What to Recycle with REDcycle

This post is not going to bore you.
It contains essential household information.
I’m recycling and happy to do it!
Here’s the REDcycle list of scrunchable plastics.

YES PLEASE!

Biscuit packets (outer wrapper only)
Bread bags (without the tie)
Bubble wrap (large sheets cut into A3 size pieces)
Cat and dog food pouches (as clean and dry as possible)
Cellophane from bunches of flowers (cut into A3 size pieces)
Cereal box liners
Chip and cracker packets (silver lined)
Chocolate and snack bar wrappers
Cling Wrap – free of food residue
Confectionery bags
Dry pet food bags
Fresh produce bags
Frozen food bags
Green bags (Polypropylene Bags)
Ice cream wrappers
Large sheets of plastic that furniture comes wrapped in (cut into A3 size pieces)
Netting produce bags (any metal clips removed)
Newspaper and magazine wrap
Pasta bags
Plastic Australia Post satchels
Plastic carrier bags from all stores
Plastic film wrap from grocery items such as nappies and toilet paper
Plastic sachets
Potting mix and compost bags – both the plastic and woven polypropylene types (cut into A3 size pieces and free of as much product as possible)
Rice bags – both plastic and the woven type (if large, cut into A3 size pieces)
Snap lock bags / zip lock bags
Squeeze pouches with lid on (e.g. yogurt/baby food)
Wine bladders – clear plastic ones only
Please make sure your plastic is dry and as empty as possible.

NO THANKS!

Plastic bottles
Plastic containers
Any rigid plastic such as meat trays, biscuit trays or strawberry punnets
Adhesive tape
Balloons (of any kind)
Biodegradable/degradable/compostable plastics
Blister packs, tablets and capsule packaging
Blow up pools and pool toys – plastic or PVC
Bread bag tags
Christmas tinsel and Christmas trees
Coffee bags
Cooler bags
Disposable food handling gloves of any variety
Drinking straws
Film negatives and x-rays
Foam or polystyrene of any kind
Foil / Alfoil of any kind
Food waste
Glass
Laminated materials and overhead transparencies
Medical waste materials
Paper and cardboard
Paper post packs
Plastic/clear vinyl packaging from sheets and doonas etc
Plastic packaging that has contained meat
Plastic strapping used for securing boxes and pallets
Powdered milk packets, made of foil
Rubber, rubber gloves, latex
Tarpaulins
Tin cans
VHS Tape
Wet plastic materials as mould is a problem for us
Wine bladders – foil based
Wrapping paper and cardboard, ribbons or bows

The “NO” items should be recycled in the usual way. Please note the REDcycle Program has been developed for post-consumer household plastic. Participating supermarkets are not obliged to accept large volumes of commercial plastic waste. Please visit http://www.redcycle.net.au/

Well, it might have been a bit boring but I bet it was helpful!

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Hey, I Choose to Reuse

I was unsure if my takeaway coffee cup was recyclable or not. Turns out it wasn’t. The thin liner of plastic made it non-recyclable no matter how much paper is covering the outside.

IMG_20180814_165333 — This coffee cup is lined with plastic film and not recyclable.

IMG_20180814_172955 — This coffee cup lid is recyclable.

I’m going to do my bit to eliminate environmental pollution and stop landfill waste by thinking ahead.

Shops like BioMe have many alternatives to plastic products. Use your own keep-me cup, cutlery, even drinking straw.

IMG_20180822_160521 — Faux cardboard outer and plastic inner liner makes these containers non-recyclable.

Only One Straw Said 8 Million People — No explanation needed…

Be like the knights and pilgrims of old who used their own plate and dagger to eat food.

Or the old-fashioned picnic when everything was brought from home in a wicker basket, and everything (except the yummy food) was taken back home. This may need to be modified but if a child can take a lunchbox to school, why can’t an adult take one to work?

I’ve always been prudent with water consumption (Australia, land of drought) and mindful of electricity usage but Craig Reucassel‘s ABCTV program War On Waste is an eye-opening indictment on the lack of thought we put into the disposal of our single-use products.

