Buying a more efficient car

The impending arrival of a second child meant we needed to look at purchasing a different car - primarily because the Subaru Imprezza sports wagon we have had cannot fit two child seats with a pram in the back. Other than buying something we could afford, our two biggest considerations were (1) ensuring the new vehicle allowed us to offer lifts to people and (2) fuel efficiency. The first criterion put us in the market for a people mover; the second launched us into the world of European-manufactured diesel cars.

We are now the proud owners of a 2008 Citroen C4 Picasso people mover.

 

Why a people mover? Already I have had several people respond to our choice with 'how many kids are you planning to have?!'  For us it is about ensuring our vehicle allows us to live in line with our values around hospitality and generosity. If our car is only sufficient to meet the needs of our immediate family members, it is too limited. We were already at capacity once a week in our smaller car, as we regularly give a lift as a family to another adult. We want this new car to get us through at least the primary school years, for which it will need to be able to cart our kids plus their friends plus assorted junk treasures, and in the more immediate future we want to be able to take more than two adults in the car while it has two child seats.

Temporarily we are a two-car family again, but we intend to sell the Subaru just as soon as we get our heads above the water of a newborn in the household. I can't at this stage see how we could manage with no car at all, so researching and purchasing the most efficient model we could was the next best thing for us in retaining our commitment to sustainable living.

Totally gratuitous brag photos of our new little man and his super-proud big sister

Initial Time: As you would expect when taking on an expensive purchase, we spent a considerable amount of time researching before making this decision. Once we had identified the type of vehicle we wanted, the challenge was to find one - no easy search, as few Citroen C4 Picassos are sold in Australia and even less seem to come onto the second-hand market. A brand new Picasso could of course have been ordered, but that was beyond our budget.

We were assisted by Allpike Citroen in Osborne Park, who eventually located our car through a dealer in Sydney and arranged its transport to and re-registration in WA. From standing in the Citroen yard discussing options to driving the car home took about two months. Our Picasso arrived four days before our baby, which was perhaps cutting things just a little fine...

Initial Cost: Our drive-away cost was $24,000. This included all the running around to find the car and get it to us.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Any car has ongoing costs! Modern diesel engines need servicing only about half as often as petrol engines and, we are led to believe, generally require less maintenance. We shall see. It is also possible that parts will be harder to obtain, and take longer to turn up, as there are not many Citroens on the road here. The cost of fuel, however, will be less (see below).

Trip computer showing distance travelled, fuel economy and average speed

Impact: Various car information sources suggest we have reduced our fuel consumption from around 10L/100km to something closer to 7.4L/100km (combined urban and open road economy).

In the 2011-12 financial year we filling our car with petrol 30 times. As we roughly fill it every 400km, I estimate we travelled about 12,000km in the year. Averaging 10L/100km, this means we burnt around 1200L of petrol in the year. Petrol produces 2.3kg of carbon dioxide for every litre used, resulting in the 2011-12 carbon dioxide contribution from our car being 2760kg.

Assuming our travel distance remains constant this year, our fuel use will be around 888L - a reduction of 420L. Diesel has a higher rate of CO2 emission than petrol, at 2.7kg/L, but we still come out well ahead as diesel engines are so much more efficient. Our 780L of diesel will produce around 2398kg of carbon dioxide - 362kg less.

In the 2011-12 financial year we spent $1847.64 on petrol for our previous car. Diesel is generally more expensive per litre than ordinary petrol, but on par with the high-octane petrol we tended to opt for, so we are likely to spend closer to $1370 on fuel this year, a saving of nearly $480. As fuel prices cannot but increase over coming years, and we hope to retain this car for at least a decade if not longer, the cost savings on fuel will only increase.

In the not-quite four weeks we have had the car, we have driven only within the metro area and are running at around 7.4L/100km as per the estimates (rather than the urban driving estimate above 8L/100km, probably because our urban driving includes regular runs on roads where we can cruise along at 70-80kph or more). I am enjoying monitoring how efficient my driving is with the real-time fuel efficiency read-out on the trip computer, which is helping me learn to drive more efficiently. Any car's fuel efficiency is only as good as the way it is driven. As I drive more gently, I immediately reduce our fuel consumption.

At this stage we are not exploring options for biodiesel, but it is a nice feeling to know that we have a vehicle that could go in that direction if (when? surely this must be 'when') technology catches up with making it readily available and issues of biofuel vs food crops are addressed (perhaps using Australian native microalgae?!). Many diesel products already on the market are blends that include biofuel.

Links:

The Australian government's Green Vehicle Guide gives all sorts of useful information and allows comparison of cars across 'green' criteria. It compares air pollution and greenhouse ratings as well as simple fuel consumption.

