Here is a site that celebrates old school! That’s right, while your flatmate may be showing off all the apps on their new iphone, this site scoffs at the new and shiny. It seems that the clunkier and more scratched your technological device is the more highly regarded you are. It’s nice to find this site especially after reading a recent article on the large amount of e-waste ending up in landfills.
This is an elegant project I believe all consumers (or at the very least all product designers) should be required to undertake! Thomas Thwaites, a masters design student at the Royal College of Art, has tackled the task of understanding the process of creating a simple object that most of us don’t think twice about – the mundane toaster. He has recorded his journey through a series of wonderful little videos. I think this project is a beautiful illustration of the true resources and energy required to produce the items we buy and often quickly dispose of.
It’s Back! Throughout the next several weeks the Carbon Credit Collector blog will be hosting, for the third year in a row, the weekly updates from the amazing students from Canterbury University Eco My Flat competition who are tackling their flats (and sometimes flatmates) in attempts to live more sustainable lifestyles. I’m so excited I can barely sit still! Thanks so much to the University of Canterbury for allowing Ooid to be a part of this wonderful project! Wishing all participants the best of luck!
Sign the petition then get yourself a Hopenhagen passport and start collecting stamps in your passport. It’s fun AND you’ll feel gooooooooooood! The UN Climate Change Conference runs from the 7th to the 18th of December.
Take a few minutes and test your knowledge. I actually learned something from this!
It’d be fan-diddly-tastic if you could sign on and let John Key know that we
care about our planet and that we want him to care too and listen to us!
Even if you’re not from or in New Zealand, this will affect the WHOLE WORLD!
So sign on too! We can make a difference!
Rhys Darby compels you!
I’ve just Signed On with thousands of other Kiwis calling for urgent action
on climate change and I think you should too!
Please click here and join me:
http://www.signon.org.nz/invite/accept/J32Nvqe5
Thanks,
Sarah
Hi Eco My Flatters, hope everyone had an awesome Earth Hour, even if no one wanted to spend it with us haha but seriously as long as everyone participated that’s all that matters. You missed an awesome night though, with the boys in dresses (or out of them) by the end of the night. We haven’t been too active in the eco respect this last week with Uni pressures (esp. for the engineers/scientists) catching up. BUT and this is a big but (!) we actually have plans to do ecoing things as a flat once this competition is over! I know this might sound like a little accomplishment but seriously at the start of this comp I was pretty much the only person who was excited about it, but now the boys always put me to shame with their eco achievements. Rob and Shaun built us the BEST worm farm ever!! Rob has been doing crazy amounts of research into new ecoing idea’s for our flat and figuring out how to actually implement them. He has adopted some cool, eco friendly shopping habits too. Shaun makes me think about stuff in a more logical, engineery way (which is very annoying, less fun but – though I hate to admit it – a lot more constructive) and has general DIY prowess that allows us to put idea’s into action. Alistair has been foraging with more skills than a wild animal (preperation for the end of the world maybe?!) and feeding us up on yummy, foraged desserts while instilling into us the dangers of excess packaging. Hoani researched our power usage and created a sweet a graph / chart to illustrate, to those not so engineery in our flat, the logic behind his argument. And as we all know Hoani is an electrical engineer who will solve NZ’s energy issues when he graduates. Nick has been an miraculous liason between us and our landlord, working to get us (amongst other things) a new bike shed AND a heat pump, both of which will be in before winter. He also keeps our flat running week to week and keeps our energy use under control. Im pretty sure our flat would spiral into very expensive anarchy if he ever left us! Olga, who is so hot she emitts her own form of energy, has helped us in our ecoing cause by a) going vegan and b) getting a Bf who she keeps warm with all her excess hotness! Not only that but she became my new op shop conspirator and has helped smuggle many new found ‘treasures’ into the flat.
We may have had a few ‘debates’ on the effectiveness and viability of idea’s but in general I think we’ve worked really constructively as a flat to make ‘Eco My Flat’ fun as well as effective. We fully intend to keep initatives that we’ve started like vegan dinners and no electricity nights going as well as work on new projects like the compost heap and a flat hammock. So YAH!! I think ‘Eco My Flat’ has been an overwhelming success in our flat and I really don’t care if we win a prize or not because Im so happy with how sweet the flat mates have been Our landlords been really good to with the before mentioned heat pump and bike shed as well as curtains and offering to compensate us for materials that we purchase to improve the flat. THANK YOU to everyone involved in the comp and for all the freebies!!
Peace and positive vibrations from The Lotus Garden x0×0
“I feel more confident than ever that the power to save the planet rests with the individual consumer.” – Denis Hayes
PS
Olga – Level 99 hotness
+6 illegal pumpkin and kitten driver.