In a couple of posts, I have talked about the plastics ban and slow clothing (I’ve purchased bamboo underwear) but not really deliberated food waste. I’m going to buy a Bokashi bucket to ferment and recycle kitchen leftovers (no longer have scrap-eating chickens) and get an outdoor compost bin because I think we all have to make an effort to turn around our throwaway society.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

IMG_20181003_160148 — Very disappointed with iconic CSR sugar refinery, now Sugar Australia Pty Ltd, which has gone from paper to plastic packaging to combining both. Either packaging can be recycled separately but combining paper bag with plastic film liner makes it non-recyclable.

Jane Milburn Slow Clothing Advocate

Slow Clothing reflects author and refashion advocate Jane Milburn’s own unique style, independent of “fast fashion” trends. Upcycled from denim jeans, the dress Jane wore during her talk at a local BCC library had the potential to look strange but was distinctive and quite beguiling.

Jane, sustainability consultant and founder of Textile Beat, touched on several key elements during her talk––environmentally unfriendly fabrics and dyes; sweat shop labour; landfill; passive fashion; synthetic vs natural fibre; signature style and minimal wardrobe. Hot topics included recycle by exchange, shopping tips, Sew It Again mending and creating new from old. Jane tends to hoard fabric offcuts and used buttons, and has a passion for real cotton thread.

Rethinking clothing culture doesn’t mean wearing your clothes until they fall apart at the seams, it means mindful immersion, repairing and refashioning your garments.

An attentive audience, Jane encouraged us to make thoughtful, ethical, informed choices to reduce our clothing footprint on the world. Until recently, she regularly visited charity shops for secondhand garments but is currently resisting the temptation and working with what she’s got. “We believe secondhand is the new organic and mending is good for the soul. In return, we are liberated and satisfied.”

In her book Slow Clothing: finding meaning in what we wear Jane shares insights and upcycling advice. She has created templates like Upcycled Collar and History Skirt, guiding home sewing conversion of a beloved garment to reflect the changes in our lives.

To provide meaning and story to her own favourite pieces, Jane Milburn restyles and sews her clothing by hand. Currently testing t-shirt cotton drawstrings as an alternative to underwear elastic (elastic is made from synthetics) Jane stitches everything by hand.

Help! I can hear you say, nobody has hand-sewn an outfit since the mid-twentieth century––except maybe Vivienne Westwood––but don’t panic, Jane’s book provides testimonials, illustrations and clear instructions for eco-dyes and upside-down jumper skirts through to sewing on a button. Eco-fashionistas unite!

Although Slow Clothing is a multifaceted, easy-to-read book with positive chapter headings (Purpose, Authenticity, Creativity, Action, Autonomy, Reflection) amid the ingenious apparel, I am missing a frivolous note, perhaps a ball gown? On a serious mission, Jane has created a Slow Clothing Manifesto with ten tags to keep in mind when out shopping: think, natural, quality, local, few, care, make, revive, adapt, salvage.

Quotes from Jane embody the Slow Clothing philosophy “Slow Clothing brings wholeness through living simply, creatively and fairly” and “We buy thoughtfully, gain skills, and care for what we wear as an embodiment of ourselves.” Personally I am hoping to see people clutching their Slow Clothing Manifesto cards at an op shop near me.

The current trail Jane Milburn is blazing makes fascinating reading. Arts Queensland, meeting VIPs, War on Waste ABCTV, visiting 103-year-old Misao Jo in Osaka, hosting a Clothing Repair Café, conducting workshops and championing natural-fibre, Jane says “It has been personally satisfying to see the uptake of upcycling as a conscious practice with many young people interested in its potential for customising their clothes.”

