Virgin Eyes is Australia Bound!!!

I'm visiting Marilyn and Sydney!!!!!!!!!  I'm so excited.  Marilyn and I met on an ORGT backpacking trip, and have been crazy ever since!  Working overseas in Japan and Korea makes our visits fewer and farer in between than they should be, but that just makes them ALL the much sweeter when we are in the same city!!  Australia - here we come!!   Can't wait for 3 straight weeks full of adventuring, hiking, biking around town, going on errands, sightseeing, driving on the LEFT side of the road!, traveling, and cooking tons of good food.... ahhh sleepover every night!!  Paradise!

NOW, about Australia.  New country - new continent!!  So excited to be travelingggg again!

About Australia:

• 22.8 million people (AUS ranked #52 highest ... for comparison,US has almost 315 million) 
• About 88.2% of the population lives in urban areas (as of 2005, so that might be even higher, now)
• Land mass wise, it's about the same size as the US
• >80% of the pop. lives 100 kilometers from the coast (aghhg! Metric system.. 100 km=~62 miles from the coast ... no wonder they are such happy, friendly people!)
• It is the lowest and flattest continent in the world (hello biking!!)
• "Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth, with the least amount of water in rivers, the lowest run-off and the smallest area of permanent wetlands of all the continents." (maybe explains why they all live so close to the ocean?)
• "Australia is richly endowed with marsupials— there are more than 140 species." (!!!)
• Wow:  "About 85 per cent of flowering plants, 84 per cent of mammals, more than 45 per cent of birds, and 89 per cent of inshore, freshwater fish are UNIQUE to Australia."
• "Among Australia’s best-known animals are the kangaroo, koala, echidna, dingo, platypus, wallaby and wombat."   ....Sounds like I should try to see all of these!
• Interesting history: "Australia’s national day is held on 26th January in recognition of the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet, a group of 11 ships that sailed from England to establish a colony in Australia."
• "At the end of 2011, export revenue from MINERAL and ENERGY commodities accounted for 60 per cent of Australia's total export dollars"

Sources: http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country and http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/43654/Australia

They speak English!  Oh my my!  Can't wait to see everything - the public transport, the biking, all the national parks, the Accent!!, the natural resources, the beaches, the food!! (of course!!), how they do energy, what kind of religion is popular, all the natural wonders...

LOGISTICS 

VISA / Country Entry & Exit:

I got an Electronic Travel Authority (more info here) for traveling to Australia.  It costs 20 AUD, and is just electronically linked to your passport (AKA... no cool VISA sticker).  Super easy to get one - took like 10 minutes to browse the site and complete the form.  Just for kicks, here are some of the perks of getting an ETA:)

• You can enter Australia as many times as you wish during a 12 month period from the date the ETA is granted or until the expiry date of your passport, whichever is earlier.
• You can stay in Australia for a maximum of three months on each visit.
• You must not work while in Australia unless advised otherwise by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
• You must not study for more than three months.
• You must be free from tuberculosis.
• You must not have any criminal convictions for which you have been sentenced for a total combined period of 12 months or more, whether or not the sentence/s were served.

Source: https://www.eta.immi.gov.au/ETA/etas.jsp 

Phone/Internet:

I'll be using my iPhone with AT&T again.  I'm signing up for the $10/ month for 50 text messages, which I think should be sufficient for most communication I need to do.  Turning off the iPhone's Cellular Data will ensure I don't accidentally incur high data usage fees.  When in wifi, I can use Skype to call home or call Marilyn if need be.  And, in case I do need to make calls while traveling and not in a wifi zone, I just installed the AT&T Call Int'l app, which allows you to call at a reduced rate/minute.  And, all this planning may be overkill cause Marilyn mentioned she has an extra phone that I might be able to use once I get there :)

Currency:

The current exchange rate:  1.06 USD = 1 AUD 

At least it is close to one, which makes for quick and easy conversions.  As compared to the Chinese Yuan, where I'd have to remind myself not to freak out over spending a couple hundred yuan at dinner.

Last time, I lost money because I converted money here at my US bank.  It was my first time traveling overseas... and I wanted the peace of mind of having some cash with me when I got there.  However, I think it's generally better to convert money once you get over there ... cause the country you go to will have tons of whatever currency you need, as opposed to here in the US, where they have to order the currency for you.

Plan of Attack for MONEY:

• Take a couple hundred USDollars with me
• I can convert my USD at Marilyn's bank for a 1% conversion fee
• Use my BOA debt card to withdraw AUD cash from certain ATMs
• BOA is part of an international ATM alliance:  I can use my BOA debt card at any Westpac Bank ATM in Aussi and New Zealand.  The $5 non-BOA ATM fee will be waived and the conversion fee between USD and AUD is 1% of the USD I withdraw (with a max of $1,000 USD per day limit... ).  
• As an alternative to cash, I can use credit cards.  My MasterCard has a 1% foreign transaction fee
• I have a Discover card through my parents... Discover (Diner's Club International in Australia), they have a 0% transaction fee..YAY!

