INDEPENDENCE

A couple of weeks ago, the Northern Territory has its annual Territory Day celebrations. Much like the similarly timed Independence Day in the USA, the Northern Territory has developed its own tradition of celebrating self governance through the detonation of fireworks (somehow the standard total fire ban that's in place around this time always gets waived). Personally, I've always found it kinda strange how DIY explosive devices have become synonymous with declarations of geo-political autonomy.

PFJ UNPACKAGED

Not so earth loving, lovingearth

Well, that's the end of another Plastic Free July and a month of realising that if I want to actually do these things without ending up going periodically hungry then I really need to be a bit more diligent with my shopping routine (the road to plastic is paved with bad meal planning).

DOWN BY THE WHARF

Once a year Darwin has a harbour clean up day, which I'm lucky enough to be allowed to get involved with through the organisation I work for (though 'lucky' might be a matter of opinion, in proper 'oh god I'm getting old' fashion, I managed to properly strain a thigh muscle during the course of my day).

PREPPING FOR PLASTIC FREE

Though I'm unsure why the month of July was chosen, I do know that Plastic Free July is an initiative started in Perth, Western Australia that challenges people to go a month without plastic – either by seeking alternatives for a few key items or going cold turkey on everything packaged. Though I haven’t posted any updates for a couple of months (oops), my own efforts to keep my plastic consumption down have ebbed and flowed with varying degrees of success over 2013. My usage of single or short-term use plastic is way down but I have fallen afoul of hidden packaging on a couple of occasions (namely with appliances, most companies use very little plastic in their packaging these days but you still get the odd anomaly). While I’ve been making decent inroads, it’s probably a good time to try and kick start some new habits for the areas I still haven’t tackled yet. So I’m going to try and go completely plastic-free for the month, and will post a tally of any plastic I do accumulate, plus tips on what I use in an average day and how I found a replacement for it.

2013 - THE YEAR OF PLASTIC 'LITE'

2012 was the first year I can remember that had such a major theme for me. Towards the end of 2011 I decided to move from my somewhat quiet rural life in England, where I'd been living for 5 years, and head back home to Australia. Of course with great moving, comes great sorting. I gave myself 6 months to sift through my houseful of possessions, and decide what was making the journey over with me.

A funny thing happened; the more I sorted, and the more I sold or donated, the more I realised that there was a hell of a lot of 'stuff' in my life. Probably slightly less than the average Westerner as I don't own many gadgets, but still I'd somehow gathered what seemed like a lot of moss. This was surprising as I've always considered myself as not owning that much. There's nothing like packing it down into a few boxes to challenge that perception.