a zero week

This is my waste for one week.
After all organics going into compost and recycling a very small amount (mainly milk bottles and cardboard and paper from mail) this is all that is left. And, surprise, surprise it is ALL plastic.

I stopped buying cheese this week as there is simply no option that is packaged without plastic.

Also one thing that annoys me a little is the little plastic windows they have in business style envelopes.

Why is it neccessary?

In another positive move – I bought a drink bottle, so no more plastic bottles – a lot like the New South Wales town of Bundanoon, which has completely banned bottled water, how amazing that a town has made this sort of decision.

And finally – I have started getting broccoli out of my garden!

addicted to plastic

Well now that I am back on the wagon, one thing has become clear is that the thing that is filling up my rubbish bin after taking out the organic matter for the compost, and recycling paper and plastics is UNRECYCLABLE PLASTICS.
Darebin is a great local council for recycling – they recycle number 1-6 plastics, which is rare for Melbourne. But there are still plastics that can’t be re-used, and this is the whole stuff that is in my bin that is eventually going to end up in landfill – and it is ALL PLASTIC, argh.

There is a great documentary coming up on ABC TV called Addicted to Plastic which unravels not only how unbiodegradable the material is but also the problems with recycling both as a non green industry but also as an incomplete ‘closed loop’ process.

green travel.

I begin a travel odyssey in November – so in preparation I am beginning to put together my kit, as I will be in a couple of places (Beijing and Iceland) for 2 months each I decided to buy a little coffee pot so as to cut down on takeaway rubbish madness and also to ensure the quality (I am a coffee tragic, melbourne is a coffee mecca, forgive me).

I am also on the lookout for a water bottle/thermos which is light, compact, but also green. I stumbled upon this great site for travelling green – Go Green Travel Green.

Check out the 25 Days to Green travel, very cool. I have been considering taking the Trans – Siberian railway from Beijing to St Petersburg – I think greenwise it makes sense…

back on the wagon…

It has been a while since I posted here.

I had a sustained period where I was travelling for work back and forth between regional Victoria and regional Tasmania, all of this was on non-carbon neutral flights unfortunately. Some of the smaller airlines (indeed i was flying on 10 seaters going into and out of King and Flinders Island in Bass Strait) don’t have carbon offset programs.

But in addition to this was regional centres with no dedicated organic food sections. In fact a lot of the produce had been shipped on a barge (taking a few days) to get to the island and was in pretty poor shape by the time it got there.

The good news is that my small vegetable patch is beginning to thrive – I get regular rocket, basil, parsely and spinach. I fear I may have made a solar faux pas though as it doesnt get as much sun as it probably needs to. Also snails seem to be eating my broccoli, very annoying. I have been looking for a no toxic solution to this. Apparently coffee grains are good and also sharp things like egg shells…this idea appeals to me as i do make coffee at home and also like eggs.

i think one of the reasons i have not written here for so long is the the guilt attached to not being able to do the right thing, to not be able to follow some simple rules of sustainable living. i don’t want to live in a guilt trap, but i also want things to be strict enough that i feel the pressure of it. already my ways of being have changed from this experiment, there is not a single thing i buy now without considering where it came from and where it is going.
having said all that, it is good to be back on the wagon.

travel is the death of zero living

this is a post which will be short, but will be added to – I have arrived back after a period of extensive travel around Australia for work. I would say that travel is indeed virtually impossible to be zero. plane fuel/hire cars/hotels/food on the run all add up to + in the carbon ledger.
more to come.

princess elizabeth antarctica

The first zero emission antarctica base opened today.

It is a Belgian base called Princess Elizabeth Antarctica which has as one of its major sponsors Electrolux.

Awesome.

honda clarity

Although buying a car is not on my horizon this great new vehicle is on lease in California. It’s called the Clarity and it is made by Honda. It is entirely driven by by a hydrogen fuel cell that uses electricity. This from the Honda website;

Honda has led the way in developing and improving fuel cell vehicle performance. The FCX Clarity was designed from the ground up to be a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that runs on electricity, and emits only water vapor and heat into the air. In other words, the fuel cell technology was developed by Honda for the FCX Clarity, and was not retrofitted to an existing model. Instead, our engineers cleared away all preconceived notions of automobile design, challenging themselves to discover the new possibilities that can only be realized with the fuel cell vehicle.

The only emissions are heat and water (it qualifies as a ZEV – zero emission vehicle). The further question is how much energy does it take to put the hydrogen into a form that is usable for the car?

Also of interest is where can you fill up? At the moment only in California is the infrastructure ready to fill up these cars.

