Festival of Flowers

Ku-ring-gai Council - Festival of Wildflowers

Wrap Up. Well organised event. What can I say. The weather was not kind, but still, people came from everywhere, for native plants to bush walks.

The event was catered well, with Danes Coffee, Mayan Coffee and the local Rotary group.

2008 Strathfield Spring Fair - 28 September 2008 10am - 6pm

Spring Fair To Promote Greener Living don’t miss visiting Eco Stalls at the Fair designed to help community members connect with environmentally friendly products and services to help reduce their carbon footprint. Council will also be giving away free native trees. The Strathfield Spring Fair is proud to be a Carbon Offset Event.
The day kicks off at 10:00am with free entertainment, rides and activities for the whole family to enjoy. There will be lots of stalls including food, fashion, gifts, toys, environlentally friendly products and lots more.
Channel Nine's most loveable Bear, Humphrey B Bear will be making a guest appearance. Face Painting.
A free shuttle bus will depart every 30 minutes from Flemington, Homebush and Strathfield stations. A full timetble is available on the council website. See link below, or contact the council on +61 2 9748 9999
2008 Strathfield Spring Fair - 28 September 2008 10am - 6pm

City of Sydney - 2008 - Live Green

Live Green - Ideas to green your life

"More than 10,000 people attended the first Live Green event in 2007 and this year’s program promises to offer more innovative and simple practical actions you can take to reduce your environmental impact and help make our Sustainable Sydney 2030 vision a reality." Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP

Program highlights include:

Kitchen marquee >
Hosted by Joanna Savill, top local chefs including Live Green Ambassador Kylie Kwong will be cooking up a storm. There’s also a panel discussion on Sustainable Seafood convened by John Newton.

Panel discussions >
Industry leaders debating green marketing, ”green washing”, climate change investment and green careers with audience Q&A, hosted by Nell Schofield.
Workshops >
Practical information and a range of hints and tips to help make your life more environmentally friendly, hosted by Scott McGregor.
City of Sydney Green House >
Take a walk through a demonstration house to find out how your can transform your home into a more environmentally friendly space.

Children’s Area >
Performers, make your own eco-art and entertaining workshops.

Transport >
Free valet bike parking, free bike safety checks and workshops for new and experienced cyclists.

Green Bar >
Sample the best organic wines, naturally brewed beer and fruit juice.

Organic and locally grown food & produce >
You won’t go hungry with delicious food on offer as well as fresh produce to take home.

Shop till you drop >
Fashion, beauty, homewares and lifestyle stalls showcasing the latest in sustainable design and production.

Zero Waste >
Get inspired to start a worm farm at home or make your own low impact cleaning products.

Music and more >
Jazz, funk and soul hosted by Angela Catterns.

See the Stalls and Program sections above for full event details.

Carbon Neutral City

The City of Sydney will soon be carbon neutral across its entire area of operations.This will be achieved through energy efficiency measures, the use of fully accredited Green Power and ultimately greenhouse gas offsets.

Auditing Live Green

Carbon Neutral
Live Green will have a zero emissions balance - part of the City's commitment to be carbon neutral. To achieve this for the event, the City of Sydney is contracting a carbon audit to understand Live Green’s carbon footprint and impact and then remove this impact through the use of Green Power and the purchase of carbon credits. The Carbon Reduction Institute is conducting the audit which will cover all emissions sources that the City can reasonably control through policy implementation, technology choice or direct authority.
This includes the emissions impact resulting from:

• Fuels combusted the during event
• Consumption of electricity
• 3rd party contractor services consumed by City of Sydney in the delivery of the event
• Materials consumed by City of Sydney in the delivery of the event
• Visitor, Exhibitor and Vendor travel
• Waste created during the event and by the City of Sydney in the lead up to the event

The audit will exclude the emissions impact of products and services sold by vendors at the event and the emissions from the used proportion of assets consumed by the event. These exclusions are justified on the premise that, whilst the City of Sydney can and will be encouraging environmentally friendly suppliers to partake in the event, they are unable to control the value chains of these suppliers. Hence, neither the emissions liability for products and services sold by vendors at Live Green 2008, nor the used proportion of assets consumed by the event are deemed to be the responsibility of the City of Sydney.

The Carbon Reduction Institute audit complies with the standardss outlined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

GreenPower

The City is using 100% accredited GreenPower and other accredited offsets for this event. GreenPower is independently verified to come from renewable energy sources including wind, solar and hydro. These energy sources do not produce greenhouse gas emissions and effectively reduce emissions by reducing the need to burn fossil fuels such as coal to produce energy.

