot of hard work, but I’m determined to do my best to get rid of them. The mirror bush is fairly easy: cut it down and paint with poison (likely many times over). The ivy and fennel present more of a problem as they’ll keep coming up from runners and seeds. The cottoneaster I’m afraid I’m going to have to live with, as it’s a 5 m tall tree and felling that is going a little too far as a renter!
It is worth remembering that I rent, when I’m out there labouring away in the garden. Sometimes I think I’m a little insane putting so much hard work into someone else’s garden with no long-term reward. After all, there are reasons weeds are so common on rental properties: they’re hardy, almost impossible to kill and will survive even the most neglectful and brown-thumbed of tenants. When I feel like giving up, though, I remember the impact of weeds on the environment.
Weeds take over, choking both native vegetation and agricultural land. They reduce the habitat available for native animals and often provide a competitive advantage for feral animals. They change the structure and function of an ecosystem, altering soil structure and chemistry, water flows, food chains and biodiversity. Some are poisonous to native animals and livestock: introduced onion weed is causing a horrible liver disease that is killing wombats in the Riverlands. The Australian Government estimates the cost of weeds to agriculture alone at $4 billion per year (cost of control plus lost production). Weeds are bad news!
…though the mirror bush has met my friend the pruning saw.
My first proper job as an ecologist was monitoring the condition of creeks and rivers around Brisbane. It was a frank and depressing education in just how bad weeds can be, with waterway after waterway choked with introduced weeds, the native bank-side vegetation replaced with garden escapes and other ferals. Stopping the spread of weeds matters, and to do that we need to do our best to eliminate sources of seeds and runners. That means:
- Getting informed about what are the problem weeds in your area (your local Council is a good place to start)
- Cutting down and pulling out weeds where possible
- Trimming weed flowers and fruits before they set seed
- Disposing of garden waste properly, instead of dumping it in the bush or other places where seeds can spread
For me, it means I’m going to spend many more hours out in the garden, wrangling the weeds and fighting the never-ending battle against the invaders. I hope you will join me.
It’s World Environment Day, and here at Shape of Things to Come HQ we’re trying hard to keep our cynicism in check. Y’see, doing your bit for the planet isn’t exactly a once-per-year event and I tend to get a little frustrated with the types of tokenistic actions these sorts of ‘awareness’ days generate. World Environment Day it remains though, and as I lay in bed this morning, procrastinating over leaving my warm bed to confront the cold, grey morning, I thought about what I could do to mark the day.
It strikes me that today is a good day to initiate change; to think about and alter your lifestyle just a little to shrink your environmental impact. It’s a good day for beginnings, or in my case an ending: I’m stopping dyeing my hair.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a few months now, after giving my hair a break from regular chemical baths. I know the ingredients in your average supermarket bottle of hair dye aren’t exactly great for the environment, then there’s the plastic packaging, the money spent and the extra water and electricity used (for the long shower to wash the excess colour out). On top of that there’s some scientific suggestion that the chemicals I’ve been dumping on my head aren’t particularly good for me either, though it’s worth noting that to date there’s no solid evidence of harmful effects of hair dye on human health.
I think I might be better off admiring natural waterfalls instead of creating my own colourful chemical cascades in the shower.
What’s in permanent hair dye that might not be so great?
- Hydrogen peroxide, an oxidative bleaching agent that’s not so bad in small quantities.
- Ammonia, an alkaline that splits the hair cuticle that’s highly toxic to aquatic animals.
- Diaminotoluenes & diaminobenzenes, blue colourants that have known toxic effects and may be contact allergens.
- Phenols & naphthols, red colourants that may act as endocrine disruptors (things that can mess with your hormones).
- Resorcinol, benzodioxoles & chlororesorcinols, yellow-green colourants that vary in toxicity and environmental harm (I couldn’t find much information on these).
So giving up on dyeing my hair seems like a better deal for both the planet and my poor scalp, as well as for my wallet. It seems like such a simple thing I can do to make my life a little more sustainable, but I’ve got to admit I’m still a little worried about it.
It’s not just vanity, although I do have a surprising amount of grey coming through these days and I’m really not keen on rocking the two-tone look as the lightened dyed hair grows out. This is the first sustainability decision I’ve made that will affect the way other people perceive me. I’m changing the way I look, showing my greys in a youth-obsessed world and not conforming to societal expectations. Is it ok to rock the greys when you’re single or will I scare potential suitors away with my hippy ways and signs of ageing?
