Day 1 - Sunday: CONSUMPTION

Instructions for today:

1. Type up a list of all the stuff you “need” to buy this week.  Delete the items that you can live without for the week. For the rest of the items, figure out if you can purchase them second-hand, borrow them, or make them yourself.

2. Put an empty re-usable bag in a private place at home. Throughout the day, fill it up with all of your trash, recyclables, and food waste. If you’re out of the house, carry your trash home with you. Make sure that nobody else’s trash gets in there but your own.
This will help you get ready for Monday’s challenge.

3. Just for this week, try not to shop for new items.  Will you find something better to do with your time and money?  Could you use this time to spend with friends instead?

Sunday was my usual routine:

• 09:30 am working in our community garden
• 12:30 pm back home to hibernate, hide from the heat and catch up on some reading
• 05:30 pm back to the garden to finish off some chores we had to leave because the sun was beating down on us... and the plants

Not a thought to "go forth and consume" crossed my mind. 't Was just another lovely, laid back Sunday.

I've become much more mindful of my consumption urges over the past few years. Especially since I had to wade through all our stuff 3 years ago when we moved here from Belgium. I had to sort everything out and decide what to ship to Australia. A very good exercise to learn restraint of one's hoarding habits. I've also been inspired by Dave Bruno's My 100 Things Challenge and other minimalist/simple living advocates to minimise and consolidate my stuff as much as possible (my list is longer than 100 things though... can't seem to get there).

I'm not into fashion or the latest techno-gadget craze. My weakness is books... Last year I decided to go digital as much as possible to minimise my impact. I signed up for a Safari Books Online account and now use Stanza to read purchased e-books. However, I must admit, reading a book on a screen is not quite as pleasurable... Then again, digital does have lots of great advantages: search, annotations... 

As instructed, I put aside a couple of bags to collect my trash (2 bio-degradable doggy-bags used to carry home harvest from the garden). So far:

• bag 1: empty aluminium coffee pod
• bag 2: coffee grind from pod, vegetable food scraps and harvested vedgies that showed evidence of stowaways (bugz) - all this stuff goes straight into our Bokashi bin, to ferment and concoct super-duper fertiliser for the garden

I think the main challenge this week will be sourcing locally grown, organic, unpackaged produce. I already did some snooping around and our regular green grocers in North Sydney and Kirribilli don't seem to be stocking much of that. Most of it seems to be import?!  My share of the community garden harvest is organic and local, but only attributes to one or two meals per week.  Hmm... conundrum.

Day 2 - Monday: TRASH

Instructions for today:

1. Empty your special trash bag from yesterday. Separate the items into two piles: stuff that you used for more than ten minutes, and stuff you used for less than ten minutes. How does this make you feel? (Now put everything back in the bag and put it aside for the week.)

2. Put together a no-trash travel kit for the week with a reusable drinking receptacle for hot and cold liquids, a handkerchief/old t-shirt, Tupperware®, utensils, and reusable produce bags.

3. Stop making trash. Reduce it. Reuse it. Recycle it.  Just don’t throw it away. Keep a special bag at home or the office to collect trash you make by mistake or necessity throughout the week.

Continued to collect my rubbish (well, our rubbish - my husband hasn't joined the experiment and we haven't separated our trash). However, the food scraps (incl. paper towels) had to go straight into the Bokashi bin, else things would get very smelly, very quickly in this hot weather, and attract nasty cockroaches into our little apartment.

The verdict:
We have to work harder to avoid trash!  So far:

• aluminium coffee pods (empty, grind in Bokashi bin)
• wine glass wine bottle
• aluminium cans (no BPA lining, organic bean salad)
• 2 plastic trays and their plastic wrapping (vine tomatoes, lebanese cucumbers)
• 1 plastic bag (carrots)
• 1 glass bottle and plastic top (PN dressing)

Aluminium cans are a hastle for us to recycle, because they are not picked up by the weekly council garbage rounds. As we don't have a car or bicycle or scooter, we can't easily get to the nearest waste management site. And I can't figure out if they actually take aluminium? We also don't have the space to store goods for recycling.

