What are your 'mail' habits?

There are heaps of things we can do to make our homes greener more efficient places. Turning lights off, watching your water use, recycling the list goes on. But sometimes it's the small things that we can easily overlook that can really make a difference.

Ok so I will come clean, it came to my attention the other day that I had completely overlooked our mail. I had done the usual junk mail ban but had not looked at our printed bank statements! I realised we had folders filled with them. So I set about fixing my HUGE oversight.
Now I will say that this is easy enough to say but harder to pull off when it comes to doing the tax quarterly. I am still considering how we can get around this but for the moment it has all been shifted to email and online while I consider some options.

So this months challenge you ask?
 'Check your mail habits'.
Have a look at all your mail, can it be changed to online statements or catalogues? Mostly you can go online and change your preference yourself to save you waiting on the phone. You will be surprised once you start digging around!
Fresh ideas welcome on how you manage your mail and waste!

Have a great March
Jo

'Recycle, Reuse, Reduce'.
To get started we need to look at our general household waste.  Have a look at your waste over the next week and assess just what portion is recycling, what you can reuse and what you might reduce!


After you have had a good look are there any changes you can make? I think one of the most important things about managing our waste is having somewhere to put it. Councils these days will mostly offer 3 bins General Waste, Glass & Plastic's, or Paper and Cardboard.


If like me you live in a rural area with no waste management services, it really comes down to your own motivation I am afraid. We have three wheelie bins and recycle everything. Our kitchen waste is shared between the worm waste system, compost and the chook's. The kitchen has 2 scrap bins which can be emptied a couple of times a day depending on what we are doing. We freeze any meat scraps and take out on the tip run. This means that our kitchen rubbish bin only contains what can not be recycled or reused. It can takes us a few weeks to empty our kitchen bins.

 Image courtesy of London Permaculture - Flikr

Compost bins: Composting is like gardening it can be as big or as small as you like. The Bokashi bin is just an example of a compost bin designed for the urban kitchen, fantastic solution for apartment living.
Have a look here http://www.bokashi.com.au/.


The key about this months challenge is to get you thinking. I am not suggesting that we all run out and buy a compost bin, but go about our rubbish with a bit more food for thought!


Looking forward to hearing how your going. Keep me posted on Facebook and Twitter 




            

January 'Green' Challenge

'Recycle, Reduce, Reuse'.

To get started we need to look at our general household waste. Have a look at your waste over the next week, and make note of how much is recyclable, what you might reuse and what can be reduced. Things like supermarket packaging.

After you have had a look around are there any changes you could make? I think one of the most important things about waste is having somewhere to put it! Councils these days mostly offer three bins for General Waste, Paper & Cardboard and Glass & Plastic's.

However if like us, you live in a rural area with no waste management services, it really comes down to your own motivation I am afraid. We have three wheelie bins and recycle everything. Our kitchen waste is shared between the worm waste system, compost and the chook's. The kitchen has 2 scrap bins which can be emptied a couple of times a day depending on what we are doing. We freeze any meat scraps and take out on the tip run. This means that our kitchen rubbish bin only contains what can not be recycled or reused. It can takes us a few weeks to empty our kitchen bin. 


Compost bins: Composting is much like gardening in the sense you can make it as small or large as you like! With so many of us these days living in dense urban areas it can be more challenging to compost and reuse our kitchen waste. I came across this bin a year or so ago, the Bokashi bin has been designed for urban living, small compact and stylish, see for yourself http://www.bokashi.com.au/


The key to this months challenge is to get us thinking about waste. I am not suggesting we all run out and buy a compost bin, but just go about our rubbish with a bit more food for thought.             
Keep me posted on your thoughts and ideas on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you add some photo's!! 


 Image courtsey of London permaculture-Flikr

2012 Challenge: Make one GREEN change every month

When it comes to the environment and making our homes 'greener', the responsibility falls firmly in our own laps. Every day we make decisions that can affect our homes and lives in a positive or negative way. Now I am not saying it is easy, these days I sometimes feel it is like I'm running against the current daily. But I do think small differences can have a HUGE impact.

This is where our challenge comes in. Over the course of the year our goal is to make one GREEN change every month. That's right 12 changes towards making your home greener, cleaner and hopefully saving yourselves some money!

We'll be talking and giving tips and ideas about recycling, heating, cooling, chemicals used in the home, gardening and lots more. 

So here's the deal, join us on Facebook and Twitter and every month we will post our monthly 'GREEN' idea. Then we want you to tell us how it's all going and share your ideas and suggestions with all of us, so we can all be a little bit 'Greener' by COB 2012.

Along the way we will have other tips, competitions and some fun stuff to keep us going. It would be great to have you along for the ride. Join up today!!

images courtesy Flickr - dave westerhouse and Argentem