Veronika Wild

I haven’t used a paper cup since I saw the tram full of used coffee cups representing a day’s worth in Melbourne, on the War on Waste last year.   It’s much nicer to sit down and have a break anyway and to drink from a real cup instead. I know that isn’t an option for everyone, but the Hobart City Council has now joined with Markets for Change to promote reusable cups with its Cup Conscious Café campaign.   Businesses which sign on, agree to refill reusable cups Click on the link to find one near you. This has worked so well here that the idea is catching on in other cities.   Even better, yesterday while I was in an unrelated business and they asked if I would like a coffee, a perfect cup of coffee in a china cup was delivered by the café next door – hot, strong and with a little jug of milk on side, just the way I like it. Now that’s service! Power tools are among several surprising finds at the Tipshop A green tick too for the council...

Opening Moves in the Art from Trash Exhibition I went to the Art from Trash Exhibition this week and saw some wonderful creations. There were items made with high levels of originality and craftsmanship with prices to match, whimsical items created from unlikely objects which relied more upon wit and imagination – seeing a use for things which most of us would overlook such as sad teddy bears, abandoned Barbie Dolls and funeral flowers, all kinds of stunning lighting and also excellent projects created by children. I especially liked the scarecrows and tin men made by various schools and Albuera Street Primary’s Parliament of Owls.   Definitely food for thought and very inspiring to see young people thinking hard about the planet and reusing things which might otherwise have been thrown away. Run by the Hobart Resource Centre, their own stand included instruction sheets for making things like the owls and ready -made kits for kids to make pouches from recycled rubber. ...

My new toy/experiment -still bit expensive, but read  why almost every home should be a have one I did say food waste deserved a separate post. Well this week,   Craig Reucassel of Chaser fame, has beaten me to it, with the first of his excellent   TV Series “The War on Waste” The good thing   about having a well -known comedian do it, is that it is also thoroughly entertaining, so catch up on it if you can and watch out for the other two episodes which haven’t been shown yet.  Australians currently waste about 38 million Kilogrammes of food each year, about one in five shopping bags worth and that’s growing by 8% a year. At a time when many countries are experiencing famine   – Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen, and some 2 million people in our own supposedly affluent country are going hungry, that is not only indecent, but nothing short of a crime.  Food is wasted all along the food chain – from harvest to the end product that...