Bob Dylan honour & Blowin' in the Wind book

President Barack Obama awards Bob Dylan the Medal of Freedom. Image from the Huffington Post.

We're honoured to offer a small part of Bob Dylan's story at Biome (see more about the book below), so we were pleased to hear that he received the Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor.

According to the Huffington Post, Dylan released his first album in 1962, and his music had a considerable influence on the civil rights movement. The president said he found Dylan's music transcendant, claiming it led to his "world opening up, because Dylan captured something about this country that was so vital."

And from Wikipedia, "Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom. The refrain "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" has been described as "impenetrably ambiguous: either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind".

Picture book and CD available at Biome Eco Stores

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

Bob Dylan's lyrics for "Blowin' in The Wind" are just as relevant today as they were almost 50 years ago.  

The song is often hailed as an anthem of the 1960s civil rights movement, but in tackling universal questions about freedom, justice, war and peace, it has become much more than just a protest song.

Now readers of all generations can appreciate Dylan's moving message in this Blowin' in the Wind picture book adaptation illustrated with powerful, poetic paintings by Caldecott honoree Jon J Muth.

This beautiful edition includes a CD of Dylan's original 1963 recording, plus a special note by renowned music columnist Greil Marcus, putting the song in historical context.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind...

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Keeping free range free!

Thank you to the Australian Greens for the content in this post.

Buyer beware ... Consumers are being exploited with eggs labelled “free-range” that are not truly free-range, while the the Egg Corporation is proposing to increase free-range stocking from 1,500 to 20,000 birds per hectare!  This is a massive 1233 per cent increase in bird densities on the range. At this stocking rate, free-range hens will be denied their most basic welfare needs.

Due to a complaint from the Humane Society International, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has opened up the proposed standard for comments.  Submissions are required by 20 June 2012 and can be lodged by email to adjudication@accc.gov.au.


Meanwhile, the Greens NSW have launched the ‘Truth in Labelling (Free-Range Eggs) Bill 2011′ to prevent producers from misleading consumers about how laying hens are treated

In Queensland it has been law since 2002 that free-range egg farms can keep a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare, but there currently exists no legal definition of free-range egg production systems in NSW.  

Standards vary drastically between how many birds are allowed to be kept in the shed and on the range and whether practices like beak trimming are permitted. When consumers buy “free-range” they often don’t know which standard are buying into.

In this video, Lauren Fitzpatrick reports for The Milk Moustache.

The widely accepted industry voluntary "Model Code of Practice" states that free-range birds must be kept at 1,500 birds per hectare. Because it is a voluntary code it can not be enforced. Some farms are cramming up to 40,000 birds per hectare and claiming to be “free-range.”

The Egg Corporation released a statement in early April this year that 29 per cent of free-range eggs produced in NSW come from farms which stock their hens at densities even greater than 20,000 birds per hectare. In Queensland it has been law since 2002 that free-range egg farms can keep a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare. The demand for free-range eggs has exploded in recent years.  In the year 2010/11 free-range eggs made up 29 per cent of the national market in volume and 41 per cent of the value.  Free-range is big business—last year it made nearly $200 million in retail sales. Take action

The Greens NSW need your support to end the egg rorts and help make the Truth in Labelling Bill law.

• Only buy eggs that are stamped from accreditation bodies the Free Range Farmers Association Inc. and the Free Range Egg and Poultry Association of Australia Inc. 

• The only way to ensure your free-range eggs come from truly free-range farms is through legislation. The Greens NSW need your support to help make the Greens Truth in Labelling Bill law. Click here to download the petition and get the signatures of your friends, family and colleagues and send it to John Kaye MLC NSW Parliament House Macquarie St Sydney 2000. 

• The NSW Government needs to hear from all ethical consumers that they want their rights to buy genuine free-range eggs protected. Click here to find your local NSW member. The Greens have put together a step-by-step guide complete with questions to ask your local state representative. 

• Whether it be at the farmers market, shopping centre or around the dinner table start a conversation about the exploitation of the free-range label and why legislation is needed to protect it.

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Magazine for the green mind thrives

With its beautiful photography of sustainable, serene homes, gentle nature-inspired colour scheme, and thick matte-finish paper, Australian green magazine looks and feels as great as it reads.

Each issue of green showcases the most interesting and creative sustainable designs from product designers, architects and landscapers around Australia and internationally.  The content is as much for the home reader as it is for the commercial industry.  Intelligent articles and plenty of practical know-how for your home and garden aim to help design, build, fit-out and live and work in structures that respect our planet's limited resources.  The enticing gardening pages have a stong focus on producing food and self-sufficiency and there are always examples of clever re-using and upcycling.