Most of all though I’m going to miss colouring my hair purple-black in the winter. I love the splash of colour against my washed-out winter complexion and just looking a little bit different. Perhaps I’ll give dyeing my hair with henna and indigo a go.
Plant-based dyes might be a better way to go, but they sound like a lot of hard work!
How are you marking World Environment Day this year? Are you embracing the tide of re-usable plastic coffee cups and plant-a-tree give-aways or are you as under-whelmed and cynical as I’ve become?
Please share your stories of the little ways you’ve lightened your impact a little more permanently.
Snow gentian (Gentianella sp.), Mt. Wellington
Treasure the small joys and ephemeral beauties of daily life.
Do you have a happy place? Somewhere you can go when the world gets too much, a place to re-charge and reconnect?
I do, and I’m lucky that my very special place is practically on my doorstep. It’s one of the reasons I love Hobart so much and am loath to consider leaving. My happy place is Mt. Wellington, the dolerite peak that makes this little city so unmistakable. Hobart folds itself around the Mountain’s flanks, seeking shelter from the westerly gales that batter this latitude and drinking from the many creeks and rivulets that drip their way down the slopes and run through the gullies. The Mountain’s unmistakable silhouette can be seen from most every part of this little city, watching over the lives below.
Wellington is special, and not just because it’s an ecological treasure-trove (A Gondwanaland remnant, with wet and dry sclerophyll forest, temperate rainforest, stunted alpine woodlands and alpine heath-lands, it’s incredibly diverse). There’s a power to the place; a deep, quiet presence that sinks into you and reminds you that the world is so much bigger and older than your little griefs and anxieties.
I like nothing better than to lose myself in solitude for hours on one of the many trails that criss-cross the Mountain’s peaks and valleys. After a year of walking on the Mountain most weekends there are still dozens of new trails awaiting exploration, plus old favourites to re-visit and experience in different seasons. In autumn the rainforest is full of fungi in a riot of shapes and colours. In winter the summit may be dusted in snow and the woodlands wreathed in mists. In spring tiny wildflowers sprout unexpectedly from rocky crevasses, tiny jewels in a harsh landscape. In summer the views stretch out forever and every inch of Mountain hums with life… There are hidden waterfalls, arresting outlooks, vast alpine plains and craggy peaks to climb.
Wellington is the wilderness on my doorstep, and it calls to my soul. Every hour spent walking the slopes is time well spent, restoring my spirit and reminding me why these wild places matter. That’s what is so important about preserving pockets of wilderness: these spaces nourish us and help to keep us connected to the ecosystems we rely on. Wild places teach us how to be alone, how to reach the sacred inside ourselves and how to reconnect with our environments. My Mountain, it is love.
Where is your happy place? Where do you go to get away from it all? Does the wilderness call you, or are you refreshed by city life or the sea instead? What makes a place truly special to you?
…and if you ever want a walk on my Mountain, you only have to ask.
Y’know something that really annoys me? Food waste. It could be the many hours I spent working in kitchens to support my studies, or it could just be simple economics, but it riles me.
There’s little sadder than seeing the hard work of our primary producers wind up in the garbage bin, uneaten and unwanted. You’re not just throwing away your own money, but also the labour, water, nutrients, transport and storage that got that food from the farm to you. It’s not just the lost resources either. Food rotting in land fill produces methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more climate-affecting than CO2.[1] That’s a whole lot of unnecessary waste!
How bad is the problem? I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in Australia we throw out around 7.5 million tonnes[2] of food waste every year. That works out to about $ 7.8 billion[3] in food waste, just looking at sale price alone! 40 % of our average household garbage is food waste – that’s taking out the people who compost – and in some parts of the country as much as 20% of the total food we buy is thrown away.[2] With 30% of our population living below the poverty line[4] how can we afford to waste so much food? I just don’t get it!
Last week the green tomatoes I’d picked from the old garden when I pulled out the vines got turned into chutney with the surplus new-season red onions I’d bought and some native Tasmanian herbs and spices I had on hand
Lately I’ve come across a few organisations doing their bit for reducing food waste in Australia by taking the surplus from the fortunate and using it to feed the hungry. Here in Tasmania there’s Produce to the People, who collect the excess from backyard veggie gardens. In the bigger Australian cities groups like OzHarvest, Second Bite, Foodbank and Fare Share collect from supermarkets, restaurants and farms. Similar volunteer groups and food charities are popping up in major cities across the westernised world. These are fantastic programs, helping to reduce the environmental impacts of food waste and redistributing the surplus it to where it’s needed, but I think it’s also important to do what you can on a personal level to ensure you get the most out of the food you grow and buy.