Solar Power

figureight is a local production crew that is dedicated to the promotion of a sustainable events industry. They use renewable energy alternatives and energy efficient practices to achieve these aims and at Live Green you will be able to see this in action. Their solar battery bank and panels will be on display powering the children’s entertainment area and the seminars with 100% renewable energy. Come and meet one of the figureight crew if you'd like to learn more about sustainable event practices.

Waste

As part of the City’s commitment towards Zero Waste the City of Sydney is working with Visy [link to the sponsor page] to ensure that Live Green recovers as many resources as possible and saves waste from going to landfill.

Recycling stations provided by Visy will be in place throughout Live Green, making it easy for everyone to recycle.

The recyclable materials collected will be delivered to a Visy Recycling Material Recovery Facility in Sydney where they will be sorted and processed, and later converted into valuable, new packaging products.

Biodegradable waste, such as certain foods and biodegradable containers can be disposed of in the giant worm farm within the dedicated waste area. Recycling champions located next to the bins are able to provide directions

Finally, garbage bins will be provided at the recycling stations for items that cannot be composted or recycled.

Waterless and chemical free toilets

On Site Rentals, a company who pride themselves on their green approach to operations will be providing the temporary toilet facilities at Live Green.

Straight drop toilets that don’t require any flushing will be used onsite, eliminating the use of water. A foaming alcohol based sanitiser for hands will also remove the need for water and paper towels for hand washing, further reducing overall water consumption at the event. In addition only recycled toilet paper and natural cleaners will be used.

Live Green will also be:

• Using a blend of waste bio-diesel generators
• Minimising distribution of paper
• Reducing consumption of plastic bottles by offering water station for patrons to refill their water containers.
• Using recyclable, recycled and biodegradable materials for signage & scenic where possible

City of Sydney - 2008 - Live Green

Ku-ring-gai Council - Festival of Wildflowers

Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden

Festival of Wildflowers

Come and celebrate the beginning of spring at the annual Festival of Wildflowers - a fun event for all the family!

Date: Sat 30 and Sun 31 August  2008

Time: 9am - 4pm

Venue: Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden, 420 Mona Vale Rd, St Ives

Cost: FREE

Theme: The theme for 2008 is - How Does Your Garden Grow?

There will be stalls, displays, native plant sales, guided bushwalks and activities for the kids, entertainment and refreshments

See festival program highlights: Festival of Wildflowers Program Highlights

This year's Festival of Wildflowers will focus on organic veggie gardening and the use of native plants in  gardens.  There will be a range of displays including native plant sales and flower arrangements, composting, the St George Taronga Zoo Mobile, bush foods and books.

The Festival will also feature entertainment by LEAPFISH environmental performer and Songs of the Garden music by Harry Hughes. 

Guided bushwalks and organic garden tours and a kids bush craft corner will be running throughout the day.  Talks will be held inside the Education Centre as well as a presentation by Taronga Zoo.  There will also be dip netting at the pond for the adventurous with the Frog and Tadpole Society.

A sausage sizzle and Devonshire Tea will be on offer from Turramurra Rotary and there will be coffee and more food provided by Espresso Mobile and Mayan Cafe on Danks.

Come along, rain or shine, and get back to nature at the Festival of Wildflowers

For further information, contact the Bushland Education Coordinator on 9424 0353

Ku-ring-gai Council - Festival of Wildflowers

Bokashi Composting Australia

ORGANIC FOOD AND FARMERS MARKETS

Orange Grove Public School

Corner of Perry Street and Balmain Road, Leichhardt

Saturday, 23rd August 2008

8:00am to 1:00pm

Saturday, 6th September 2008 8:00am to 1:00pm

Saturday, 20th September 2008 8:00am to 1:00pm

Frenchs Forest Market

The Parkway Hotel, Frenchs Forest Road East, Frenchs Forrest.

Bokashi Composting Australia will no longer have a regular stall at Frenchs Forrest Market; however you will still be able to buy your Bokashi Mix there. "Baliz Woof Woof" suppliers of wonderful Organic Pet Food will stock Bokashi Mix. Baliz Woof Woof regularly attends Frenchs Forrest Market every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the Month.

Sunday, 24 August 2008

Sunday, 14 September 2008

Sunday, 28 September 2008

If you have a Dog or Cat check out their website, I cannot recommend their food enough it has extended and enhanced the life of my now 15 year old Bichon Frisée.

http://www.balizwoofwoof.com.au/home.html

Bokashi Composting Australia

How to get the most out of this Blog

Dear Readers

After many weeks of attempting to merge or resolve the past and present "Bokashi Composting in Australia" blogs; We now have 2 x blogs:

Older Archive
http://billjackjane.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

New/Current
http://billjackjane.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

Why not add both into your RSS Reader, rename the archive.

Thanks!!

Australia's Leading ORGANIC EXPO Featuring "The Green Show"

I have been down at this expo all day today for the "Trade Day". Not surprised if there would be 2000+ people through. I was there supporting the Green Frog Bokashi stand on lot 217.

Andre Leu, opened the event, and talked about how far the industry had come since the early seventies. Many farmers have left their paddocks, but organic farming has grown 3-4 fold.

Some of the stand awards went to, Landtasia Organic Food's, Blue Hill's Honey, but while you are there take in Bamboo Instyle and Bokashi Composting Australia.

This is the 3rd such event, and is apparently far bigger in mass. Everyone today received a showbag and a Sydney Newspaper, hopefully that will follow through to the weekend.

The press for this event is very good. The organisers have almost every corner covered. I will say an early "Well done" to Smeaton Hackett Events to get the event promoted; as they have. This was visually obvious with the amount of trade patrons that showed up today, as well as the various peers we have heard from, in say NZ, that have travelled for the event.

I am looking forward to attending the next 2 days and mingling with producers and end customers alike, it is $AUD15.00 for adults, $16.00 for carbon offset customers.

It's in hall one (1) of Sydney Convention and Entertainment Centre, so plan to park at the south end. There is organic coffee, soft drinks, sandwiches and a hot bain maree with the likes of Butter chicken etc, for those that are hungry (north west corner of Hall 1). Alternatively, you have Darling Harbour, or Chinatown that are very close.

Have a great weekend, get green, and visit the Bokashi Composting Australia stand (217)

Green Biz Cafe - Glebe Sydney

We attended a great first meeting for "Green Biz Cafe" last Monday night. Mary Hendriks has done a great job in pulling this together. We got invited on the Saturday before, when Mary was at the Organic Food Markets at Orange Grove School, Inner West - Sydney

Great format, lovely food from The Fair Trade Cafe. If you are thinking about starting a Green BIZ, then come along, if you have a Green Biz, then come along or if you want to hear and discuss what others are doing.

The first night, we had speakers from Eco Limo and Eco Living Centre in gladesville. It was interesting to see what makes there business's tick, and what is front centre in there learnings and goals. There was various other people attending, I won't mention their names without permission, only to say we support this http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/ and we plan to be there at the next meeting in 2 weeks. Drag it into your calendar.

I have included a flyer below, so you can contact http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/ direct for further details.

Can I just add, onto this thread, there is an Organic Expo in Sydney, next weekend. If you cannot make it yourself, may I ask that you tell your AUS/East Coast Friends, so as they may choose to come along. http://www.organicexpo.com.au/visitors/about_the_expo

Any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask, via comments.

Green Frog Bokashi

Picture

The Glebe | Glebe Local News

GREENTHUMB and local resident Maree O'Malley has helped to release an innovative composting bucket to Australia and she hopes it leads to more recycling.

Bokashi buckets are air-tight and use a combination of bran and rice husks infused with microbes to break down kitchen waste into rich compost and liquid.

Ms O'Malley said any effort to reduce our environmental footprint was worthwhile: "A large percentage of what goes into landfill is domestic organic waste, which is a pretty easy thing to recycle."

In fact, organic material buried in landfills causes over three per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

Ms O'Malley said the reaction from residents, local councils and businesses has been very positive in today's eco-friendly climate.

"In the last couple of years, we've become a lot more aware of the importance of looking after our environment," Ms O'Malley said. "It's become quite a topic at the moment, it's quite in vogue to be green."

The passionate environmentalist has been to local events to spread the word, including regular appearances at the Orange Grove Public School markets.

Ms O'Malley has been working on the project for the past three years and hopes to expand within the eco industry: "Most people know what a worm farm is or what a compost bin is (but) most wouldn't know what a Bokashi bucket was."

The Marrickville resident has 22 outlets across Australia, including in Glebe, Rozelle and Newtown.

Details: http://www.bokashi.com.au/.

The Glebe Glebe Local News

Project Lyttelton

A great use at a commercial level of the Bokashi Composting System.

Project Lyttelton

ZERO YOUR CARBON

The Bokashi Bucket product information from online "Zero Your Carbon" http://www.zeroyourcarbon.com.au/

QLD Home and Garden WaterWise Rebate Schemes

Rebate available: 50% of total purchase cost up to $50

Perfect for purchase of The Green Frog Bokashi Bucket http://www.bokashi.com.au/ . Easy Kitchen Composting.

Application Pack (download here)http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/water/saverscheme/pdf/rebate_information_pack.pdf