Recycling is definitely a weak link in Australia. In Belgium council garbage rounds would pick up sorted plastics (not just PET), aluminium, tetra bricks, paper and cardboard. We had glass recycling "domes" nearby to sort our glass by colour.

Looks like we'll need to step things up a bit in the trash department for the rest of the week.

I'm home most of the time, so my no-trash travel kit only consists of 2 reusable bags and a new steel water bottle (my 3 year old plastic one seems to contain BPA). If I do take a snack with me (usually fruit), I just pop it into my bag or wrap it in a used plastic/bio-degrad bag. One thing I'll definitely need to fix is my paper towels / tissues usage. I'll misplace one of my hubby's hankies in my bag for the time being.

Day 3 - Tuesday: TRANSPORTATION / TAKE ACTION

Instructions for today:

1. Take stock of your habits: make a list of everywhere you’re going today and how you usually get there. What alternative modes of transportation could you use instead? Map out your new routes. Log onto your local transit authority’s website for an online trip planner. Pick up a bus schedule and your gym shoes, and plan ahead.

2. Throughout the day, keep a list of everything you eat, where you eat and where you purchase your food. This will help you get ready for Wednesday's challenge.

3. GO! Bike. Walk. Scoot. Glide. Hop on the bus. Carpool.

Transportation was not so much of a challenge.

I already walk or use mass public transport all of the time. Living in the city you really don't need a car. I get everywhere I want to go using my quarterly transport pass, which allows me to hop on a bus, ferry or train in the greater Sydney area. Too easy!

A bicycle would be nice... But I don't have any space to put or hang it, so that will have to stay on the wishlist for now.

The only times we felt the need to rent a car was:

• when we moved appartments to transport big, bulky furniture/applicances
• take advantage of a long weekend and discover a bit more of this beautiful country

Now, for the "Take Action" bit...

At the moment I am involved in 2 organisation related to social change by improving our local community and environment; and also support other local and international environmental organisations. But I might be able to do more...
Will need to investigate further.

So far, so good...

Day 4 - Wednesday: FOOD

Instructions for today:

1. Take your food list from yesterday and calculate your carbon “foodprint.” Did you eat anything grown within 250 miles?. Chose five items from yesterday that were not produced locally and try swapping them out for items that are produced locally.

2. For this week define your own limits. Will you only buy food grown within 100 miles of your home, or food only grown in the U.S. (Oz in our case)? Will you give up beef or try veganism? Since you aren’t consuming packaged products (which create trash), your choices may be easier than you think.

3. Dig in! Bicycle to a farmers’ market. Learn some new recipes. Invite friends over for a potluck. Keep track of your food choices. Ask yourself throughout the day: what are the most challenging aspects of adjusting your food habits?

Wow, today’s challenge is challenging! I have no idea how far most of my food has travelled to get to me.

Ah, now here's the rub...

I suspected that finding seasonal, organic, preferably unpackaged, local (within 100 miles/+160 km - e.g. Newcastle is approx. 155km away) produce in and around North Sydney would be a problem.

Local green grocers in Kirribilli and North Sydney mostly have Australian grown, but Australia is a BIG place... Food miles quickly clock up, even if it is Australian grown. Doesn't quite fit the above "local" bill.

My share of our weekly harvest from our Milson Community Garden in Kirribilli doesn't cover our needs.

It looks like we'll have to stock up during our local farmers markets or go further afield to source "local" produce.

Another option would be to join an organic produce co-op (as Vaike did during her No Impact Week experiment). Haven't found one in my area yet though... Again, needs more investigating.

Day 5 - Thursday: ENERGY

Instructions for today:

1. Assess current energy consumption habits. Walk from room to room in your home. List everything in each room that uses energy to operate (i.e., electricity, oil, gas, batteries). Put a star next to any item that you would ordinarily use in the remaining four days of your No Impact Experiment.