The government also provides an online calculator to determine the carbon emissions of your vehicle.


This article at a website about family cars has a useful fuel efficiency comparison table for people movers.

The online second-hand car sales website http://www.carsales.com.au was the main searching place once we knew what sort of car we were looking for, and also to do a little bit of comparing between some of the different makes and models that were competing for our attention. Information about listed cars includes 'green info', which for some cars only includes fuel consumption and for others has details such as CO2 emissions and a green rating. My guess is that if there's not much 'green info' included its because the report would not be very encouraging to a potential buyer.

Pretty much the day we signed a contract to purchase this car, this article about the cancer-causing properties of diesel fuel was in the news. While it is concerning that diesel has been linked to cancer by the WHO, our understanding is that these findings relate primarily to the 'particulate matter' (ie soot) in diesel exhaust. This has been dramatically reduced in recent years as cleaner diesel has been produced to meet the demand of pollution-conscious consumers and greenhouse legislation, especially in Europe.

For information about biodiesel: The Australian Government's site on biofuel quality standards; Biofuels Australia - industry peak body, with plenty of background information (although of course they are pro-biofuel so its all positive coverage!). For some discussion of other, less encouraging, aspects of the biofuel industry, have a look at these links.

Choosing 'green' for work printing

I work from home as a historian. Most of the work I do can be managed almost entirely electronically, so I rarely have decisions to make about the ethics of paper/ ink/ printing etc. However, it fell to me to arrange the printing at the conclusion of the main project I was working on for the last nine months.

I decided to use the Environmental Printing Company for the final draft reports. All were printed on recycled paper. I had intended to do some really high quality copies on gloss art paper, which would have been entirely plantation sourced, but this did not eventuate. The recycled paper does give a slightly grainy finish to some of the printed historic images, so next time I think I will go with the plantation-sourced non-recycled paper where images are important to the document.

The Environmental Printing Company lists their 'green' credentials as:

• Using environmentally friendly products such as vegetable-based inks, recycled paper, and sugar cane paper.
• Recycling all their waste paper and by-products.
• Using 40% less toner than conventional printers and all of their digital components are recyclable.
• Using environmentally friendly cleaning products on their machines with very low VOC levels.

The printed reports look great. I am so darn proud of them that I confess to (when no-one else was home) sitting them on the kitchen bench and just looking at them on and off for an afternoon.

I cannot quite describe how extremely relieved I am to have this project completed before our baby arrives! Maternity leave has now begun, with baby due in less than two weeks. While I am hopeful that blogging will continue, here's my advance notice that it could get a bit more sporadic after baby is in the house.

Initial Time: The only additional time was about 20 minutes extra on each trip to the printer compared with if I had used one a little closer to home.

Initial Cost: I now can't find the quotes I obtained but the Environmental Printing Company quote was very competitive, and cheaper than large chains including both Officeworks and Snap Printing.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero, unless I take on advocating with the client to get the public print run also 'green' printed. As I will likely be caring for a newborn at this stage of the process, I am probably not taking that one on for this project.

Impact: The print run was small - six 200 page books - so its immediate impact is also small. However, supporting a small business engaged in sustainable practice is worth doing anyway, and promoting them here is possibly a bigger impact than my actual printing job.

Links:  

A privately-collated national list of environmentally sustainable printing companies, which seems to have had some fairly rigorous criteria used to determine who gets a guernsey: http://www.earthgreetings.com.au/printers_directory.html (The Environmental Printing Company is the only one listed for WA)

Report on the use of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the Australian printing industry, including information on how they are a pollution problem and what the alternatives are: http://www.printnet.com.au/verve/_resources/VOC_Report_-_members.pdf

March 2011 edition of WME Environmental Business magazine, devoted to issues around printing and paper use in Australia, including general articles about what to consider when making decisions on printing, definitions of key terms, comparison of industry accreditation bodies, comprehensive lists of brands and companies and what they offer, and a whole lot of advertising (sorry about that):

http://www.wme.com.au/magazine/downloads/ESSENTIALS_GUIDE_PaperPrinting_March2011_WME.pdf

Garden resource not garden waste

Recently we pruned our eucalypt to allow a bit more winter sun into the front courtyard. We remain hopeful that vegies will grow this winter. A little less tree also means a little more winter sun through the window onto our loungeroom floor, one of Eva's favourite play areas.

 

We missed the Council's bulk green waste collection by about two weeks. Initially we looked at the pile of pruned tree and saw a waste problem - how could we get rid of it? Options included adding it to our general rubbish bin over several weeks, or borrowing a trailer and paying $40 to take it to the nearest Council green waste receiving depot.

