Last permaculture workshop was called 'Resources and redefining waste'. Which basically means don't throw anything away. Reuse it, fix it, or recycle it. Or better yet don't buy it in the first place if you just going to use it once.
Or maybe it should have been called 'Waste Not, Want Not'. One thing I have learned is there is a plastic bag sea in the North Pacific Ocean. It consists of a huge area the size of Texas of plastic bags, floating...well no fish can swim in it because fish cannot swim in plastic. Where did they all come from...well, I suspect America, but plastic bags have blown all the way across the world to land there. Ships cannot sail there because their propellers and keels would get stuck in plastic bags and it's very hard to float your boat on plastic. You can try but you won't be going anywhere. Check it out here
I am horrified and have dispensed with using plastic bags forthwith. Except our dear Auckland Council says we Westies still have to use bright orange ones or they won't collect our rubbish (for now). I can imagine they are bright orange so that if they do float out to sea they can readily be collected again. All other bags I am refusing and have stowed my trusty calico library bag in my handbag in case I do any shopping in which I need to carry things in.
Because I don't fancy eating plastic fish and you cannot compost plastic bags.
Another thing I have learned is, we really should go back to using potties again and emptying it into the garden because...and this is the thing - our sewage system is no good. And we are wasting precious rainwater flushing out toilets. We didn't learn about septic tanks or sewerage systems but an awful lot about composting toilets.
My thoughts are further investigation is needed. Where does our poo go? I have no idea. I hope it doesn't end up in Mission Bay.
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Other gardening news. Woodside have funding for getting a fence hooray we can grow climbers on, and new additions to Camellia bed include rain lilies, more parsley, a cyclamen. Mum cut some bok choy for dinner..and but when she saw me eat a walnut commented that I didn't crack them myself, whereas I never commented that she didn't grow the bok choy herself so why should she eat it? Why do mums always do the stuff they accuse other people of? Is it a mum thing to make a big deal over nothing? I don't know but it's really starting to annoy me. But I am not allowed to talk back and do the same thing like point out when she does the exact same thing, because then Dad hears this argument and then starts yelling at Mum telling her to not say anything...because what am I supposed to do, just never eat any walnuts that Mum has cracked already? Give me a break! The walnuts do not care who cracks them! They just want to be eaten!!!
This is why I garden so I don't have to stay inside the house and hear angry contentious wives nagging all the time. Living alone in a retirement village apartment rooftop is suddenly becoming very appealing. It's only 2 kilometres away but completely off the bus route (you now have to take two separate buses to get there and walk up a hill) so Mum can't just visit, and I will not have a phone so she can't call me. Yes. When I win lotto.
