It’s nice when ideas just come together. Inspiration strikes and two unrelated concepts slide neatly together to create a working solution that seems so obvious you wonder why you didn’t think if it earlier.

Thanks to my malfunctioning mammaries, we have a growing collection of formula tins. Such a useful sized tin, I just can’t bring myself to throw the them out (in the recycling bin, of course). I know, I know, I’m going to have to eventually, after all, we go through about one a week so by the time bub stops needing formula we’ll have collected over 50 of the things.

So apart from the obvious (using the tins as containers for other stuff), I’ve been looking for ideas to reuse the tins.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the fact that the only part of our garden that gets sun for a good portion of the year is the fence. A hanging garden had come to mind to make the most of this sunny space.

And that is where my two problems intersect into a free (or very cheap) hanging formula tin garden. What do you think?

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According to our local council website, Australians produce over 18 million tonnes of waste per year — the equivalent of three million garbage trucks full of compacted rubbish. Each Australian family contributes enough rubbish each year to fill a three-bedroom house from floor to ceiling.

However, recycling not only keeps garbage out of landfill, it also conserves raw materials and saves on energy to manufacture new products. And that’s what being frugal is about: not only saving money, but conserving resources. Some interesting facts on recycling:

• Every 1 tonne of paper and cardboard recycled saves 13 trees, 2/5 barrels of oil, 4,100 kWh of electricity, 4 cubic metres of landfill space and 31,780 litres of water
• Recycling 1 tonne of plastics saves enough energy to run a refrigerator for a month.
• Recycling one aluminium can will save enough energy to run an TV for 3 hours
• Every tonne of steel recycled saves 1,131kg of iron ore, 633kg of coal and 45kg of limestone
• Steel is 100% recyclable and can be recycled over and over without needing to add virgin raw materials
• Making glass from recycled materials requires only 40% of the energy needed to make glass from virgin raw materials because recycled glass melts at a lower temperature.

According to the Australian Bureau of Stats, only about 7% of households recycle all recyclable materials, despite 95% of those survey agreeing that recycling is important. One of the reasons given for not recycling is confusion over what is recyclable and how to go about recycling.

I was one of the confused. Below is a general guideline that explains what and how to recycle in the household.

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A little while ago, I came across the wrap-n-mat for holding sandwiches and really liked the idea. The wrap-n-mat holds your sandwich and then couples as a placemat / napkin. These wrap-n-mats are pretty expensive though, but I’ve come across a way that you can make one of these at home with recycled plastic bags.

Chica and Jo have created a tutorial for making a sandwich wrap from fusing together old plastic shopping bags and stitching on a cotton backing and some velcro.

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They say that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. And when you think about it, we throw out a whole lot of ‘junk’. But what if instead of constantly buying ‘new junk’ we repurposed what we had and kept it out of landfill. Not only would we be reducing our environmental impact, we’d be saving a whole heap of money as well.

While regular recycling is a great thing to do and we should be recycling as much as possible, it’s not the perfect solution. Of course, not buying waste in the first place is a good start, but not always very practical. Repurposing things keeps them out of the waste cycle for longer.

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Photo by Sekihan

We use fabric shopping bags. Some are string ones, others are calico. We rarely get plastic shopping bags anymore.

Whenever I talk about ditching the shopping bag, I am always asked with some scepticism “What do you put your garbage in then?” My answer: when it comes to garbage, it’s time to think outside the (dirt) box.

You would probably agree with me if I said that it was silly to not use shopping bags for the garbage but go and buy bin liners. We don’t do that either.

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Have you seen the Glad Wrap ad lately? The one where Julie from Masterchef covers her potato salad with cling wrap and then puts it on the table. Then the family immediately sits down to eat but not before the cling wrap saves the day by protecting the salad from a wayward cricket ball?

What happens to the cling wrap when dinner is finished? Thrown in the bin?

I think I’ve said this before, but our disposable mentality is kind of funny, except that it has a serious ramification. Waste.

I mean, we pay good money to buy something that we use only once, then throw it away so that we can go out and spend more money buying exactly the same item again to use once and so on…

And we wonder why we have no money. Does this seem ridiculous to you? Apart from a few valid exceptions, surely it makes more financial and environmental sense to steer clear of disposables and save money on our food storage. I think the two whole extra minutes (or less) it takes to wash up a container or a baggie is worth it.