This is what I'll look for :)

Source: http://www.westpac.com.au/ 

Westpac Banks are everywhere, so no worries there..at least in Sydney.  (All the magnifying glasses with +'s inside indicate multiple ATMs in that one area).

Don't know how widely-accepted Diners Club is... but I'll use the Discover Credit card since there is no transaction fee!!:) 

Ok, enough logistics funsearch :)

T-1 week till I leave .... More exciting info to come very soon!!

SWITCH

The SWITCH Energy Project is the "groundbreaking film, video and education program – uniting diverse audiences in a shared understanding of energy and promoting efficiency" spearheaded by a UT Austin Geology professor, Dr. Scott Tinker.  For 10 years, he went around the world (to 11 countries to be exact) to answer one simple question:  What does our energy future look like?

Screening at universities across the US, I was lucky enough to attend the Nov. 7th screening here at UT Austin.  After watching the trailer for the documentary, I knew I was in for a treat.  And .... it was AWESOME!!!  If you aren't close to a screening in your area, the SWITCH website is FULL of short educational films that were not included in the final documentary - I'd highly encourage you to watch them!!

After the screening, Dr. Scott Tinker, the mastermind behind this project, answered questions from the film and about the future of energy.  I've been hearing a lot about Prezi, a communication tool that is quickly gaining popularity.  So, I finally decided to give it a spin.  Check out the Prezi presentation I put together based on my notes from the film and Q&A with Dr. Tinker.

Enjoy! 

Changing Business From the Inside Out

The Austin Professional Chapter of Net Impact hosted a dinner discussion with Tim Mohin on Thursday evening.  Twelve of us dined at Buenos Aires Cafe and enjoyed each other's company while getting to chat with Tim about his experiences in the world of corporate social responsibility.   

Tim is the author of Changing Business From the Inside Out.  I really enjoyed reading his book and thought it was very well written and was an easy, enjoyable read.  I've just posted an Amazon book review.

Through reading the book, I gained an appreciation for how much the really large companies, like Apple and Walmart, have an impact in raising the standards for people beyond our borders.  Their market power has the very real potential to make factories in other countries change their labor practices, working conditions, and environmental impacts. 

It was so encouraging to meet professional men and women who are redefining conventional careers.  In several cases, they had left well-respected, high-paying jobs to pursue opportunities that will allow them to have a more direct positive impact on the people, companies, and communities they serve.  

So inspiring! J

Some of my favorite take-aways from the Book:

"All great leaders started from lower-level positions and discovered ways to leverage their capabilities to add value to their organization."

(14)

"The keys are to have the desire to learn and grow, the humility to be less informed than others, and above all the passion for your cause."

(31)

"The key to success as a corporate treehugger is to nurture the flames of your passion even when the inertia of company bureaucracy douses it with cold water."

(41)

"Effective managers are always looking for that next increment of improvement, the innovative ways to define leadership best practices.  In other words, corporate responsibility is a journey, not a destination."

(82)

Lost Maples ... Finding Beauty

"[The park] is a combination of steep, rugged limestone canyons; springs; plateau grasslands; wooded slopes; and clear streams.  It features a large, isolated stand of uncommon Uvalde bigtooth maple, whose fall foliage can be spectacular."

