Here is a photograph I captured while on holidays (for the benefit of Nevyn who wanted to see some holiday snaps).

My ideal holiday usally means no TV, phones, Internet – just drop out of contact for awhile.  Especially in today’s information overload, always contactable society I really need and love to turn the ‘noise’ off.

I had a wonderful holiday which gave me plenty of time to think about life directions and green matters.

I have organised for a sustainability audit to be conducted on my residental home now that I am back from holidays.  At this stage I think I would like some professional help in knowing where to go from here.

Of course I’ll share all that I learn and do along the way.

Sarhn

P.S  I missed you!

I wanted to inform you all that I am on holidays.  Friday was actually my last day at work  but we don’t offically leave for our holiday until Monday.  As we will be heading overseas, this blog will be quiet until I return back in the office on the 3rd of December.

I thought I would leave you a slide show, of example wedding photographs that I have captured as a photograper.

Hope it gives you some warm and fuzzy feelings.

I have been working on this video for awhile now.  Any free moment I would do a little bit more to finish it (I have been really busy at work).

This is a very basic and simple illustraion on how we use our Bokashi bin, together with our worm farm to recycle our kicthen organic waste.

The only improvement I could suggest to our system is that we should have two Bokashi bins.  When one is full, we let it sit until the next one is full.  This will give the first bin a longer time to brake down the waste (ie giving the EM powder more time to work).  Then we would simply rotate the bins around. 

Sydney City of Council has created what sounds like to be a  ‘Live Green House’.  From what I understand this house will be on display at Taylor Square North in Darlinghurst from the 15-18 of October. 

“Wander through this transportable interactive urban home and discover sustainable solutions for both house and apartment living. The Live Green House was designed by Terry Bail from Archology, a firm set up to concentrate on projects with an emphasis on sustainability. With practical information and ideas from experts covering topics such as energy, water, waste, rebates and gardening, you’ll be inspired. There’s also a bicycle showcase and a focus on sustainable transport, as well as demonstrations and displays of the latest work from sustainable designers. Be part of City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 Vision for a green, global, connected City and join us in shaping an exciting and sustainable future.”

Even though I am flat out with work at the moment, I am planning on checking out the home on Thursday.  I hoping to find ideas on how we can improve on our electricity usage and also understand more about electricty solar panels which I would like to have installed early in the new year.

Here is the Full Program:

Thursday 15 Oct (12pm – 8pm)
Time Speakers Answering Your Questions on - 
12pm – 2pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
12pm – 8pm Penny Spankie Arqua Water Station from Street Furniture Australia
12pm – 4pm Ford ECOnetic Showcasing the new Fiesta ECOnetic fuel efficient, environmentally advanced vehicle
2pm – 6pm Megan Bennett & Mithra Cox, The Watershed Worm farming, composting & recycling
2pm – 6pm Michael Neville, City of Sydney Worm farming, composting & recycling
3pm – 8pm Terry Bail & Martin Urakawa, Archology Live Green House architects
4pm – 6pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
4pm – 8pm Steve Bately, Sydney Organic Gardens Gardens on your balcony
4pm – 8pm Annie Walker, City of Sydney Community gardens in Sydney
4pm – 8pm Mel Cook, City of Sydney Programs & rebates available to help residents
4pm – 8pm Reverse Garbage Container Gallery Reusable materials to create sustainable art & design
4pm – 8pm Solahart Solar hot water products
6pm – 8pm MobileMuster Recycle your old mobile phones & discover where they go

Friday 16 Oct (12pm – 8pm)
Time Speakers Answering Your Questions on - 
12pm – 2pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
12pm – 8pm Penny Spankie Arqua Water Station from Street Furniture Australia
12pm – 4pm Ford ECOnetic Showcasing the new Fiesta ECOnetic fuel efficient, environmentally advanced vehicle
12pm – 4pm Kirsten Woodward, City of Sydney Greening the City of Sydney
2pm – 4pm Paul Myors, Energy Australia Ways to save on your energy
2pm – 6pm Tankworks Australia Water tank products
2pm – 6pm Kath McLaughlin, City of Sydney Worm farming, composting & recycling
3pm – 8pm Terry Bail & Martin Urakawa, Archology Live Green House architects
4pm – 6pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
4pm – 8pm Nik Midlam, City of Sydney City’s greenhouse reduction programs
4pm – 8pm Sable & Argent Green technology for bicycles
5pm – 8pm Helen Mok, Designer Kinetic jewellery from found objects
5pm – 8pm Danpalon Polycarbonate roofing
6pm – 8pm Junglefy Green Roofs

