Landcare calls on everyone to help

Landcare Australia and Coastcare are calling on all Australians to join their register of volunteers to help our country and planet.

Landcare's Your Planet Needs You campaign aims to make it easy for you to sign up to a volunteer register to say what skills you can offer. Everyone can help, whether it be pulling weeds, making coffee, transporting equipment, designing or distributing posters to promoting events within your company.

On World Environment Day, Landcare staged a flash mob event to promote Your Planet Needs You. Look at those awesome inflatable globes being tossed around... Biome's Earth Balls. We were very chuffed that Landcare chose our Earth Balls for the fun. And, yes, among the celebs in this photo is French ‘Spiderman’ and climate campaigner Alain Robert (who else could look so cool in a red suit?).

Check out the Flickr album with more photos of the Landcare event

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Continuous loop of Reverse Garbage

We're having a big clear out trying valiantly to stop our home looking like a staging warehouse for the stores. I heard that environmentalists are the worst hoarders because they can not bear to send anything to landfill. That gave me great peace-of-mind about my compulsion. The guilt I feel when I sneak a large plastic kid's toy into the wheelie bin almost buries me. What do you do with a plastic toy piano that is completely broken? Can’t go to the Salvos because it doesn’t work, it has embedded components that can’t be recycled and no plastics recycling symbol.

We can finally be rid of the old printers, computers and faxes in our garage because at Greenfest I found Buyequip, who take it all. Incidentally, does it alarm anyone else that you can buy a fax machine at Officeworks for $95? Break that down into retailer margin (guessing 40% of $95), transport costs to Australia, materials and factory running costs, and it does not leave much for the wages of the people that assembled it. And, when it breaks (quite readily), it costs more to repair than buy a new one. So off it goes to landfill...

Back to the clear out, which reminded me about the wonderful not-for-profit co-operative, Reverse Garbage. They take all manner of industrial discards that people then purchase for schools and other creative endeavours. In my case, it is a continuous loop. I take stuff to Reverse Garbage that in their words is “waste that is too good to waste” and while I am there can’t resist a few must-haves (“I just know those cardboard pipes and plastic discs will be great for a store display one day”). Then, here I am 12 months later, donating those same items back to Reverse Garbage. Of course, I can’t leave without one quick circuit around the shelves - and so it continues.... The photos here are from their website, which also lists what they accept and sell and Eco-art School Holiday workshops. Surely you could find a use for those eyes!

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keeping it local with "slow shopping"

You have probably heard of "slow food", which is all about eating food that is healthy for people, is good for the people who grow it and good for the planet.

According to Slow Food Australia it is a movement to “counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions, people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world”.

It made me think that what we offer is "slow shopping". We delight in helping our customers to slow down and think about where a product comes from, what it is made from, how it is made and especially, who made it.

We support products made close to home so we can reduce our carbon footprint and foster a vibrant local community. One of our favourite local artisans is Kylie Johnson who makes her gorgeous ceramic quote tags, ornaments and earrings within a few kilometres of our store. It takes Kylie a long time to carefully hand make her ceramics and they embody simplicity.

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