An Ethical Recycler?..., and teacher, and skill sharer? ....Do, go on.
Ah the infamous electronics recycling....leading to more questions of .....What does my electronics tax actually go towards? Where are all these electronics going? Is it actually being recycled? Is it actually being recycled safely re: the health of those involved, and our environment? What is truly happening to it? How do we reduce the overall amount of e-"waste"? Why do we keep getting new cell phones and computers. Planned obsolescence? Stop the madness!....it's enough to spin you on a cycle of despair. . . so let's dial it back, and check out .....
Free Geek - First, any company that has the goal of re-use before recycle, has my attention. Second, when they do get to the recycling phase, they have a goal of doing it as ethically and clean as possible. Third, they provide the resources and an educational space for people to learn to build their own computers or tweak their existing ones (i.e. let's fix them before we toss them and buy a new one that is likely built to last an even shorter amount of time, seems to make perfect sense, right?), Fourth, they provide computers to organizations that would otherwise not be able to afford them, as she says in the video below "Helping the needy get nerdy"...
Free Geek...where have you been all my life, I'm so glad we have been reunited.
Check out the below short clip for a great intro on what Free Geek is about, and their overall operations model. I'm sure looking forward to connecting with these fabulous souls, and helping to amp up my laptop computer which is about, o let's see...7 years old? I refuse to allow it to be disposed of, it's still operating just fine - just needs a few tweaks, and some love and care.
My heart is so thankful that places like this have come into fruition. Humans are rad, and this just reinforces that point. We all have such fantastic gifts, and ideas to share with the world - let's keep on keeping.
Thanks to my friend for showing me this organization. I was asking her if she needed any cables that I have plenty of (some never even used, just duplicate adapter cables and usb cords..as I'm sure everyone has many in their homes, piling up), and low and behold - Free Geek. Love it! Here's what they accept.
I believe we all want to do good, and we can do good - if you have an idea, roll with it, and be a game-changer. What's your changer?
Walking home from work on day, stumbled upon this sign
Naturally, I love the feeling of knowing that you were apart something which allowed for items to not have to go to the the landfill. I say naturally but I wonder...is this a natural feeling for everyone? Is it there it's just under a few layers? I would argue it's there in everyone. I think we can all agree that it's a darn good feeling to know that you are helping someone you love, and what I love, is mother nature. I wanted to post an update on the composting that's been going on in my building - DIVERSION STATS STYLES - so others could see how incredibly easy it is to do the same in their building. Here is the handy info graphic that Growing City sent us:
Growing City will send us our diversion stats, so we can easily keep track
and see how much we are diverting from the landfill! Hoorah!
As a bit of backstory: composting in my building, it's something I've been wanting to do since I moved here in 2010. I brought it up before to council (before I was actually a council member), and among getting weird remarks back, and somewhat confusion as to why I'd even want such a thing, it was declined due to strata not wanting to be first adopters, and not wanting to spend the extra - I guess there's a lot of risk in being rad? (also it's funny since, it's really not pricey at all, but I guess Growing City didn't exist the way it does today!) So I stopped actively trying, but it was still on my mind, of course, and back then, unfortunately the companies that were picking it up from my office, had not yet expanded to condo buildings, so I was at a bit of a loss (I mean, aside from my own worm bin in my unit, as blogged about here). Then, this summer, meandering around at a summer festival in the West End, I stumbled upon Growing City's booth. I'm always down to talk compost, so I went over, which is odd but composting in my building was not immediately on my mind so it was perhaps serendipitous that I stumped upon this booth. And, sure enough, they told me they have a 1 month FREE trial period, they do strata pick-ups, and even had another building who had done it, that I decided I would use as my case study within my proposal. Surely council would have to say yes to this amazing initiative! That, of course, got me super pumped. I proceeded to write a proposal to Strata, complete with a myths debunked section, and other FAQs to write. (if you want to do the same for your Strata or building or anything of that nature, let me know and I'm more than happy to share the information!) The process moved slower than I wanted it to, but I suppose one must exercise patience. Finally, after all that hard work, council approved that we go ahead with the trial! We had Growing City come to our building and a woman from Growing city and I hung out at the front chatting to residents as they came home from work, and we posted info-sheets around, and I did up a flyer to put under everyone's doors.
