Happy New Year everyone! I am back! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your friends and family. I spent lots of quality time with family and then ventured out to Great Barrier Island with my husband and son on our little yacht. Wow, what a place! Great Barrier Island is not far from Auckland, New Zealand. It is totally off the grid, they have to generate their own power and collect rain water for drinking water in tanks. Love it. We did lots of beautiful walks through the bush, and swam in natural strem, waterfalls and hot springs!
Over the holidays I found that I had to relax a little about stuff going in the rubbish. It is hard when you are staying with someone else that doesn't have composting facilities. Or living on a tiny boat! I just had to tell myself "it's ok, I make a big difference at home". Which is true. even if you just do the bare minimum it is still making a difference to our environment and the amount of waste going into the landfill. And I am trying to educate my extended family about how they can reduce their waste.
To be honest, since I got back home it has been hard to get back into good waste free habits too. It seemed all too hard to figure out what I needed from the bulk store and take my jars in. So I guiltily just bought everything at the supermarket. It does take a little bit of planning to collect up food in jars. And it's another store I have to go to, which is actually kinda out of the way. Maybe we need more people to jump on the band wagon and start stores like GoodFor!
One fantastic piece of new though is that in most supermarkets in New Zealand now you have to bring your own bag! And McDonalds has got rid of straws!!! Woohoo! That is definately a big win. I also noticed that KFC is encourging people not to use their straws too. Nice work.
My worms have been thriving while I've been away. I added the second tier to my worm farm where loads of worms have made a new home in there now which is great. And the veggie garden is thriving! Plenty of ripe tomatoes now, a huge kale plant, silverbeet and beetroot. I will have to plant some more lettuce though as we ate all of that. Along with the broccoli. It think they could all do with a drink of my worm tea too, the bean seedling needs a growth spurt.
This year I am working on creating some zero waste related products which is very exciting! This means though that I will have less time to write the blog, so I will just be posting on Wednesdays now. I will still be activley posting photos and links to cool things I have found on Facebook and Instagram though. I get very excited about things sometimes and just have to share!
I am also starting a new rubbish bag! Now I will really be able to see my progress throughout the year. I don't know if I will make it to one bag or not, but I'm gonna give it a good shot!