A visit to the super composter

This 'sustainability action' was one to educate ourselves.

We were given the opportunity to join a group from Uniting Church in the City for a tour of the Neerabup 'Resource Recovery Centre', which is operated by Mindarie Regional Council. Basically, it is a huge composting plant, taking the waste from general (green lid) rubbish bins and processing it to extract organic matter and make it into usable compost.

If this doesn't sound like fun to you, ask any pre-school child how they would like to see where the bin trucks go with our rubbish.

 

Our small boy was beside himself with excitement; our big girl was jealous because she had to go to school instead. The word 'grapple' entered our basic vocabulary and play.

The Mindarie Regional Council serves the local government areas of Wanneroo, Stirling, Perth, Joondalup, Cambridge, Vincent and Victoria Park. However, the bulk of the waste taken to the composting facility comes from Joondalup, Vincent, Wanneroo and Victoria Park. The facility processes 100,000 tonnes of waste a year; the seven councils that make up the MRC together put about 160,000 tonnes of waste into our general rubbish bins, so quite a lot still goes straight to landfill. About 30-40% of the tonnage received at the facility comes out as compost; the non-organic remainder also ends up in landfill. So, there is still lots of behaviour-change work to be done, but 30-40,000 tonnes of compost each year diverted from landfill is a great thing.

half the giant compost tumbler - waste takes three days to get through it

Here's the page that explains how the 'Resource Recovery Facility' actually works to extract compost from general rubbish. Or here for the commercial version.


Initial Time: Half a day

Initial Cost: $10 for the bus.

Tours are offered free, but you need to book. Here's the website with details for various tour options (I have heard there is more rubbish truck action at Tamala Park landfill, if entertaining children is part of your brief). Our tour was run by the inimitable Peg Davies, who I think does a great many of them. She really knows her stuff.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Continued sorting of rubbish into regular or recycling bins, with greater attention to keeping glass and ceramics out of the regular bin.

Impact: I learnt a lot. I also found it really encouraging to see the efforts being made to keep organic matter out of landfill. It helps me to keep doing our little things when I see organisational attempts at bigger things like this.

removed section of composter

The biggest learning was the call to keep glass and ceramics out of general rubbish. Put them in the recycling, broken or not. Glass in the compost is a major problem, because it is nearly impossible to completely sieve it out. I had not taken the notices about keeping glass out of general waste very seriously, because I couldn't conceptualise how general waste could be turned into compost anyway. Now that I have seen it in action I get it: If you live in Wanneroo, Stirling, Perth, Joondalup, Cambridge, Vincent and Victoria Park DON'T PUT GLASS IN YOUR GREEN-LID BIN. Thanks.

If you are in the East Metro Regional Council - Bassendean, Bayswater, Belmont, Kalamunda, Mundaring and Swan - planning for a similar facility at Redhill is underway, aiming to be operational by 2019. So when the 'no glass' notice comes around, take it seriously! 

If you are in another area - how about writing to you local council to let them know that you think these places are a good idea?

Jeans

I live in my jeans. I work from home and often wear jeans every day of the week.

So when all three pairs came through the same washing load recently with irredeemable holes it was a small-scale clothing crisis. I had mended and patched my jeans many times over, but they had gone beyond repair. 

I have been vaguely aware that jeans have many levels of ethical concern. I decided that as this is an item of clothing I rely on so heavily, it was time to research properly and find ethical jeans. 

According to the Shop Ethical website, there are at least six areas of potential concern around jeans: transparency in the supply chain, use of sweatshops overseas, use of underpaid Australian outworkers, forced child labour in cotton production, excessive pesticide and insecticide use in cotton production, and toxic sandblasting in preparing denim. It was quickly apparent that if I wanted to attempt an ethical purchase on all six fronts I would need to purchase from a small operator, almost certainly online. If I wanted to walk into a store and buy jeans over the counter my best option looked like being Jeanswest (pretty good on addressing labour and supply chain issues; not so good on the pesticides/insecticides/sandblasting issues). 

The options I found online that looked reasonably sound were: Kuyichi (from the Netherlands), Nudie Jeans (Sweden) and Monkee Genes (UK). Australian brands Denimsmith and Nobody Denim (both Melbourne) are each accredited with Ethical Clothing Australia. However, this considers workers pay and conditions but not broader environmental considerations.