The tote had been dropped off that day, mere hours later,
our first few users of the bin, deposited their organics! SUCCESS!
The first week, we were told that our building had actually had one of the best first-pick ups yet, measuring out at 67kgs. Epic! Week two, and three saw just as good of results, with no contamination (plastics, etc). All around, it's been a glorious time. As you can see above, the remainder of the weeks, to date, have been great.
Pre-Compost Tote
Post-Compost Tote (and a very used cardboard bin!)
And, it just goes to show you that 1) if you want to do something, DO IT! 2) Bring the infrastructure, and/or create the space and people shall partake. The cost is peanuts once divided across all units - I worked it out to about $0.88/month per unit. Which, as my friend pointed out, is actually cheaper than paying to take it to a drop-spot. (Not that I discount those drop-spots, they got me through some great times) Of course this will depend upon how many units are in your building, but to me, it's a very small price to pay to know that your organics are being turned into nutrient rich soil which will come back full-circle to you, in the form of the healthy, nutrient rich, locally sourced, organic produce you consume. I mean - of course, the IDEAL situation is - composting right in your space - keeping those nutrients there, on-site, so that you do not waste energy trucking them around the city. But...for right now, when our alternatives are either landfill, or a compost truck....I still would argue the compost is best - especially as more people sign-up, and the truck can access more buildings within a closer proximity...bam! That and, the more people start composting, the more buy-in we shall have when we decide it's time to have a compost set-up right here, on site...in our open, underutilized, courtyard of a space ....that's another project that I'm slowly working on the best approach ;)
Nature is remarkable and knowing and feeling that we are getting closer to functioning more like her, and sharing in her natural cycles and rhythms, soothes my soul. Note that City of Vancouver is going to be implementing a bylaw as of 2015 that bans organics from the landfill - so best to start sorting out your composting situation sooner, than later :)
Here's the notice I made that went up in the elevators/mail rooms
The past two weeks I was out working in North Van, so I had been on the bus to and from. While in transit (literally and figuratively) taking the 14 along E.Hastings, I kept passing, what I feel, and know, will become, my favourite store....
Their Mission statement says it all, taken from their website, here
"Vancouver Homesteader’s Emporium aims to provide Vancouver residents
with a convenient, one-stop shop where they can find know-how and
supplies for a wide range of do-it-yourself urban homesteading projects.
The store will promote rediscovering lost skills through educational
programs and community events, offering tools for healthier, more
self-sufficient living, and good clean fun."
I'm very excited to go to this place. It goes so perfectly with the book I was reading - The Good Life Lab by Wendy Jehanara Tremayne.
I've been reading A LOT lately - a plethora of different topics, and yet the funny thing is - they all end up circling back to one and other - granted it's likely because I've selected theses books specifically from the library as they peak my interest and my interest is peaked by similar things... but either way - I love the connections I'm finding...and not just in the books themselves, in the people I meet ....who, for example, will happen to mention something that I then go to read about that very night in my book - I believe that is the universes way of telling me I'm on the right track. To that I say, Thank-You, Universe! ...or Thank You-Niverse?
What I wanted to quickly share is how fascinating fungi are and how much I love Paul Stamets - the magnificient mycologist. This video (included below) never stops giving me shivers - every time I watch it...so, I wanted to share that. But then my brain juices started to flow and so more wonders of the world were shared - I hope you enjoy. :)
Mycelium is earth's natural internet; the nodes of
crossing organized by the mycelium conforms to the same mathematical
optimization curves that the internet theorists and scientists have developed
to optimize the computer internet. Or rather, I guess I should say that the
internet conforms to the same optimization curves as the mycelium, since the
mycelium came first. Nature has already optimized its networks as we struggle
to optimize our computer network.
- Paul Stamets -
I picked up Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets from the library, just recently, and the first few pages had me hooked (in error I wrote "booked" ...punnily, I maybe should have left it). I also read the interview Derrick Jensen did with him in the book The Truths Among Us; in fact that is why I got the book from the library in the first place - as I saw there was an interview with the wonderful Paul Stamets! I highly recommend both of these "food-for-thought" books.