Then we did a re-think: what if this was not a waste problem, but a resource boon? Potentially we had a whole lot of timber suitable, once dry, for stoking up my sister's wood-fired pizza oven. Potentially we had a whole lot of weed-retardant eucalyptus mulch.

We borrowed a garden shredder from a friend and turned our garden waste into two excellent garden resources. I confess my contribution to this project was ideas, and Tyson's contribution was the hours of manual labour to saw and shred the eucalyptus off-cuts.

Initial Time: About 4 hours. However, either cutting it small enough to get into our household rubbish bin or taking it to the Council depot would have also involved an hour or so of work.

Initial Cost: Zero (we did consider hiring a shredder/ mulcher but remembered our friend's one before we checked the price on that)

Ongoing time or cost commitment: zero

Impact: A couple of cubic metres of 'green waste' that has not gone into landfill. Either the Council bulk pick-up or their depot drop-off would, I understand, have also turned our green material into garden products, but we wouldn't have got the benefits of this resource.

At least one or two pizza nights at my sister's catered for on the wood front. A free supply of mulch for a portion of our front courtyard.

Again the more important impact was really on our thinking: shifting us from seeing a pile of rubbish to a potential resource.

Cheese update...

Just to quickly let you know the response I finally got from Harvey Cheese when I asked whether they do in fact produce cheese in WA:

The Capel Crest Milk cheese, Harvey Fresh Mild cheese and Cape Leeuwin Cheese was made with WA cheese, however, it is labelled Australian.

That's a bit disappointing - only three lines from the whole company made in WA! We are also struggling to find a WA parmesan or equivalent, so if anyone has any clues on that front I'd love to hear from you. The best we can do at present is support a small local supplier of many WA cheeses by purchasing their imported parmesan.

However, another brand that didn't make the last post is Margaret River Dairy Company, and they DO make all their cheese in the Margaret River Area. Sadly they were bought out by a Chinese company last year so are no longer Australian-owned, but I checked with them and their cheeses are still 100% WA produced. Their cheese also tastes great!

Buying WA cheese

I love cheese and eat more of it than my cholesterol count says I should. However, living in Western Australia, almost all our well-known cheese brands are produced in the east - mostly in Victoria. Our most recent sustainable action was to commit to buying only West Australian made cheese.

My biggest concern was that WA-made ordinary 1kg blocks would be either completely unavailable, or unaffordable. I am pleased to have so far found two 1kg block lines: Harvey Fresh, and Tuart Dairy. Both were the cheapest brand available the week I bought them on special (around $8.99 I think). Tuart Dairy is a brand from Cape Naturaliste Dairy Company, of Ludlow & Applecross, for which I can't find a website.

Other WA brands that we have purchased are:

Old Cheddar Cheese Company (Ludlow, no website, contact oldcheddar@bordernet.com.au) - for flavoured cheddars/ cheeseboard-style specialties

Mundella (Mundijong) - for feta, ricotta and cottage cheese

Cambray Sheep Cheese (Nannup) - for OH SO GOOD gourmet lines. There is no 'sheepy' taste. 

Various southwest lines sold by the Teezy Cheese Stall at Manning Farmers Markets, including Organic from Cowaramup and Gracetown. Teezy Cheese have no website, but are at Manning and Midland Farmers Markets. They are a group of young people based in Morley and do free delivery within a 15km radius. Contact elena@toltrip.com.au or 0422 647 335

I needed to visit a bigger IGA than our local one and read many many cheese labels to find a WA feta, although we also buy gourmet WA feta from the farmers' market. Harder again was finding a WA ricotta or cottage cheese - which is particularly important as the cholesterol issue actually does need some attention and these are lower cholesterol options for cheese. Thankfully, after a bit of searching, I found a few options.

WA cheeses we are yet to try include:

Borello (Oakford, no website, contact borellocheese@bigpond.com.au)

Rose Valley (Wungong, no website, contact 9399 2238)

These are the two WA brands our local continental deli stocks - I had to ask them of course to establish this. We try to support this deli when we can, as it is run by a group of young women who only started operating it about two years ago. Most of their cheese is imported from overseas or the east, though.

Lewana Cottages (Balingup)

Margaret River Organic Creameries (Wagerup) - the only fully certified organic dairy company I have located in my WA cheese search (so far)

Heritage Country Cheese (Balingup)

Harvey Cheese (Harvey) - a smaller independent company, separate to Harvey Fresh. Their cheeses are often branded as HaVe. They also run regular cheese-making workshops open to all.