Very little food goes to waste in my house and what does goes back into the system via my compost bin, rather than rotting away as landfill. It does take a certain amount of effort though! I have to think about what I’m buying and make myself cook even when I really don’t feel like it. I buy in smaller quantities and seek out fresher local produce, so have to hit up the shops a little more often, and when I have over-bought or have been too busy to cook I need to come up with creative ways to use up the excess before it spoils (or freeze it until I land an idea later). As a side benefit, getting the most out of my food gives me a little more disposable income to splurge on a nice wine to wash my meals down with, or the occasional gourmet treat!
The chutney I made will stretch last summer’s tomato goodness through the winter months.
Here are my favourite methods for using up food and preventing waste:
- Save any sad-looking veggies or edible offcuts for making stock. I have a bag in the freezer that scraps get thrown into as I go, then once it’s full I’ll add some dried mushrooms or the bones from a roast chook and turn it into tasty stock.
- Preserve it! Make sweet sauces from over-ripe fruit, turn a tomato glut into chutney or simply pickle extra veggies for a piquant treat to enjoy when they go out of season.
- Turn extra herbs into pesto, or chop them finely and freeze in small servings for future cooking.
- Freeze cream or plain yoghurt into icecube trays, then add a few cubes to stews or sauces when you need to.
- Poach or bake fruit that’s past it’s best and add it to your morning cereal or enjoy it as a dessert.
- Get creative in the kitchen; challenge yourself to use up everything perishable before buying fresh food and see what you can invent from the odds and ends hiding in your fridge and cupboards (I’ve made some of my favourite meals this way)
- Cook it all up into tasty meals and freeze them in portions for lunches. With a hot home-made curry or stir-fry instead of a sandwich you’ll be the envy of the work lunchroom!
- Share the love: put on a feast for friends or give away food you won’t use instead of letting it go to waste.
Do you think about the food you throw away? Have you changed your shopping patterns to cut down on crisper rot? What are your favourite ways to use up left-overs or make the most of a home-grown glut? Share them so we can all enjoy the best of our farmer’s efforts and our individual creativity.
Buying smaller amounts of super-fresh veg from the local farmer’s market helps to make sure I look forward to cooking and get the most out of my veg.
[1] Wikipedia: carbon dioxide equivalents
[2] Getting ‘FoodWise’ about wasting food by Jon Dee at ABC Environment
[3] Foodwise Fast Facts at foodwise.com.au
[4] Wikipedia: poverty in Australia
Wineglass Bay, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania.
My greatest ambition is to just be a good man. To be better than I was yesterday. To do no harm. To give more than I take. To never strive for perfection but to try to live and love more perfectly. Being a good man to my family, my friends and to my community is the greatest ambition I can dream of.
— Shervin Pishevar
Wood heaters, eh?
In the month I’ve been living here in the Cottage I’ve developed a complicated relationship with mine.
I’ve learnt, now, how to get a decent blaze going with minimal fuss and there’s little nicer than curling up in front of a toasty fire on a cold night, glass of red in hand. The heat it produces is lovely, and when it’s working properly I can set it before bed and the house will stay toasty warm all night. Poking and prodding the fire into cooperation is fun and it’s immensely satisfying to get a good burn going on a cold night.
It’s less fun, however, on nights like tonight when the weather’s foul and I work late, and at 9 pm it’s still a little chilly even with the fire going. It’s been raining all day so the firewood is damp and the baffle plate on the flue has bent (yet again), jamming the flue wide open and significantly reducing the efficiency of my burn and heat transfer.
Heh, a month ago I had no idea what a baffle plate was, let alone what it did. I’d not spared much thought to wood moisture content or burn efficiency, and I’d never considered the price of firewood by the tonne (between $150 and $200, for the curious).
I still feel a little guilty about lighting the fire. In a State where my power is hydro-electric (not exactly environmentally benevolent, but a darn sight better than coal), lighting the fire is both less efficient (in terms of energy cost by yield) and generates a lot more emissions (CO2 and particulate emissions) than using electric heating.