Unfortunately I didn’t get to ask Jane Milburn how we go about combating the greed of designer labels. But the clear message is––help reduce landfill by upcycling your clothes to reflect your own unique style.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Three Things #2

READING: Saw the heading “The genre debate: Literary fiction” and I was hooked when Austen aficionado and author Elizabeth Edmondson said “literary fiction is just clever marketing”.
and continued…
In the third of The Guardian’s series on literary definitions “Jane Austen never for a moment imagined she was writing Literature. Posterity decided that––not her, not John Murray, not even her contemporary readership. She wrote fiction, to entertain and to make money.”
followed by…
“Genre fiction is a nasty phrase––when did genre turn into an adjective? But I object to the term for a different reason. It’s weasel wording, in that it conflates lit fic with literature. It was clever marketing by publishers to set certain contemporary fiction apart and declare it Literature––and therefore Important, Art and somehow better than other writing.”
with mandatory…
“Which brings me to the touchy subject of literary snobbery. Perhaps I should call it LitSnob. Lit fic: good. Popular, commercial, trash and pulp fiction: bad.”
there’s more…

Worth reading even if it makes your blood boil––includes 110 comments!
Website https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/apr/21/literary-fiction-clever-marketing-genre-debate

The Guardian report is from her speech given at an Oxford Literary Festival debate and was first published Monday 21 April 2014. Sadly Elizabeth Edmondson (Aston) passed away 11 January 2016. GBW.

Jane Austen by Author Elizabeth Edmondson

LOOKING: Love reading the adult works of author Nick Earls and can brag that I had tenuous, almost ethereal, contact with the man at a book-related charity event. Okay, he was in the same room and he did nod hello. By some weird default in the booking system, I was seated at the head table with Mr Earls and treated like a VIP. I kept getting covert glances from the other diners, socialites wondering who the heck I was. I felt nervous but not intimidated.

Anyway, I have just enjoyed watching a short YouTube video of Nick Earls talking about his children’s book series “Word Hunters: The Curious Dictionary” co-written with Terry Whidborne. Also, author and blogger Kate Forsyth did a good book review.

Promo blurb reads “Twins Lexi and Al Hunter stumble upon an old dictionary and the world as they know it changes. They are blasted into history to hunt down words that threaten to vanish from our past and our present.” And use word nails – sorry, the video is no longer available but you can read the publishers PDF notes for teachers here. GBW.

THINKING: (My apologies because part of this post was accidentally released earlier) Reusing old books, repurposing their mellow covers and yellow pages into something other than pulp––there are good illustrations on this subject but I was musing about reusing the forgotten cotton carry bags in our car boot. Whatever we buy, potatoes, pistachios, mangoes or marshmallows, we will need to bring our own grocery bags to supermarkets in Queensland from 1st July 2018. Plastic bags are banned. The perfect opportunity to reuse single-use carry bags with huge logos on them, like the paper Folio Books bag in muted charcoal with strong handles which currently houses old draft manuscripts.

I’m sure my grandmother’s 1950s wicker shopping basket is in the garage somewhere. It’s the original multiple-use item. Imagine me with the arched handle hooked over my arm, resting in the crook of my elbow, as I peruse the iceberg lettuces for just the right one. A chip off the old block? That’s how my grandmother used to shop with nary a polyethylene-sealed item in sight.

Here’s to the olden days and onward to a cleaner, healthier environment! GBW.

POSTSCRIPT: Every Saturday I change my Home page Photo Of The Week.

Remember, one post with three acts READING, LOOKING, THINKING an idea started by Book Jotter, innovative blogger Paula Bardell-Hedley. Her invitation to participate offers a slight change from ‘Thinking’ to ‘Doing’ if that suits your purpose but I’m sticking with the first format. I can love, like or loathe in three short bursts!

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Bye Bye Plastics

“Put away your plastics” urges Peppermint Magazine “France made history by becoming the first country in the world to ban the use of plastic crockery, cutlery and plates. From 2020 onwards, all French disposable dinnerware will have to be compostable and made from biological instead of petroleum-based material. Because plastic never truly goes away, our over-reliance on it is filling the world’s oceans with eight million tonnes of plastic waste every year, which kills around 100,000 marine creatures annually. In the wake of recent plastic bag bans in many US cities, France’s momentous move is surely a positive sign of things to come – here’s hoping we ditch those single-use synthetics Down Under before too long. Au revoir, plastic!” Page 23, Issue 32 Summer 2016, Peppermint Magazine.

At work I use my own cup, cutlery and plate; a small start but a start nonetheless.

Note: Peppermint Magazine is an independent sustainability magazine published quarterly by The Peppermint Publishing Trust, Brisbane Australia.
Peppermint Lifestyle Magazine

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward