Category Archives: Take Action

Bag Making Success

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Transition Town Guildford | 1 comment

On Sunday we screened ‘Bag It – Is your life too plastic?‘ in the Guildford town hall. The movie outlines the overwhelming amount of plastic that we are consuming every day, particularly ‘single use disposable plastic’. Why would you make something that is used for a few minutes (a drink container) out of something that will take hundreds of years to break down!?

Bag It also highlighted the impact plastic has on the marine environment and human health. See this recent Catalyst episode for how that’s impacting on Australian wildlife and beaches.

We invited people to try going a day or a week without buying any plastic. Why not try it and see what you find? Let us know how you go.

Here’s some tips to reduce your plastic use:

Don’t use plastic bags – use reusable carry and fruit bags
Get a metal water bottle and avoid plastic drink containers
Bring your own coffee cup
Go to the farmers market and buy your fruit and veg plastic free

Murray from the City of Swan Waste Management team outlined some of the councils initiatives, including the upcoming Recyclable goods day (Sat 10th November), where residents can drop off e-waste and other items, and pick up free mulch! See Upcoming events for details.

Elizabeth, Debra and Kim also accompanied the movie with sewing demonstrations and hands on training on how to sew your own bag from left-over materials. Check out the photos below.

A hive of activity after the ‘Bag It’ screening

Rod learning to sew

Happy bag makers!

Murray (City of Swan Waste Management), Peter and Elizabeth

Article in the Echo newspaper with Elizabeth promoting the event

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Posted in Event, Media, Movies, Take Action, Waste & Recycling

Tagged Bag It, Beth Terry, Charles Moore, City of Swan, Echo newspaper, Plastic Free July

Compost, worms and poo

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Elizabeth LiketheQueen | Leave a comment

Huge thanks to Barb who lent us her backyard and shared her wisdom about all things decomposing. It was the fifth workshop put on by the TTG Kitchen Gardeners’ Society, part of a series on producing your own food, a key aspect of building a sustainable community.

There’s a lot said about compost – but really it’s about soil health and reducing waste. It doesn’t smell (or if it does, you’ve got it out of balance and it’s easy to fix), isn’t dirty or dangerous, doesn’t have to take up much space, and is very good horticultural practice.

Here’s Barb with her enormous pile of poo. That is, horse poo, nicely broken down and ready to be added to her sandy soil where her vegetables will appreciate the boost of nutrients and water-holding qualities it will provide. When you add manure to your garden, that is, manure that doesn’t come out of a sealed plastic bag, there are a few considerations.

1. Its freshness – newly, erm, laid poo tends to be fairly strong and can burn plants, especially seedlings. It’s always best to let it break down for six weeks or so before you add it to your garden bed. Chook is the harshest, while horse, cow or sheep is milder, but it’s still a good idea to let it mature a bit.

2. Seeds the animal has eaten that have passed through intact – considering poo is an ideal growing medium, viable seeds of oats and wheat will sprout as soon as they can. You can let them sprout then dig them in as green manure, or if you compost it aerobically, it should get hot enough to kill off any viable seeds.

3. Any residual medication with which the animal may have been treated – this is a hard one. Worming formula, for example, will likely kill lots of the good organisms in your soil. Your best bet is to source your poo from someone you know who doesn’t use these sorts of medications.

Making good compost is a balancing act – nitrogen and carbon, wet and dry organic material, and making sure it’s aerated. Lots of dry garden waste, such as these palm fronds need to be balanced by a high-nitrogen, moist ingredient, such as, well, poo.

Barb also introduced us to her worm farms and her bokashi bins. She has a system set up with friends who fill the bokashi bins, which she picks up, replacing a full bin with an empty one every few weeks. She then buries the bin’s contents, and uses the liquid as a foliar fertiliser and to help keep her drains clear.

Her worms take care of a lot of kitchen waste, but worms don’t like meat, citrus or oniony meals. They need to be kept cool and moist, which can be a challenge in Perth.

The Kitchen Gardeners’ Society always has afternoon tea and shares produce.

The compost and worms workshop fitted in nicely with TTG’s recent waste and recycling survey, in which a large majority of respondents said they’d like to reduce their waste. Composting is an excellent way of using up organic scraps, feeding your garden and reducing landfill. If you don’t have room in your backyard, a bokashi bin under your sink will allow you to deal with food scraps in a very environmentally friendly way. The bins and the starter culture are available from hardware stores and eco outlets.