In addition, in my search at the library I stumbled upon the film 2012: Time for Change; not to be confused by the sensationalized John Cusack movie, 2012, this movie explores the depths of our awareness and the evolution in conciousness. It also touches on Permaculture and surprisingly, a famous actor makes an appearance and she comments on Permaculture... I won't spoil the surprise as to who is it - you'll just have to watch! A friend showed me that this film is actually available for viewing online here - check it out!! I highly recommend it - and then let me know what you think! Try not to let the trailer run you astray - the movie is very positive focused and solutions oriented and that's why I loved it. There's enough negativity floating around in this world - it's time we move through that pain, and tell a different story, as Joanna Macy would say in her book (co-authored by Chris Johnstone) Active Hope: How to face the mess we're in without going crazy (which I also, highly, reccomend - especially if you're feeling a bit down about our current state of the world).
EDIT: A quote I just read in the book Natures Operating Instructions, emulates this need to change quite nicely "The challenge we face is not ultimately a technical one. The real pivot will be the story we tell ourselves, the narrative by which we make sense of the world, and that guides our lives. We need a new creation story"
Our stories change even when we look at biological evolution and what we've come to understand as "survival of the fittest". I was given this example in my Permaculture Design Certificatecourse (which I'm still in the process of taking and LOVING it).... we looked at the situation of predator and prey...
The "old world" (this will be the "negative world, for sake of understanding) would have us believe that the world is harsh and competitive, that we must kill or be killed, and that when a lion eats a gazelle, it is a loss for the gazelle community; and a sad one at that.
However, that SAME story can be flipped right upside down (right-side up? ;)), to the "New World" (positive world - and in fact, this is heavily science based as well, and part of biology and ecological systems) this new story tells us that in fact, that lion is doing the gazelle community a service (now, how do I say this without offending anyone)....the gazelle that was eaten was, likely weaker - be it from sickness, or age - would have had it's family wanting to help it along the way and not wanting to simply abandon it, but it makes the community weaker and takes resources away from the young who really need all the resources they can get (you can only be as strong as your weakest link - so to speak)- so the lion, in fact, is doing a respectful service to the gazelle community. It's all about how you frame it. Life can be scares, or abundant - I choose to focus on the latter - and it's not merely heresy.
I mean - it's the circle of life and a lot of us likely learned this as kids watching The Lion King, but somewhere along the way, we got our stories mixed up....life isn't "nasty, brutish, and short" as Thomas Hobbes once speculated - life is magnificent, absolutely, positively mag-ni-fi-cient!
EDIT: The same night I wrote this blog, I sat down to read a bit before bed in Natures Operating Instruction by Kenny Ausubel, and I find the exact comment about how we interpreted Darwin wrong - the universe interactions are uncanny! "Over a century ago, industrial robber barons hijacked Darwin's story of the evolutionary tree of life. They distorted Darwin's theory of natural selection into a parable of "survival of the fittest". They lionized "nature red in tooth and claw" and a violent, amoral struggle for existence where might makes right, and the ruthless pursuit of self-interest automatically results in the greatest good for the whole. Though they were true believers, their social Darwinism was expedient political cover with which to justify economic monopoly and endemic social injustice. It was also bad science" Ausubel goes on to say, and puts it more eloquently, at that, when he says "What Darwin was actually saying was that the fittest are those best adapted to existing conditions at a particular historical moment in a specific environmental context (he was primarily addressing the relationship between food supply and population size" - BAM! ..."In other words, mutual aid is also the law of the jungle" Interdepdence and symbiosis - these are the lessons we must learn from nature.
Just look around you! You are on a living, breathing, life-giving, planet, that is suspended in a vast, largely unknown, universe, you are on "Spaceship Earth" and it's pretty spectacular. Don't you agree?
You have been given a gift. You are able to exist in life and engage in meaningful relationships with friends and lovers; you are able to laugh, and cry; you are able to smell the sweet scents of spring in the air, and the cool crispness in the air after a fresh rain. You are able to understand emotions, and you are able to choose how you feel about anything that comes your way.
These are all things that life has granted us - let's get out there and explore! Touch some soil! Remember that we're so intricately connected to nature, to each other, to the natural world. Indeed, that is all we are, all we could ever hope to be, all we ever need to be- let's embrace that, and use it to our advantage. Let us look to nature for answers - indeed, she is the only one who has them all!