Denmark Farmhouse (Denmark)

Casa Dairy (Canningvale) - another possible source of Ricotta and Feta

Cheese brands now off the menu as they are not from WA include: Bulla (Vic), Bega (NSW & Vic), Kraft (Vic), Fonterra (inc. Bega, Brownes, Mainland, Nestle - various Vic/NSW/Tas) Murray-Goulburn Coop (inc. Liddels, Cobram, Devondale - Vic), Lemnos (Vic), National Foods -  now part of Lion (inc Australian Gold, Cracker Barrel, King Island, Masters, Mersey Valley, Mil Lel, Tasmanian Heritage - various Vic/NSW/Tas), Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory (inc Sungold - Vic). Many home brand or store brand (eg Coles, Woolworths) cheese lines are reportedly imported from overseas. Watsonia, formerly a West Australian brand, moved production to Victoria at the end of 2010.

Its a tricky area, because in researching info for this blog I came across a Federal Court ruling against Harvey Fresh in 2009, initiated by the ACCC, for making Harvey Fresh block cheese look local when in fact it was being made in Victoria. They have increased their WA production since then, and their packaging still looks like its a WA brand, so I have emailed to ask them whether they have changed their practice since this ruling to produce their block cheeses in WA. So far they have not responded to my enquiry, so it will be Tuart Dairy for us until I can clarify the issue.

If I haven't mentioned the brand you like try this website for a list of Australian dairy companies and their products. If its imported from overseas the label should identify this. For smaller brands, try this site, which includes only five of the WA cheese companies - so clearly is not comprehensive in its coverage. For a list of WA food companies for a range of food products try the Buy West Eat Best website - although, again, not comprehensive especially for smaller traders.

Buying WA is not quite buying 'local', but I'm not ready (yet?) to limit my cheese to the few near the metro area - Mundella, Rose Valley, Casa and Borello. In other parts of the world Denmark (400km away - a south coast town, not the country in Europe) may not be considered 'local' but here in Perth food has either crossed the arid lands to the north (coming from Carnarvon or Ord River, generally) or the east (connecting the rest of Australia), or it hasn't. If it hasn't, its from the southwest of our State, reaching up to about 450km from Perth. If its not from the southwest, there is no mid-distance (except Carnarvon fruit & veg, which comes around 900km). From the east or the Ord River food has come over 2000km at least, probably more likely over 3000km - yes, Ord River is in WA, but it is around 3200km from Perth!

Initial Time: Reading cheese labels in stores took probably half an hour; talking to my local deli staff about ten minutes; searching the web for WA cheese producers and to check where bigger brands are produced (as their packaging lists their head office, not necessarily where the cheese came from) about two hours. But now that I have done that you don't need to! So (if you live in southwest WA) your initial time commitment could be much smaller.

Initial Cost: zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Generally I have found comparable priced WA options for most cheese I buy. Obviously gourmet Cambrey Sheep Cheese costs more than bulk-line supermarket items, but that would apply whether I bought Victorian gourmet cheeses (such as the extremely fine Timboon or Jindi cheese we have purchased in the past) or gourmet WA cheese. Mundella feta is a regular supermarket line that is competitively priced with other feta brands such as Lemnos, and its Ricotta and Cottage Cheese is on par with brands such as Bulla. The biggest test is whether I can avoid the weeks that Watsonia or Devondale 1kg block cheese is selling for $8 and hold out until Tuart Dairy is on special. Then I stock up! I'm also a sucker for marked-down specialty cheeses, and have had to steel myself several times not to purchase a Chrystal Fresh cheese platter. Also, some of the WA lines are not stocked at our small local IGA, so unless I can convince them to order these lines (which I will try to do - smaller stores are more likely to respond to such customer requests) buying WA will mean occasional trips across to a bigger IGA and, for Mundella Ricotta, to Woolworths (shudder). 

The buy-WA commitment does mean that one or two favourite imported gourmet lines are off the menu, such as Jindi blue or Dutch Leden. Gracetown Blue (from Teezy Cheese Stall) is a fine alternative blue; I haven't yet found a local line that has caraway seed in it like Dutch Leden. Also, the cheap-end camemberts and bries (eg Australian Gold) are not made in WA, so buying WA means having to go the gourmet approach for soft cheeses. That hasn't hit home yet because I am not supposed to be eating soft cheeses while pregnant!

After beginning to write this blog I realised that we also eat cheap grated parmesan - I had somehow forgotten this was also cheese when I was making our WA commitment. So far I have only managed to find a WA-made romano, and a relatively expensive one at that (from Teezy Cheese), to replace cheap parmesan, which is definitely not from WA, although the packaging is vague about where it is actually produced. This may require a slight change in eating habits as we can't afford to eat expensive parmesan/ romano at the rate we consume the cheap stuff!