Our next workshop is on preserving the harvest on Sunday November 4. RSVP to guilfordkitchengardeners@gmail.com if you’d like come as numbers are limited.

City of Swan draft strategic plan

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Transition Town Guildford | 2 comments

The City of Swan recently released their draft strategic plan (Strategic Community Plan). It outlines the key objectives that will guide the city’s activities for the next 10 years.

While there are many good things in the plan, there are also areas where we think the City could aim much higher. The public submissions period just closed and below is the response from the steering group of Transition Town Guildford or here. What do you think?

Response to the City of Swan Strategic Community Plan 2012-2022

Transition Town Guildford participated in the public development of the City’s Strategic Community Plan (SCP). We are pleased to see the outcome of the process and welcome the opportunity to provide further input at this stage.

We were encouraged to see reference to climate change in the SCP. However, the plan seems to lack any clear sense of the urgency or scale of changes required to address climate change. It is widely regarded that the next decade is the critical period for action to give us any hope of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.

“This is the critical decade for action. The choices we make between now and 2020 will shape our future. To minimise climate change risks we must begin to decarbonise our economy and move to cleaner energy sources this decade. The longer we wait the more difficult and costly it will be. Western Australia has abundant potential for expanding renewable energy generation, with some of the best wind and solar resources in Australia.”The Critical Decade: Climate Change Impacts for Western Australia, by the Climate Commission

Yet there is no reference in the SCP to renewable energy, peak oil or decreasing dependence on fossil fuels. While there is an objective to reduce carbon, waste and greenhouse gases (N1.1), there is no concrete target (for example, striving for the City of Swan to become carbon neutral or zero waste). Specific, measurable and ambitious targets are essential in transitioning to a low-carbon local economy in the near future.

The term ‘sustainable’ is used extensively throughout the document, yet it is not defined. For example, what does the City of Swan consider ‘sustainable growth’ to mean? We consider a clear definition of such key terms to be vital to effective implementation of the SCP.

There is no mention of community groups or community engagement in the objectives. The City of Swan needs to build into its Community Plan actions to engage with, support and encourage community groups. We therefore request the inclusion of an additional objective under Governance, as follows:

Objective
G1.3 – Promote community engagement
Strategies
G1.3.1 – Promote active liaison with new and existing community groups
G1.3.2 – Encourage public participation in decision-making

We also wish to make the following comments and suggestions regarding descriptions of the following strategies currently included in the Plan. Our specific suggestions are highlighted in bold italics below:

Economics
There is no connection or acknowledgement of the relationship between business and industry aspirations outlined under Economics, and the environmental ideals listed in Natural Environment. These aspects of the SCP are addressed separately but are in fact intimately intertwined. We believe it is important that this is reflected in the Plan as the economy depends entirely on the health and resources of the natural environment.

E1.1.4 Target and attract identified industries to capitalise on the power economy and renewable energy sources of Western Australia

Natural Environment
N1.1.1 Effectively manage resource consumption, including water, energy and non-renewable resources

N1.1.3 This strategy currently states, ‘Preserve and protect air quality’ but there is no mention of soil quality or fertility. This is surprising, given the highly valuable Swan Valley with its rich soils is located within the City.

N1.2.1 Minimise the impact of extreme weather conditions through emergency management planning, community education and preparation

N2.1.1 Conserve open spaces, natural vegetation and bushland with support from local community groups

We suggest the following two additional strategies to conserve native biodiversity:

N.2.1.2 Conserve and enhance existing native flora and fauna.

N 2.1.3 Implement ‘best practice’ in management of processes threatening to native flora and fauna including invasive species, fire and loss of habitat

N2.2.1 Protect waterways through appropriate land management practices, particularly prevention of further river bank erosion

Build Environment – Sustainable transport solutions
B3 We strongly endorse the third built environment outcome to provide sustainable transport solutions

We look forward to seeing the final draft of the SCP encompassing community input. We also look forward to supporting the City to implement this Plan over the coming years.

Sincerely yours,
Transition Town Guildford Steering Committee
Dr Peter Langlands
Dr Barb Frey
Dr Chris Hogan
Simon Kilbane
Rod Mitchell
Tammy Hanson
Tanami Magnus

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Posted in Climate Change, Economics, Energy, Flora & Fauna, Peak Oil, Take Action, Transport, Waste & Recycling

Tagged City of Swan, climate change impacts, renewable energy, Transition