Hey Metro Vancouver!

I'm Alison Richards and for the next 30 days, starting on April 1st, 2011 I'll be monitoring and documenting my actions and activities while striving to live with the least amount of impact and creating zero waste. This interactive web site is meant to serve as a portal for your participation. Chat with me during my daily 5PM web cast or post your tips and suggestions on the Facebook page. I hope to create a ripple of change through awareness and focusing on making one small change each day.

Click Pledge to Become a 30 Zer0 Zer0 Hero!

Day Fourteen - April 14th, 2011

Join Alexandra Morton on the campaign trail for wild salmon. A Calendar of Events

Today I'll hear the 'Mayday for Wild Salmon' and speak with Alexandra as she visits the DOF (Department of Fisheries) offices before 1PM. For responses from politicians to Alexandra Morton's 'Vote Salmon' campaign (www.votesalmon.ca) please visit: http://www.wildsalmonpeople.ca/will-you-remove-feedlots-our-ocean Please join the Wild Salmon People in Vancouver at the Cohen Inquiry and at DFO tomorrow (14th) – with visits to Burnaby & Surrey (15th), Vedder River & Cultus Lake (16th), Adams River (17th), Shuswap River, Salmon Arm, Enderby, Kamloops & Hope (18th), Chilliwack, Mission, Abbotsford & Maple Ridge (19th), New Westminster & North Vancouver (20th), Squamish (21st), Vancouver for Earth Day (22nd), Sointula (23rd), Quadra Island (25th), Campbell River & Wild Salmon Narrows (26th), Duncan (27th), Nanaimo & Ladysmith (28th), Sidney (29th), Saanich, Sooke & Victoria (30th) and a May Day walk from Sidney to Victoria on 1st May with an overnight vigil shining the light onto Election Day (2nd May)

See you Live @ 5 today.

Take action to save Russia's Khimki Forest today.
Russian activists and journalists have survived beatings, arrests and intimidation during our campaign to save one of Moscow's last old-growth forests from destruction. Our movement to reroute the toll highway that would cut through Khimki Forest has become Russia's most inspiring and largest activist movements in a long time. It is...
RELATED STORIES
Russian Activists Launch International Campaign to Save Moscow's Khimki Forest by Jess Leber - 6 days ago
Helft uns, den Wald von Chimki zu retten—heute by Jess Leber - 7 days ago
Campaign to Save Khimki Forest, Bulgarian Translation by Jess Leber - 7 days ago

Challenge your friends to be 30 Zer0 Zer0 Heroes!

Dear Readers/Viewers,

For those of you who may not have noticed, Alison and I are cousins due to the fact that our mothers are sisters. These two wonderful women are from a certain generation and social background, were raised in a certain manner, and expect things done in a certain way. Let's just say that they are "particular".

In my mother's house there was no dust. It was not allowed to exist. There was never any mess or clutter; silver gleamed, crystal sparkled, floors shone and the furniture was lemon-oiled once a week. Mom not only used window cleaner and towels to do the dozens of windows at home, but also razor blades and Q-tips "to go around the edges and in the corners." (!!!!!) Everything was ironed, and I mean EVERYTHING, right down to our undershirts. All laundry went outside, and my mother almost never used the dryer, even in the winter. (She was also a full-time teacher.) So.... when Mom last stayed with my partner and me in our little Shinjuku Tokyo apartment, I was gobsmacked, absolutely stunned, over the moon even, when she said to me one afternoon up on our roof garden where the laundry was
hanging, "Your whites are so much whiter than mine!" OH! MY! GOD!
My whites are whiter than Mom's! MY!!! WHITES!!!!!! How could that possibly be you ask? Well, allow me to let you in on my little
secret: DON'T USE AN AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINE OR DRYER, AND HANG YOUR LAUNDRY OUTSIDE!!!

That's right. You heard me. They waste water and power, and add unnecessary pollution to the environment. I have an "old fashioned", yet newly produced, two tank manual machine. Too labour intensive you say? PSHAW! I can do three loads in the amount of time an automatic machine takes, and I USE THE SAME WATER FOR ALL THREE LOADS! It's also amazing how clean this powerful little washer gets clothes.

Let's say I'm doing two loads of whites and one load of darks. I start filling the tank and add the detergent, just a tiny bit, because my husband and I are both white collar workers, so our clothes don't get that dirty. Things that need an extra bit of cleaning go in first when the water is low and the detergent is still concentrated. (This would be my husband's underwear as he has IBS, and, well, sh*t happens!) Next, as the tank is still filling, I would throw in the completely white things like T-shirts, white dress shirts etc. and let them swish around for a couple of minutes. They do NOT need an eight or ten minute wash cycle. Too hard on your clothes and a WASTE OF POWER! I pull them out and dump them in the extractor tank to the right, set the dial for spin and while they're being spun, I'll throw the second load of whites, or lightly coloured laundry into the wash water. Pull the spun-out clothes out of the spinner, dump in load number two, start them spinning and throw in the dark load. Same water for THREE loads of clothes. Up to this point it has taken about fifteen to twenty minutes. ONLY!

Once everything has been spun dry, I drain the wash tank, and fill it with clean water. The clothes go into the rinse in the order they were washed, and then they get spun out. I never EVER do two rinses like an automatic machine. WASTE! I use very little detergent, so there is no need for two rinses. WASTE! WASTE! WASTE! I spin the clothes the second time, (the extractor/spinner is so good that the clothes come out barely damp), and then hang them out in the blazing
Tokyo sun. If you can help it, you should NEVER use a dryer. EVER!
They are an enormous waste of power, (think how much they add to your electric bill!), and are hard on your clothes. Hanging laundry inside helps add moisture to the air in a centrally heated, dry home, and hanging it outside makes everything so much brighter and nicer smelling! The whole process, including hanging out took less than 45 minutes! Waste of your valuable time you say? PSHAW, I say again!
Nobody is THAT busy! I listen to music, watch the people down on the street (our machine is outside on the roof), read a mag or a book, do my nails, putter in the garden, pick my nose, play with the dog, or just stare into space. VOILA!

from my cousin

Brent Fialka

Day One - April 1st 2011 - Archive

Day Two - April 2nd 2011 - Archive

Day Three - April 3rd 2011 - Archive

Day Four - April 4th 2011 - Archive

Day Five - April 5th 2011 Water, Water, Everywhere - Archive

Day Six - April 6th 2011 Shopping Local, meat, bakery, produce - Archive

Day Seven - April 7th 2011 Sustainable Clothing - Archive

Day Eight - April 8th 2011 Urban Gardening - Archive

Day Nine - April 9th 2011 Personal Avocacy- Archive

Day Ten - April 10th 2011 Earth Friendly Shampoo - Archive

Day Eleven - April 11th 2011 Waste from War - Archive

Day Twelve - April 12th 2011 Greg Moore Metro Van Waste Mgt Committee- Archive

Day Thirteen - April 13th 2011 - Archive