Impact: A 2007 report assessing food miles for a regular shopping basket in Melbourne estimated cheese there generated about 152g carbon dioxide per kilo. Given that most Australian cheese is produced in Victoria, and this report estimated cheese travelled about 688km before reaching the consumer, I would estimate most Australian cheese not produced in WA travels about 4000km on its way to my local supermarket shelf. Using the same figures as the 2007 report, this means 1kg of eastern states cheese generates around 882g of carbon dioxide. However, these figures do not take into account that the trucks are refrigerated, so the actual amount would be higher. I think its fair to say cheese roughly generates its weight in carbon dioxide when transported to WA from Victoria. 

If I estimate WA cheese to have travelled between 100 and 500km to reach me, the equivalent carbon dioxide generation is between 22 and 110g per kilo of cheese. At a guess we eat about 2kg of cheese a month (including feta, gourmet items, block cheese, ricotta...). If all bought from the east that would be 24kg of carbon dioxide generated per year. If all bought from WA that would be between 0.5 and 2.6kg of carbon dioxide per year.

There are also the positive benefits of supporting local industry, and supporting smaller businesses.

It must be acknowledged, however, that no matter where it takes place the production and distribution of dairy products is energy intensive. Many sources estimate that producing 1kg of cheese generates around 10kg of greenhouse gas (not just carbon dioxide, also the more greenhouse-potent methane, a large portion of which cows are unhappily responsible for). So our household's 2kg per month of cheese may be causing 241 instead of 264kg of greenhouse gas per year if purchased locally. Some thoughts on ways to reduce the overall footprint of food consumed are here. Once the calcium requirements of pregnancy and breastfeeding are behind me, we will need to seriously consider reducing our cheese consumption overall. For now, buying only WA cheese is the small step I have been able to commit to.

The unlikely blogger

I have now been blogging about sustainability for over two years.

I am the most unlikely blogger. I am not on Twitter or Facebook. I do not have a smart phone - in fact, the number for the mobile phone I do have is kept well protected and hardly anyone contacts me that way. I had been blogging for over a year before I told more than ten people about the blog, and allowed Tyson to post links to it on his Facebook page. Readership shot up from two to ... oh, twenty?

More recently it occurred to me that writing this blog is in itself an act towards sustainable living - but not really if no-one knows its here. So in January I decided to enter my blog in the ReNew Magazine's 'blog of the year' competition and to my enormouse surprise, I came second! I have received a lovely solar lantern and woodgas camp stove from Stickman Stoves (thank you!) but perhaps more importantly ReNew magazine ran an article about the blog, so perhaps a few people out there who don't know me personally may now have had a look at it.

Initial Time: I picked at writing the first eleven posts over several weeks - Eva was about 4 months old at the time and 'picking at' was all I could muster. This is why all the early (Jan 2010) blogs are posted on the same day - I launched them when I was happy with the group and confident I may be able to continue writing relatively regularly.

Initial Cost: Zero.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero cost. Time: 2-4 hours per month, depending on the complexity of the blog entry, research required, calculations, and number of photographs.

Impact: My hope is that at very least I have inspired a few people to have a go at simple actions for more sustainable living - that I am showing that it is do-able.

This is where I need your input. In a raging break with my quiet style I am asking for comments (!!!) to answer this section. Has this blog had any impact on you at all? Is there anything, however small, that you have been inspired to try after reading this blog? Please leave comments even if you stumble across this entry in 6 months time - or come back and leave comments here in future if you get around to making changes later on. Thanks!

The second thing you can do to change the impact that this blog has is to let other people know that its here. I'm a shocker at self-promotion. If anyone out there thinks the content of this blog is worth sharing, and might help make a difference towards us living better together on our one small planet, please let some of your friends know.

The third thing you can do is consider how YOU let others know what YOU are doing to live more sustainably. I think more is going on quietly than is publicly acknowledged, and it would help change our cultural attitidues towards sustainable living if more of us went public - even just to our close friends and family - with our convictions and actions for a better world.

That's an awful lot of interactive options for me in one go. I may have to go lie down for a while to recover...

Just when you think you can't shade anymore...

When I wrote in December about our summer shading system I thought we had shaded everything we could reasonably manage. But as it got hotter we found more exposed areas that could be protected and added:

additional dense (90% block-out) shade cloth to patch a gap in the rear (southwest) courtyard shading,

 

on very hot days, a towel inside the (northeast) bathroom window, which has no eaves,

on very hot days, an old painting canvas inside the (southwest) laundry glass sliding doors, which get blasted with afternoon sun,

 an old woollen wall hanging on the southwest wall outside Eva's bedroom, and

three towels left on the clothesline all summer along the northwest living area wall.

