the vexed question of which drink bottle to use

i recently saw this succinct article from the biome newsletter. it sums up some of the key points to keep in mind when selecting a drink bottle.

Which reusable bottle is best?
We are often asked this question by customers who are searching for the safest, cleanest bottle.

Our first criteria is that the company behind the brand discloses full information about who they are, what the bottle is made from, where and how it is manufactured and, importantly, independent test results on any leaching.

There should be information on the packaging and then more detail available on the brand's website. When you consider that all materials, even some stainless steel (which contains chromium and nickel) can leach substances into food or liquid, you should have absolute faith in the quality of your bottle.

We are wary of low cost bottles because the cheaper the product, the more potential for exposure to toxins. Materials, quality control, testing and reporting all cost money.
Companies often make misleading statements about their products (even though they say it is 18/8 stainless steel, how does one prove that?). Ultimately, we all have to make a judgment on who to trust.

Recommendations for choosing a bottle:

• Reassure yourself of the quality of the bottle and reputation of the brand.
• Choose on practical features like: the type of lid or drinking mechanism, the volume the bottle holds, whether the tops are leak-proof, will it fit your car/bike drink holder, do you need a wide mouth for easy cleaning and smoothies, how heavy is it, and are there joins/hard corners that trap germs?
• Stainless steel or lined aluminium? This can only be a personal choice, just be sure that it is a legitimate brand with testing available on any lining. Testing shows that SIGG's BPA-free lining leaches nothing into the liquid and it is taste neutral. Some people prefer the food-grade reliability of unlined stainless steel. Klean Kanteen and Nathan use high grade 18/8 stainless steel.

And finally, how to clean your drink bottle.

Glass or Plastic

It started with this really interesting eco-innovation - a glass driveway. An interesting way of recycling glass. What i most liked about this idea was the porous nature of the surface. We have lost so much ground water due to run-off in urban and built-up areas. Concrete and asphalt is very unforgiving and very solid.

Then Ben sent me this link to some information about glass and plastic. Thank you.

the heat from meat

ho ho ho. seen in Tuesday's Age, this little snippet from crikey.com:

"There is an interesting statistic that is relevant to both the Garnaut report and climate change. It comes from a large European cancer and nutrition study group of about 50,000 meat eaters, vegans and vegetarians in the UK - 41% of vegan are single, compared with 13% of meat eaters and 25% vegetarians. Why is this relevant to Garnaut? We vegans aren't very good at compromise, so living with a non-vegan is unlikely and finding mate is statistically harder for us. Our diplomatic skills are dismal. That little bit of bacon added to a salad tends to make us froth at the mout and protest to an otherwise genial host: "how could you f___ up a perfectly good salad with dead pig?"
This tends to earn us a limited social life so we spend a lot of time reading and thinking and getting really pissed off with hypocrisy and compromise. We are pissed off with people who pretend to care about the planet but won't forego the primary driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss - meat. We are pissed off with people who tell everybody to turn off lights whe they leave the room but conveniently forget to mention that australia's biggest contribution to global warming is livestock." From Geoff Russell, Animal Liberation South Australia.

Hear, hear! Omigod, can i ever relate to this. Vegan and single, but not as uncompromising about others' food preferences. And not content with simply vegan, why not up the ante and live a (sustainable) raw food lifestyle. Save energy in food preparation as well.
As i often remind friends, i refuse to switch to energy-saving light bulbs as long as people around me are still preferring to do that over eating one less meat meal a week. When people wonder why i drive my car in a city with the best public transport system in the country, i ask them to consider why they are still eating meat when food production consumes 14% of our total greenhouse gases compared with 11% for transportation. now that's food for thought.

a new spin on free-cycle

received an email today from dear friends taffy and glenys in the blue mountains. they have come up with their own marvellous response to the planet's environmental predicament.

many of us are already using Freecycle to re-distribute the plethora of stuff that we accumulate in this consumptive society.

taffy and glenys have gone beyond this and taken freecycle literally . . . into the realms of sustainable transport. Click here to watch Taffy's video of free-cycling.