On top of that, the wood I’m burning has to come from somewhere. The current fuel for my fire comes from a beautiful old eucalypt tree that had to be felled over at the House of the Gumtrees (mmm, free firewood!), however my ex-landlord only let me take what I could fit in my Corolla (a surprisingly large amount when you’re determined…) and I’m about to run out. Firewood sales in Tasmania are unregulated, with many sellers setting up trucks on the roadside with cheap loads for sale. Problem is you don’t know where that wood has come from or what condition it’s in:
- Is is green, wet or rotten?
- Was it illegally taken from State Forests, National Parks or trespassing on private land?
- Were old hollowed trees felled that provide important habitat for wildlife (including several endangered species)?
And that’s without considering if it’s actually the tonnage they’re saying it is!
I know exactly where my last load of firewood came from (and how sad I was that such a beautiful old tree had to go)
There’s no hiding from the truth: the wood heater is not an environmentally friendly way to heat my home! It’s what I’ve got, however, so it’s up to me to make the best of it.
I’ve been researching wood heaters and firewood recently and I’ve learnt that:
- The moisture content of your timber needs to be below 25% for an efficient burn.
- Burning green or wet timber increases particulate emissions (as well as being much less efficient).
- Even stored under cover, firewood has an amazing capacity to absorb moisture on rainy days.
- Burning pine needles is fun.
- Baffle plates significantly improve the heat exchange from your wood heater (and having it bend and jam open – again – is a bad thing. *sigh*).
- Burning old painted fence posts is an environmental no-no, no matter how much free timber it is or how much your lovely new neighbours assure you it’ll be ok.
- Accidentally throwing in an envelope with a plastic window results in noxious fumes: don’t do it.
- You can’t add the ash and charcoal to your compost, but a small amount mixed with other things is ok in mulch.
- There’s no regulation of the firewood industry in Australia, and there are a lot of dodgy vendors in Hobart (if the internet is to be believed)
- There is a voluntary industry code of practice that sets out standards that wood will be sustainably harvested, in accordance with all laws and protective orders, stored correctly and sold with moisture contents below 25%, with weighbridge tickets provided.
- There is one supplier in the whole of Tasmania who is signatory to the voluntary code, and they’ll deliver to my suburb.
- The cold metal of my bed frame is very nice to rest my blistered skin on when I inevitably burn myself on the wood heater door/frame/handle
- So. Many. Splinters.
So, after a little research and environmental guilt I’ve come to the following positions:
- The wood heater only gets lit if (1) the temperature is below 10oC and (2) I’m going to be home all night (no fire on taiko training nights!)
- Use discarded newspaper from work and household waste (loo rolls, paperwork from the last lease, letters from politicians) to get the fire started
- Pay the extra to buy firewood from the lone code signatory supplier; it’s not that much more than other suppliers and I know it’s as ethically sound as I’m going to get.
- Keep my garden prunings to burn next winter: at least the damn invasive vine I cut down will be useful!
- When the fire’s lit, actively enjoy it.
Hence I’m writing this sitting on my couch, watching the flames over the top of my monitor instead of working with the lap-top docked in the study. If I’m going to commit environmental crimes in the name of keeping warm I may as well keep the most of it, and once Winter properly arrives and the fire is going during the day on weekends I intend to try my hand at cooking on the coals. I’m thinking coal-roasted foil-wrapped eggplant (that’s aubergine for the northern-hemispherians) is going to be a beautiful thing. Baba ganoush for all!
This weekend I’m going to buy my first load of firewood and spend far too much time hauling and stacking the stuff in the little space under the house, and I’ll be talking to my landlord about getting that warped baffle plate replaced this time instead of another attempt at repair. Right now though I’m going to finish this post then put another piece of tree on the fire, sit back and watch the flames while I finish the glass of red that’s mysteriously appeared in front of me. 😉
I really want to be sure my future heating doesn’t come at the cost of protected forest or threatened wildlife.
Have you ever lived with a wood heater or fireplace? Got any firey tips for this recovered teenage pyromaniac?
Come sit with me and tell me all about it. There’s enough red wine to share and though my couch may be fat and bulky it’s pretty comfy.
xoxo
Last week I was lucky enough to score an invitation to tour the new Sustainability Learning Centre, under construction here in Hobart (thank you, day job!)