Saturday 17 Oct (10am – 6pm)
Time   Answering Your Questions on -
10am – 12pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
10pm – 6pm Penny Spankie Arqua Water Station from Street Furniture Australia
10am – 2pm Kath McLaughlin, City of Sydney Zero Waste
10am – 2pm Mel Cook, City of Sydney Programs & rebates available to help residents
10am – 2pm Fiona Campbell, City of Sydney City of Sydney & cycling
12pm – 3pm Lisa Gasparotto, Designer Sustainable lighting design
12pm – 3pm Matt Chan, Scale Architecture  Laneways By George! – Infinity Forest
12pm – 3pm Solar Shop Understanding solar products
12pm – 4pm Ford ECOnetic Showcasing the new Fiesta ECOnetic fuel efficient, environmentally advanced vehicle
12pm – 4pm UTS – Institute for Sustainable Futures SWITCH electric vehicle
12pm – 1pm  Katie Patrick, Managing Director, Green Pages Get your copy of Green Pages
12pm – 5pm Terry Bail & Martin Urakawa, Archology Live Green House architects
2pm – 4pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
2pm – 6pm Jemma Wong, City of Sydney Zero Waste program
2pm – 6pm Bhakti Devi, City of Sydney Water and plans for the future
2pm – 6pm Sable & Argent Green technology for bicycles
4pm – 6pm Junglefy Vertical Gardens
3pm – 6pm Arthur Koutoulas, Designer Furniture with recycled materials

Sunday 18 Oct (10am – 6pm)
Time   Answering Your Questions on -
10am – 12pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
10pm – 6pm Penny Spankie Arqua Water Station from Street Furniture Australia
12pm – 3pm Trent Jansen, Designer Sign Stool 450 design
12pm – 3pm Eric Ng, Designer Graphic design with a sustainable focus
12pm – 3pm Greenrooms Landscape Design
12pm – 4pm Ford ECOnetic Showcasing the new Fiesta ECOnetic fuel efficient, environmentally advanced vehicle
1pm – 6pm Terry Bail & Martin Urakawa, Archology Live Green House architects
2pm – 4pm Live Green Ambassadors, City of Sydney Staff Sustainability & the Live Green House
2pm – 6pm Jemma Wong, City of Sydney Zero Waste program
3pm – 6pm Julie Paterson, Cloth Fabric Real material for the home
3pm – 6pm Nicholas Karlovasitis, Design by Them Designer working with sustainable materials

Relaxing in bed reading, while listening to the sound of rain finally wash the red dust away from Sydney’s streets.  Feeling grateful for the water that was falling and for being snuggled up under my blankets.

The red light on my Blackberry phone flashed, indicating that once again I have a new email.  My husband knows that I can’t help myself and thus I picked up my mobile to read who the email was from. 

“Are you alright”, my husband asked as he watched my face.  “No I don’t think so” was my reply.

It was only the night before I watched on the news, the floods that was happening in the Philippines and now I was reading a first hand account of the disaster from old and dear friends.  Feelings of peacefulness soon turned to guilt as I knew my good friends Rick and Maria Bell worked as missionaries in the Philippines but it didn’t occur to me until this very moment that they could have been affected. 

My thoughts scatter but I quickly realised this was too big for me to handle.  What do I do when friends need more help than I can offer?

I want to share an extract of Rick’s email to me:

“Today while spending the first three hours cleaning at home for the sixth day and seeming to get nowhere,  I then performed the funeral for a twelve year old girl from our school, Rizza  who died in the flood.  It was a sad sad moment in my life.

Sarhn this situation is so big here we may not recover for 6 months.  The stench is unbelievable. The garbage and people’s belongings are piled in huge piles everywhere.   It truly looks like a war zone and the traffic is overwhelming.  I have never seen such grief and loss, the hopelessness is often too much to deal with and sickness is now quickly following .  We are over exhausted but trust we can continue.

 As you saw in our photos we ourselves have lost our lower household of stuff from downstairs including two cars not even 3 years old.  They were insured but not when it is  an act of God!  To find the cash for cars, a fridge, washing machine, stove everything we had in our kitchen, and furniture, plus everything in our office is something I don’t think I am equipped to deal with yet if ever.  So we have moved out not only due to having nothing to use but also we have no water, no electricity, no phone and a house full of diesel oil.”

