Op-shopping and beeswax

Day 2 of the project, and I've already had lapses and a few wins for the No Impact project.

I’ve started calling it the Low Impact project, to soften it when telling people, or am I just chicken?

Speaking of which, I ate some last night – our first lapse. I never eat chicken, or red meat or pork or any other kind of meat, except fish and only occasionally. But 7pm came and went and I was hungry and Craig was going to be passing (by bike, tick) the chicken shop, so I asked if he’d pick up a quarter bird for dinner. We put it in the stir fry, but it tasted of remorse. Oh well, could have been worse. It could have been steak.

Gains so far and little creative ways to save energy or waste:

1.      Boil kettle once in the morning, pour hot water into thermos and make tea for the rest of the day without using any electricity.

2.      Cancelled weekend newspaper subscription to reduce waste. Sometimes I have to get the SMH or Sun-Herald because I have a story in the travel section, and I might have to subscribe again later because when I’m away it’s a good way to ensure I don’t miss any of my stories in print. But for now, it feels good.

3.      Shopped at Vinnies and it was so much more fun than going to a “normal” shop. The two ladies there were nice and so were the other customers, who commented on the dress I bought for $15; Craig bought a T-shirt for $7 and we bought a corning ware jug for making beeswax candles. By the way, this is more stuff than I’ve bought in the last six months. I never shop. So it’s ironic in a way.

4.      Tried to go to the Food Co-op (or the “food coop” as I like to call it) and found it closes at 3pm. But we needed bananas for tomorrow’s breakfast, so rode our bikes to Pure Wholefoods also in Manly, and bought two organic bananas (at $16.90 a kilo! How does anyone afford organic all the time?!).

5.      Bought beeswax candles from Queen B (drove there, but I do offset my car’s emissions using Greenfleet). Beeswax candles are the most environmentally candles you can buy: unlike soy or palm oil candles, there’s no need to convert oil to wax (which also happens with petroleum-based candles, the most common kind of candle on the market, even the pretty-fragranced ones). The bees make the wax and Queen B makes it into candles at her honey-scented “factory” in northern Sydney.