James May from Top Gear reckons it is the most important car since we started driving them.

Always with hydrogen (since the Hindenberg disaster) the most important question that is asked is ‘is it safe?’ I guess this is yet to be seen, but if it is then maybe James May will be right.

work – escaping plane flights…

As an artist, I go where the work is, sometimes this means I need to move betwen projects that happen in different cities – or in the case of the last week between the city and the bush.

I travelled to Mildura on the  Victoria/NSW border last week for three days. It just so happened that this corresponded with the hottest week in Victoria in recorded history. So I flew in an air-conditioned plane there, drove around in an air conditioned hire car and stayed in an air conditioned hotel. I also ate out because my hotel room didn’t have a cooking area. SO i pretty much broke every rule in zero martyn in every minute of the three days i was there.

Victoria crumbled last week – especially in terms of power. As the temperature gauge got hotter, so people cranked their air-con higher. And as they did that the power failed due to the massive demand. Now obviously there are people out there that need cooling, like the elderly and the sick and the young. But there are a lot of people out there living in large houses and there is inly one or two in the household and they have the air con on so cold that they have to put a jumper on. It’s ludicrous, and then they complain when their power goes down…

I dont know how to reconcile the previous week – it almost feels like it belongs in a different ledger. I need to work to live, and the only way to get to Mildura in a reasonable time (it would have taken 2 days of travel by car) is to fly.

As mentioned in my rules -the work I do will be totalled up and then a separate carbon cost added for it.

This is where the Murray and Darling rivers meet near Mildura. A very beautiful spot, I swam nearby which was lovely.

Water trading is a part of life up in this region, as people trade what they don’t use to others. It feels liek Mad Max or something, trading the commodities that are scarce.

How far away are we from water wars?

transgressions #2

I have been incredibly slack in updating this record.
Unfortunately I have lapsed badly in my attempt to continue to follow my rules.

There are two main reasons for this;
The first was that I was quite poor which meant that sticking to my organic diet became a problem. This was always going to be something which came into play, as an artist my paychecks are never regular and it makes budgeting a fluid thing. I am used to it now, but trying to fulfil all of the rules of zero martyn has been a difficult undertaking.

Mon 19th
Coffee
Tram trip

Tue 20th
Train Trip
Coffee

Wed 21st
zero

Thu 22nd
Meal at a Japanese restaurant
Tram trip
2 x coffee
Hot chips

Fri 23rd
Tram trips x 2

Saturday 24th
Spinach pie and salad
Coffee x 2
Breakfast at a cafe

Sunday 25th
A movie at the cinema
Pasta at a restaurant
A massage
A cookbook

I feel quite sick when I look at this list – most of it are indulgences or an acquiescence to a friend I was with at the time (trying not to make a fuss because the food wasn’t ‘zero’ enough).

transgressions #1

Although the title of this entry sounds like a trance compilation from the mid-nineties I am actually trying to collate the breaking of my rules every week to try and see where I am letting down my zero ambitions…

So here we go for the last week;

Monday 12th January

• International post package >> plastic
• 2 Metcards//3 tram rides >> energy from trams ( which is very bad according to this)
• Beer (six pack) >> Cascade Green, although it is zero carbon it is not organic or local

Tuesday 13th January

• 3 bread rolls >> non organic, plastic bag, non local
• Organic Bread >> organic, local but plastic packaging
• 1 Coopers Beer in a bar >> non organic, non local
• Tram ride

Wednesday 14th January

• Breakfast at Preston Market >> non organic
• Organic Pasta >> non local, plastic packaging
• 2 campari and sodas in a bar >>

Thursday 15th January

• Tram ride

Friday 16th January

• Lunch at CERES restaurant >> 80% organic sourced from the CERES vegetable garden
• Organic compost bag >> non recyclable plastic bag
• Dinner at Gopals Hare Krishna restaurant >> non organic
• Tram ride

Saturday 17th January

• 2 x tram ride
• Take away coffee >> non local, non organic, unrecyclable lid
• Breakfast plus coffee and tea at Collingwood Childrens Farm cafe >> non organic

Sunday 18th January

• zero

So, it feels like I still have a lot of work to do. The majority of my meals came from home which meant i was able to stick to the rules. And it is clear from the list that food is the main culprit. Going out for meals – I tried to take the ‘lesser of evils’ by going to Gopals, the Farm Cafe and CERES, but still none of these fit my rules.

The other main transgression was travel. It is clear to me that I need to get a bike, I did a lot of trips in the inner north, that I could have ridden to.

And finally in my travels I stumbled upon this greenhouse FAQs site which I found very useful and answered some very basic household questions.