So when storing food in the fridge or freezer, what are some alternatives to using plastic cling wrap?

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Photo by sepponet

We’ve been doing a bit of decluttering lately. One of the items that we needed to dispose of was an old and broken PC tower. We were able to sell the old telly, but rescuing the PC tower was beyond our expertise.

I did a bit of research and came across a Planet Arc website called Recycling Near You, that provided locations for recycling e-waste. Your local council should also provide advice as to where you can recycle e-waste including monitors, TV’s, mobile phones and batteries etc.

My endeavour to recycle one PC tower took me on a journey of discovery regarding the waste disposal management of our local region.

It’s been a while since the PC broke, so I can’t remember what went wrong, but I know that of all the parts, it was only one that broke. I was sure that this part could be replaced and the PC given a second life. So we took it down to our local Computer Recycler, found on the Planet Arc website.

I was wrong in my assumption. The fella at the shop told me that it was not worth the bother to recycle the parts or the casing, he just gave it to the council for them to dump.

I’ve mentioned before my growing concern with the amount that we waste. You can image that after trying to recycle properly, I was a bit perturbed at being told it was in vain.

So I rang our local council. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. What do they do with e-waste? The news was both good and bad. Good, that they don’t just dump old PCs etc, they send it to a metal business to recover and melt down the metals such as the silver, gold and nickel used in the manufacture. Bad, because then they dump the rest.

Surely it seems a much better option to reuse the parts as they are rather than dump it. Not everyone wants a state of the art PC, and the case is perfectly fine, even if the parts aren’t!

The interesting thing is that while I was on hold at the council, a bulletin came across informing me that our local region’s landfill will reach capacity in less than five years, and the council are now calling for resident’s input into ways to reduce waste. The council website has a lot of information about recycling in the area, waste management strategies and a proposal for future planning. And an online survey. What do I think we could do to reduce our waste?

I had one idea.

Why reduce waste

Whose responsibility is our waste management? Once our garbage goes into the bin, it’s becomes a matter of out of sight, out of mind for most of us. We think of it as someone else’s responsibility – like the council’s. But we are each contributing to a growing problem and the responsibility I think, lies at least in part with us.

It’s our own backyards so to speak, that this waste is ending up in. It’s deforested areas. It’s potential farmland. And the problem isn’t just at the end of the consumer cycle – disposal of an end product, there is all the waste in between from extracting resources, manufacture, packaging, as well as final disposal. Somewhere over the last 60 odd years, we developed a throw away mentality. It’s time to reverse that trend.

How to reduce waste.

1. Consume less

Waste reduction begins at consumption. There’s an ad on the telly at the moment that really makes my blood boil. It’s for McCain’s baby vegies, (if you remember those awful baby cooing noises the actors are doing over a bowl of peas!). Each portion of peas are individually wrapped for your convenience. So you have several plastic bags inside another plastic bag, which most of us put into yet another plastic (shopping) bag – all of which end up in the bin.

Choosing less wasteful options at the supermarket, will reduce waste. Consider the packaging before buying, choose products with less, no or recyclable packaging, take your own bags, shop at markets where food and goods aren’t all wrapped in plastic.

2. Reuse what you can

Reusing things keeps them out of the waste cycle. Reusing items may be a simple as refashioning an old container for a new purpose, or buying second hand.

I’ve written about Gomi Style before – a movement aimed at creatively reusing ‘waste’. As per their manifesto, their philosophy is to

“…strive to give renewed life and purpose to existing materials and technologies, so it is obviously pro-recycle and pre-cycle, but it is not anti-consumer. GOMI materials were consumer goods – perhaps they’re past their obvious prime, but still useful and viable to the creative eye.”

Check out their videos for some creative recycling ideas.

3. Recycle everything else

Recycling is great, but it’s not the best option. To recycle our waste uses a lot of energy and resources. And as my experience with our local council shows, our best recycling intentions aren’t necessarily being followed through by our authorities. But recycling is better than landfill! If you’re not sure what or how to recycle, get onto your local council and find out about their services and recommendations. If you feel that they aren’t doing enough in the way of recycling, then have your say. We often have the loudest voice at local council level.