The only problem was: none of the jeans available through these companies was a style I was prepared to wear. The trend at present is for super slim legs and I am not of a build that takes kindly to skinny styling. Where I could find some looser designs the fabric was artificially 'aged' with fake wear and tear. Having spent plenty of time patching worn or torn knees I can't come at buying clothes with holes in them, however stylishly arranged.

In the end I chose to visit an op shop. There I found jeans in a size and style that suited me. Perhaps they were originally made in sweatshops using cotton doused in pesticides and picked by child slaves, but my money did no support any of those things: it went to the St Vincent de Paul Society, who provide services for the poor. Further, by supporting op shops I am encouraging recycling of clothing, hopefully reducing the demand for the blood-sweat-and-poison soaked clothing of mainstream stores. (Is that too dramatic? Over 10% of the world's pesticides and nearly 25% of its insecticides are used in growing cotton, of which jeans are made; in Uzbekistan, the world's 5th largest cotton exporter, the government enlists children as forced labour to harvest the material; thirteen other cotton-producing countries also use child labour, with children reporting health issues as a result of exposure to pesticides; silicon used in sandblasting denim causes emphysema; in sweatshops throughout Asia underpaid workers are crowded into unsafe conditions to sew Western clothing and periodically these conditions kill them)

Initial Time: researching online took a couple of hours; visiting the op shop took about half an hour. I find the lack of choice liberating: there were only about seven pairs of jeans in my size in the store; three were acceptable so I bought them. Simple.

Initial Cost: Had I been able to find a style that suited me, the online ethical options had jeans from about $100, with a wide selection around the $120 mark. Buying at an op shop is of course a cost saving. However, as I can afford to pay more than $4 for my jeans, I also made a donation to the store above the shelf price. It was still a lot cheaper than buying jeans new.

Ongoing time or cost commitment:

 

It is now over three years since I committed to twelve months of buying only ethical clothing for myself. In that first year I bought one jumper and a couple of bras. In both instances I used the Shop Ethical Guide to check that my purchase wasn't from a company with terrible human rights records, but I didn't got out of my way to chase up the most ethical option. I had some worthwhile conversations with shop assistants about ethics in clothing, raising issues with them that they had never had customers ask before. Those conversations were probably more important than the impact of where my dollars were spent.

Taking action about jeans is an outworking of that earlier commitment and will hopefully lead to other related actions.

Since the first year I have bought a few items from op shops, a few rounds of unconsidered underwear, and some clothes from Kathmandu (a big chain doing pretty well on several fronts: workers' pay and conditions, source of materials, and reducing packaging) and Nomad Gnome Fremantle (a local store personally sourcing from ethical small producers in Nepal). All up my 2013 commitment has, as I anticipated at the time, meant I have spent far less time and money overall on buying clothes. Never a big clothes buyer anyway, my acquisition is down to a trickle. It makes me happy not to be overfilling my wardrobe.

Nomad Gnome shirt with Op Shop jeans

It will be a few years before I need to buy jeans again, but I am committed to having another go next time at finding something ethical that I am also happy to wear, even if it means paying a little more (perhaps fashion will have changed by then). In the meantime I will tell my slender friends about the great online ethical jeans options they have available to them!

Impact: This has mostly been discussed above. I recommend the Shop Ethical Guide's discussion of ethical issues for denim (click arrows for detail on each issue) - this explains things clearly and concisely, so I have not repeated most of it here.

One area not mentioned is packaging. This is a concern of mine with online shopping, as everything seems to come packaged in plastic to ensure it arrives safely. Any store that is not producing on site is likely to use packaging in transporting goods - the more stages in the production, the more rounds of packaging. I put my unwrapped purchases in my bicycle basket to get them home: zero packaging.

And of course the carbon footprint of transporting from farm to fabric production to clothing production to warehouse (usually multiple stages of) to store is not insignificant either. Clothes at Vinnies may have been moved around the city a couple of times from donation bin to sorting centre to store, but its hardly comparable with the way new clothes criss-cross the globe, as raw materials, fabric and finished products. Opting for an op shop meant drastically reduced carbon footprint on transport and almost zero waste on packaging.