As Paul Stamets said in the above mentioned Truths Among Us book "[n]ature knows more than we think, in fact it knows more than we can think" and he goes on to say "[i]f we are born of nature, and if we are intelligent,
how can you possible think other than that nature is intelligent?" Look at this company - they've got the right idea, mimicking nature - The Lilly Impeller. Nature has all the tools to success we will ever need, and we are only just beginning to discover these tools - what an exciting time to be in existence.
We may have swayed a little off course but hey, we can get right back on - nature is there to help us thrive,and she will guide us if we let her. Will we let her show us the way?
Nature does not have unemployment or waste - we don't have to either. Just because our current system does not exhibit these characteristics, does not mean we won't get there...we're just learning, we're a young species - these things take time - nature has had billions of years of trial and error - we've had but a blip - "[m]ulticellular organisms like us are one very late-blooming tip on a single branch of the tree of life. It's a tree we know little about- (Ausubel)" but we're learning, and we have the resources to learn - let's get on it! :)
Ultimately, it's time we not only tell and share, but live, the new story - that, indeed, isn't very new at all - it's been with us the whole time, we've just been swayed a touch - and that's ok, as long as we recognize it, we're doing good. It's time we bring into our hearts into the equation, and connect that story within our hearts, and within, both, our distant, and not-so-distant neighbours' hearts - we are all connected ,we are all in this together.
I feel the quote from Louis Rodriguez (again in Truths Among Us) resonates well with what I'm trying to get across:
//The word respect comes from the Latin word respectus, which means "to see again". It's a beautiful concept. We have to see each other again. ...no one is different from us, a thread connects us all - the more we look, the thicker that thread becomes; sometimes it may be invisible but it's there. We've got to make it more visible. There is no such thing as a separate reality. What we do here affects people over there// - Louis Rodriguez-
We have the power to choose ... let's choose the positive way. As, I believe, Bill Mollison says "We can be just as much positive as we are negative" ... and well, we've done the negative thing for quite some time now - don't you think we're about due for a change? Oui!? I think so..in fact, I know so!
Namaste world - you are a lovely place and I'm filled with gratitude to be in existence.
I leave you with a few more of my favourite quotes from the Truths Among Us book (thank you, Derrick, please let me know if you would like me to remove these as I do not want to be infringing on your copyrite, I merely want to share the knowledge and insight that you have managed to capture in your wonderfully written book - which I encourage everyone to have a read through!) :)
It's as if we think that all of nature is unintelligent except for us. Well, the earth has intelligence and purpose and fates all of her own. And those are really the primary fates. It is up to us to be in alignment with those purposes, not to go against them, nor to sit back and pretend . You have to give back. You have to participate in those Fates. Because they are your Fates as well. The fates are good. And they attract us because that attraction is attracting us to our purpose, and toward the good. If we could just remember the ancient philosophical principal, that good attracts, we could realize that these creation myths are attracting us for the future, calling upon us to take up our responsibilities, to bring that creation into being. Because creation is ongoing and collective, and we participate in it - Jane Caputi -
We're not just one organism. We are composites, Every
species out there has a label that we've put on it to create a language so that
we can communicate the identities of what we see as the phenotypes in nature.
So that we can look at a tree and say, it's a Douglas fir. I am a composite of
microbes that are unified with one voice. And so I guess you could say that I
am the elected voice of a microbial community. This is the way of life on our
plant. It is based on these complex symbiotic relationships - Paul Stamets -
These forces of light and life
or inexorable and ever present, but we struggle so hard to ignore them and
maintain status quo. Much of the civilization in which we live is the result of
a refusal to see, or to listen: to the imagination, to our fellow beings, to
the woundedness we all feel, which could change the world if we just
acknowledged it. It's as if we've created this whole deafening way of living
just to make sure that we can't hear this thing that can be so quiet, as quiet
as a butterfly. Our defense industries, goodies factories, light speed
lifestyle, and media oversaturation are all arrayed to cover up this gentle,
quite sound. But all in the din and clatter of the world, can never down it
out. It is always there, as close as our own breath - Marc
Ian Barasch-
Furoshiki and other such things make this Christmas a wonderful thing.