food and caravan parks

Had lunch with my dear friend Dallas today. I so enjoy the time we have together, and always there there are those little gems in our conversations. a former associate - and good friend of Dallas, has recently been investing in caravan parks. there is method in her quirky choice of investment property it seems. Sad but true, an increasing number of people in Australia are turning to caravan parks as an alternative to going homeless. i don't see the situation improving in the near term as housing affordability spirals and living costs increase.
Living in caravan parks has been common in the US for some time, and i recently watched Conversations With God, an inspiring story about a man who has no choice but to live in a caravan park after being out of work, unable to pay the rent and consequently being evicted from his home. This is no longer just something that happens to other people, not us.
The story of homelessness is underlined by the growing global food crisis. This year food prices internationally have risen 45%. It is astonishing to hear that even Walmart in the US is rationing rice purchases. First there was climate change. Now we are coming to terms with peak oil, and if that wasn't enough, here comes a food crisis unlike anything we have seen globally before. All the more reason to start learning how to grow our own vegetables.

SLAH - wasted

attended another SLAH seminar this evening. Sustainable Living At Home: this week the theme was waste and recycling. oh dear! some of the stats are downright depressing. we heard annie leonard speak on The Story of Stuff. she reminded us that our continuous consumption is robbing the planet of resources.
75% of the world's fisheries are fished out. 80% of the forests are gone (less than 4% of the US is forested). that low! in two decades we have managed to use one third of the world's natural resources. as i said, it is depressing.
the good news is research shows that only 6% of people are inspired to change their behaviours by hearing bad news. 20% can be convinced by data and facts, whilst 70-75% are inspired by conversations with peers. so ignore what you just read in the last paragraph and let's start a conversation!
forget recycling. by then it is already too late. instead avoid consumption unless absolutely necessary. that's what the compacters do. this means persistent attention to every detail of what you buy or use. say no to plastic bags, to packaging. share stuff. borrow and lend rather than buy. simplify your life. we all have too much "stuff". it can become a creative game of ingenuity, working out ways of living lightly on the planet without the addictive consumption patterns that seem to grip us. start to notice it around you. everywhere we go - even so-called "sustainable" events - there are subtle (and not so subtle) exhortations to buy, to consume.
on a lighter note, Nick Dunstan spoke about waste and recycling. We, the residents of the City of Port Phillip have managed to recycle 40% of our waste in the last year. the government would like us to commit to 65% in five years. there's a challenge. and mattresses; i didn't know they could be recycled.

One small action - the juice
finally, one small action we each could take to reduce waste. one person said they'd take their mug downstairs to the cafe for a coffee at work, instead of getting a disposable cup each time. this sustainability idea is not new and Geoff, our SLAH seminar facilitator makes mention of the mug project on his blog.
"The Mug Project is a community of individuals and organisations that advocate the use of the mugs to reduce waste caused by single serve beverage containers".
Hey, i could do that when i go order a juice. In fact, i have been known to take my thermos into the juice bar for a takeaway. i was astonished to learn that some cafes won't serve it to me in my own container. Health & safety regulations don't allow it - apparently. This requires more investigation. Anyone else experienced this?

food facts

Food consumption makes up 20% of an individual's greenhouse emissions.

At a NSW State and Regional Development Seminar on "The Future of Food" last night the focus was on urban agriculture and the fact that more than 20% of an individual's greenhouse emissions are related to their food consumption - mainly because of things like food miles and packaging. The increasing price of food was also discussed with the price of milk going up 31.7% and bread up 23% in the last 4 years.

from Liz Bastian's blog, A Year In A Day - 3 Apr 2008 19:53

hypno-chicken

From Liz Bastian's blog, this delightful hypno-chicken video shows that yes, it is true! you can hypnotise a chicken and it will lie on it's back with it's little feet in the air. Liz's blog, A Year In A Day, is all about taking small steps along the path to living sustainably on this planet. Every little thing we do does count. Even hypnotising chickens.