Developed as a partnership between the Department of Education, Greening Australia, the Catholic Education Office, the Association of Independent Schools of Tasmania and the CSIRO, the Centre will be a mixed educational, research and operational facility, attached to Hobart College. That’s pretty cool and all, but what makes the Centre so exciting and the reason for our tour is that the construction is a showcase of sustainable design in action.
The architects (morrison & breytenbach) are aiming for a 6-star Green Star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia, which would place the building in the “world leadership” category for environmentally sustainable design. To get this certification the building uses a range of clever designs and materials. Being able to get a look at the construction process to see how it’s done was fascinating!
Here are a few of the design aspects and construction techniques they’re using for the project:
- Recycled building materials – all steel including the roofing, major structural timbers, bricks, crushed glass (as fill, aggregate and in concrete) and some insulation. Even the office desks will be made with recycled floorboards!
- Passive solar design – floor-to-ceiling north-facing windows (double-glazed) with Trombe walls and other convective and radiative heat transfer structures, coupled with clever insulation (ceiling, under-floor, window frames, etc.) and venting systems to allow good thermal control (openable windows – how sadly novel in a modern building).
- Alternative energy infrastructure – solar photo-voltaic cells, solar evacuated tubing water heating, underfloor water-based heating (powered by used cooking oil) and maximised sunlight.
- Alternative building materials & techniques – clinka for insulating aggregate and ‘concrete’, PVC-free materials (polyethylene plumbing and e-cables), using screws and nails in place of adhesives, minimal steel and concrete use (mostly recycled)
- Water saving – rainwater, greywater and blackwater capture, treatment and re-use, including water-garden filtering and small-scale drinking water treatment.
Sadly I forgot to grab my camera (first thing Friday morning is not my sharpest time) so I don’t have any photos to share. More disappointingly, there isn’t a web site for the project, so at present there’s no way yet to share all the great information and resources from the project with the wider public. Greening Australia are planning to put a site together soon though, and students at Hobart College have been able to study the design and construction as it progresses: a great hands-on way to build interest in and understanding of sustainable design.
I really hope this project gets some more promotion and the partners involved work to get information out about the techniques and materials used and the resources available for those of us interested in applying sustainable design principles to our own homes and projects. The people I spoke to seemed surprised that I thought it so important as “the information’s all out there”. Yes, there’s a lot of information out there, but without serious research or expertise it’s impossible to know what will and won’t work in a specific city or climate, or what is suitable and efficient to apply at domestic scales. It’s also hard to find information on what’s actually available in terms of resources, materials skills and knowledge in your local area, and to build those networks between designers, suppliers, builders and ourselves.
Hobart’s highly variable climate can be tricky to design for: heatwaves, gales, summer snow, we get it all!
Hopefully Greening Australia Tasmania will get a suitable website going soon and we can all share in what’s been learnt through this project; meanwhile I’m happy to be sharing the many things I learnt last Friday. Most of all I’m very pleased to know that we have the knowledge, skills and determination to get a project like this happening in Hobart: little city on an island at the bottom of the world, far away from the environmental leading lights of Europe. If we can do it, with our small population, apparent skills shortage, shitty economy and the tyranny of distance, then most anywhere can. The key ingredient is finding the people with the drive and leadership to steer the idea to reality.
We need more people who believe that projects like this can be done, and finding that they exist might just have been the most exciting part of my little tour.
Have you thought about building ‘green’? Please share your projects, inspirations, experiences and resources!
Little pied cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos), Lake Daylesford, Daylesford, Victoria.
Seek moments of stillness.
This week marks a major work deadline for me, with the final draft of a project due tomorrow that’s been the best part of a year in the making. Despite the long lead-time it’s now a sprint to the finish to get everything done and off to the publishers tomorrow. I’ve been working long days, then dealing with the house move on the weekends and it’s fair to say I’ve just about had it.
It’s late, I’m tired, grumpy and in serious need of a massage, and I still need to do the dishes before bed. Despite a valiant attempt at writing something thoughtful about electricity costs there is no finished blog post tonight. I’m accepting defeat and prioritising getting some sleep.
One more long day tomorrow and I should be done. This weekend I shall sleep and sleep until I am no longer a tired and grumpy little fish. Unlike the gruff old fellow above, the grumpy look doesn’t sit well with me.
Right, dishes, shower, bed!
The shape of things to come 