Established in 2007 by Melbourne-based Tamsin O'Neill and husband Tom Bodycomb, green is an independent magazine (meaning it is privately owned and is not part of the big media publishing companies).  And it appears to have not only met a gap in the magazine market, but like a well-tended garden it has flourished, keeping its readers interested and increasing production from a quarterly to a bi-monthy issue.

In the latest issue of green magazine (issue 25, May-June 2012) you can visit the home of edible garden dynamo, Karen Sutherland or learn about the opening up of a Brisbane worker's cottage (main image) and the best sustainable bathrooms.


Following on their successful niche theme, the publishers have also launched a second magazine for bike lovers, treadlie, which is devoted to bike culture, fashion and design.

Both green and treadlie magazine are available in the Biome stores and in our online store.  See all our eco magazines here.

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Hungry? Hitch up with the local food wagon

Image from www.foodconnect.com.au

People are asking questions.  People want to know not only where their food comes from, but who grew their food - not just a name, but details ... What motivates the grower?  How do they look after their soil?  What does the farmer do with their spare time?  Do they have kids?  What's their favourite food? 

There is a groundswell of interest in the producer-consumer connection, and Australian organisation, Food Connect has been tending this relatively fallow soil for many years, confident that the concept will come to fruition - afterall, it may have a crucial role in saving the world from hunger.  Based on the principles of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), Food Connect delivers weekly boxes bursting with seasonal produce from local farmers living within a short radius of Food Connect Brisbane and Food Connect Sydney.

Food Connect explains: CSA is an innovation in the growing and distributing of food that aims for farmers and consumers to share the risk involved in food production. CSA seeks to address the environmental and social problems associated with industrial agriculture through a shared commitment to local and regional food systems that provide fair financial returns to small family farms. Consumers are effectively investing in the future security of their food supply.  Food Connect works hard at communicating the story and strengthening the bond between the growers and the consumers.  Each week they update the blog with details of what you can expect in your box, along with links to the stories of the farmers who grew the produce. Incredible detail.

You can read more about Food Connect founder Robert Pekin here on the Locavored blog.

People want to feel a connection.  As Sarah Robins writes in her article I don't buy food from strangers (that's a clever bumper sticker by the way) 35,000 people shop at a Victorian farmers’ market each weekend, lured by provenance, variety, freshness and quality, a minimal carbon footprint and the opportunity to engage directly with growers and support the local economy.

As we were working on this post, ABC's Landline program on Sunday, 1 April, aired a fascinating story on food security, The Hunger Games (watch the video or read the transcript).  In the next 40 years the world has to produce as much food as we have produced in the last 500 years.  Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine says: We're running out of water, we're running out of oil, we're running out of agricultural science and technology. We're running out of fish, we're running out of stable climates. So all of those things playing together are creating a greater insecurity in the world's food supply at a time when demand is poised to double.  The story looks at how we can increase agricultural output, as well as how people can grow more food in the cities and how much food we waste in Australia (we throw away about $5 billion worth).

Our loss of "connectivity" with food is part of the problem according to Michael D'Occhio of University of Queensland. In the Landline story, he says: ...we have no respect for food in Australia, we don't appreciate the value of food like our grandparents did after the Second World War... We've lost connectivity with what's required to produce food, what's required to make food available on a consistent basis and indeed the effort that our farmers put into providing us with the quality of food that we produce.

Want to know more about who grew your food? Check out these resources

QLD
Brisbane - Food Connect; Northey Street City Farm.
Organic Brisbane blog
VIC
In Melbourne - CERES Fair Food an inner city farm that hosts farmers’ markets and sells weekly fruit and vegetable boxes to locals.
Purchase this fabulous new book The Field Guide to Victorian Produce, or indulge in the sumptuous articles on the associated blog http://www.locavored.com/
NSW
Sydney - Food Connect
All over
Sustainable Table  - an environmental not-for-profit organisation that uses food as an entrée to explore sustainability issues.  Purchase the book and explore more resources.


Live elsewhere in Australia?  See this page on the Food Connect website with a list of CSAs in other places.

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Take 3 initiative & single use plastics

Story by Biome's Online Manager:  Some of the Biome team recently attended a screening of the documentary BAG IT, which was promoted by Queensland Conservation and TAKE 3.

We learned how garbage and litter flows from our waterways out to sea and the harm it causes to water birds and sea life as well as our fragile ocean eco systems.

Turtles, who apparently eat everything, are attracted to floating plastic bags because they look like jelly fish.  While, all over the Pacific, albatross chicks are fed junk by their parents who mistake pieces of plastic for food and bring them back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year thousands of baby birds die from starvation, toxicity, and choking.  Carcases of these birds are found decaying with bits of plastic sitting in their stomach cavities still perfectly in tact.