New winter carpet

Winter has again seen us working at staying warm without turning on heaters.

 

Our winter floor covering had been getting increasingly threadbare. Last year we insulated it with a layer of padding underneath, cut from the base of a single bed that was on its way out (having been with me for about 30 years). This layer did help, but it covered only part of the area, and didn't address the holes developing in the old rug. When friends offered us a replacement rug that they were disposing of we jumped at the chance to upgrade.

With a nice thick layer to catch morning sun warmth and insulate us from the cold of the tile floor, we have been enjoying playing on the lounge floor with no additional heating. 

We also added carpet offcuts under both the lego table (the central item in our living space) and the dining area, which have added to the winter floor insulation. The thick white one under the lego table also cries out for cubbies to be made under there - a call to which the children readily respond. 

A few years back we had a go at carpet offcuts under the dining table. After one season they got shabby and didn't return the next year. It is a challenge storing them through summer. Hopefully we can manage it this year, but if not it is possible we could just get a fresh round of carpet pieces each autumn, as they are destined for waste anyway.

Initial Time:  ten minutes of lifting furniture to lay the rugs/ carpet pieces

Initial Cost: zero - carpet offcuts are free behind the carpet store; the lounge rug was a second-hand gift.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: ten minutes when the weather warms to take up and store floor coverings. If satisfactory storage for the carpet offcuts can't be found, there will be time next year making a trip to pick up some more from the carpet store - no more than half an hour, as it is not a long way to go.

Impact: Our most recent electricity bill, for May and June, showed we had used an average of 6.2 units (kWh) of energy per day, down from 6.6 units per day for the same period last year and 8 units per day the year before (but the previous three years we were in the 5.8 to 6.1 range, so it has not been all improvement!). By comparison, the average household use in our neighbourhood is 11.9 units a day, and 'similar houses' record an average of 13.1 units.

We have turned on the heating (reverse cycle airconditioner) I think twice so far this winter, each time for about an hour to take the chill off. Carpets are just one of the range of measures we take to warm ourselves without using electricity (see also May and August 2014 posts)

He has mittens on because they were new and he was enjoying them, not because the room was freezing. He was also bare foot when I took this picture.

Reusable barrier bags

Do you know what a 'barrier bag' is?

You might not be familiar with the terminology, but chances are you are very familiar with the item: the single-use lightweight plastic bags that are available on rolls when you buy fruit and veg, or whole foods, so your apples and potatoes don't get in a muddle in the trolley.

I have for some years now tried not to use these bags, keeping items loose wherever practical. However, while it might be OK to have a few onions rolling around, soft things like stone fruit or small things like almonds really need something to contain them.

For my birthday last month, my caring and ever-thoughtful mother-in-law made me a set of cloth barrier bags. They are a simple rectangle, in various sizes, with a ribbon draw-string. The fabric is silk voile (lace curtaining) which means the checkout staff can see what is in each bag. 

So our May commitment is to remember to use them! We also intend to use paper bags to cover any excess need, to be added to compost when they become unusable. Fruit and veg shops generally provide paper bags for mushrooms, and they can easily be adapted for other uses. The wonderful Kakulus Sister in Fremantle provides them for their dry goods in general, which gave me the idea.

We also use these bags for storing some fruit and veg in the fridge, which so far seems to be working fine. There will be a few things that are very powdery for which we will have to use paper, as I think flour or the like would not quite be contained.

Initial Time: For me, zero. I'm not sure how long it took Tyson's mum to make them. She's very good at sewing, but even if you were less skilled it is a simple project. 

Initial Cost: For me, zero. To make yourself: simple ribbons generally cost $3-$5 a metre, although they also seem to turn up on all sorts of things, so if you are not picky about making them match you can probably find some around the house. Or use string. Wool. Old shoelaces. Whatever you can salvage. Fabric prices vary widely, but at say $10/metre your bags would cost about $1 each.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Remembering to take them and use them. They are stored with our cloth shopping bags, so in theory this is easy, but we are taking a while to get into the groove. Occasionally they need to be washed after use (mostly not). When empty, they need to be returned to their storage place rather than binned. 