If you’re interested in looking further into the consumption cycle and waste management, there’s a fantastic video by Annie Leonard called The Story of Stuff which takes us from extraction to disposal and examines the trends and effects of our consumption. Apart from the video, there’s a whole heap of resources on the site as well.

Photo by Cesar R

By household products I’m referring in particular to cleaners, detergents and air freshener, but also cosmetics and other products that are usually manufactured with chemicals like bug spray. I mean bug spray! This is a product designed to kill things. And yet we breath this in, believing that it is safe for human consumption?

For me, this is a no brainer. Many of the people I know smile indulgently and think I’m a bit of a wacko. They think that my concerns and beliefs about synthetic products are unfounded. Do the reading and make your own decision. Below are the reasons why I find making my own household products is a no brainer.

1. Making your own saves you money

It’s been a long time since I’ve bought commercial cleaners so I checked out Coles online to compare costs. The cheapest all purpose cleaner was their home brand cleaner in a spray bottle for $1.99 for 100ml. I estimate the one I use to cost about 10c for 100ml. Cheapest air freshener: home brand $2.11, I use a few pricey essential oils but the cost would be less than 50c per 100ml.

What makes commercial cleaners and other household products really expensive is that they are made up of mostly water. Up to 80-90% water in some cases – then add chemicals. For me, I question the legitimacy of paying $2+ for a bottle of mostly water.

2. Homemade products are effective.

I’ve been using home made cleaners for years and find them to be effective. Bicarb soda is a little miracle cleaner, it will clean anything.

I know that a lot of people are worried about bacteria. Watch a few minutes of TV and this fear is exploited by advertisers pushing their products. While good hygiene is essential, as a society we’ve tended to take this too far. If you’re concerned about using home made products because of bacteria, you may wish to read up on the subject on the net. There is a plethora of information about how this fear of bacteria is not only for the most part misplaced, but is also hazardous to our health. Having said that, I do use tea tree oil in my cleaner. Tea tree oil is a very powerful natural anti bacterial agent. I try aim for a balance between good hygiene and over doing it. Where some people see a bench with bacteria (no thanks to advertising) I see a bench laden with chemicals that comes in contact with the food that I eat. Mmm yum.

3. It’s easy.

To whip up a bottle of cleaner or air freshener takes less than 2 minutes, it’s just a matter of mixing the ingredients in the bottle and away you go. Some cosmetics take longer, although if you’re moisturising with olive oil or exfoliating with sugar, then there is really no effort at all.

4. You reduce the amount of synthetic chemicals you and your family are exposed to.

The average person is exposed to thousands of synthetic chemicals a day, most of which are inside the home. Despite thinking about pollution as being something ‘outside’, the inside of our homes are often more toxic. There are literally tens of thousands of chemicals in everyday products most of which have never been tested for safety. Products are often deemed unsafe only after there have been complaints made by consumers.

Not only have most individual synthetic chemicals never been tested for safety, no chemical has ever been tested over time. There is no understanding of what these chemicals are doing to our health over years of exposure. What we do know is that the population’s health issues are growing worse. Some people believe this is linked to chemical exposure. If you’re interested in reading up on this, a great book to read is Paula Baillie-Hamilton’s Stop the 21st Century Killing You: Toxic Chemicals Have Invaded Our Lives. Fight Back! Eliminate Toxins, Tackle Illness, Get Healthy and Live Longer. Is our worsening health really due in part to exposure to household chemicals? Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t want to take the chance.

Further to this, the synthetic chemicals in our products are not tested in combination. Remember high school chemistry? You mix two chemicals together and you get an entirely new chemical. So what affect does exposure to the combination of chemicals in our household products have on our health? And not just those in a single product. But what is affect is the chemical combination of my moisturise  in combination with my cleanser? And these products are all absorbed into the body and interact on a cellular level. So what is the affect of the chemicals in the household cleaner  combined with the artificial flavours in the food that we eat?

Just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it is safe. And the same could probably be said for synthetic chemicals – just because it’s synthetic, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s toxic. But our natural products have been used by humans over thousands of years, their safety and effectiveness tested over that period. Synthetic chemicals, on the other hand have only been used for the last 50 years or so. They have not been rigorously tested and their long term safety will not be adequately assessed for many years to come.

