Ah, beer. Fans of the amber stuff may not wish to share their tipple, but according to the Wise Bread blog you can put beer to several uses in your garden – as a slug killer, and to help protect your garden visitors from bees.
Salt is a traditional slug-killer, but as the post says “that means you have to find them first”:
“Instead, entice them with a little beer, which slugs love. Simply pour a little into some empty jars and place them in the soil, with the rims of the jars at ground level. The slugs will drop in for a drink, but they can’t get back out. And what a way to go; Certainly better than the salt-shriveling death.”Bees and wasps are also beer fans, apparently. So if you’re entertaining outdoors, you can place some small containers of beer around the perimeter of your yard or garden, and the bees will flock to the sugary treat and leave your guests alone.
Photo by thesaint.
21 Great Uses for Beer [Wise Bread]
Spring is just around the corner, and financial weblog The Simple Dollar details how to save tons of money and live healthier by planting a kitchen garden. A kitchen garden merely refers to a garden that consists almost exclusively of plants intended to be eaten. Although one might put a few decorative plants around the edges of such a garden, the vast majority of the garden is intended for food.
The post details how to plan your kitchen garden based on what you want to eat (as opposed to what seems like it belongs in a garden) and highlights the significant chunk of money you stand to save with your garden. If you’re an old hand at planting a garden you intend to eat, let’s hear your best tips in the comments. Planning a Kitchen Garden [The Simple Dollar]
A poster to the eco-australia blog has put together a helpful guide for maximising your recycling mojo and reducing the amount you put into landfill.
Local resources for rehoming your old stuff include Freecycle Today and e-Cycled. The Australian Giving Centre lists organisations that will accept donated blankets, clothes, computers, mobile phones, furniture, bikes and more.
Along with some useful links to places you can recycle stuff, it also has a checklist you can use to work out if you can find a home for your old stuff before putting it in the bin:
Can it be recycled?Can it be composted?
Can it be donated?
Can it be sold/traded?
Can it be given away free to a friend or neighbour?
Can I use it for something else?
Can I make it into something else
Where is the best/safest place to dispose of it (if it is dangerous to the environment eg. paints)?
I would also highly recommend calling your local council or checking their website for a guide to what you can recycle through their rubbish collection service – the Port Phillip Council in Melbourne has a very useful 1 page guide which said what kind of household items can be recycled and which can’t – along with translations of the different recycling codes you find on plastic bottles and the like. Stick it on your fridge!
So how’s your recycling mojo? If you have tricks for reducing, reusing or repurposing things, please share in comments.
Recycling Links [eco_australia]
Even if you have your own reusable shopping bags, sometimes you get stuck at the supermarket without them – and so your plastic bag collection grows.Not to worry – the Wise Bread blog has seven ideas for reusing those pesky bags that keep coming home with you. Among the suggestions are using them to stuff cushions (as a bonus, when you move house you have a secret stash of plastic bags!), or keeping a few in your bag or car for cleaning up after your dog when you go for walkies. But far and away the most fun and original suggestion was making a kite out of a plastic shopping bag. (see My Best Kite for a full run down on how to do this).So how do you keep from being overrun by plastic bags? Do you carry your own bags? Or do you have your own clever uses for leftover shopping bags? Please share in comments.
The Plastic Bag Dilemma: Seven Strategies for Coping [Wise Bread]
Adelaide Council has introduced a free bus service provided by what it says is the world’s first all-electric, solar powered bus. The Tindo Solar Bus (named for the Aboriginal word for sun) offers a free service which runs seven days a week between major facilities in North Adelaide and the city. Details of the route can be found here.The environmentally friendly bus will recharge using solar panels installed at the Adelaide Central Bus Station.
[via EcoGeek]
If you’re expecting a new computer for Christmas, this post is for you. Help combat landfill and share the computing love by taking some time to repurpose your old computer.
First up, you may be able to extend the life of your computer by upgrading some of its components, or you could repurpose it (or bits of it) as a home server. Or you could give it to a friend or relative (make sure it’s powerful enough/stable enough to meet their computing needs or you’re not really being that helpful).
If you can’t repurpose the computer, recycling’s the next option. Extreme Tech’s just posted a helpful article on ways to recycle your hardware, which suggests googling “computer recycling” and your city to see what options come up. Freecycle is another option - a well established email list in which members can give away their unwanted stuff, or see what others are giving away.
If you can’t repurpose the computer yourself, Computer Choice, the tech arm of independent consumer organisation Choice, has a very useful list of computer refurbishers and recyclers, broken down by state. Make sure you call them to double check they can take your computer, as the list is a couple of years old.
The Choice website makes a great point when it says: “Don’t let old computers sit around the house unused. The sooner you recycle it, the more chance it will be useful to someone else.”
Good magazine has an interesting chart in their latest issue that details how much energy your vampire devices use, and how much it costs you to keep them plugged in. The guide differentiates between devices that are in “active” (ready to leap to life) and “passive” (just plugged in) standby modes, and some items are real shockers. A plasma TV, for instance, can cost about $160 per year just to keep plugged in. That Wii you got your hands on? $25 before you even hit one virtual tennis ball. The takeaway for me, at least, is thinking about putting some devices on power strips and turning them off if I know I won’t be using them for a day or more.
Vampire Energy [Good Magazine via CNET News]It’s been estimated that up to 4% of America’s power usage is sucked up by electronic gear in standby mode. If you’re interested in getting an idea of how much your appliances and gadgets are costing you just by standing there, check out Good Magazine’s Vampire Energy chart. Hint: your plasma TV and computer are the main offenders.[via CNET]
I often grumble about the amount of junk mail that pours through my letter box and wish I could nuke it like I do the spam that comes through my email inbox. The waste of paper is just obscene. I glare especially hard at junk mail delivery people when I see them shoving their junk mail into mail boxes with “no junk mail” stickers on them. I thought there was nothing to be done about junk mail – but I was wrong!The Australian Catalogue Association has a code of conduct saying members and their deliverers will not deliver materials to addresses displaying a “No Advertising Material” sign. This appears to be a voluntary code of conduct, but there’s a fairly long list of companies signed up to abide by it. The signees also agree not to litter or deliver when the mailbox is overflowing!You can contact the Distribution Standards Board to add your address to the “do not deliver” list. They’ll also provide you with a free reflective No Advertising Material sticker. Mail a stamped, self addressed envelope to:DSB Sticker, PO Box 7735, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne Vic 8004.Note that this won’t stop all unsolicited mail – newspapers are exempted, along with political pamphlets.The DSB also provides a hotline for consumers to report illegal or irresponsible distribution practices. It is 1800 676 136.I am signing up today!Thanks for the tip, Mary!
Vinegar is more than just the soulmate of salty chips, or so the Cool Tools blog would have you believe.
In fact, I started using a spray bottle containing 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water for cleaning for several good reasons – it’s environmentally friendly, good for getting out smells like cat pee (don’t ask) and it’s also gentle on delicate fabrics.
The Cool Tools blog has reviewed a book called Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of, and the reviewer included a handy list of his own favourite users of vinegar:
Clean the microwave by boiling a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar until it steams up. Wipe clean. Add vinegar to a hand-pump compressed-air sprayer to kill weeds and grass growing in crevices in a patio and walkways. Make tomato sauceand other condiments last longer when the bottle is almost empty by adding a little vinegar and shaking. Spread a cloth soaked in vinegar over a price tag you want to remove and leave overnight.Got any other tips for using vinegar (or other environmentally friendly substances?) – leave ‘em in comments please.
Vinegar – how to cook, clean and live via Vinegar [Cool Tools]