Impact: 

Australians use approximately four billion single-use shopping bags a year. The average useful life of those bags is twelve minutes. Around 86% end up in landfill, where even if they are supposedly compostable they do not really break down, due to the highly compacted nature of landfill. Although most people report using plastic bags two or three times before disposing of them, ultimately they still end up in the bin. The remainder end up as litter, choking up our environment and particularly damaging waterways. Marine life is severely impacted by plastic waste. Once the bags begin to deteriorate, they contribute to 'micro plastics' - microscopic plastic fibres that are being found in sea creatures in increasing quantities. Including sea creatures we eat. 

At the other end of the process, producing plastic bags is a polluting process using non-renewable resources. China banned plastic bags in 2008 and it is reported to have saved 1.6 million tonnes of oil the following year.

I estimate that our family uses around 260 barrier bags in a year. There is some environmental cost in producing the cloth bags. Choice has calculated that a green shopping bag needs to be used 23 times before its production footprint is less than the equivalent in plastic. Given that our bags are of polyester fabric, I imagine we need to use them at least 23 times and probably a few more, so we pull ahead after about one year of use. 

While researching to write this post I discovered that a government campaign in 2003-2007 to phase out plastic shopping bags, which I had thought was ongoing, ceased in 2008. Plastic bag use leapt 17% the same year. Some States have gone on alone to regulate against single-use plastic, but not Western Australia. After this election I think I will write to whoever forms government to remind them that quite a lot of people would like those bags banned. If China, Rwanda and Bangladesh can do it, surely we can manage here?

Links/ References:

Discussion paper on phasing out plastic bags in Western Australia (2014)

Choice article discussing options for sustainable shopping bags (2014)

NSW EPA discussion paper on plastic bags (2016)

Keep calm and shade everything

We are setting records for hot weather again in Perth this week, so it seems a good time to share this summer's improvements to our shading.

Externally, our home is shaded by vegetation where possible, shade cloth protecting most glass areas, and an ad hoc combination including: foam mats in a window, a shed against a western wall, folded trestle table leaning against another wall and an assortment of things hanging on the clothesline. Internally, we have experimented with many ways to create an insulating layer in our windows, to keep the day's heat out. Most of these I have previously discussed here or here: towels, old painting canvas, mattress, cardboard boxes, cushions, styrofoam cooler boxes... All of these are good, but this year we are onto something I think is easier and potentially more effective: corflute board.

For those unfamiliar, corflute is a 'twin wall polypropylene sheet'. Because it has a ripple between its two surfaces it creates a layer of trapped air - exactly what you want for insulation. However, corflute allows some light through (more than, say, a mattress or cardboard box in the window), meaning the house can be not quite such a cave on hot days - although, as most of our recycled corflute came coloured black on one side, we are not benefitting quite so much from this property.

We now put corflute up inside five windows on hot days, and have installed a 'permanent' summer panel of corflute across half of the over-exposed glass sliding doors to the southwest facing laundry. The loungeroom window panels, being about two-thirds window height, leave a 'clerestory' window space, shaded by the small eaves, which allows a bright naturally-lit room.

Initial Time: There was no set-up time besides sourcing the corflute, which we did within other activities. We did make a kids' art activity out of decorating the panels for the lounge window, as I didn't want to live with the brand names from their previous life, but that was optional and fun.  

Initial Cost: Zero. We picked up our first panel of corflute at REmida, the wonderful centre in West Perth that recycles industrial discards for use by schools, community groups, artists and individuals. The rest came via Tyson's dad, a retired engineer, who had a bunch lying around from disused signage picked up on construction sites. If you have to buy them, corflute panels roughly this size cost about $4-$5 each.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Every day, a few minutes at each end of the day to put the shades up and take them down. 

Impact: A southwest facing vertical surface in Perth in summer receives approximately 3kWh of energy per square metre per day. Its best to shade on the outside, so the heat doesn't get in at all, but providing an insulating layer inside windows slows the rate that heat energy gets into the room, and reflects quite a lot of it back through the glass. Once the heat is inside your house, you have to either live with it or remove it. The latter requires electricity, and lots of it.