-Lost Maples State Natural Area website

~~~

This past weekend, JT and Katie graciously invited me to join them on their trip out to Lost Maples.  The mention of backpacking and fall foliage was a no-brainer decision!   Being from Georgia and Tennessee, I've been absolutely spoiled when it comes to beautiful landscape.  The promise of leaves changing colors and getting to spend the long weekend with Katie and JT had me pretty excited.    Both JT and Katie were leaders for the GT Alumni Network here in Austin, and have been wonderful friends ever since I met them last fall :)

Because the park is so popular in the fall, they had made reservations long ago for 2 primitive camping sites.  We camped at Campsite A, which was a little over a mile in from the parking lot.  The primitive campsites are first come/first serve, and we got there midday Friday to stake out a good spot to set up our tent and tent hammock.  The leaves had started to change, but they weren't in full color yet.  And, we came to realize that, even at peak color, we shouldn't have expected to see a full hillside of orange, red, and yellow like we'd seen back in the north Georgia mountains.  The Lost Maples landscape did have a lot of Maples, but has cedar trees mixed in preventing a full fledged explosion of color.  We took in the scenery around us Friday afternoon and set out to explore the 5.7 mile loop around our campsite (map).  Saturday we 'conquered' Lost Maples and hiked every trail in the park -  11 miles in total.  JT used his handy watch GPS to track our hike, which I was able to import into a MapMyHike map :)

We enjoyed great weather and had lots of time to chat and share stories as we hiked up and down rocky trails, crossed running streams, and took in gorgeous views.  Turns out Katie and JT have done a lot of awesome traveling and have been to a ton of parks around the country.  My bucket list grew by a mile after hearing about all of their adventures.

I was happy I could introduce them to the joys of a water filter.  The first backpacking trip I made earlier this summer to Pedernales Falls presented almost no opportunity to use the filter as most of the streams were completely dry.  The water in the streams at Lost Maples was unbelievably clear and cool.  Oftentimes we would see schools of fish swimming in the water.  At the ponds near campsite C, people were fishing for bass (where they would catch them and release the fish back into the water).

At night, the sky was FULL of stars.  It's amazing what getting 3 hours from Austin can do to the sky.  Saturday night threw us a curveball... a several dark clouds and a few sprinkles rolled in right around dinner time.  Thankfully, we had time to put up our rain flys.  Around 1am, the thunder and lightening woke us up with a pretty impressive thunderstorm that featured a couple of 'less than 1-Mississippi's between the lightening and thunder'.  Happily, my tent-hammock held up great and I didn't have to retreat to Katie and JT's tent during the storm.

When planning out the meals, I got a little creative after doing a quick search for yummy backpacking recipes.  Getting back to the campsite and cooking dinner is always a highlight, so I figured.. why not try some new meal ideas? :)  Good weather, great scenery, wonderful company, and yummy food definitely made for a great weekend.  See below for recipes and meal ideas:)

Driving back on Sunday, we took a different route back that followed the Guadalupe River with multiple river crossings.  The scenery along the way was gorgeous!  This one particular crossing was so pretty, we pulled off the road and took some pictures :)

We treated ourselves to a German lunch in Fredericksburg.  It was so nice to sit in a real chair and have a big, yummy, civilized meal!! :D   We went to Auslander - their food was great and I'd highly recommend it.  After walking through the quaint downtown, we drove to an awesome Nature Trail JT and Katie had been to before, the Lady Bird Johnson Park Nature Trail.  We bird-watched,  saw turtles, sidestepped around yucca plants, crossed an awesome little bridge, and saw a variety of vegetation.  Then we continued the carbo reloading by sharing a Sweet German Pretzel I'd picked up in one of the bakeries in Fredericksburg :D

Slideshow from the trip! :)

Oatmeal Breakfast
1 to 2 packs of instant oatmeal /person/per morning
chopped walnuts or pecans
dried fruit.. we enjoyed pineapple and blueberries
raisins
mini (and many) chocolate chips  :)

Homemade Granola Bars
My friend Ann's inspiration was the final straw to trying to make my own granola bars.  I used this recipe from www.thekitchn.com and tried the 'Tropical Fruits' version.  They turned out well! After reading several blogs and recipe sites, and consulting Ann on her experiments, it seems like the key ingredient is the Brown Rice Syrup - it holds everything together very well and isn't too sticky once cooked/cooled.

All of the following recipes were inspired/adapted from Seattle Backpackers Magazine.com.  Enjoy! :)

Swiss, Ham, Apple Bagel Sandwich

Feeds 1:

3-4 slices of ham (I got honey-baked ham J)

1 or 2 slices of Swiss Cheese

1 bagel Sandwich

3 apple slices or enough to fit on sandwich

At Home:

On a stovetop cook apple slices until light brown.  Add the ham and Swiss on both sides of the bagel and put in toaster oven face up until the cheese is melted.  Then, put the warmed apple slices on the sandwich, using the melted cheese to kind of hold everything together.  Place in fridge until you’re ready to hit the trail! J

Mediterranean Delight

1 cup of Powdered Hummus (OR prepackaged hummus kept cold in a cooler and eaten at one of the first meals)

2 medium size zip locks of fresh veggies (baby carrots, cut celery, cut bell peppers, zucchini, cucumber)

1-2 packages of Pita Bread

At home:

Pre-wash, dry, and pre-cut the veggies. Measure and pack the hummus (adjust portion for party size) in its own zip lock (large enough to add water to later) and write down how much water to add on the zip lock.

On the Trail:

Follow instructions for dehydrated humus. Add the correct amount of cold PURIFIED water to the zip lock, close, and mix well. Let sit for 5-10 minutes and it’s ready to eat with pita and veggies.

Cashew Chicken Noodles

Serves 3:

3 packs of Raman Noodles:)

¼ cup Jerky or 9 oz. of packaged chicken

¼ cup dehydrated mixed veggies (can be omitted and/or replaced with canned veggies)

1 Tbs. curry

3/4 tsp of cumin

3/4 tsp. ground ginger

3 1/4 Tbs. coconut powder

Salt and pepper to taste

4.5 tablespoons of cashews

3 tablespoons of pre-chopped cilantro (optional)

At Home:

Combine all the seasonings and coconut powder in a baggie.  Bring cashews and cilantro in separate baggies.

On Trail:

Cook Raman Noodles in large group cooking pot (1 ½ to 2 cups of water per package).  Once cooked, divvy up noodles and soup into individual bowls.  Let everyone add their own amount of spice from the baggie, cashews, and cilantro! J

Like a Rebel

“Look at them!  They're digging through the trash!”

Like a rebel? 

Yep.  Two Georgia Tech grads, digging through the trash.  Have we gone mad?!?  

Not at all!  My friend Lawrence and I chose to make a difference, however small, to impact our surroundings for the better.  In digging through the trash, we not only saved two full bags of recyclables from the landfill, we took a stand – setting an example for those around us.  We absolutely must have the mindset that we are in no way above digging through the trash to save valuable resources for Mother Nature.  If we don't take care of her, who will? 

This past weekend, 70,000 people descended upon Zilker Park in Austin, TX to celebrate live music at the Austin City Limits Festival.  To responsibly handle the waste from all those people eating and drinking, The Rock & Recycle initiative invited volunteers to help divert waste from the landfills by educating and promoting recycling and composting among ACL festival goers.  Anyone interested in helping out could pick up a large, green recycling bag and fill it up with cans, plastic bottles, and water cartons from around the park.  In return, you get the satisfaction of helping divert precious resources from the landfill (as well as a very cool, eco-friendly t-shirt … “the only t-shirt you can’t buy” at ACL :) 

So, how did Lawrence and I go about filling up our recycling bags?  We did it one bag at a time, and took different approaches for each.

Here’s a snapshot of my thought stream for the first bag:

At first, you hesitate.  Tentatively walk up to the trashcan.  Become super conscious that people all around you are going about their business as usual.  This is so wired!!  Look down into the bin, see if there’s anything in there.  At first, secretly hope there’s nothing there so you can walk away pretending like nothing happened.  Digging through the trash??   For the first dive, gingerly pick up the plastic bottle in the trash with two fingers and your pinky popped up, like it’s a foreign object.  A couple of bottles and cans later, walk away from the trash can with your recycling bag in one hand and holding your other hand away from your body, making huge efforts to not let it touch any other part of you.  It’s so dirty!  It’s probably super contaminated!

After a couple trash cans, your perspective does a complete 180.  It doesn't feel so weird.

Now, you're saving plastic and cans.  Saving them from a nearly permanent burial underneath huge mounds of other stuff with little hope of seeing the light of day again.

Ah ha!  There’s a technique to it!  Get the surface findings first, be sure to collect the recyclables that you can see on the top of the other trash.  Then go around the perimeter and pull up the sides of the trash bag and give it a little shake.  Usually you'll strike gold when you do this.  It’ll reveal other recyclables underneath the other trash.

The comrade with other trash diggers is great.  They’re hard to miss – lugging a huge green bag around with you does make you stand out. 

The unexpected amount of gratitude and thank-yous we get is awesome!  One guy even did a funny prayer and bow for us (... he may or may not have been slightly intoxicated).  

Turning in the full green bag is so satisfying.  Just think – otherwise, all that material would have stayed in the trash… on to the landfill and pretty much ending its useful life as material.  It may only be one bag at this point, but one bag helps make a really big pile.  And, not to mention, everyone that saw us in the process of digging through the trash might just think twice about what they’re throwing away next time. 

Now. Where's that Purell? J

For the next bag, we took a totally different approach. Cleaner, too. We walked through the AMD stage crowd while The Skins were playing and picked up cans and plastic bottles from the ground around people’s feet.  People would offer their used stuff when the saw us coming with our big green bag.  There was some competition, too.  Other Rock & Recyclers were out and about in the same area.  In the afternoon the program seemed to have gotten popular.

No more digging through the trash can - we have moved up in the world to picking trash up off the ground!!  It doesn't seem to take as long.  The better spots are where the crowd is tightly packed.... fewer volunteers are hitting up these spots.  They’re probably less aggressive and don’t want to push through people, but I say let’s go for it!  Toward the end we found an area in the middle of the crowd that no one had been to for a while and before we knew it the bag was full.  It felt kind of bad to have to leave stuff laying on the ground, and to turn people away offering us their trash :( Sorry guys......

We will be back!!

Dirty Work ... in Action!