 

TAKE 3 is “A Clean Beach Initiative” where you are encouraged to take at least 3 pieces of rubbish when you leave the beach, waterway or anywhere. You may not have put the rubbish there but you have the ability to take it away and make a difference. If we participate in this simple act and pass on this message we can help stop the damage our litter is causing to our fragile oceans and waterways.

There is no "away"

The documentary BAG IT is a light hearted look at the effect our addiction to single use packaging has in the world. We saw that although we think we are doing the “right thing” by recycling, most plastics are in fact not recyclable and get filtered into landfill.  Further, a huge amount of our “unwashed” plastics are being shipped to China and India to be processed in deplorable conditons.  Container ships are full when they come here carrying fast moving consumer goods, but they are empty on the return leg.  This makes it an inexpensive prospect to ship our garbage around the world to be processed by cheap labour, starting with sorting the heaps of stinking waste.  

The better solution is clearly to avoid plastics in the first place, or to re-use plastics many times before they are sent to "recycling".

Things you can do

• TAKE 3 - pick up other people's rubbish. We can greatly reduce the amount of marine debris in our oceans by preventing it from getting there in the first place.
• Reduce & re-use - use your reusable shopping bags and Onya Weigh grocery bags instead of plastic bags.
• Take your own container to the grocery store and shop from the Deli for meats and cheeses, or take them to the take-away from where you buy lunch and Friday night Thai. You can use stainless steel lunchboxes or glass containers that are BPA free.  
• Sign a petition to support the introduction of acontainer deposit system in Australia which will significantly increase the recycling rates of glass, plastic and aluminium drink containers. 
• Small plastic caps are not recyclable for many reasons, so although it's hard to believe, the responsible consumers are the ones who throw their plastic caps and lids into the rubbish instead of the recycling bin!  For this reason, try not to buy things with small plastic lids or get creative with them instead of throwing them away. 
• Watch the BAG IT documentary.  Find our where it is screening in Australia hosted by Tim Silverwood or visit the official BAG IT movie site.

 

You know how handmade soap gets all goopey on a soap dish? It’s because the soap sits in water and makes your lovely soap disappear faster. You can make this little soap dish with plastic lids that would usually be thrown away, to keep your soap dry by allowing excess water to drain away faster.

Here's another cool way to reuse your plastic drink bottles and lids. Vertical herb gardens are great for small spaces like balconies. 

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Mineral makeup foundation

Musq - winner of the 2012 Natural Beauty Award for best foundation

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Millions of women in Australia and around the world are ditching the chemicals found in conventional cosmetics in favour of beautiful natural products that are better for your skin, your health and the environment!  Are you joining them?  Today’s mineral makeup foundations provide beautiful results and the formulations are so advanced you won’t miss those nasty petrochemical-based products one bit!  

In our busy little mineral makeup corner of the store, the question most often asked is how to choose the right mineral foundation.  Would I be best with a cream, liquid or powder? What colour best matches my skin?    

Prepared by Biome's mineral makeup expert, here's a helpful guide to foundation perfection.  

1.     Choose your formulation - Cream, Liquid or Powder?

Choose the correct formulation for your skin’s needs.

One of our most popular powders

Oily  -   Powder

On Oily skins powder helps to eliminate excess moisture and give a flawless, shine-free finish.

Oily skins can sometimes use a liquid foundation, but must be sure to powder well to stop the makeup ‘sliding’. Touch ups with powder during the day are also a great idea to keep you looking polished.

Pro Tip: Try using a Rose Water or Hydrosol spray like Mokosh hydrosol toner after powder foundation application to help ‘set’ the makeup. This will create a gorgeous ‘natural skin’ look.

Sante cream foundation                           

Dry -  Liquid or Cream

Choose Liquid or Cream foundations for their hydrating properties.  Powders can be drying on this skin type, causing a rough, or chalky appearance. If you would like to use a powder foundation, just be sure to prepare your skin accordingly. It’s important to exfoliate and moisturise well.

Pro Tip: For longer wearing makeup and a more polished look, apply a light dusting of powder after your foundation. A light spray of rose water or hydrosol will help set the look.

Musq mineral powder foundation

Combination  - Powder or Liquid

Combination skins can use either a powder or a liquid foundation.  Powder foundations are great for combination skin as they help to absorb any excess oil and combat unwanted shine. The trick here is to apply more coverage in your oilier zones while using more sparingly in other areas.

Pro Tip: When using liquid foundations, those with combination skin should apply a dusting of powder, focusing on their oily zones, after their foundation to prevent the makeup from ‘breaking up’ in their oiler zones later in the day.

2.     Choose your shade – Know your Skin Tone and Depth

Is your skin Fair, Medium or Deep? Remembering that this may vary in Summer and Winter.

Secondly, is your skin tone Cool, Warm or Neutral?