As I write, well after dark, it is hot and still, the end of our fourth consecutive day over 40°C (104°F). We've equalled the record for days-over-forty (set in 1933) and if it hits 40°C again tomorrow we will have a new record. Perth is a funny place - although we are all wilting, there is also a slightly defiant 'bring it on' mentality. We wouldn't mind one more extreme day if it meant we got to Break A Record. 

Here at our house, we are feeling pretty good about how little we have used the aircon in the past four days: so far only for three or four hours total. We've done most of the things I talked about last time we had a record hot week, in addition to all our passive cooling measures. The corflute board has been up each day and is working a treat to keep out much of the 3+kWh we've been receiving. We also replaced our big rear shadecloth at the start of summer (the eight-year-old one finally perished) and the new shade has a higher block-out rating (90%). If it wasn't for the hot nights and lack of overnight breezes to refresh the house we probably wouldn't have needed the aircon at all.

Sustainable catering

Last month Tyson and I organised the catering for a one-day retreat.

Back in May I wrote about taking cutlery and crockery from home to attend a conference, to avoid using the disposables provided. In fairness to the organisers of that conference, I should have noted that they were all volunteers (some of whom read this blog) and that they had made the effort to provide compostable disposables, which cost quite a bit more.

So when it was our turn to cater, we thought we had better listen to my own critique and aim for sustainable catering. Primarily, this meant not using disposable cups, plates or cutlery. We were ready to wash dishes ourselves, but set the kitchen up so others could easily wash or dry. We found that the friendly retreat participants were mostly happy to pop into the kitchen and do it themselves.

The central kitchen sink had its own hot water system. We opted not to turn it on and have it run all day, but rather to use water from the urn (a wall unit that was permanently on anyway) to top up the sinks. We provided Fair-Trade tea and coffee. We also offered a compost bin, to reduce the amount of food waste going into landfill and use it instead for our garden.

Initial Time: The set-up time was no greater. A little extra time for thinking around how to do it, perhaps.

 

Initial Cost: Zero. The cost of a few teaspoons of washing up liquid and laundry powder is negligible. There was a cost saving in not purchasing single-use items.

 

Ongoing time or cost commitment: 

Actually washing dishes was a small part of our day, shared between the three of us running the kitchen and many of the retreat participants. The chatter around the kitchen sink was a lovely community-building space.

There were small follow-up tasks, like carting the compost home to put into our compost tumbler and putting the tea-towels through the wash, but these were very minor within the overall tasks of organising the food.

 

Impact: As discussed in May, Australians use about 2.7 million disposable cups a day, and probably nearly as many plates and pieces of cutlery. In China it is disposable chopsticks that are a problem - causing deforestation to keep up with demand for tens of millions of chopsticks each year.

Catering for thirty people, we saved from both production and disposal around thirty dinner plates, thirty dessert plates, thirty bowls, sixty coffee cups, fifteen water cups, sixty spoons, thirty forks, and ten or so knives. That's a small dent in the millions used each day, but a dent none the less. 

And as often happens when we take an action in a public space like this, even quietly, it generated quite a few conversations and hopefully set people thinking at least a little about their consumption and disposal.

Redecorate with what you already have

When our Big Boy recently moved out of his cot into a full-size bed, I wanted to remodel the space left in the children's bedroom. I determined to do this without purchasing any new items.

Our children's book collection had outgrown its various shelves and baskets around the house. I wanted to bring all the books together and make a lovely space. I wanted a space that made the books look inviting, at child-height, well lit, and that encouraged reading by having an attractive, comfy reading spot. 

We shifted things around to relocate two shelves that had been in other use. One of these is from Tyson's childhood, repainted with left-over black spray paint when it was moved inside about a year ago. Additional shelves and shelf dividers use strong, plain-coloured cardboard boxes.

The carpet piece was from the off-cuts pile at a local carpet store. The installers bring all their excess back to the store and it is piled outside, free to all takers. (Truly. I asked inside)

The 'reading box' is a wooden blanket box that belonged to Tyson's grandmother, for which I made a padded cover. The padding comprises pieces of foam glued together - primarily the end of a couple of long mattresses that we trimmed to fit into the camper trailer, plus some pieces from an old kitchen chair. 

