Skeletal Australian soils: fertility & moisture

Australia has what are described as very old soils, with little fertility being added to them in any recent history. I am discovering the extremity of this at present with my new garden and the biggest challenge I am facing is keeping the moisture in. Without this essential ingredient I can't plant or plan any new plantings, as there won't be enough water to allow the plants to grow and take up the necessary nutrients that might be lurking in the soil.

I have planted one hybrid, showy eucalypt at the front gate and have found this plant is almost daily suffering from water stress despite now having been in the ground for nearly five weeks. The main stem isn't coping without support, the leaves have once started to die off and approximately three-quarters of the flower buds that I bought it with are starting to shrivel and die. Boo hoo hoo!

I have never had to deal with such poor soils. And it seems not only is it likely that my soils are particularly clayey but also they are extremely thin. In the future I will have to ensure that all dirt is mulched thoroughly to ensure they don't wash down the hill to the neighbour's yard and just leave me with rock, only open dirt up when I intend to plant things and ensure plants are well watered for a longer period than I am use to (potentially an irrigation system will need to be constructed to cope with water demands). And given that we are on rain water only this is a little daunting.

In regards to nutrients, I fear that my soils are particularly lacking and I will have to invest in some supplements. For the short term, a healthy dose of native plant fertiliser when establishing plants may do the trick, but I will have to look into a long-term solution. I also have to figure out if the soils you can build for things such as veggie patches are useful or toxic to native plants (which is what I plan on planting mostly).

So many more questions raised and certainly not enough answered! But the journey continues


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Alternate to plastic bags

Recently I visited my local organic supermarket for a trip of excitement. So many great products, inspiring ideas and generally a lot of great organic treats. This store has the typical bulk food bins allowing you to purchase the amount you really require, save some money, buy some traditionally unavailable products and maybe in the long-term the potential to save on packaging typically used to provide these products in mainstream supermarkets.

In many of the health food stores or places you typically buy these bulk options the store still typically provides some sort of traditional plastic bag for you to place these bulk items into. The store I visited today however had rolls of corn starch bags, which are able to be composted. What a terrific idea!

As you may have seen in one of my previous posts, I have previously determined that I can reduce my plastic bag consumption by using reusable shopping bags and generally refusing plastic bag options, however I was stumped as to what I could do as a liner my regular garbage bin in my kitchen. I think I now have an alternative. Corn starch compostable bags!

The premise is that these bags can break down in about 12 weeks time in the right conditions. The right conditions are more likely to occur in your backyard compost than the local landfill, but I believe that surely these compostable bags have got to be a better option in the landfill than your regular plastic bag. Surely?

So, my next thought process was, where can I get these things from and how much do they cost? Well based on my hour long internet search for Australian suppliers it seems there is a variety of products and also a wide variety in cost. They generally seem to be available in bulk, however there are a few companies that seem to be directed at the residential interest with less than 100 bags per roll or box type quantities available. However, I guess if you got a few friends interested I'm sure that the you could buy a bulk supply and then distribute these across a few families quick enough.

Also, found an interesting group called Say NO to plastic bags today! which discusses alternatives to plastic bags and provides some information to retailers in regards to impacts of traditional plastic bags and strategies to either reduce the use of plastic bags in their business or encourage the use of alternatives (with much of this information also a useful resource for the general public). This group also has a User's Guide directly aimed at retailers as a printable information sheet to assist in this transition process.

If you're interested I can post a list of suppliers of some of the truly biodegradable bags in the future. Pin It

Recycling numbers...what do they mean?

Many of the plastics and products that we all have in our kitchen and around the house have the chasing arrow recyclable symbols with numbers on them. But what do they mean?

Well, I have looked into it and here is an explanation:

1 (PETE) -Poly(ethylene terephthalate) - soft drink bottles, etc
2 (HDPE) - High-density Polyethylene - containers for milk, laundry powders, softeners, etc
3 (V) - Poly(vinyl cloride) - pipes, shower curtains, baby bottle nipples, etc
4 (LDPE)- Low-density Polyethylene - plastic wrap, plastic bags, etc
5 (PP)- Polypropylene - nappies, plastic containers
6 (PS) - Polystyrene - disposable cutlery, cups, meat trays, etc.
7 (Other) - other - who know what this is?

What can you truly recycle in your weekly recycling bin picked up by your local Council?

Apparently according to Choice magazine, most Council accepts products marked as either 1 or 2. Choice also indicates that quite often all the rest of the recyclable plastics (3-7) are bundled together and reproceesed overseas.

What can't be recycled:
The following are some unacceptable recyclables, even though they’re made of recyclable plastic.

• A high-density polyethylene (HDPE) container if it has carried a hazardous substance.
• Plastic shopping bags, low density polyethylene (LDPE) packaging film, small bits of polystyrene packaging. This lightweight packaging is likely to get blown out and contaminate the paper stream in the MRF, unless the facility is fully automated and uses optical laser sorting technology.
• Plastic bottle lids. They’re generally made of different plastic from the container and may fall through the holes in the sorting cylinder (trommel), or create air pressure in a closed polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle when it’s compressed, so that when the bottles pop open, the bales can fall apart. However, because they’re a valuable source of recyclable plastic, some MRF operators now advise recycling plastic lids, as optical sorters can deal with the different plastics issue – so follow your council’s advice.

http://www.choice.com.au/Life-Stage/Green-living/Recycle%20and%20re-use/Plastic-recycling/Page/Which%20plastics%20can%20be%20recycled.aspx

More information about your local Council's situation can be found at:

http://www.recyclingnearyou.com.au/

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Plastic Bags

I am sick of the greenwash that supermarkets are using with respect to their plastic bags. The uninformed person is probably starting to feel ok about their acceptance of plastic bags at the end of the supermarket check out queue because of the words emblazioned on their bag "degradable' plastic bag". To me this is such a slap in the face. Of course it is degradable, everything is degradable, some products just take millions of years!

I was interested to know exactly how long it would take one of these 'degradable plastic bags' to degrade. So after a little bit of internet research it seems that it doesn't take as long as I originally suspected, but the length of time and the likely end point (being the local landfill) still leave the opportunity for environmental damage and degradation to occur as a result of these bags.

One plastic bag manufacturer did overseas research to determine the length of time it would take one of these bags to degrade and in the right conditions and exposure to sunlight it would be about a year. They then extrapolated their research and determined that it would probably be 3-4 months with full exposure to Queensland sun for a plastic bag to degrade.

I think what is regarded as 'degraded' as they discuss on the plastic bags is that the end product is not going to significantly impact upon the environment and in the context of this product, its context within landfill and the possible exposure of animals to a product that could cause them harm.

Well, this to me is certainly interesting and an eye opener. I suspected that it would take at least 10 years for a product such as a plastic bag to become environmentally benign. Nevertheless, I will continue to try to avoid the acceptance of plastic bags in the shopping queue. My issue is (after this research) I don't currently have a replacement for the humble plastic bag to store my rubbish prior to its collation into my wheelie bin each week. This obviously means that I am still contributing to the plastic bag issue. Guess I now have to look into some of the more biodegradable products, maybe something like the cornstarch products are more appropriate. More research needed to reduce that footprint I guess. Pin It