Cool: You have blue/green eyes, may sunburn/freckle easily, your natural hair colour is blond/light brown, you look good in bright pinks, fuschia and muted browns.

Warm:  You have brown/hazel eyes, tan easily, have brown or darker hair, your skin has a slightly yellow/golden tone, you look good in rich browns and navy.

Neutral : If you have two or more characteristics from both Warm and Cool then you are most likely a neutral skin tone.

Now, check this handy table that gives our recommendations on the best Inika, Musq and Sante choices based on the combination of your skin tone and depth.

For example, if you have Fair skin with Cool tone, recommendations for you are Inika Liquid: Cream; Inika Powder: Grace, Nurture, Unity, Strength; Musq Cream: Kalahari; Musq Powder: Kalahari; Sante Liquid: No. 1.

3.     Try them on!

To get the most accurate colour match, always test makeup on your face rather than your hand or wrist. 

Try at least 3 shades. Pick out the shade that you think most suits your skin tone and then pick one shade lighter and one shade darker.

Apply the makeup using brush/cotton tip on clean skin. At your outer jawline (just in front of your ear) use your brush/cotton tip to make a vertical  ‘stripe of each shade. Work it into the skin slightly as you would when applying to your full face.   This area of your face is perfect for testing foundation because you can see how the makeup affects any pigmentation, your overall skin tone and ensures it will blend into your neck seamlessly.

The aim here is to find a shade that is almost undetectable. If you’ve got the coverage you need and you can’t see it on your skin, you’re onto a winner!

Browse our mineral makeup ranges ...  Inika, Musq, Sante and our Makeup brushes.

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Fighting to save my home reefs | WWF-Australia BLOG

We recommend a read of this informative and engaging blog post from WWF team member, Nick Heath > Fighting to save my home reefs | WWF-Australia BLOG  Nick's connection with the Great Barrier Reef began from a young age on his father's dive boat and he writes about the decline he sees in the Great Barrier Reef today.


Among the issues, Nick explains "We’ve learned that outdated farm practices cause 14 million tonnes of mud, fertilizer and pesticides to pollute up to 700 reefs within the World Heritage Area every year, where the mud kills the inshore seagrass habitats of turtles and dugong. A thousand turtles died last year from causes related to seagrass loss."

He talks about the work by WWF to fight for the reef and achievements such as the fishing ban across 33 percent of the reef. There is still much work to do -- and you can help by sending a message to Queensland politicians before the 26 March election. See the link at the end of Nick's post.

Introducing this environmental message to children
One of our favourite children's books at Biome is Kim Toft's "The World that we Want" (pictured above).  Each illustration has been exquisitely created by hand painting on silk.  The World That We Want brings to centre stage the rare beauty and fragile environment of North Queensland and its native inhabitants of this great land for all to share.

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How will you make a difference today?

Here's three ideas ...

Clean up Australia Day sneaks up on us every year--and it is now only 12 days away.  The main day is on Sunday, 4 March; Business Clean Up is 28 February, and Schools on Friday, 2 March.

Why not register for Clean up Australia Day and co-ordinate a group of friends?

Does it seem like forever since you last checked a printed telephone directory?  You can cancel receiving phone books at the official site. You will receive a postcard confirming your cancellation during each book delivery period to your area....

And, don't forget that any old books you do have can go in your household recycling bin.




WWF is asking you to send a letter to the next Queensland Government to help save the Great Barrier Reef.  Every election is an opportunity to help secure commitments from the political contenders.  Queensland votes this March.  Not sure what to say?  WWF has provided a draft letter for you to start with.

They're also asking you to spread the message on Twitter with the hash tag #hanginthereturtles

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Put a cork in it

When 80% of the 20 billion bottles of wine produced in the world each year use natural corks, why do nearly all wine bottles in Australian bottle shops seem to have screw caps?

Is it a reflection of Australian culture?  After all, we drink a lot of beer with screw tops, perhaps we expect to be able to casually screw the top off a beverage.

Australia and New Zealand are among the leaders in this technological "development"--and it's uptake--along with other cork alternative, the Diam petrochemical plastic cork.  Commercial reasons must be driving the change because it's cheaper and reduces spoilage.  But, we seem to be accepting the move away from hundreds of years of tradition without much fuss.  Does some small percentage of wine oxidation really matter when we are once again replacing a truly sustainable solution with an non-renewable, petrochemical answer?

James Halliday posted his views of this debate and attracted some passionate replies! Apparently, the makers of screw caps contend that an aluminium cap generates less carbon in its manufacture and transport - compared with cork that has to travel all the way from Spain!