This was cased within a large banner advertising a kindy event earlier in the year. The cover fabric was all in my box of odds & ends of fabric. Some of this was purchased ages ago from the off-cuts box at our wonderful local fabric store (previously used as dress-up scarves, teddy bedclothes, toy animal paddocks, dolls house furnishings, etc), some remained from projects years ago, including fabric from my wedding dress, and other bits were 'scraps' from the sewing table of a friend who recently finished a costume design course.

  

The bunting was a gift to us from that same friend, using her scraps. She also renovated the quilt on the lower bunk for me - a heritage item given to me for my first 'big bed' when I was three.

Initial Time: In all its stages, this took bits of time over more than a week. Half a day of moving stuff. Half a day of sewing. Time picking up carpets while taking Eva to a birthday party. Bits and pieces.

My trusty helper. He presses 'reverse' for me.

Initial Cost: Zero. Oh, except a donation to the friend who did quilt fixing and about $4 for a tube of glue. I tend to overlook the occasional costs of restocking materials, like glue, paint or sewing thread, that get used for multiple projects. For this project, nothing needed replacing except the glue.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero. And committing not to buy a throw cushion for the box (we have SO MANY throw cushions, but I have a weakness...)

Impact: The widespread appeal of shops that sell nothing but items to fit-out a home, especially decorative rather than functional fittings, is indicative of our culture's emphasis on purchasing more and more whenever changes are desired at home. A steady stream of advertising encourages us to desire changes. The abundant piles of household items on the verge at bulk rubbish collection, many in perfectly good condition, affirms the rate at which remodeling and replacing occurs. I love beautiful things, I enjoy creating lovely spaces and I am attracted to all the options for 'improving' our home. While I can't measure an exact impact of this action, resisting the urge to go and buy, and channeling it instead into finding ways to creatively re-use what we already had, feels like moving in the right direction for me.

Bring a plate

I am two days into a three day conference that includes lunch and snacks, with disposable plates and cups and cutlery.

So today I took my own.

Which is such a simple thing that this is going to be my shortest blog post ever.

Initial Time: two minutes to pack, two minutes to clean, two minutes to unpack at home.

Initial Cost: zero.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: six minutes again tomorrow.

Impact: I saved two plates, two forks, two styrofoam cups and two plastic water cups from the bin. Not a big contribution, I know, but something. I'm hopeful that my brought-from-home items maybe made one or two people at least notice that they were chucking stuff away after a single use.

Australians throw away about 2.7 million disposable cups a day - nearly 1 billion each year (part of 500 billion annually world-wide). I couldn't find a figure for plates and cutlery. This would be lower amount, as plates in particular are not used for take-away food at the rate that disposable coffee-cups are used for take-away coffee, but even so I can't imagine its a small number.

Image by Max Temkin at Adbusters.

Extractor fans, security screens and other passive cooling tricks

The key to passive cooling is ensuring the cool[er] evening/morning air gets into the house, while the hot day time air is kept out.

We often find that by about an hour after sunset the house is warmer inside than out. Our trick for getting the warm air out and the cool air in is: Extractor Fans. They are designed to remove steam and smells, but they are also brilliant for removing hot air.

 

We generally run them for a couple of hours at night, turn them off while we're all asleep (they are not designed to run for twelve hours at a time) then pop them on again in the morning around dawn if the house is still too warm. We also line up our pedestal fans so that they assist the overnight breeze (generally easterly in summer here).

If you've followed this blog even a little you would know that we also shade, shade, shade the house in summer. [If you're new to the blog, have a look at these posts on shading: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8] However, its two years since I last wrote about shading so here we go again with some more ideas we've been trying:

- pillows between glass and blinds in the lounge room window (above - NE window, guarded by Eva's scarecrow)

 - cardboard boxes between glass and blinds in the office window (NE window)

- large cardboard tray from a flat-pack furniture item, and a pile of polystyrene cooler boxes, to add insulation to the laundry door - nearly four square metres of glass that gets afternoon sun in summer (SW facing). It can only partially be shaded from the outside, given that it is a door so is not suitable for shading that can't easily be pushed aside.

- a mattress across the window in the children's bedroom (SE window).

- a cot mattress and more flat-pack boxes between glass and blinds in the bathroom (SE window)

- a former painting canvas between glass and blinds in the other bathroom (NE window). Neither bathroom has eaves, so shading these windows in other ways is particularly crucial.