What a weighty effort!! 

Lawrence and I in front of the Rock & Recycle tent at ACL 2012

Look at that Pile!!! :)

In the middle of it all ... collecting recyclables in the AMD Stage crowd
with great music playing in the background :D 

View of Zilker Park at night with the Austin skyline in the background.  What a beautiful sight!

Jerseys from China

Later this month, some buddies and I will be riding in the Austin Livestrong Challenge, a bike ride sponsored by the Livestrong Foundation as a way to raise awareness and funds for their efforts against cancer.  (Super excited!!!!)

Gloriana and I got lucky in meeting a great group of people through one of the Saturday morning group rides from Mellow Johnnys (Lance Armstrong's bike shop in downtown Austin).  They are a fun bunch of people and we ended up joining their team, Los Duros (an explanation of the team name requires a trip to the team leader, Alex's, house and a tour of his backyard and his peach tree :).

Anyways, Alex and Chris from Los Duros did something really cool - they made a custom designed race jersey!!  This is exciting because, usually, only really big teams with sponsors have cool looking matching jerseys.  Let's just say, having a personalized jersey has never been on my radar - till now.  They were able to upload a jersey design and have them made from www.eclipsecycling.com.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, there was a mess up with the USPS delivery of our jerseys, which led me to tracking it down and digging into its past travels.  What struck me the most was being able to see the direct path our jerseys took from China to the post office in Austin,Texas and now to my living room.  We all know that a huge portion of what we buy is 'Made in China' but I think it has become commonplace to assume and take for granted that what's produced in China will just show up in the US, ready for our consumption.  Seeing the timeline below really made the origin of the jerseys come to life.  

Ever since visiting China last summer, I've been more conscious of and interested in the Chinese factories.  Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie Chang is an excellent insight into the life of the workers in the factory.  She also sheds light on the migration of Chinese people into the cities and factory towns.  Fun fact: China is experiencing what some call hyper-rapid urbanization, and by 2030, 1 Billion people are expected to be living in Chinese cities.

Dealing directly with the Chinese factory

It's actually kind of cool if you think about it.  When our package wasn't getting here on time, I was able to email the customer service address and get a reply within 24 hours.  Albeit was in broken English, I definitely could understand it enough to know that I had to contact the post office here to reschedule a package pickup.   It still blows my mind that it is cost effective to make something half way around the world and mail it here.  It's really cool how the infrastructure is in place for me to not only communicate what I want and get it here, but to be able to communicate with the manufacturers when there's a glitch in the chain.  

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the label.  Funny thing is, nowhere on the tag or jersey does it say 'Made in China'.

Major flashbacks to some memories visiting a Chinese restaurant in Guilin, China:

But, back to the main motivation for writing this post.  For me, and probably a lot of other people, it's a pretty big deal to fly to San Francisco,  let alone Shanghai, China.  To think that sooo much of our stuff comes from China, traveling by ship or plane -- that's a lot of work, energy, and gas that goes into getting the goods to the US.  

I've heard that a lot of people want to reduce their personal carbon footprint by reducing air travel.  Stand around a runway and you'll start to smell that jet fuel.  But, here's some food for thought.  Is it enough to limit our personal plane travel when so much of what we wear and use on a daily basis has made that trans-Pacific flight?  Just something to think about.  

On a lighter note :)
Cool place I visited that promotes local artists and handmade goods in Austin:  The Burlap Bag (full story of visit :)
Ahhh!!! I couldn't help but reminisce about traveling when I was looking for that Chinese menu picture. Some fun travel videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/hhill3615?feature=mhee 

Over 'n out!
Heather

What Goes Around Comes Around

I first touched on the idea of composting in my Muffin Possible! post from February of this year.  Since discovering Hyde Park Community Garden, I've made quite a few trips.  Since it's a *long* walk over there, I started keeping my scrapes in a sealable, big (think twin size from Costco) empty Peanut Butter jar.   That started to fill up too fast and grew some interesting colored mold.... so to the freezer the collection went!   This prevented the bad smell from rotting veggie scraps and kept those pesky little flying bugs from taking up residence in my kitchen.  Looking at  a picture like this, I find it pretty impressive how far I've come.

Food Scrap DOMINATION!

Flip book inspired set of pictures portraying our Composting trip!!

Gloriana's Release

FREEDOM!!!

What goes around, comes around.  By going to the trouble of storing my veggie and food scrapes in the freezer and then taking them to the compost pile, I'm ensuring that the food waste is reintroduced into the cycle in the form of ... dirt!!  If my basil clippings from in.gredients successfully start growing roots, I'm going to get some soil from the compost pile and transfer my basil to a real pot! :)  Love the basil that we got last night.  It is SO fresh and flavorful.

Welcome home, Basil! :)

The 5 R's -- Vincent Stanley of Patagonia

An overflowing recycling bin.

Is this something to be proud of?  

~~~

On Wednesday, Vincent Stanley, the VP of Marketing for Patagonia, addressed a standing room only crowd at the SXSW Eco Conference.  He was a calm speaker and focused his talk on Patagonia's advertisement, released on Black Friday in 2011:

Certainly against the norm, what Patagonia was trying to drive home with this ad was an awareness of how materialistic our society is today -- to encourage people to think about what they are buying before they make purchases.  The ad reinforces Patagonia's Common Threads Initiative to promote their 5 R's:

Reduce

Repair

Reuse

Recycle

Reimagine 

So, how does the overflowing recycling bin tie into all of this?  That recycling bin was full in just one week.  In one regard, it's impressive that my roommate and I were able to divert that much waste from the landfill and send it to the recycling facility to be repurposed.  But, think of all the energy that must go into using those products and then recycling them into something new.  No doubt, the full recycling bin is a step in the right direction, and certainly better than sending it all to the landfill.  

But, like many of my peers and fellow conference-goers at the SXSW Eco conference, I have this constant nagging to take my efforts a step further.  Seeing a full recycling bin like this would have been satisfying a year ago, but now I see it and think there is something wrong with the picture --  there has got to be more that I can do.  What if there was none of that waste in the first place?  No energy would have to go into the recycling truck coming to pick up recyclables.  No energy would have to go into sorting and reprocessing the material.  

So, maybe Patagonia's 5 R's are on to something.  Recycling used to be good enough for me.  Now, I can't help but think about the energy that goes into having process that material.  In this materialistic consumer-driven world,  Patagonia as a company is thriving even while promoting ads telling people not to buy their products.  Their book, The Responsible Company, promises an explanation.  Stay tuned :)

PS: Interesting Fact - Stanley reported that sales for the jacket in the ad stayed relatively steady one week after the ad was released.  The Patagonia team considered this a win.

:D

SXSW Eco Conference 2012

One of the many reasons to love Austin, TX:  It is the home of the SXSW Eco Conference!

www.sxsweco.com

"SXSW Eco is a three-day conference addressing the need for a concerted, cross sector approach to solving the recognized challenges facing the economy, the environment and civil society. In its second year, SXSW Eco will be held October 3rd-5th, 2012 at the AT&T Conference Center in Austin, Texas."



Food for thought from Subway

Inspiration for the latest field report comes from a sandwich run to Subway.  Today at lunch, I took a closer look at those unassuming plastic Subway bags and paper napkins.

~~

Walking away from the register, my delicious sandwich and cookies are all tucked safely away in their Subway bag.  It's a nice package - it's easy to transport and even comes with a paper napkin or two.  

But do we ever stop to think about that plastic bag Subway sandwiches come in?

The future of plastic bags - the kind you get from places like Wal-Mart and the grocery store, is in limbo.  For example, the City of Austin has placed a ban on these kinds of bags starting in March of 2013.  There is a whole slew of arguments, background info, and details that go into that debate.  But, bottom-line, people are starting to acknowledge plastic bags and their consequences on the environment.

So, going back to Subway, I wonder what will happen to their packaging in the future (either near or distant).  What would happen if they eliminated the plastic bag from their whole equation?  HEB, the popular grocery store in Texas, is having to undergo training for their staff in preparation for the Austin plastic bag ban.  According to this article, they are incurring a pretty hefty fee.  I wonder how much it would cost Subway to train their employees to simply say ‘Would you like to forgo a plastic bag today?’  How hard could it be?  It sounds kind of like the ‘Would you like to Supersize that?’ … and that seems to be working pretty well.

Some Subway locations have already eliminated the use of the plastic bag.  While volunteering with Keep Austin Beautiful at a UT football game, I was introduced to a pilot program that tries to encourage fans to recycle and compost their waste, rather than mindlessly chucking it in the garbage.  The Subway in the food court on the north end zone did not package up sandwiches in plastic bags.  I don’t know if this was due to KAB encouraging them to eliminate the bags, or some internal Subway initiative.  But, everyone seemed just fine with carrying their sandwich away wrapped up in the Subway paper wrapper.  The effect: less waste is having to be processed.  Now that is a real touchdown! 

Moving to the paper napkin.  I noticed today that it said ‘Please recycle or compost this napkin’

Compost?!??

Building off what I learned at the KAB volunteer event, apparently food scraps and paper can go into a compost facility and be turned into good soil that can be sold for use in gardens.  The catch is, it has to be properly handled.  Say some food from dinner goes into the garbage.  I used to think ‘hey, food is food, it’s organic, won’t those bugs eat it and it’ll break down out there and turn into dirt?’  But, because there is no oxygen present in the landfill, it takes wayyyy longer than you’d think for even the most simple food to decompose.  That’s why programs exist to compost food scraps.  It keeps the food out of the landfill and it creates a useful product from the leftover food scraps.  Pretty cool, huh?  I've heard it referred to as nature's own recycling process :) 

There are cities out there that actually collect compost.  What??!?  Yep, just like there’s a bin for landfill waste and recycling materials, there’d be one strictly for compost.  Check out the progressive program like San Francisco's composting service offered by Recology.  San Francisco is credited with being America's greenest city and diverts 78% of its waste away from landfills.   Cities like Austin do not currently have a compost collection service, though.  One option is to collect your compost and either process it at your house via a backyard compost pile or you can collect it and take scraps to a nearby community garden (see this post for more info). 

A cool image of what can be composted! 

    

So, kudos to Subway for using recycled paper for their napkins and for eliminating the plastic bag (in some locations).  And, take another look at that bag.  When did the green leaf come into the picture??  Has that always been there with their Eat Fresh campaign?  

~~~

In writing this blog, I came across a really neat collaboration between Recology and IBM.  Check it out!

Several lingering questions I still have:

1. If you put a whole bunch of bright green construction paper into your composite pile (along with other organics and food scraps), what will happen to all that green dye?  Will the resulting soil mix be ... green...?
2. Recycled paper seems to be more and more popular.  But, if all kinds of paper fiber products can go into composting and be broken down, how will that trend impact the recycled paper fiber industry?  And, is it more energy efficient to compost already processed paper fiber or to recycle it into another form of paper product?

The Power of: © !!!

Have you ever noticed the © at the bottom of websites, photos, or images?  A couple of months ago, I remember seeing a collection of nature photos on someone's personal blog.  What interested me more than the photos was the fact that on EVERY single photo, the photographer had imposed the © image along with their name and the year.  

How did they do that?  And, what does that mean?  

Finally! The Business Foundations classes I just finished at UT are paying off.  All it took for the idea of copyright to become less intimidating to me was a 15 minute class discussion on the difference between patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights.

To investigate more, I consulted THE source: The U.S. Copyright Office (well.. their website,  www.copyright.gov, at least).

Here's the scoop:

Turns out, anything you create, write, or produce is already copyrighted.  So, say you take a cool picture and you want to put it up on your blog.  It's copyrighted!  Bam!  You didn't have to do anything at all besides produce the work.  It's like an innate copyright on the image.

So, putting the © 2012 Heather Hill at the bottom of the image has no legal power, but it does serve as a nice, friendly notice/reminder to people that Hey! I did create this image!  This work is mine! (and that I didn't just copy it from somewhere or someone else).

But! Before we get all excited and think all of our work is fully protected, know this:

If someone were to say ... copy your image, print it on a t-shirt, sell it to the masses, make lots of money, become a millionaire, retire and dig their toes in the sand for the rest of their life ... you wouldn't have any leverage against them for using your work UNLESS you have registered your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office (small fee, fairly easy to do, can be done online). 

The way I'm looking at all this is:

• When you write a cool story, take a cool picture, create and sing a song, a copyright on that work is inherently born with it.

• If you want a gentle, friendly reminder to let people know the cool image or story is yours, feel free to add the © symbol, year of production, and your name.

• If you want legal power to file a lawsuit on someone who copies your image, prints it on a t-shirt, sells it to the masses, makes lots of money, etc. ... you need to have actually registered your copyright online with the U.S. Copyright office.  

Here's some backup from the guys in the suits.  These excerpts are taken directly from the Copyright Basics document published by the U.S. Library of Congress (which can be found here).

How to make the Copyright Blurb:

"The use of the copyright notice is the responsibility of the 

copyright owner and does not require advance permission 

from, or registration with, the Copyright Office.

Form of Notice for Visually Perceptible Copies

The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain all 

the following three elements:

1 The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word 

“Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”; and

2 The year of first publication of the work. In the case of 

compilations or derivative works incorporating previously 

published material, the year date of first publication of 

the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year 

date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculp­

tural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is 

reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, 

jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article; and

3 The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an 

abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a 

generally known alternative designation of the owner.

Example: © 2011 John Doe"

When Copyright protection becomes effective:

"When the Copyright Office issues a registration certificate,

it assigns as the effective date of registration the date it 

received all required elements—an application, a nonrefund­

able filing fee, and a nonreturnable deposit—in acceptable 

form, regardless of how long it took to process the applica­

tion and mail the certificate. You do not have to receive your 

certificate before you publish or produce your work, nor 

do you need permission from the Copyright Office to place 

a copyright notice on your work. However, the Copyright 

Office must have acted on your application before you can 

file a suit for copyright infringement, and certain remedies, 

such as statutory damages and attorney’s fees, are available 

only for acts of infringement that occurred after the effective 

date of registration. If a published work was infringed before 

the effective date of registration, those remedies may also be 

available if the effective date of registration is no later than 

three months after the first publication of the work."

***Please note that these comments are my interpretation of the Copyright law and Copyright Basics document published by the U.S. Library of Congress.  I am not a lawyer; please consult one if you need any legal advice***

And thus, introducing the newest member of the family:

So, Bottom line:
While the  'hugs from heather :)'  text seems like it serves the exact same purpose (at least amongst my friends), the '© 2012 Heather L. Hill' makes things a little more formal :)   (...until I officially register the image... stay tuned :)

This Might Surprise You: A Story of Plastic Bags in Pictures

It all started off like this...

In February of 2012, I learned plastic bags were not accepted in Austin's Single Stream recycling program (story of discovery...here).  So, a collection of plastic bags ensued.  All colors, shapes, sizes, and purposes.  Eventually, things started to get a bit out of control.  Something had to be done:

The first step involved getting a better understanding of what we were dealing with.  Once all the bags were put on the table, it was quite an impressive sight.  This is the picture of two, average female consumers making a conscious choice to divert plastic bags from the trash/recycling bags over the period of four months.  This is what we had:

Impressive, huh?  

Digging a little deeper reveals a variety of plastic types.  Identified by the number within the recycling triangle, there were at least three different kinds of plastic in the pile.  There was #2 (HDPE), #4 (LDPE), and #5 (PP).   

Our pile was massive.  Once folded and organized, the random, chaotic pile was turned into a stack of plastic pushing 9 inches high.

The pile above is the nicer, thicker plastic bags from places like the UT Coop, Gap, etc.  That pile was NOT including the thinner plastic bags from places like HEB, Target, Walmart, etc.  Thankfully, we had a BIG plastic bag capable of holding all of the smaller plastic baggies.  

What if our table of plastic bags could go from something like this:

To something like this:

If TWO people could create THAT much plastic bag excess in FOUR months... think about how much plastic is used WORLDWIDE.  And most people don't even think about the packaging and bags they use.  Typically, bags aren't thought of as part of the 'product'.  While plastic has helped revolutionize the packaging industry because it is strong and light, it's creating a lot of waste in landfills.  But, back to what we CAN do with the plastic bags we already have...

After doing some reading on the different types of plastics, apparently certain types are not generally accepted by recycling programs.  Being a proactive recycler, I called up HEB.  After talking with the store manager about his plastic bag recycling program, it seemed as though any and all types of plastic baggies were welcome.  The more the merrier!  And, after looking up and down and all around the collection bin outside of HEB, no reference to plastic selectively could be found. 

The plastic bag recycling bin is the next step as our plastic bags go on to bigger and better things. But who knows, we might just come across our (recycled) plastic again =) 

Other links of interest:

Interesting plastic recycling facts from the EPA

PKG Packaging is an example of a company in California that is working to make eco-friendly packaging.



Update: August 3, 2012

All new bags, one month after recycling the other bag of bags.  Wow.

As I separated the two piles, I noticed 

• a lot of cereal bags.  This makes me think of in.gredients, the first zero packaging grocery store in Austin, supposed to open sometime this summer! :D
• more plastic Ziploc baggies.  I think this trend has to do with the fact that there are two people in the apartment now, and we're both taking our lunch to work.  We both like to cook and keep our leftovers and partially used veggies in Tupperware containers.  So, when we run out of Tupperware for lunch packing purposes, we go for the ziplock baggies  ...We should consider getting more Tupperware!  Or, even better, relieving a friend of their commonly unused Tupperware containers :D

Update: October 8, 2012

Just over 2 months later:

By far, hands down, without a doubt the most surprising thing since recycling plastic bags has been realizing just how many there are!  Our collection bag just keeps on filling up!  Two months later and we have THIS many plastic bags??  How??!!   Sorting through the collection before we take it to the recycling bin at the grocery store offers some insight into what the makeup of our plastic collection looks like.  We've done a pretty good job at almost eliminating individual Ziploc baggie usage as well as grocery store plastic bags, so most of what we collect nowadays tends to be food packing related.  There were lots of bags from bread (sometimes 2 bags for 1 loaf), tortillas,  veggie and fruit plastic bags from the produce section, pasta bags, and bulk food section bags.  Then there was some toilet paper plastic wrap and a massive wad of plastic film from the dry-cleaners.  It just all adds up to an impressive amount.  

This was Gloriana's first trip to recycle the bags.  She was pretty pumped :)

Let's see... any takers on when the collection bag will fill up again? :D  

Update: December 5, 2012
I'm starting to notice a trend in the time intervals between updates...

Bag Untouched

Bag Sorted Through .... Kind of :) 

  This is a pretty easy project to keep tracking, so... stayed tuned! :)