As someone comments on the Halliday post, "How can you suggest that screwcap production has minimal carbon footprint consequences? Have you considered the environmental impact associated with mining and smelting aluminium and the total amount of energy used in the process of manufacturing screwcaps? Transport is only one component when determining the environmental performance of a product over its life cycle."

And another reminds us that the bark of a cork tree regenerates and is harvested between 10 and 14 times during its 200 year life, in the process capturing 7 or 8 times more CO2 than had the cork bark never been harvested.

Australian environmental commentator Tanya Ha explains in her book Greeniology, the disappearance of cork is an environmental tragedy. "Cork is a wonderful, sustainable resource. The cork oak survives without chemicals, fertilisers or irrigation. Cork trees aren't cut down, only their outer bark is harvested every nine years....Over half the world's cork comes from cork-oak forests in Spain and Portugal. These forests are home to the endangered Bonelli's eagle and the Iberian lynx. As the world buys more wine with plastic stoppers or screw tops, these forests are losing their markets and the farmers are having to clear the land in favour of more profitable crops."

Cork is also biodegradable and readily recyclable so it does not need to end up in landfill. We have a well established recycling stream for cork in Australia.  According to the Planet Ark cork fact sheet: 

Girl Guides Australia has been a world pioneer in cork recycling, beginning its program in 1990. Since then, this program alone collected over 160 million corks. Currently, other community organisations including Motor Neuron Disease, Friends of the Zoos and Green Collect also collect
corks for recycling.

Both Biome eco friendly stores take pleasure in accepting your corks for recycling and handing them onto the Girl Guides.

Interestingly, Australia may lead the way with screw caps, but Planet Ark says, we also have the world’s largest wine cork recycling plant run by Logic Australia. The end result are new products like flooring, memo boards, placemats, coasters, floor tiles, gaskets, horse-float mats, boat decking and inners for hockey and cricket balls.

The story of cork is a common modern eco-dilemma, but we think that it is worth standing up for nature's solution.  It may seem like you're fighting against a tsunami of change, but every purchasing decision you make sends a message.

What Australian wine is bottled using a cork?

Searching online bottle shops, no one seemed to mention whether each wine has a cork or not.  The only winery that came up in searches was Harris Organic Wines, WA, who publish a statement about their commitment to cork.  Way to go!

We asked this question of our Facebook fans last year and they told us:
Brown brothers Riesling, Golden Grape Estate in the Hunter Valley,‎"Stones Gold" sparkling ginger wine, Brown Brothers Zibibbo Rosa, Bleasdale Vineyards eg. for "Frank Potts" Cabernet blend.

Perhaps you can add to our list by posting the names here or on our Facebook? 


Homewares made from cork

Cork wine bottle stopper

You can support cork through other products of course.  We have just introduced to Biome some cork homewares made in Spain from pruned branches and bark of oak trees grown on the Iberian Peninsula - a cork wine bottle stopper, cork trivet and cork soap dish.

Why not upcycle your corks into a real cork memo board?

Find inspiration on the behomemade.com blog. They made the gorgeous memo board pictured here from an old door frame and corks.

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Mind expanding New Year resolutions

We all need the injection of energy that the start of a fresh year brings.  It's hard to avoid the reminder to stop the wheel of life, re-group, tweak priorities and chart a course for exciting new destinations.  There's something about opening a fresh diary, that same feeling of writing for the first time in a crisp new exercise book back in school days. How about pencilling in those blank pages some appointments to expand your mind?

On your schedule this year, consider undertaking further learning about a topic that interests you.  The environmental sphere has so many issues and opposing points of view to learn about, and the technology is moving fast.  New ways of doing things, new organisations, new resources and clever consumer choices are coming to fruition relentlessly.

You don't necessarily have to enroll in University or even leave the house!  The internet opens an incredible field of resources from all over the world.  An internet-based course may not be the choice for everyone if don't wish to spend more time in front of a computer screen.  However, the internet will also give you leads to classes where you do meet face to face with a group of like-minded explorers. Your local book store will have plenty of environment books on topics by authors such as Australia's Tim Flannery.  Why not combine your leave with a hands-on educational tour or working holiday where your time, labour and money supports environmental projects.

Here's a start with some of our favourite resources. We invite you to post links to any other eco-educational resources.

Sustainable Furnishings Council. This US organisation offers excellent resources and runs a GREENleaders sustainability training course. They are offering a free one-hour webinar on Monday, 16 January 2012. The webinar will provide a grounding in the environmental issues related to home furnishings, including the factual basis for climate change, problems with indoor air quality, toxic waste, and water conservation.  This webinar is intended to give participants useful information you can begin using in your business immediately. To reserve your seat at the webinar, follow this link.


