Ways to make your fridge energy efficient from Colleen Quinn:

• Don’t keep your fridge too cold. A change of one degree can effect energy consumption by 5%. Freezers should operate at -15°C to -18°C while fresh food compartments should be held at around 3°C to 5°C.
• Clean the coils annually.
• Cover food and drink to avoid evaporation in the fridge, which can force the compressor to work harder.
• Keep your freezer filled. Frozen blocks of food keep freezer temperatures more stable.
• Don’t clutter the fridge top; it can hamper the compressor’s proper air circulation.
• Don’t put your refrigerator in direct sunlight or next to an oven or dishwasher.
• Check the door seals. They should be able to hold a piece of paper in place.
• Defrost the freezer regularly and avoid frost build-ups of more than a quarter-inch.

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The Festival raises awareness and provides tools for change by showcasing tangible solutions to the ecological and social challenges we face.

In 2009 the Festival at Federation Square attracted over 124,000 visits and engaged more than 450 community volunteers.

In its eleventh year, the Festival is getting even bigger!

The 2010 Festival will include 2 programs, the Main Event at Federation Square (19-21 February 2010) and the Local Events Program (6-21 February 2010). The new 2-week format will enable individuals and communities across Australia to host and promote their own sustainability event, extending the reach of the sustainability message even further.

The Main Event at Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne will continue to celebrate the very best examples of ecological and social sustainability. The event will fuse interactive workshops, talks, demonstrations, artworks, exhibits, films and live performances. In recognition of the climate situation, the Main Event will be inspired by the theme: Get Ready for the Safe Climate Decade!

Our pics (most relevant/interesting to Renters)

Top 10 Reasons to Grow Your Own

How Car Dependence is Turning the Suburban Dream into a Nightmare

Sustaining Fashion? An Open Forum Exploring The Darker Side Of Fashion

GM Free is the way to be

Living Zero Waste

Life Time Affordable Sustainable Housing

Consumer Power-Making the Change

Sharehood Communities

And of course… How to Live Sustainably in a Rental Property yep, we are presenting a talk. It’ll be lots of fun with pictures, samples and demonstrations of things you can make yourself, so please come along . You can also chat to us as part of the Sustainable Living Library

1. Stay home and celebrate
Seriously, I ‘ve always suspected that NYE is the night for people who don’t go out any other night of year.

As green planet suggests

if you stay home and host your own ring-in-the-new shindig, you’ll save transportation emissions—and, of course, money. You’ll also be able to better control the environmental impact of your night, from sending out email invitations to preventing the food and paper waste that comes from bars and restaurants.

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Here in Melbourne we’re infamous for our love of Coffee and we drink a hell of a lot of it…

A fair few consumers have been increasingly aware that all those paper cups the coffee comes in are not particularly good for the environment and must end up somewhere when we’re done with them. Bio-degradable cups, the old school metal coffee cups and people with mugs have been slowly growing in numbers around town as people bring coffee from home or take them to cafes. The problem with a lot of existing ‘drink recepticles’ is that they are often non-standard sizes and staff don’t know what to charge people, often charging more and thus putting off the enthusiastic environmentalist…

Enter the Keep Cup… (www.keepcup.com.au)
It’s reasonably priced, stylish, comes in several colours and most crucially, comes in a variety of standard cafe sizes.

We got our hands on two to test for Green Renters and my first comment would be on the Keep Cup’s excellent design. They feel like a normal coffee cup, the lid has an excellent movable plug to cover the drinking hole to keep your coffee warm when you’re not drinking it and the coloured band you see is for writing your name or favourite coffee type on.

After experiences taking my own mug to cafes and being greeted with confused staff and a wide range of charges, I was most intrigued to see how the Keep Cup was treated in Cafes.

Generally it was much the same experiences as taking a mug or metal cup, prices varied widely, reactions varied from surprise, to confusion, to delight and perhaps the only fundamental difference with taking the Keep Cup was their burgeoning fashionability, which gained you extra cudos points with a lot of staff.

Overall, the Keep Cup is a great product and it’s accompanying website equally as stylish and paractical with a cabon emmissions savings calcuator and a whole host of information for businesses and consumers.

Inspired by a colleague at work who also took my Keep Cup for a few test runs (he ended up buying his own, so he must have liked it) we have decided to put together a Google Map of people’s experiences with the Keep Cup, ‘how were you treated’, ‘how much were you charged’ etc… I guess it could be used for all BYO cups, but we shall leave that up to you out there…

View Keep Cup in a larger map

I’ve decided to participate in Animal Liberation Victoria’s 30 Day Vegan Challenge. From November 1, I shall be animal product free for 30 days (and maybe more)!. That’s no cheese, no milk in my morning tea, no free range chicken…

A bit about why I’m doing this:

Reduce my carbon footprint

I doubt there’s many people out there who need convincing of the environmental impacts of meat consumption, but for an easy read this article is very informative.

Health

Like many Australians, I am overweight. Obese actually.That said, I don’t believe that veganisms is the path to all things thin (you can read my take on PETA’s “Lose the Blubber, Go Vegetarian” here).

I think cutting out some of the higher fat foods like cheese and meats is a good way towards good health in general, with the added advantage of assisting weight loss. I have a significantly under-active thyroid which I receive treatment for and anything which boosts my energy is a definite plus!