5. You reduce the amount of synthetic chemicals going into our environment either air born or down the drain or leaching into the earth at landfill.

Every time we use a spray with synthetic chemicals, it’s air pollution. Every time we wash cleaner down the drain, it’s water pollution. Chemicals leaching out of containers in landfill is pollution of the land and the underlying water table. Environmental awareness is certainly increasing, but I’m not sure we really think about the cumulative impact of such small everyday actions that millions of people make has on the environment. As ‘consumers’ we have a lot of power when it comes to what big business do and don’t do. If we say “no, this is not good enough, the ingredients you put in your products does not conform to my personal values,” then business will be driven to change, because they will do whatever it takes to make a profit.

6. You use the same container over and over reducing the amount that you contribute to landfill and also the environmental impact of producing the container and the product.

Spray and wipe, floor cleaner, shower cleaner, toilet cleaner, washing detergent, air freshener, shampoo…I’m not sure how many bottle of each an average household goes through each year, but they add up. (Most of these cleaning products are almost exactly the same with different labels so that the companies can make more money out of us!) Times that by how many households in Australia. Times that by 10, 20, 30, 100 years. That’s a lot of landfill.

But it’s not just at the landfill end that endlessly consuming these products impacts the environment. There is the pollution from the extraction of resources and the manufacture of the product and the packaging. Plastic is made from petroleum by-product. The impact on the environment for a single bottle of cleaner that we thoughtlessly toss away when it’s finished is huge.

Yes we can recycle the packaging of many products. Recycling is good. We should recycle as much as we can. But recycling pollutes and it’s not an overall, long term solution.

Making your own stops the cycle of waste. Yes, I use a plastic bottle. Not ideal, I know. But I have used the same plastic bottle for all my cleaning purposes for over 5 years now, so our waste is significantly reduced.

7. Essential oils are purported to having medicinal qualities so if this is true, then there is a possible health benefit to making your own.

I love the smell of my toilet spray. It is mostly citrus essential oils because these are the cheapest! But I like citrus, it’s a refreshing smell (and is considered safe during pregnancy!) According to the essential oil book that I have, citrus oils are meant to energise and relieve fatigue. I’m not sure I believe in the therapeutic benefits, but if it’s true, then it’s a bonus. And the smells are enjoyable. I love hanging out the washing with the fresh smell of lavender wafting around the yard. This smell goes away once the clothes dry, but comes back again when you iron them. So even if there are no therapeutic benefits, essential oils still smell good and smell is one of those little things that make a house a home.

I’m sure there are other good reasons for making your own household products. I can’t really think of a downside. Essential oils can be expensive up front, but a little goes a long way and last ages, so the cost is mitigated. You do have to be careful with essential oils, keeping them away from children, not ingesting them etc, so I guess ‘safe’ and ‘non-toxic’ is relative. But overall, the benefits of making your own household products from natural ingredients far outweighs any possible downsides.

I’ve been looking for some extra ways to recycle things around our house.

When it comes to recycling it’s easy to get lazy and just chuck everything in the bin, or not rinse things first, or not hoard stuff “just in case”.

Our body corporate hasn’t put in recycling bins due to “lack of room” so everything goes to the tip, which is a big guilt trip for me.

Really, after compiling this list, I am only limited by imagination as to finding ways to recycle things around the house and I have been re-motivated to reduce our waste.

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Photo by threadless.com

I’ve been going MacGyver style a lot lately. I’m on a role. There is no problem in our house too big for duct tape.

The great thing about being frugal is that every day is a  challenge to solve problems, fill needs and fix things around the house with no cash down.

It’s easy to spend money. It’s easy to shop for a ready-made-solution. Our houses are full of ready-made-solutions to everyday problems.

But if we want to keep our hard earned cash in our pockets, we need to get out our creative brains into gear.

When people talk about being creative we think of basket weaving or interpretive dance. We think strange clothes and bohemian living.

But being creative is not just about painting the Mona Lisa or composing a Symphony no.9, it’s about using your noggin to generate useful solutions to everyday problems.

Don’t think that you’re not creative. I’m here to tell you that you are. You exercise your creativity every single day.

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