Centre for Environment Education Australia in collaboration with CEE India offers exciting tours to India with a purpose. These tours offer much more than the standard tourist experience as they provide a unique opportunity to get involved with projects and people working to conserve the nature. The 10 day wildlife tour to Northern or Western India includes guided tours to National Parks, interacting with locals, experiencing the rich culture of India and hands-on-experience on an environmental project.

University of the Third Age (U3A) is a non-for-profit international movement for older people who want to continue to enjoy learning in later life.  Online and in-person courses are low cost, require no prior qualifications, and are run in most capital citites of Australia.

Conservation Volunteers. Australia's Conservation Volunteers welcomes people with a love of the outdoors and an interest in the environment to take part as a volunteer in one of its many conservation projects, like the Tasmanian Devil.  Volunteers require no prior skills or experience. Projects are managed in conjunction with project partners that may include regional councils, national parks, museums, landcare groups, conservation departments and other national conservation agencies. They also run a range of Education Programs.

Have you participated in a course, workshop or study on an environmental theme?  We would love to hear your ideas...

For inspiration on some other New Year resolutions, check this video story from Planet Green on their Top 5 green resolutions (#5 Swap clothes, #4 Save Paper, #3 Go Vegie, #2 Ditch Plastic, #1 Act now).  Or visit the Planet Green page here with more resources and links.

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Spending for positive change

For all of us concerned about the earth's precious and limited resources, Christmas time really stretches and strains our conscience.  We think carefully about the purchases we are making, about whether they are necessary and whether they are responsbile.

At Biome Eco Stores, we agonise over finding the balance between encouraging consumption at Christmas and operating a viable business.  For any retail business, and particularly one like ours that operates at the margins, Christmas is vital to our survival throughout the rest of the year.

Our mission at Biome has to be two-pronged - one is to help everyone who visits our stores make a difference to the planet, and secondly, to continue to exist so that we may help people with those choices!

While loading the brilliant new range of Tegu magnetic building blocks onto our website, there was the reminder we needed about what we are doing.  In the below video, the founder of Tegu, Chris Haughey says that parents will always spend money on toys for their children.  Tegu's aim is to help people spend that money where it will have a positive social impact.

As Chris explains, Tegu is a "for profit" engine for positive social change in Honduras. Being able to support businesses like Tegu is what makes us at Biome happy!

Some of us choose to live a minimalist, buy nothing life, and some of us choose to consume with a conscience.  Obviously, Biome is a store for the later - but, we have great respect for the former!
 
For every product we choose to stock, we run through our selection criteria assessing what the product is made from, where it is made, who made it and under what conditions, how long will it last and what will happen to it at the end of its life.

We need stores such as ours with an ethical and eco focus to ask the questions and demand standards that profit focussed retailers overlook.

Thinking about reduce & recycle at Christmas

Planet Ark has produced an excellent list  "The 12 do's of Christmas" (thank you to our facebook friend for letting us know about this!).  All very easily achieveable actions to help you reduce and recycle this Christmas.  Ideas like:

• Buy good quality decorations that can be reused many times, or make your own from reused materials.
• Gather all your steel bottle caps and save them in one can, then fold down and send the whole lot off to recycling.
• When giving new electronics, recycle the old electronics - Planet Ark's RecyclingNearYou.com.au has an excellent resource on where to find places to recycle just about anything.
• Invest in a battery recharger for your home and give rechargeable batteries with gifts.

Introducing Tegu magnetic wooden blocks

Tegu's product designer talks about the thought process and 'maths' behind Tegu's magnetic wooden building blocks, which have the unique ability to build stronger minds for children.

See the Tegu range available in Australia at Biome.  Visit here for our green christmas ideas.

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Essential oils for Christmas

Tea light candle holders made from Australian Banksia seed pods

Diffusing essentials oils in your home at Christmas will not only help with creating a lovely festive aroma, but they can encourage a calm and relaxed state of being - a special gift at this busy time of year!

Although we have a hot Christmas in Australia, we still love the warming and woody oils traditionally associated with Winter in the northern hemisphere like Pine, Cinnamon, Cedarwoord, Clove oil and Nutmeg.  

For a lovely festive blend mix a spicy oil like Cinnamon with a gentle citrus oil like Sweet Orange, Mandarin, Lemon or Tangerine. Only a small amount of spicy oils should be used as they can be over-powering and irritating.  Avoid contact with the skin also.

The mix of spice and citrus is familar to those who have smelt a traditional Clove Pomander, used for generations to mask smells and add to festive decorations.  These are typically a citrus fruit such as orange, spiked all over with black clove heads and then hung with a red ribbon.

You can play with any combination of mints, such as Peppermint or Eucalytpus with woody oils, citrus and spice.

Banksia scent pots $13.95

Place the oils in one of Biome's hand turned Banksia scent pots, an oil burner or vaporiser.  Banksia is a particularly porous material that will soak up the essential oils and fragrance your room for weeks before needing to add more oil.

