Wasteless Pantry Mundaring News: 13th Aug 2018

Full steam ahead!!

We’ve been working behind the scenes getting everything ready for the new locations as well as spreading the waste reduction message via so many talks.

What’s been happening in Mundaring store?

  • We’ve had soup mix and blue boiling peas for winter but will faze these out as we get closer to summer
  • Cinnamon almonds disappeared as our supplier no longer has stocks of these, and instead, we have smoked almonds which are quite delicious!
  • We found out that Himalayan Pink Salt is not sustainable and so we started stocking Australian Pink Lake Salt which has the same nutritional profile, however, IS ethically and sustainably sourced
  • Our honey guy is out of Eucalyptus but has given us a beautiful Red Gum & Eucalyptus blend to try.  We’re just about finished up his Jarrah Honey stocks too!
  • Have you read Erin Rhodes (aka Rogue Ginger) new book “Waste Not”?  It’s a great read and we are now stocking it
  • We are discounting a few spices that haven’t been so popular and bringing in pizza seasoning, chicken salt, vegetable salt, chipotle powder, garlic granules and harissa for you to add to your dishes
  • If you are into bee pollen, we have some – locally and zero waste sourced 🙂

Coming soon:

  • We are working on getting WA grown quinoa!
  • Organic muesli has been tracked down and shall be ordered soon with any luck
  • If you aren’t a fan of coffee pods or our aluminium espresso makers, we have stainless steel espresso makers coming soon

 

Photo credit:

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash


Wasteless Pantry Mundaring News: 25th June 2018

Isn’t this winter weather glorious!  Perfect for soups, stews, casseroles, porridge and tea!!

  • We got a chance to show our support for the Plastic Bag Ban when Environment Minister Stephen Dawson visited the store earlier this month and as part of a series of talks for City of Canning and Switch Your Thinking throughout the Perth metro area
  • Plus we also got a chance to support the community to reduce food waste by spreading the message via more Creating a Wasteless Pantry talks and speaking live on Channel 9 News
  • We were very lucky to be invited to the launch of the Plastic Free July Foundation!  This initiative started by the Western Metropolitan Regional Council is now it’s own entity, enabling it to have even more reach into the future.  If you haven’t registered already, please do via www.plasticfreejuly.org 
  • It was wonderful working with the Pre-primary to Year 6 students at Mundaring Primary School recently discussing the plastic pollution problem and solutions – beautiful posters from the Year 1’s are now on display at our store 🙂
  • We got to host a new round of Earth Carers who wanted to see how waste-free shopping can be done simply and easily
  • Boomerang Bags Mundaring gave us a great new display for collecting materials and offering make at home kits
  • We said Farewell to our team member, Emily, who has gone off to advance her Occupational Therapy career.  She is missed x

New items at the store:

  • U-konserve medium containers – stainless steel bottom and leakproof silicone lid handy for snacks
  • Mini curvy menstrual pads for lighter days
  • Bamboo straw sets for those that aren’t keen on stainless steel but want a reusable straw
  • Diced paw paw for easier make your own porridge and muesli mixes
  • Freekeh for salads, warm breakfasts, and as a variation on any whole grain recipe (like anything with quinoa)
  • Rice bran and apple flakes as another gluten-free breakfast option

Coming soon:

We’re bursting with excitement to let you know some really BIG news but we aren’t allowed to announce it just yet!  As soon as we can, we will 🙂

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Photo by Alex Wise on Unsplash

 


Zero Waste Lifestyle Store: An Alternative to Recycling

With all this talk about China’s National Sword program and the implications for recycling in Australia, we at Wasteless Pantry (your local zero waste lifestyle store) thought it would be a good time to have a chat about waste.

Recycling is a tool to help divert resources from landfill but it is not the best answer.  So recycle, but only those materials that you couldn’t avoid buying in the first place, couldn’t minimise the need for, couldn’t reuse or repair.

Never let perfection stop you from starting, any little improvement you make is still worth making.

Try out replacing a disposable with a reusable one from our zero waste lifestyle store (in Western Australia and online), rethink your purchases to minimise waste and learn what you can about how to lessen your impact whilst still enjoying life.

Read More


Wasteless Pantry Mundaring News (1 February 2018)

Happy 2018!

With the kids back at school it really feels like the new year has begun 🙂

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and whilst we’re not big on giving stuff, we do love to share the love so…

ACTION REQUESTED:

We would really love you to nominate your favourite Wasteless Pantry staff member!  Send us a bit of love by email about someone at the store who has done something to impress you, help you or inspire you.  Make sure it gets to us by close of business Tuesday 13th February and we will pick the best nomination to reward that staff member with a $30 gift voucher of their choosing.

[Just so you know, we’ve asked our staff to nominate their favourite customers too!]

In case you are not sure of names…

In this photo L to R top row: Emily, Tessa & James

L to R middle row: Lizzy, Belinda & Jade

L to R bottom row: Jeannie & Amanda

What’s been happening at the store?

