The Greening of Gavin

Green Quick Tips – Worm, Bottle Water, Bathrooms, and Kitchen Waste

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I am pleased with the response that this podcast has received, with lots of people listening and providing feedback via email.  So far, five episodes have been published, and they cover a wide range of topics.

I really enjoy producing them.  Like the title suggests, they are quick (less than 5 minutes in length), and there are three new episodes per week.

So what I will do from this week going forth is to publish a weekly omnibus at the start of the week, so that no one misses out and that you don’t get overwhelmed with podcast content each day.

Don’t forget that you can leave questions and comments below, including suggestions for topic that you are interested in.  I will endeavour to cater to all suggestions if I have some expertise in the subject.

For those who would like to catch up, here are Green Quick Tips two through five.  Enjoy!

Episode Two – Green Quick Tips – Ideas on how to reduce kitchen waste including food scraps and packaging.

Episode Three – Green Quick Tip – Saving water in the bathroom can stop money going down the drain!

Episode Four – Green Quick Tip – Setting up a worm farm.  

Not only will they eat most of your kitchen scraps except meat, citrus, and onions, but they will provide you with liquid gold in the form of worm wee!

Episode Five – Green Quick Tips – The truth about bottled water.  

Once you have tap, you never go back!

For those of you who want to directly download visit the podcast web site at ggqt.podbean.com

Also, as Apple have accepted the podcast in the iTunes directory, you can now subscribe using the button below.

Until next time, stay keen and go green!

In Defence Of Tap

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I love tap water, in fact that is all I drink. There are none of those trumped up claims attached to tap water except that it is safe and cheap to drink. Even if you don’t think the fluoride that they add to it is any good for you, you can simply filter it out with little effort.

If you are some of the few fortunate humans on the planet to be connected to clean drinking water, then there is no better place to go if you are thirsty. Once you have had tap, you won’t go back!

On the other hand, there is bottled water, which is a product that is usually no cleaner than the water that flows from your tap. The so called demand for this product is purely manufactured by beverage companies trying to make a buck, and sucker us along for the ride.

So what is the real story about bottled water, and that of our tap water? Well, I did some research and found a few videos that explain it all.

Firstly to lay down the foundations, here is The Story of Bottled Water by Annie Leonard.

Next is one of my favourites, Tear Of a Cloud, by Do The Green Thing. When life’s a bitch, grab a Mitch!  This is a parody of manufactured demand.

Then finally, there is another little ditty about Tap (water that is), called Tip, Top, Tap and is a little like a Noel Coward song! Again this video is by Do The Green Thing.

If you are not convinced that bottled water is actually worse for us, the planet, and uses valuable resources that we are quickly running out of, then here are some stats from Green Times who source part of the data from The Australasian Bottled Water Institute Inc which is an industry lobby group:

  • Australians spent $385 million on 250 million litres of bottled water in 2006. 
  • It takes 3.4 megajoules of energy to make a typical one-litre plastic bottle — or 850 million megajoules to bottle 250 million litres of water. 
  • A barrel of oil has 6000 megajoules, so it takes 141,666 barrels of oil to make the PET plastic. 
  • The energy required to bring bottled water to market — converting the PET plastic into bottles, bottling the water, transporting and refrigerating the bottled water — means the amount of oil required equals 20 per cent of the bottle’s volume. 
  • For 250 million litres of water, which equals 50 million litres of oil — 314,465 barrels of oil. 
  • In addition to the water in bottles, twice as much water is also used in the production process. So that every litre sold represents three litres of water. 
  • Drinking water out of a tap uses only 0.2 megajoules according to EPA Victoria.
Tap is clean, tap is ultra cheap, and best of all most homes have a supply of it.  All you need is a glass or cup to put it in which you can reuse, over and over again.
Ahh, so refreshing!

Water Drama

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We had a bit of a water problem here today.  Here is how the story panned out.

Kim decided to do a bit of weeding in the front garden, and plans to do one bed a day for the next week.  As she was weeding the first bed around the garden tap, she noticed that the ground was particularly wet compared to the other beds.  The weeds were also much higher around this area as well.  She checked the tap for leaks but found none, so she began to dig a little deeper, literally!

She dug down next to the pipe connected to the tap and found that as it was galvinised pipe, it had begun to rust.  The water also began to pool as she dug deeper, which indicated that there was an underground leak.  She called me up at work to let me know and decided to turn off the mains at the meter and call a plumber.

About an hour and a half later, our regular plumber turned up, and found that the pipe had burst due to rust and he told Kim that it should have been copper.  Who ever installed it should have known not to bury steel pipe as it rusts over time.  He was worried that the horizontal pipe leading into the house might be the same, and would have to be replaced, so fingers crossed he kept digging.  Kim told me that she breathed a sigh of relief when the plumber told her that the horizontal pipe was copper so all he had to do was replace the riser, which he did.  Kim even found a nice piece of 2×4″ hardwood plank to bury and attach the tap to give it rigidity.  It was a great job and the plumber only charged her $160 for two hours work and parts including call out fee.  I was most impressed.  If the horizontal water pipe had have been galvanised instead of copper, we would have been up for thousands to replace it, and a totally trashed fruit orchard to boot.  A big well done to Kim for taking decisive action and stopping the flow.

Now, as for how much water was lost and how long it was broken for, the plumber couldn’t guess.  I did an inspection when I got home at 1530 due to a splitting headache, and found that the ground around the pipe was saturated to a radius of about 4-5 meters.  That is a lot of water, however, as there was no surface run-off, it was all saved in the soil, which is the best place for it.  Tomorrow I will dig up (pardon the pun) our last water bill for the previous reading, and do an estimate based on the current total less our daily average consumption.  That should be a fair indicator on how much soaked into the soil.  I bet I am in for a shock.

Looking on the bright side, I can see a Cox Orange Pippin apple and two Plum trees that are going to love all of that stored underground water in the spring time.  As our soil is a heavy clay, it should stay moist for a very long time.

So a lesson for all. If you see particularly tall weeds concentrated in one spot, have a deeper look into what may be causing it.  You may be in for a nasty surprise.