These also make a good cubby.

Initial Time: Shade cloth: fifteen minutes to bend hooks and hang the cloth; wall hanging:five minutes to put a hook in; towels: 30 seconds each to hang; paint canvas: 30 seconds to balance in place on the grey water bin.

Initial Cost:$20 for shade cloth, zero for towels, paint canvas or wall hanging (which was being thrown out by a family member)

Ongoing time or cost commitment: One or two minutes every week or two to readjust the rear shadecloth as it slips a bit in windy weather; 30 seconds each on hot days to put up the inside towel and paint canvas; probably about ten minutes at the end of summer to pack away for cooler weather.

Impact:A southwest facing vertical surface in Perth in summer receives approximately 3kWh of energy per square metre per day. If the surface is unshaded transparent glass, almost all this energy gets inside the house as heat. The additional shading to our rear courtyard gives 90% shading to about 3 square metres of glass, reducing the amount of heat entering our living area in summer by approximately 8.1 kWh per day. We have a 300% efficient reverse cycle air conditioner in the living area which would use 2.7 kWh of energy to remove 8.1 kWh of heat.So, by shading instead of turning on the airconditioner most days, we are saving 2.7 units of electricity per hot day just with this one area of shade cloth. Put another way, we start to get ahead of the $20 spent on shade cloth on the 27th day of not turning on the aircon. (Thanks Tyson for knowing the numbers!)

In less precise terms, I estimate that this summer it has generally been the third day in any heat wave before we turn on the airconditioner, and last summer I think it was more often the second day. I consider a heat wave to be when the temperature stays at the mid thirties or higher for more than one day. Our airconditioner rarely runs on days with temperatures up to the low thirties (celsius!).

Calculations for the towels and wool hanging shading wall areas, and the paint canvas inside vertical blinds, are more difficult, but we notice that these rooms heat up slower. (In terms of impact, one woolen wall hanging also has a new purpose in life and has been saved from landfill, at least for a while.

Our recent power bill for 22 Dec to 24 Feb shows an average electricity usage of 8 units a day (530 units total), a very very small reduction on the same period last year (10 units less over two months). Most of the past year our average usage has been around 6 units a day, so summer is still presenting the biggest challenges for reducing electricity use at our house. It was the fourth hottest summer in Perth ever recorded (since 1897) and I was going to excuse our tiny reduction by pointing to this fact - until I discovered two of the other three hottest summers were 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. (Its hard to deny climate change when three of the four hottest summers here in the last 115 years were the last three consecutive years... the other was 1997-98). So my alternate excuse for our electricity usage not reducing compared with last summer is that this year I am pregnant and feel hot quicker!

To put our usage in some perspective, however, Synergy (our local electricity supplier) estimates the average household electricity use in WA's southwest grid is 6250 kWh per year (over 17 units per day). Our household's 2011 usage was 2452 kWh (6.7 units per day). We are living a perfectly comfortable existence on that amount of energy.

Grey Water Wheelie Bin

Recently we purchased a heavy-duty 140L plastic wheelie bin from Weatherworks designed to capture and distribute water from our washing machine. This is a great alternative to a plumbed-in grey water system for those of us in rental properties who can't make permanent changes.

 

The washing machine pipe hooks over the side of the bin, which sits next to the machine while it is operating. We sometimes tie a bit of rag around it to catch the lint, as in the photo below.

 

We then wheel the bin outside to where water is needed. A tap fitting allows for a hose attachment, or we often just bucket it out straight onto the garden. No more lugging buckets all over the place!

I like the hose attachment, but Tyson finds the water flow too slow so goes with buckets most days. We don't have lawn (except for on the verge, where our rear neighbours water HALF of the front verge and our other-side neighbour gives a less-intense sprinkle to 'our' half, resulting in a very obvious divide between lush green lawn and the patchy brown hanging-in-there covering we are satisfied with) but these bins are designed to flow slowly enough to gently 'flood' a lawn area. Some models are also designed to catch roof run-off. More expensive models have an in-built pump so that you can water at pressure as from a garden tap.

The bin is reasonably easy to manoeuvre, although its four single-direction wheels sometimes make turning corners a bit of a heave. However, we have still decided that it is probably an activity best avoided by a pregnant lady, so Tyson is doing all the bin wheeling for now. 

Initial Time: However long it takes you to decide on the what and how of a new purchase. The guy we bought from delivered it to us for free, as we were not too far away. Setting it up by the washing machine takes no time at all.