I am wondering if you are thinking the same thing as me?  Is it ironic that missionaries lose almost everything they own to what the insurance company calls ‘an act of God’?  Rick and Maria Bell have really dedicated their lives to serving others less fortunate than themselves and now I just want to wrap their family & community in my arms and rescue them but I know this is bigger than I can fix on my own.

Can I be totally honest with you?  With the floods  in the Philippines, earth quake in Indonesia and tsunami in Samoa I am feeling ‘disaster fatigued’.  With all that has happened recently I think many Australians are becoming or have become desensitised.  Personally I have discovered it is easy to dismiss these ongoing horrors we witness regularly on the evening news.

I share Rick & Maria Bell’s story with you not to make you the reader feel guilty or overwhelmed with hopelessness but to remind myself and you that every disaster is personal. 

I have donated money to Rick & Maria before when a cyclone ripped through their community years ago and I will donate to help again.  Whatever I give will be needed but  it won’t be enough.  With that I end asking again “what do I do when friends need more than I can give?”   Their children and community need more than I can offer and hence I write this story to share with you.

I will be donating through the World Relief Australia (donations are tax deductible) via the following fund:

Project name and number is ‘0923 Philippines Floods’

Any branch of the Commonwealth Bank or electronically to:

Account name  ‘CAMA Services Overseas Aid Fund’

Here are photographs that Rick and Maria took of  their home.  The Youtube video below has some amazing photographs of the disaster.

Today, Peta from Sydney’s Precinct Magazine interviewed me at home, about living in the City of Sydney and trying to live a ‘greener’ life.

I spent the afternoon demonstrating our household Bokashi bin, worm farm, home wireless electricity monitor and even our dog poo recycling system.

Peta was particularly interested in the Australian Conservation Foundation’s report that shows Sydney residents to have an average eco-footprint of 8.58 hectares per person per year.  This is well above both State (6.33) and Federal (6.4) averages.

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s website states that “eco-footprint is an indication of the total amount of land required to supply all the resources a person’s lifestyle demands. Australian’s have the fourth largest eco-footprint in the world”.

So how does my eco-footprint compare to the average Sydney, NSW and Australian rate?  After chatting with Peta today I visited The Australian Conservation Foundation’s website and looked at their ‘Consumption Atlas’ then calculated my own personal eco-footprint.  According to their calculator my eco-footprint is 4.8 hectares per year.

This may be well below Sydney, NSW and Australian averages but it is however way above the 1.8 hectares, that ACF states is sustainable.

In finishing, I wish to thank Peta for taking the time to visit me at my home to research what I am doing on my ‘green’ journey.  Also Peta I wish to thank you for sharing your research with me as I am inspired to work at getting my personal eco-footprint down even further. 

Like every Sydneysider today, I awoke and looked out my window and thought ‘Oh my goodness what is going on?’.

The huge dust storm that swept across inner NSW then Canberra, reach Sydney early this morning. 

With the rich reds you couldn’t help yourself being amazed at the colour of the light (and I don’t believe it is just a photographer thing).

 This photograph was taken from our front room office at 8.00am this morning.  May I add no enhancements have been added,  just the wonder of light in a red dust storm.

Mini & Cooper (my dogs) as per usual were jumping around the front door to be let out so they can play on the grass.  They were white fluffy puppies when they left but returned with a noticeably yellow tinge.  It will be bath time for them soon (as well as their yellow dirty coloured bed).

It is spring again!  Spring can mean different things to different people and to me it is always the start of the busiest time of the year in my business calender.  This is because the wedding season has started and just around the corner is Christmas.

To prepare for this Spring, regular readers might recall my huge office clean out.  I felt it was time to do a massive clean up of everything we simply didn’t need any more and hence was ‘hogging’ space.  Being a passionate Ebay hater, I again turned to Freecycle.org to give everything away instead of using up my valuable energy and time trying to sell it (i.e. Ebay).

The really cool thing about Freecycle is as the giver, you can select who gets your stuff.  I had a young photography student claim most of the photography equipment.  An Aborigine artist claimed many of my large studio picture frames.  The clean up of my books went to a single dad with two teenage children. 