All these shades are removed at night to let the night air in and the day's warmth out. This is possible because most of our windows have security screens. If we were not renters we would fit security screens to the two main living room areas immediately, as not being able to leave them wide open all night significantly hampers our overnight cooling.

After two weeks of lovely cool holiday in Victoria, we last week landed back into the peak of Perth summer. Its hot here! The temperature dipped below 20°C this morning, briefly, for the first time in six days, and maximums have been between 33°C and 40°C for a week, with a similar week forecast ahead. So far we have run our airconditioner for about five hours, on one night when it was not forecast to cool down and the air outside as full of bushfire smoke. Twice in the past ten days guests have commented on how cool our house feels, even noting that one room felt like the airconditioner was on (this at a time it was around 31°C outside).

Initial Time: All the additional shades above are daily measures that we only put up on the hottest days, and require about five minutes at each end of the day to put up and pull down. Extractor fans take seconds to flick on and off; pedestal fans take a minute or two to get into place where they are most effective for night times.

Initial Cost: Zero.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: As above.

Impact: An extractor fan uses around 25 Watts to run. We run three, for about five hours in total: 375Wh per night (about one third of a 'unit' in our system). 

Pedestal fans use around 40-50 Watts. We run four, all night, a total of around 1440-1800Wh. However, we also run them with the airconditioner if its on, so that we can direct the cool air up the passage and into the bedroom, due to the awkward placement of the airconditioner unit in our living/kitchen area.

Our airconditioner uses (roughly) between 1.5 and 2kWh (units of energy) per hour, depending on what temperature we set it to, what the temperature is outside, what the temperature is inside, etc. The night this week when we didn't open up the house, we ran the airconditioner for five hours (and pedestal fans for about twelve hours) to bring the inside temperature down to a bearable level ready for the next hot day - that is, to achieve the same effect that running fans and opening the house usually manages. Overnight cooling by airconditioner (and fans), then, uses about 9-12kWh per day, while overnight cooling by using the evening breeze assisted by fans uses around 1.8-2.2kWh.

Goodbye phone books

Phone books make great door stops.

They also contain lots of contact details for people I don't know and businesses I will never use. So recently we opted out of receiving any for the next five years.

Probably in five years time I will get myself an updated business & government directory (White Pages) and then cancel for another period. I doubt I will ever opt back in to the Yellow Pages.

Initial Time: Five minutes to go online and opt out. Go to https://www.directoryselect.com.au/action/home

Initial Cost: zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: We do use our hard-copy phone books occasionally, and it generally takes a little longer to get the Yellow or White pages up on Tyson's phone than to flip open the book (or longer again if we have to fire up an actual computer) but its a few extra minutes a year. Updating the book every five years instead of every year would be enough to keep it useful.

Impact: Sensis, who print phone books for Australia, is 'proudly carbon neutral', encourages recycling and from what I could find prints within Australia, so it is doing its best. Nevertheless, millions of phone books are printed and delivered every year that are rarely or never used, and however you off-set it or recycle it, that is a lot of unnecessary paper. When the company changed from opt-out to opt-in for residential phone directories a couple of years back only 2% of suburban households requested to still receive books, suggesting a lot of people had little use for the ones they previously had delivered every year. I couldn't find a figure for how many books are currently printed but from various data about percentages in particular areas my estimate is around 15 million phone books in Australia each year. At 800-1000g each, that's approximately 13,500 tonnes of paper. If only 2% are actually wanted or used, that could be reduced to 270 tonnes. Even if I have wildly over estimated, it is still a lot of paper that could be avoided. And that is just the product itself - there are also factors like resources used to run the printing factories, wrap books in plastic, transport them and dispose of them at the end of each year.

(For those not in Australia: every household in this country until recently was supplied for free every year with paper phone directories - some years four fat volumes - as part of the main telephone provider's legal obligations to provide a directory service. White Pages books are alphabetical listings of all registered land-line phone numbers; Yellow Pages are commercial directories that businesses pay to be included in. In the four largest cities, which together account for over half the nation's population, the 'residential' volume is now opt-in, and the others have been stream-lined, but two volumes are generally still delivered)