See Biome's essential oils here, plus we have a greater selection in our stores.

The Thurlby Scents of Christmas sachet ($7.95) is another lovely idea for your home or a gift.  This Australian-made natural fragrance sachet can hang on the tree or anywhere. 

Queen B Christmas beeswax candles

For creating a beautiful festive atmosphere, candles are the centrepiece.  Choose Australian beeswax candles for their purity and eco-friendliness.  Queen B offers gorgeous beeswax candle designs for Christmas with Christmas Trees, Jolly Santa and Mary, Joseph & Baby Jesus.

Don't forget the essential oils for relaxtion to help you through the busy festive schedule.  Try the Mt Retour certified organic relaxing blend or Mandarin, which is meant to relax, sooth and calm restlessness, especially for hyperactivity in children.  What parent doesn't need that at this time?

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Teenage skin care

It's hard to find Certified Organic, Australian-made skin care for teenagers that is also palm oil free.

Brands for teenage skin care are often developed by parents out of concern for the chemicals their teen children are exposed to.  Parents want personal care choices that are gentle yet effective, without compromising on fashion or fun.

Natural products for teens should provide a safe and sustainable alternatives to chemical cosmetics for teenage skin care.  Openness in the beauty industry and inspiring girls to make smarter choices for their bodies and the environment.

To appeal to teenagers, a skin care range needs to 'emotionally 'teen', functionally 'green'.   

Teenagers and chemicals

Research by Dr Rebecca Sutton who has studied the effects of four chemical families on girls aged 14-19 as part of her research for the American Environmental Working Group (EWG), produced in September 2008, showed that teenage girls’ bodies contained residual traces of 16 chemicals commonly found in everyday personal care products.

There are so many products in use around the home that identifying the exact source of these chemicals is difficult. But we can minimise these chemicals in our bodies by choosing beauty products that do not contain chemicals and are certified organic.


Australian Certified Organic (ACO) is Australia’s largest certifier for organic and biodynamic produce. ACO endorsement for any commercial product stipulates that food and other products must contain 95 percent organic ingredients, with the remaining five percent restricted to natural ingredients meeting stringent requirements. The product must adhere to strict national production standards, undergo annual audits, and show total transparency - allowing any person to trace the origin of every ingredient.

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Recycling, the art of re-invention

 

A gorgeous new product we have in store at Biome has inspired this post for Planet Ark's National Recycling Week being celebrated right now.

Made from reclaimed cotton shirts, this little recycle yourself doll on a key fob is accompanied by a booklet that tells its story from cotton on the bush transforming to a smart business shirt, then to a discarded shirt, before its re-invention into this quirky doll.  As the story concludes: 
And today, someone who reminds you that in your heart you have the strength to recycle yourself into whatever you want to be.

Isn't that so true about all recycling?  A material or an ingredient has a useful life in one form, but when that use comes to an end there are so many ways it can be re-invented, re-loved, re-used or upcycled. Upcycled being the term de rigueur that refers to the process of converting waste or useless products into new materials or products of better quality.

We don't recycle at Biome - well not much...

With all the deliveries of stock we receive in our stores, we gather a mountain of cardboard boxes and stuffing of various kinds from bubble wrap to polystyrene beads, shredded paper and compostable beads - but we take joy in not recycling.  Don't panic!  We re-use -- rather than recycle -- as much as we can.  Where ever we can re-box (as in re-use a box) or re-stuff (re-use stuffing materials) we will.  In fact, we even have our neighbours on the bandwagon.  The restaurant gives us their wine cartons, the laundromat gives us freebie magazines and the coffee shop gives us boxes.  They love it because their bins are less full and we love it because we don't have to buy boxes and stuff.  Some of our suppliers send re-boxes to us as well, then we use them again to send to you...so that is at least three useful lives before any more energy is used to recycle them!

Where can I recycle certain things?

Planet Ark's Recycling Near You program is gold. That is, Planet Ark deserves a gold medal for all their incredible work to promote education and uptake on recycling.  They have a telephone hotline, or, visit the website where you can type in your location and it delivers links on where you can recycle certain things.

The page for recycling in the Brisbane area has a wealth of leads.  For example, one link tells me what materials I can put in the household kerbside recycling bin in Brisbane
All these materials are collected:

• Glass Bottles and Jars (but not drinking glasses and plates)
• Aluminium Cans
• Aluminium Foil
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Office Paper
• Envelopes Without a Window
• Envelopes With a Window
• Phone Books
• Pizza Boxes (scrape the food out, some grease is ok)
• Egg Cartons (unless you know someone with chickens that can reuse them)
• Cardboard
• Steel Food Cans (does a magnet stick to it? it's steel if it does)
• Steel Paint Cans (empty)
• Steel Aerosol Cans (empty)
• Milk cartons
• Juice cartons
• Tin-plate or aluminium lids from steel food cans
• Plastics marked with
   

The last one is great news - they accept all plastics marked from 1 to 6, which is pretty much most firm plastics these days.  This was not always the case.
We aim to ensure that every plastic item stocked at Biome has a recycling symbol stamped on it - without that symbol there is no hope of it being recycled.

