Blood, Sweat & TShirts

Watched the above show on ABC last night. It was about a group of fashion loving early 20-somethings from England going to India to see where their clothes are made and in what conditions. It certainly didn't open my eyes in regards to conditions, although I'm sure being in an actual sweatshop in India would be a completely different experience to watching and reading about them.

The thing that got me was the discussions about no matter what the conditions were the people employed in these conditions were just happy to be paid. I'm not sure whether I am just being ignorant but surely providing some of these less than ideal sweat shops with additional income as a result of increased prices in the shops would ensure better working conditions and maintain their employment status? I don't know - is this just being idealistic and not realistic?

I am so ignorant on so many of these social issues. I have my own perspectives, which I consider somewhat enlightened but I think that I am still looking at these issues with a pre-existing idea of what should be done, which isn't always what the people that you're trying to help want. Best intentions, but again need to learn more about this issue. Pin It

My poor veggie patch

Aaarrrrgghhhh! Bloody dogs! I have two wonderful dogs that I love to pieces, but I knew when I created my veggie patch that the two should not mix. I just knew that my dogs would not assist my aspiration of veggie production. Because of this we constructed a chicken wire fence around the accessible boundaries of the veggie patch to ensure the dogs couldn't access the veggie patch. No digging or plant destruction...that was the theory.

Over the course of the existence of my veggie patch, the gate to which I access the garden has slowly become less stable and the fence post has come away from the chicken wire. And today at least one of my dogs got into the veggie patch through my conveniently located access point..the gate. As a result my best producing capsicum plant no longer exists, snapped off at the main stem, a few of the spinach plants are squished and a squash plant destroyed (thankfully this one was only a seedling).

It could have been worst, but I am definitely mourning the loss of the capsicum plant! Boo hoo. Have to get out in the garden and fix that fence otherwise all my hard work will be lost to an inquisitive dog! Pin It

Washing your veggies

I have recently been thinking about more actively washing my veggies and fruit that I buy from the supermarket. My main aim with undertaking such an activity is to remove nasty chemicals from the surface of these foods and ensure that my family doesn't end up consuming more than our fair share.

Unfortunately the garden isn't at a level of self-sufficiency which means I have to buy commercially grown veggies. Up until now I haven't really taken the effort to wash the veggies that I buy. But now that I have a toddler and thinking more about what goes into our bodies, I wonder what the benefits of washing them under water is.

From my basic research most of the initial websites I have looked at on this topic indicate that washing them under the tap will wash off dirt and bacteria. Nothing that I am particularly worried about. I am more concerned about the pesticides, herbicides and other man-made agents that farmers spray around their farms to make their fruit and veggies more commercially attractive.

There are also adverts on the net for products which you can utilise to assist you with cleaning your fruit and veggies and once again can't seem to determine with any certainty that these products would in fact assist with my aim of removing the toxins.

So does washing in water, with no a lot of elbow grease, in fact remove these nasty chemicals? More research required! Pin It

Nature Deficit Disorder

I listened to a podcast today from the ABC website about Nature Deficit Disorder. It was an interview with the author (Richard Louv) of the book called "Last Child in the Woods".I found this fascinating as a parent of a toddler who wants to be outside all of the time.

The podcast discussed our innate need as children to be outside and what the implications of not learning and playing in the outdoors in an unsupervised manner was. There were discussions about how parents are now frightened to let their children outside for fear of what might happen to them and legislation preventing children from undertaking activities that their parents or grandparents participated in in their childhood, such as building cubby houses in trees, etc. It also discussed our desire as children to have 'secretive' activities and the necessity of this for mental health, etc.

I don't think I have fears of holding my child's development back by preventing her from going outside because I believe that I will be encouraging her to get out and about as she grows older. The one thing that struck a tune with me, was Richard's discussion on how children no longer are allowed to appreciate and learn about nature just as it is. Rather they can be subjected by parents and educators about the doomsday state the planet is in and thus they become concerned about everything in their environment and don't fully appreciate or learn about the intricacies of nature for themselves. This really struck a cord with me, as I was just telling my daughter last night while she was playing in her bath and having the tap running, that she had to turn off the tap because she would drain the world dry of water. She is under 2 and already I am tainting her exploration of nature due to my "doomsday" perspective of the world's resources.

If I can get my hands on this book I plan on reading it to better educate myself about this perspective because I do think being outside is an important thing for people's general and mental health. Pin It

Plastic Bags in Recycling

Don't do it people. I have heard and yet to confirm that the companies that collect and sort the recycling can end up dumping whole truck loads of recyclable material into landfill if there is a portion of the truckload tainted with plastic bags.

There are options to recycle your plastic bags. This can be done through a number of large supermarket chains, but not through the recycling wheelie bin pick up route.

It infuriates me to see plastic bags hanging out of people's recycling bins in my street and suburb because I think of all the time and effort that I go to to sort my recycling items and ensuring that I recycle as much as I can. Then I see my effort potentially being wasted because my neighbour has contaminated the entire recycling load with plastic bags in their recycling bin. End result: my recycling getting chucked out with theirs. Aaarrrghh! Make the effort people, it really doesn't take that much time! Pin It

Things around Spring Hill

I saw the following things in Spring Hill, Brisbane, which made me think about the environment either in the sense of nature reclaiming land over man-made objects or how man has made old technologies more environmentally friendly. See below.



I thought this was pretty cool - the grass emerging through the pavement in search of light and the opportunity to survive.



This one being an old street lamp shade, which 'modern man' has added the energy smart light bulb to. I think it is a nice touch that Council has retained the old light fittings. This just adds to the area's charm, with many of the old heritage listed homes still standing, albeit some of them renovated to more modern standards. The light bulb is a nice compromise between modern 'necessities' and heritage values. Pin It

Cane toads

This evening I have been out in my backyard catching cane toads to tastefully dispose of them. These creatures are not welcome in my yard. I try and maintain some sort of island home within my backyard for as much native fauna as possible. Cane toads are a definite threat to the viability of many native species and if they don't directly impact on native fauna they outcompete them for resources. As such I choose to collect cane toads from my back yard and dispose of them.

Some of you might ask how exactly I do this. Well it is a matter of me going around with a plastic bag (yes those yucky plastic bags) collecting the cane toads by hand and then placing them into the fridge or directly into the freezer for a hibernating type demise in my electrical appliance. Once these creatures are frozen I then just place them into my garbage bin.

Tonight I collected 4 cane toads with little effort. I'm sure there are probably a few more lurking in the dim corners of my yard, but the batteries in my torch weren't very powerful tonight, so only the obvious ones were collected. Off to the land of nod for these four at least.

If you're wondering, cane toads are an introduced pest to Queensland and Australia. They were purposefully introduced to Queensland as a biological control agent to control pests within cane fields. The problem for Australia was that we apparently offered a smorgasbord of target insects, etc for the cane toad and they rapidly bred and forgot about the insect they were suppose to prey upon in the canefields and now have taken up residence across most of Queensland, into the Northern Territory and parts of New South Wales. The expansion of and the number of cane toads in Australia is likely to see them now as permanent residents, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and do our bit to minimise or stabilise the population of cane toads within our own areas (in my opinion anyway). Pin It