Love being able to wrap something with cloth and wanted to share what our Christmas tree looks like sans wrapped gifts... it's a beautiful sight, especially knowing that on Christmas morning - we won't have that infamous black garbage bag with mounds of paper, plastic, ribbon, bows, tape, and other such items one uses for gifts *shudder* - those cloths will either be returned to their home in the house, or simply folded, and saved for the next gift to give.... consistent with last year, nothing shall going to the landfill in my family! :)
Two of my cloths were purchased from The Soap Dispensary; I got a few others from this awesome store on Granville Island, Maiwa, (highly recommend checking it out!) they sell a plethora of amazing items but specifically, beautiful fabrics, with such beautiful patterns which you can buy by the meter (about $15/meter) - what's extra special about the fabrics is that they are organic cotton and the dyes used to make these beautiful fabrics are hand dyed with all natural dyes - all around a great shop and ethic to support. I think typically one would get the fabric and sew the ends so it doesn't fray, but I don't really know how to sew very well (yet! - it's a goal of mine) so I just left it as is - seemed to work just fine.
There's just something about the simplicity and beauty of Furoshiki - I just absolutely love it! It warms my heart knowing it can be used an endless amount of times! The middle one there is from Maiwa, and the two on the ends are from Soap Dispensary. You can see the table cloth, and the flag, and the other miscellaneous bags! Re-use Re-use Re-Use!
The rest (since I didn't have enough cloths - and actually I recommend this method FIRST :) because chances are we all have more lying around the house to re-use for a period of time, then go back to it's other function) was simply using re-usable bags, pillow cases, even an old flag (that had been ripped from being outside for so long, and was just sitting in the closet!)...I also used a table cloth! It was super fun looking around the house for what I could wrap some gifts in.
I've always disliked wrapping presents because I was too impatient to cut the paper straight, and fold it all nice, it felt weird wasting it...and I'd inevitably wrap it the worst way....now it's a fun, exciting event, I'd even go so far as to say a treasure hunt! Knowing that it's all going to be re-used again and again, no more waste, a great feeling!
I was going to try to do the whole "to and from" in my head, but then I started getting confused, so I ended up just cutting up little squares from a cereal box, that I found in the recycling bin, and writing on those, and then placing them within the fabric so they'd stay - no tape! :) I've also, in the past, just cut a little hole in it, and then tied a string around it - or hair elastic - something that was already in existence in my house. Another great item is old business cards! We tend to have SO many of those lying around - a great use for them instead of just recycling them all at once.
Of course, giving experiences as gifts, or donations to charities, or your own time, instead of tangible items mean even less waste - and that was part of my goal, as well! What are some of the things YOU do?? I'd love to hear them!
Boo likes it! :) Zero-Waste Kitty!
Merry and Meowy Christmas! Joyeux Noel! Feliz Natal!
It has been tremendously warm in Saskatoon, recently, and despite my quest to live without waste, and avoid plastic - I was still able to enjoy a timeless classic, the Slurpee. Plus, it tasted even better knowing I created absolutely ZERO waste from my acquisition (and maybe even sparked some interest at the till, and for those who saw what I was drinking).
The slurpee was halfway through by the time I got home, but you get the gist - brought my own re-usable mug, and my new stainless steel draw, obtained from my favourite store in Saskatoon - The Better Good .
The straw had a bit of a metal taste depending on where it touched my tongue - which I did not expect since I love drinking water from my stainless steel water bottle - so it's quite curious.... I shall have to test out the glass straws, too - perhaps I would prefer.
Either way, I'll take a bit of metal to the taste, or learn to drink properly from the straw to avoid such sensations, to save some plastic from the stomachs of the baby albatross on Midway Island.
What sorts of things have you done? Please share!
This one isn't really related to summer as one acquires bread at any point during the year, but I really love this bag that was gifted to me - and I wanted to share the glory if I have not already....
I buy about a loaf of bread each week; if not more - alone then, and just considering bread bags - in one year I will have saved 52 bags; + 52 plastic bread tags or twist-ties. Imagine how much can be saved the more people start doing this? I'm not entirely sure where this came from but I found it online, here.
Most people ask about keeping it fresh - and if this bag suffices. I have toast each morning, so I actually freeze my bread in this bag and it's just fine! For long-term storage I'd suggest freezing it in a container; and if you like it fresh, you can transfer it to a container that would be more air tight, I've also heard of some people putting it in those cake holders that sit on peoples counters (not sure the term for those)...either way - it can be made to work and it's extremely worth it - no more dealing with pesky plastic bread bags!
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