Nick – level 500 tolerance
+10 electricity monitoring skills
Hoani – level 12 joke teller
+72 future earth savingness
Rob – Level 59 research extraordinaire
+ 93 stripper skills
Shaun – Level 89 cool new guyness
+ 11 sustained DIY with a remote controlled hand
Alistair – Level 6200 Dessert makerness
+5 apocalyptic planning
Fred (our new and improved Doug – sorry Hoani!) Level 100 cute eyebrows
+6,000,000,000 loving Paigan the most
Luckily for me Sarah has been the force behind our flat, and has kept everyone up to date on our various missions and schemes. With the larger projects I provide the muscle, if one takes that word with a pinch of salt, and Sarah provides the enthusiasm, ideas, and direction. Our garden is looking mighty fine and increasingly delicious, the Cruiser is functional, our household products gentle and natural, reusable packaging for shopping and storage, waste reduced, and many other things.
Our original wee garden with spinach, lettuce, cauliflower and various herb seedlings, rows of carrot seeds, and a sprinkling of marigold.
The making of the new-improved-more-sunny garden
Our new garden with more herbs, brocolli and cauliflower seedlings, and rows of spring onion and mesclun lettuce seeds from the workshop!
Our garden has been hugely satisfying, and should hopefully be large enough to put a serious dent in our food needs in the near future. Perhaps this is the time to declare that I believe the biggest thing our flat does for the world and for ourselves is being vegetarian. For myself the ecological aspect was as important as the ethical side that Sarah taught me. The energy, space, and resources required for meat is, as most people are aware, staggering, and in the case of the fishing industry our desires are depleting our planet in a very real and distressing way. While this choice predates the flat project I feel it is still directly relevant to the theme of taking control of your life and your consumption. All I wish to do is to offer encouragement to anyone who is curious or has contemplated a move to being a veggie or vegan. It has been a pleasant surprise how honestly easy it has been for us (and I was not one to base my diet on the greens before) to embrace the lifestyle, and in general eat well.
The infamous Cruiser!
To avoid any preaching lets talk about the Cruiser! Found at that barn of 2nd-3rd-4th hand goodness the Supershed on a sunny/rainy weekend in our childhood (a couple weeks ago), now the crown jewel of Richmond. Made in NZ in the early 80s or possibly late 70s, we hope that it will be our stylish way to ditch the fume machine for local trips. It has needed some attention to bring it up to I’ll-let-my-pregnant-girlfriend-ride-it standards, and some parts were past saving, but a seriously well made machine overall. A new tyre, two replacement inner tubes, handle grips, and a servicing to the moving parts and she’s ready to go. Unfortunately the rubber parts are all new, so we’re going to have to ride her a lot to make up for it. Sarah also gave me a suitable telling off. The mechanics were reconditioned by a clean of everything with an old rag, some used motor oil on the chain and sprockets, and the dismantling (followed by every torturous re-assembly combination) and greasing of the bearings. She looks awesomely retro, and has proved a zippy mover on a number of occasions already. Grease/tyres for car free travel seems a good trade to me.
My final (ultimate!) paragraph is on the dark side of many people’s “eco” lives… car travel. Oh dear oh dear. An early step in changing aspects of your life is surely to tidy up the worst ones. I firmly believe that, like the Cruiser, using some resources to save many more can only be a positive thing. A car is a very large, complex, and expensive piece of equipment that has changed the lives of every human on earth. Of course, everyone knows that, but it surprises me how many people don’t know the few basic aspects of car care that can have a huge benefit. The energy and materials that go into making a car are second only to the energy that goes into the fuel tank, so it makes sense to only build new ones when there will be a significant fuel economy/environmental benefit right? Simply checking your engine oil, and radiator water regularly, keeping the tyres inflated, and either learning how to tune your car and maintain the running gear (gearbox, steering joints etc), or getting someone to do it will keep that beast from being disposable transport.
If not properly cared for a car will wear out, components will break, and materials will be wasted in replacing damaged parts. Changing a car’s oil every six months (or by manufacturer kilometre recommendation) will reduce wear and fuel consumption. Its easy too! All you need to do is place a suitable 4+ litre container under the lowest point of the engine and remove the bung. Let the oil drain, unscrew the white or orange filter (you can leave that to every second change), screw in an identical replacement, refit the bung, and fill with the appropriate grade of oil. Run the engine briefly to check for leaks. Make sure you dispose of the oil properly, then you’re done!
The world needs to move in a new direction, but every time we eat, drive, take the bus, or turn on a light; energy, material, the ‘fabric’ of the earth if you will, is being used and changed. This project shows how many ways everyone can change so many aspects of their lives, often with personal benefit, to start moving in that new direction. No one knows how far that is, but you’ve got to start.
Jacob
