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Sustainable Sharing

Thursday, 26 February 2009

The Sustainable Melbourne Round Table on Sustainable Sharing was on tonight! It's (sadly) the first one I've been to, but certainly not the last... It ran in conjunction with the eco city design competition run by the eco innovation lab and it was absolutely superb. It gives me such hope for the world to find out how committed people are! It's just getting over some of the inertia that's really difficult. It was really lovely to go with the girls from work too and get their opinions on the architectural and hard engineering sides of the ideas presented...

A quick overview because these ideas certainly warrant a plug:

• The Clothing Exchange: Dedicated to releasing fashion waste from closets! You pay an entrance fee, bring along 6 items of clothing you value but no longer wear and exchange them for buttons... After all the clothes are hung up everyone runs around and finds items to exchange their buttons for! Remaining clothing is donated to charity. Simple and effective!
• The Green Hanger: A simple idea. Replace unrecyclable wire hangers with cardboard hangers made from recaptured waste. In the dry cleaning and retail sectors this idea has already taken off!
• Permablitz: Probably the idea that spoke to me the most! Basically a group of people who get together and do a permaculture 'backyard blitz' on people's home gardens. Attend 3 permablitzes and a large group of volunteers will come to your house, plant a vegie garden and design it beautifully as well!
• Herdshare: Another simple idea... rather than own a share of a race horse or a greyhound, own a share of a cow and have fresh raw milk for life!
• Grow Local: Barter the food you grow in your own backyard... Swap your excess tomatoes or potatoes for something sweet and delicious like cherries! You can attend on the first Saturday of each month at Smith Reserve, Alexander Parade, Fitzroy.
• Compost Mates: From what I can gather a compost sharing project... Local community members pick up food scraps from apartments, local businesses and schools and use the rich soil to fertilise a community or home garden... Surprisingly, the compost enriched plants all survived the heat wave without an issue!
• Ironbark Sustainability: Probably the most 'switched on' of the presenters (or the least hippie-like. The presenter was an engineer which helped, but basically Ironbark has identified a major issue in public lighting. It's owned by the power companies, but paid for by the councils. Obviously a major incentive for the power companies not to save energy! This group retrofits energy saving devices to existing lighting and lobbies for control by the Councils!
• Solar Yarra Program: The City of Yarra was the first council in Australia to organise bulk discount purchases for PV cells for residents. This is the program we're now on with our council! A very discounted rate for PV cells because they organise many community members to buy together. It's great to see councils moving over the hurdle of not being able to recommend specific products and really aiding the community in practical ways!
• Banyule Co-Housing Project: This works on addressing the urgent housing needs to enable people to get into sustainable housing and community building lifestyles aiming for effective economic savings in project costs and minimal ongoing "earth and $$$ costs" for the housing created... The commune is back!

A refreshing night of hope!

Labels: hope, ideas

posted by genloz at 11:09 PM 0 Comments