If you are into re-crafting, there are so many books and internet resources on how to make new things from old things.
Happy re-inventing!

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Six reasons we love Goodbyn lunch boxes

Six new colours, six reasons we love Goodbyn...

(1) In our house, Goodbyn are the only lunch boxes we have bought for two years, which I feel makes them great value. The children have used theirs every day for school for two years and they are still going strong.  The plastic is sturdy but flexible, and there are no hinges to break.

There is no need to buy a new kids lunch box each year. The kids can apply Goodbyn stickers to refresh the design they want on their lunch box.

(2) Only one lid to keep track of - and it always seems to come home (unlike the 10 or so other containers in my drawer whose lids have disappeared, or vice versa).

How to close the Goodbyn lid? First, push down firmly on the two horizontal ridges across the middle, then pinch together all around the outside edges. Once the kids get the knack it is easy.

(3) The kids love packing their own lunch - what more do you want in the mornings? :-) For some reason they enjoy filling the little compartments and making their lunch look all creative and neat. They seem much more motivated to pack their own (or, is that because they want to sneak extra treats in...?)

(4) The layout of little compartments makes it easier for me to pack the lunches when I need to! It breaks things down into five sections that require less brain power to fill - sandwich here, fruit there, some dip there, crackers here and a sweet treat there. Done!

(5) Goodbyns are made from food-safe plastic, no PVC (unlike most soft lunch boxes), no lead, no BPA, phthalate-free and its made in the USA.

Rather than a faceless manufacturer, we know the story behind who makes them and who is accountable for the safety and environmental performance.  Goodbyn makes public their product testing results

(6) There's something about Bento boxes and a plastic wrap-free lunch!  Lunch seems much more appetising when it is not squished inside sweaty plastic wrap, but rather laid out in the Bento system. The Japanese have served food in this way for centuries after all.

Six new fruity colours now available in Australia in Goodbyn original and Bynto sizes, plus ice packs, three types of stickers and replacement bottles.

Visit here to see all of Biome's lunch boxes.

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What is a super food?

What is a super food? And why are we interested?

At Biome, we have a little belief statement that guides all we do and offer to our customers.

We believe in...

the power of simple choices
respect for all who share our planet
plants, not petrochemicals
sun-grown, not synthetic
hand made with heart
honesty in labelling 
a 2nd useful life for everything, and
nature having the answers ... if only we will listen

On the last point, we do believe that nature has the answers for so many diseases and problems affecting our planet, and that is why we are interested in so called "super foods".

Super food refers to foods with a high phytonutrient content and the term is often used to imply those foods have certain health benefits.  You might have heard of blueberries, Açai and Goji berries and wheatgrass.
 
Of course, such claims are wide open for marketing misuse about their powers, so as with everything, add a healthy dose of scepticism and be sure of the quality of the produce and how it is grown, processed and transported.  And, eating fresh fruit in season locally has got to be better for you. 

Aside from nutrition, scientists and environmentalists have for many years alerted us to the potential loss of disease curing plants when rainforests are destroyed - another huge incentive to save our rainforests.  As this article explains, indigeneous peoples have used rainforest medicinal plants for thousands of years and modern pharmacologists have derived a number of drugs from such plants, including one with anti-HIV properties.

You could say that all the natural skin care and green cleaning products that Biome has chosen offer solutions or super powers from nature, like a natural deodorant relying on mineral salts, or skin soothing and healing rose hip oil.  Let's call them "super skincare" and "super cleaning"!  We applaud natural product manufacturers who are looking for the answers in nature rather than synthetic chemical formulations.

More about super fruits

Blueberries are exceptionally high in antioxidants, they can help treat urinary tract infections and because of a compound contained in the blue pigmentation of blueberry skin, they help protect eyesight by accelerating the production of retinal purple, a substance critical for good vision (source: Australian Blueberries).

While Blueberries are native to North America, the Amazon is home to the  Açai berry (the berry of a palm tree). Not only does the Açai Berry have a highest antioxidants of any fruit, it also contains protein, fiber, and Omega 6 and Omega 9 essential fatty acids.

See Biome's range of products containing super foods online and in our stores, including the Amazing Grass organic Kids superfood powder and Bio-bubble probiotic.

We would be happy to hear from you about your favourite super food....

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