All in all I gave away items that I could of got perhaps $800 – $1500 on Ebay.  However by giving away on Freecycle I got so much more!  Also I noticed that my personal ’energy bank’ was not empty after the exercise like it often was from participating in Ebay auctions.  Not only did I feel good for having given everything away but also I have noticed the energy in the office has been more relaxed and positive.

Now that everything was gone I was inspired to rearrange the office (as I had not wasted my time or energy on Ebay).  The really cool thing about this story is after finishing moving the office furiture around we noticed that we were now able to open the windows and let more nature light into the front room office.  So now on a bright day, we no longer even need to turn the down lights on – now we simply open the blinds and let the sunshine in.

Looking at our wireless energy meter we had installed thanks to Sydney City Council we discovered that we are saving approx 1.11 Kwh each day by not turning on our office down lights (this is an estimation as on some days we still need to turn lights on i.e. overcast days and when we need brighter light for retouching photographic work etc).

Ironically my personal energy was not the only energy saved in giving away everything.

Food for thought.

Down lights in my office, turned off as the window lets in sunlight now.

Mini my dog sitting on me while I try to take the photograph of the office down lights.

This media release was emailed to me for consideration for my Wedding Planning Tips blog.  It  is about Doltone House’s newest function centre.  For those not living in Sydney and may not be familiar with the brand Doltone House, they have a number of wedding reception / function venues in Sydney.

Why am I posting this on Greener Me?  I am interested in my readers response to the claims in the media release about the building being 6 star green rated.  I have to admit that I am unfamiliar with the rating and what it means but I found this release to be really interesting.  Have a read and let me know what you think.

Here is the media release:

Situated on the stunning Sydney waterfront, Doltone House’s newest venue Darling Island Wharf has been crafted by green-minded industry experts to become part of the first six-star green-star rated building, workplace6, in New South Wales. Workplace6 is only the second building in Australia to obtain this coveted certification, and this six-star green-star rating represents the world’s best practices in sustainability.

Darling Island Wharf incorporates a fresh food and wine emporium complete with open kitchen, a buzzing café, intimate meeting rooms and an 800 seated capacity event space – an inspirational and unique project from the team at Doltone House. Paul Signorelli, Managing Director of Doltone House, was inspired by the environmental initiatives of Workplace6. “Our plans for the internal fit out were specifically created to complement those of the building. By adopting and expanding on the green philosophies of the building itself, Doltone House aims to lead the way into the future by providing the greenest venue in Sydney.”

Workplace 6 reduces greenhouse emissions by 70% compared to a normal office building. In harmony with this, the interior of Darling Island Wharf is clad in a variety of ‘environmentally honest’ and durable materials: recycled, green-minded, low-toxin emitting and built to last. Eco-ply flooring and stone are the obvious green materials used throughout the site –yet even the carpet in the event centre has green credentials. The event centre bar is made from a durable marble with a high quality finish, while a counter crafted from recycled Ironwood from Queensland is the focal point of the bluestone-clad cafe downstairs.

On a structural level, Workplace 6 is Australia’s first building to use concrete manufactured from recycled products. The high performance insulation used throughout the building is green-certified as manufactured without the use of ozone-depleting gases. Details such as custom-fitted carbon dioxide sensors and variable speed fans are employed in Darling Island Wharf to reduce the toxin emission and air pollution normally associated with buildings of this scale. As a result, fresh air supply is increased by up to 50% making it a healthier, safer space for the public.

Energy reduction is a significant factor in being green, and Doltone House have tackled this issue head on. In the kitchen, gas combi ovens that run on natural gas, have been installed while fridges and freezers will be insulated with thick panels to reduce energy consumption. Perhaps the most iconic innovation is the ‘watercool’ system, which captures heat rejected from Sydney harbour and transforms it into usable energy for the building’s water-cooling system. Environmental initiatives also extend to the site’s every day operation, including re-using blackwater for parkland irrigation and a tri-generation energy system – where heat, power and chilled water for air conditioning are produced by one single unit. While ‘greening’ a site of this scale adds an extra 15% to construction and fit-out cost, embracing the green approach at this level signifies Doltone House’s serious commitment to environmental and social responsibility.

Have a look at the artists impressions.

My gorgeous husband is always sending me stuff that I can use on both my blogs;  Greener Me and Wedding Planning Tips

Yesterday he emailed me this picture and it made me smile.  I thought you would get a kick out of it too.

Annoucing the newest Enviro Car that has just been launched. 

 This photograph comes from Cinemabd.com