Low Impact

I’ve been playing around with making paper bricks as a substitute for firewood. One small issue is that I don’t actually have a fireplace at my current house, but I’m not going to let a trivial thing like that hold me back!

So what’s the concept? Its pretty simple. You soak some newspaper in water, put it in brick mold, squish out the water and leave it to dry. The brick maker I’m using and a sample brick are pictured. You end up with a compressed brick of newspaper that you can throw in your slow-combustion fireplace.

Getting the brick maker can be a little… Continue reading

Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) are fantastic little inventions - they use only a quarter (or less) of the electricity of an incandescent globe, and can last 6 to 10 times as long. It turns out that replacing 4 of your 100 watt incandescent globes with CFL alternatives can save almost half a tonne of CO2 emissions every year. As an added bonus, when you factor in the savings on your electricity bill with their longer life, they end up saving you money over old-style globes.

(You might also be interested in having a look at this post on Low Impact, with hints and tips on how to best to use CFL lights.)

Still, there is one issue to be aware of… Continue reading

Canberra has a great recycling setup - once a fortnight they collect the recycling bin that can take a pretty wide range of materials. But I wasn’t sure what to do with my growing collection of useless CDs.

I’m not alone in this - the web abounds with people proposing various ways of re-using old CDs as people find their collection of CDs from magazine covers, newspapers, misburnt personal CDs, old music, etc growing and growing. Some of these ideas are pretty neat - and re-use is always better than recycling - but I have a lot of old CDs!

So I sent an email off to my local government asking if I could put CDs in my recycle bin. Within 24 hours they’d responded. Unfortunately, no, local facilities couldn’t handle… Continue reading