2. Next to each starred item, indicate if you are going to ELIMINATE or MITIGATE your usage of that item. Not sure how to live without your fill in the blank? Brain-storm and spark a conversation with others Online.

3. Unplug! Turn it off. Power down. Go off the grid. For the truly adventurous, turn off your electricity completely and see what happens.

This is one of the areas I know we need to improve on.

Currently we have a 50% green energy contract, but I'd like to increase this to 100%. However, it's is a bit of a "con" really. Where we live, we can't actually get green energy... So, we are now paying extra which goes towards our energy provider "sourcing" green energy for... future supplies?!

Of course, it's not just about signing up for green energy. Not wasting energy to begin with is the most important factor, I think.

We bought an energy meter pack in December and have been monitoring our usage. It's definitely an eye-opener.

My computer is on most of the day... My husbands' computer an hour and a half in the morning and approx. 4 hours during the evenening. And, we have the TV on for approx. 4 hours each evenening (even if we're not actually watching it because we're sitting in front of our computers). I know... Spank me!

My husband in particular has lots of gadgets and devices plugged in and soaking up energy (day and night). He doesn't succumb to my nagging about vampire energy wastage... He believes standy mode uses less energy than actually turning devices off and back on again. As for his computer, it's pure convenience, he says, to keep it on standy.

He did help to rig up my computer so I can fully turn it off, despite our wire spaghetti set up. I also always check after him using an appliciance, to turn the electrical plug switches off...

We do try to conserve energy:

• dry our clothes on the line
• use energy efficient light bulbs and minimise lighting all together
• don't have aircon and hardly ever use our fan on extremely hot days
• only run a full washing machine
• only run a full dishwasher machine with eco water saving selection on
• no elevator here... it's a stairmaster

I know... it's all a bit pathetic at the moment. Oh well, lots of opportunity for improvement...

Day 6 - Friday: WATER

Instructions for today: 

1. Assess your current water habits from the moment you hit the snooze button until bedtime. Calculate your approximate water footprint and figure out the water footprint of your food here.

2. Create a list of the water you will likely consume today (not exact measurements, just general usage). Think about where you use water: at home, at work, church or school, on the go, and eating out. This will help you think about how you use water.

3. BEGIN! Turn off the faucet. Run the water gently when needed. Soak the dishes. Sponge -bathe.

Day 7 - Saturday: GIVING BACK

Instructions for today:

1. Make a list of all the ways you contribute to your community now. Do you watch your neighbor’s kids for free? When’s the last time you held open a door for a stranger? Do you write checks to charity or volunteer on occasion? How can you step up what you’re already doing and do more?

2. Make a list with three columns: 1) all the charities you’d love to help out, 2) why you feel you can’t, and 3) how you can address and remove those barriers. Do your barriers — as legitimate as they may seem to you — outweigh the importance of participating? Remember: you needn’t become an “activist” or even a leader to be active in your community! Simply participating in an ongoing project is giving back and living your values.

3. Practice what you preach. Give. Do. Help. Change. In other words, sign up today to volunteer for a local environmental cause.

Day 8 - Sunday: ECO-SABBATH

Instructions for today:

1. How do you usually spend your day off? Consider how different — if at all — this day will be.

2. Plan your day: how do you need to prepare for a day in which you don’t use any of your appliances, electronics, motorized transport, or money? You may wish to make plans in advance to share your Eco-Sabbath with others.

3. Stop everything.

4. At the end of the day don’t track your impact! Be- 
cause this is your day to relax, reflect, and unplug, 
don’t worry about sharing your experience with the 
rest of us. Keep this one for yourself.

5. Remember the bag of trash you collected last Sun- 
day? At the end of the day, take that bag out and 
empty the contents. Now take the other bag of trash 
“mistakes” that you’ve been collecting throughout 
the week and empty the contents. By being consci- 
entious this week about reducing your trash, did you 
create more or less trash since Monday than you did 
last Sunday?