Initial Cost: $180. We chose to support a local small business, which often has a stall at our farmers' market. We could have bought a cheaper one if we had it shipped from Melbourne or went with a two-wheel single-axle version from Bunnings.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Watering the garden still takes time. There is just no getting around that unless you go with an irrigation system that does the whole garden just by turning on and off at a tap. But its only about 15 minutes most days, and Eva loves watering with Tyson.

Impact: We are capturing about 60L more water per wash than our previous system of buckets in the wash trough allowed. This photo shows the water level after one washing load, which gives an idea of how much we are catching and recycling.

Tyson has decided that even with this extra water our vegies need more than we can capture through this hottest part of summer if they are going to give us anything more than scruffy leaves, so we also turn on the drip irrigation system from the mains for about 3 minutes each day (it uses about 25L/minute).

Shading the house for summer

The arrival of summer means time to roll out the window shades all around the house. Three stay up all year, one is stored away, and another is rolled up and tied on the roof through cooler weather.

east corner

west corner

We installed three new shades this year, as necessary pruning in the front yard had left some of our northeast windows too exposed to morning sun. The most significant of these is a shadecloth wrapping the exposed east corner of the house. We can't quite believe how much cooler the whole house is for reducing the morning sun on this east corner.

We also put a large plant outside the piece of southwest wall that is the head of Eva's bed, to cut the baking sun and try and keep her bedroom a little cooler. The plant doesn't like all that sun so we may need to reconsider how we shade that spot through summer.

Initial Time: Installing the threenew shades took about two hours. Rolling out or reinstalling last year's shades took about twenty minutes.

Initial Cost: Tyson spent about $20 on more shadecloth, timber and shade cloth clips.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Nothing to do until we roll them up again in late April, except for the two smaller ones that blow in the wind and sometimes need to be pulled back off the roof.

Impact: So far no hot days have required the airconditioner, except for one when we were all sick and normal cooling was not enough. The office, now in the east corner of the house following a room shuffle, hasn't even needed a fan yet.

Past blog entries about shading can be found in December 2010 and December 2009. Note that the tarpaulin shown in the 2010 entry tore in half in strong wind as air couldn't escape through it, so we now only use permeable shade cloth to maintain air movement. We've had a couple of questions about how we fasten the shade cloths, so below are a series of photos to illustrate the detail of the operation.

 

timber on the first shade we put up is starting to weather after four years

 

Rethinking water

Over the past few months I have noticed that my thinking about water has been shifting. We've implemented lots of water-saving steps over the past three years (see here, here, here, here, here, here or here) but my thought patterns are only just catching up.

 

Three things are new:

(1) I am almost always conscious when I am using water. This may sound obvious, but how often do you turn on a tap without really noticing that water, our precious resource, is being used?

(2) When approaching a task that requires water, I find myself first considering whether it needs 'first' water or can use 'second' or even 'third' water. For example:

Drinking and cooking - first water, every time.

Showers - first

Garden - second (third if it hasn't had chemicals in it)

Rinsing items for the recycling - third

Handwashing delicate items - first

Soaking nappies - second

Flushing toilets - third 

Teeth - first

Hand washing - first or second

(3) Before I allow water to go somewhere it can't be reused (down the drain, into the garden) I do a mental check of whether it can be caught and, if so, whether it could be used again if it was.

I find there are still jobs that probably don't need the very cleanest water that I haven't adjusted to using recycled water for. Mopping floors is one - the water is dirty after the first swipe of the mop, but I still struggle to start with water from, say, the washing machine.

Here are some examples of how water might get used multiple times in our house:

first: shower

second: toilet

first: handwashing clothes

second: soaking nappies (just water, no chemicals)

third: garden

first: rinsing vegetables

second: bowl in the sink for dipping sticky fingers in

third: rinse out something for the recycling

The photo above is a hand-washed item dripping into seedling trays.

We've started capturing washing machine water again to keep up with the demand for recycled water - some days we were running out and having to use water straight from the tap for 'second water' tasks!

Initial Time:You cannot change your habitual thought patterns quickly. I think 2-3 years of small water-saving changes were necessary for this subconscious thinking shift to take place.

Initial Cost: Zero (unless you need to buy buckets)

Ongoing time or cost commitment:This depends on the task, but usually if I analyse it there is an equivalent time in the task if the water is coming from the tap. For example, decanting water from buckets into a watering can and watering our pots and planters took me about 15 minutes today, so I initially thought 'yes, it adds time', but waiting for the can to fill from the tap takes about the same amount of time.

