Do you live in the City of Sydney?  Are you keen to make your home more energy-efficient? The University of Sydney has asked for our help to find households to take part in their unique energy conservation research project.

A team at Sydney Uni would like to explore whether people would live more sustainably if their energy consumption were on display. To investigate, they plan to install temporary chalk boards on the front of participating houses, and update the boards regularly with changes in household electricity use.

The study will take place over a four week period in the coming months and participants will receive a free wireless electricity monitor! Taking part could help you learn more about your household’s electricity use and help you make long-term savings. For more information email Silje Johansen.

Here at Green Renters we spend a lot of time thinking about ways to live sustainably in a rental property. Like everyone, sometimes we find it hard to find time to do everything around the home that we’d like to. But I see it as an ong0ing process rather than a big list of ‘must do now’ items. Finding time to garden can be hard, and finding time to shop ethically even harder.

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I was interested when a friend of mine Gauri started a blog on how she would cease from shopping for non-essentials for a year. We all know that shopping and buying things we don’t need are big problems when it comes to reducing our environmental footprint. She kindly consented to an interview for Green Renters.

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The Naked Lentil, a three part documentary series made by Greg Williams and Kylie Bryant, starts this Thursday 28th of January, at 8.30pm.

Tune into SBS One at 8.30pm on Thursday to see the first episode!

The doco follows Lentil through a pretty turbulent time…. mounting debt, staff conflicts… and heaps of other crazy jazz! It also shows an incredible community that comes together to make sure the doors of Lentil stay open.

It’s going to be a rocky ride and you’ll see lots of familiar Lentil faces!

Watch it. Tell your friends. Tell the person next to you on the tram!

THE NAKED LENTIL* BEGINS SOON!

Check out:
http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/nakedlentil
http://www.sbs.com.au/secretsandlives

Episode 1 – 8.30pm 28th January.
Episode 2 – 8.30pm 4th February.
Episode 3 – 8.30pm 11th February.

*Please note the show features no actual human nudity… only a few nudie vegetables.

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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Really pleased to find that Martha Stewart has been talking about food and vegetarianism and ethical farming, interviewing the director of Food Inc and organic farmers featured in the documentary. (It’s a great documentary, we saw it this year at the Melbourne International Film Festival) She even spends some time cooking vegetarian recipes. Good stuff as she has an enormous fan base.

As a renter I don’t really see the point of store bought Christmas trees. They’re synthetic and kinda ugly and we have no where to store them inbetween Christmases (like most rental properties, storage cupboards are lacking). I don’t see in the point of a cut tree, and the potted variety seem to die off in the summer heat anyway.

I also should mention that we don’t really have the space for a big Christmas tree, our living room is quite small!

So I was excited to see these photos of DIY christmas trees using household objects…

The first three are from here. The ladder looks great and I like it as it doesn’t take up too much space. The second photograph is of an old drying rack, I think something similar could definitely be made with an old clothes horse!

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