I also believe veganism is a great way to deliberately eat lots of fresh whole foods, without too much processing. Of course there are loads of heavily processed mock meats and the like with all kinds of number additives, but these aren’t really my thing. I’m intending to eat lots of wholegrains, pulses and fruit and veggies.

I like to know what I’m eating

I’ve read a few books on prion diseases such as CJD and I think it’s really scary how poorly the meat industry is regulated. I would like to eat food that not full of hormones, antibiotics the like.

Animal Cruelty

Goes without saying really.

I start on November 1st. I’ve been making lists of recipes and stocking the pantry. Every day or so I’ll be telling you how I’m going, what the challenges are, what I’m cooking and eating (recipes included)! Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the foods I’ll be eating ….

I’ve been reading alot about toilets lately. It’s exciting to see that the enthusiasm many people have for cloth nappies and reusable sanitary cloths has extended to other bathroom activities.

There’s  Crunchy Chicken’s annual cloth wipe challenge which involves using fabric cloth instead of toilet paper for either number one or number two depending on your enthusiasm. Even those the cloths need to be washed, it reduces the use of water in manufacturing toilet paper, oil, energy and of course tree production. It also saves money.

pic from Treehugger

I was interested by her comment

I know when I first started out, I felt like I was doing something illicit. Like wiping my ass on the bath towels and not telling anyone. Or picking my nose and wiping it on the carpet. Well, you get the idea. Once you get over that strange feeling of wrongness and embrace the softness of cloth wipes, one can become rather giddy with excitement. Or something like that.

There’s also a murmur of interest in DIY bidets, either clip or or more organic means such as a garden hose trigger gun (hehe). Find out more here

I’m really excited to hear that “No Impact Man” film is opening in the US.

The doco is about Colin Beavan who decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year.

It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, buses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.

No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own.

Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein’s film provides an intriguing inside look into the experiment that became a national fascination and media sensation, while examining the familial strains and strengthened bonds that result from Colin and Michelle’s struggle with their radical lifestyle change.

Want to find out more? You can check out the No Impact Blog and even try the challenge yourself!

Cadbury removes palm oil

By Sally Glaetzer

The Mercury

August 20, 2009 12:01am

CADBURY has caved in to pressure from outraged chocolate fanatics and pledged to remove palm oil from its Tasmanian-made blocks.

The company had tried to persuade Cadbury lovers its new recipe, replacing some cocoa butter with palm oil, would make its chocolate smoother, The Mercury reports.

But consumers were not convinced and Cadbury has been forced to apologise and revert to the original recipe, after being flooded with complaints.

“We are removing palm oil and returning to a cocoa butter only recipe for Cadbury’s entire moulded block chocolate range, including our flagship Cadbury Dairy Milk brand and product lines such as Old Gold and Dream,” Cadbury Australia managing director Mark Callaghan said yesterday.

“We will soon commence the production of a cocoa butter only recipe at Claremont in the coming weeks.”

Cadbury changed the Dairy Milk recipe earlier this year, at the same time as it downsized its chocolate blocks and changed its packaging. Rather than a money-driven decision, the company insisted it was adding palm oil to make the chocolate softer to bite. The Mercury website was inundated with comments from once-loyal Cadbury fans who vowed never to buy it again.

“Why do Cadbury imagine we would prefer an adulterated, second-rate product?” one reader said.

Hobart chocolate lovers Maggie Abraham and Nina Middleton-Tubb yesterday hailed Cadbury’s backflip as a sign of people power.

“If people can change chocolate, they can change the world,” joked Miss Abraham. Miss Middleton-Tubb said: “It is good that they listened to the fact that people didn’t like it.”

I was excited to read about the town of Ghent in Belgium which started a ‘meat free’ day once a week.

On this day all restaurants serve veggie food only and local officials and residents choose a meat free day in recognition of the impact of meat production on the environment.

A great scheme that should be adopted everywhere!

The ‘In the Hot-House’ festival combines the celebration of music, art, craft, dance, films and food with an exploration of the environmental and social challenges that exist in our own backyards and around the world. Learn how to take action on climate change as some of the best of Melbourne’s environmental and community groups show you ‘What you can do’ and present alternatives perspectives on the crises facing us today.

The festival program continues at the picturesque and inspiring CERES Environmental Park. The program is busting at the seams and consists of art, music, workshops, food, drink, films, children’s entertainment and much more including the premiere performance collaborative performance project with two Moreland based schools, Voices of our Future.
Festival Highlights Include:

Music from The Conch, Orkeztra Glasso Bashalde, Radiant City and more.
Collaborative art projects across the site including Photography, Sculpture and Found Art with contributions from the ‘Outsiders Guide’, Sudeep, Ero, Peter Hutchinson and more coming
‘Voices of our Future’ schools drama performance

Children’s Clown, face painting and kids workshops

Food and drink from local and sustainable companies, including the infamous Good Brew beer bike
Workshops on a wide variety of subjects from environmental issues, open source technology, radical craft, alternative thought, green renting, Slow living and activism.

Run a workshop
Community stalls to inform and educate. Apply for a stall
Film night showcasing short films on environmental and social issues (6.30pm, Sat 18th)
Chris and I are running a “Green Renters” workshop and i am involved in a huge craft installation teaching people to embroider! Stayed tuned for more details.