There is an ongoing cost saving as water usage is reduced - especially where it is hot water, as I have discussed before.

Impact: Based on how much water is waiting in buckets right now and what I've already used this morning, I estimate we will use about 100L of recycled water today. We recycle less in winter as we don't need to water the garden. Assuming we use half this much recycled water for half the year, we are saving/ recycling around 27,000 L of water in a year. 

Finally a pic for the person who asked Tyson how exactly we capture water in the shower.

No buy no waste toddler activities

Eva had a birthday in September (TWO! Unbelievable) and received lovingly purchased gifts, most of which were toys. Our family members and friends have taken seriously that we don’t want a house full of plastic and the gifts were sensitively selected with minimal packaging. Still, it got me thinking about how much stuff we buy and/or throw away to entertain little people. I am trying wherever possible to find ways to entertain and educate Eva with minimal or no purchase or disposal of stuff. Here are five ideas that have worked for us:

1.   Found Object Cubby Houses

 

I’m told by my mum that the purple rug has been with our family for over thirty years. Although it retired from active service as a bed cover many years back, it is a much cherished picnic blanket and cubby roof.

She is writing on the butt-end of a used-up notepad – apparently not to be thrown away until all clear surfaces have something added!

The washing machine box cubby is also good for recurring painting activities. Thus far I have not bought paint or brushes, on account of hoarding from past purchases when I was involved in work with teenagers and uni students, but I concede that paint & brushes are not strictly ‘no buy’ items. (Thanks to my sister for bringing her washing machine box across town for us to use – the box from the compost tumbler got left in the rain and collapsed)

2.   Lids and Buckets

It took about a month of putting aside plastic lids from juice and milk bottles to get this collection. Initially I intended to punch holes in them to make a threading game, and I have two old shoelaces (washed!) ready for this purpose if I get to making holes.

Or they were intended as a sorting game.

But on account of temporarily storing them in a plastic jug, they have become primarily used for making cuppas. The buckets (from honey) are the mugs. If I’m very lucky Eva will make me a cappuccino.

3.   Olive tin drums

 

These were just too good to pass by when our local continental store had a pile out to take for free. 

These drum sticks are lovely smooth polished cross pieces from a chair that broke, although good strong sticks from our eucalyptus are equally popular. I’m sure our neighbours regret the day we found these – they are strictly an outside toy! They also make quite good side tables for balancing drinks and food when we eat outside.

4.   Water painting on the fence

Water painting is the ultimate no-waste activity, as the pictures dry away and the surface can be reused over and over and over. Honey buckets again – what wonderful useful things!

 

 

5.   Stones, dirt, a bucket of water, a rag

Eva can entertain herself independently for sometimes over an hour with this activity. Stones get dug into the (empty) pot-plant, dug out again, washed, dried, made into piles, wrapped in parcels, thrown to the ‘ducklings’ that she assures me populate our courtyard. And they make a thoroughly satisfying ‘sploosh’ when dropped into water from any height. These nice smooth white stones are left over from an activity I ran ages ago, for which I purchased them, but stones found in the garden would be just as good if a handy hoard like this was not stored in my cupboard.

I try to encourage left-over water from both the last two activities to always go into a pot-plant so it gets used twice, and to limit how many times Eva is permitted to refill her container, so that she learns not to just tip it out.

Initial Time: Cubbies usually take abut ten minutes to set up (not counting painting the washing machine box, which has been an activity in itself); Lids took about a month to save a decent collection, but only involved having a container by the sink to drop them in instead of into the recycling bin; everything else was the same time as it would take to get a shop-purchased toy or activity off the shelf.

Initial Cost: Zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Zero for these items. My commitment to no buy no waste activities in general may at times require a little extra creative thinking and set-up time but I think no more than might be spent wandering shops looking for things to buy.

Impact: I can’t quantify this in any meaningful way (except for one washing machine box, about ten honey buckets and fifty or so plastic lids not going into the recycling) but I think it has a significant qualitative impact. Firstly, Eva is learning to be resourceful about play, and that things can have many uses after their first one is finished. I’ve also had adults visiting our house say ‘what a good idea!’ about some of the no buy no waste things we have tried, so I am hopeful that we are inspiring others to also have a go at creatively using what they have rather than throwing it away or buying something else.  A teacher friend remarked that it was good to see someone else eying the recycling bin as treasure rather than trash, as she uses all manner of ‘waste’ items in her classroom (and her husband I think is still a bit taken aback at what she collects up as ‘teaching resources’ – anyone have any of those spindles that bulk discs come on? She is a few short...) 

The impact is about shifting how I and Eva and hopefully others see things.