  • We’ve added a bunch of recipes to the wall – like flatbread, tortillas, pizza bases and doughnuts!
  • We had the arrival of stainless steel drinking cups, insulated water bottles, sisal exfoliating gloves, coconut fibre scrub pads and scourers, organic muslin produce bags, dish wash brushes and replacement heads as well as pouches of bamboo cutlery.
  • We also expanded our range of stainless steel lunch/take away containers to include bento snack boxes, Cheeki lunch boxes and stackable bento boxes
  • We updated the website so if you want a more recent idea of what we stock check out our Product List

Coming soon:

  • We’re about to do a big review of what we stock so we’ll keep you updated on the changes
  • We are hoping to add an Artisan Bread Mix for making cob loaves and baguettes as well as bringing back Wholemeal Bread Mix which has a new recipe that we are happier with

Photo credit:

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash


Are you punishing yourself?

Decluttering vs Wasting

The idea of less stuff, clean surfaces, and an organised home is appealing to most.  That thought that you could spend less time cleaning, that it would be so simple that your 3-year-old could do it and that you could enjoy your home is so attractive that many of us have been on and off the decluttering bandwagon for years.

But if you are also trying to be environmentally friendly and reduce your contribution to landfill, it can be a conflicted experience.  Likewise, if you are someone who is budget conscious you might be looking at your possessions in terms of the monetary investment that you are potentially throwing away.  Alternatively, you might be more a sentimental type who sees the love in the gift (wanted or not at the time) that you are now trying to disconnect from.

Personally, I struggled with all three.  I punished myself for purchasing or acquiring the thing in the first place by trying to find a use for it when clearly it was not for me.  The thing would hang around my house, then in some storage space making it difficult to get to other more useful things, then it would be relegated to the shed before I’d finally admit defeat and move it on.  I felt guilty and ashamed of my relationship with stuff and that I had been outmanoeuvred by marketing to buy things I really didn’t need.

There are two ideas that made the difference for me.

  1. I started thinking of stuff as having its own needs – a need to be used as often as possible.  Was I ever going to use this to its full potential?  Would anyone I know use it more?  Could it be recycled so that it could have a new life as something with purpose again?
  2. I also started thinking about waste more generally to do with my things.  What other waste am I creating because I am holding onto this thing when really it needs to go (even if it needs to go to landfill)?  Was it impeding my ability to use other things to their full potential – like the bowls I couldn’t get out of the cupboard because I had too many serving dishes in the way or the room that we only half used because it had a stockpile of stuff to find a use for?  Was I wasting time moving and reorganising this thing that I don’t use, instead of using that time to live more sustainably?  Was I wasting water and electricity cleaning it but never using it?

I follow the waste hierarchy pretty religiously:

Refuse – stop buying things or bringing things home unless I need them

Reduce – aim for the smallest amount of things that I serve my needs

Reuse – find a new purpose for an underused item or pass it on to someone that can use it more

Recycle – break it down into its core material and give it another life

Rot – some things can be added to a compost pile to at least build your garden on

Then if it has to go to landfill so be it.

 

We are all learning and growing.  We make mistakes.  In other areas of our lives, we have learnt to forgive ourselves, let it go and move on.  This is just one more area to practice this.  Stop punishing yourself for your past and give yourself permission to step lightly into your best future.

 


Wasteless Pantry Mundaring News (12th January 2018)

Happy New Year!

May this year be the one where you see that you are part of a whole community that cares about reducing waste, living well and making a difference.  May you know in your bones that every action you take has an impact.

  • We have had a major win at the store!! After a year of encouraging, supporting, directing and educating we have finally achieved access to recycling facilities for all businesses in the Mundaring Shopping Village!  Up until this point businesses either looked after their own recycling or (more often than not) sent all of their recyclables to landfill.  We are so pleased that Centre Management has come on board and we’ll be pushing for education sessions for local businesses to make the most of the new facilities.  This is a big scale change and hopefully will make a big difference to the amount of landfill created by our area!
  • We’re still getting through the Christmas wrapped toilet paper so expect to see green and red for a little while longer.
  • We’ve almost exhausted our local supplies of Olive Oil from Wundowie and Wooroloo but we have another local one in the background ready to take its place
  • There have been a number of requests for a larger glass pump/spray bottle but unfortunately, that particular model is as big as it gets.  We are looking into alternatives for you all though so keep an eye out.  
  • With the trendiness of zero waste right now we are seeing more and more suppliers now offering us a range of goodies that we couldn’t access before.  Look out for Sisal Knitted Exfoliating Gloves, Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottles (with a plastic-free lid no less!), coconut fibre Scourers, wooden Dish Wash Brushes and replacement heads, Stainless Steel Drinking Cups, Organic Muslin produce bags, Bamboo Cutlery Sets and coconut fibre scrub pads arriving shortly.
  • Back to School preparations are underway and the range of naked lunch box alternatives are expanding.  So if you need some inspiration, look no further.


Going Zero Waste with a Naked Lunch Box

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris

We are all drawn to a life of simplicity. There are many of us that are drawn to that idea of a simple life, which is a hands on, peaceful and present one.

To me, that is what zero waste living is all about.

It’s about going back to the basics of being able to cook your own food and live a life more intentional, and less disposable.  It is not about making life harder for the sake of the environment or doing things the hard way.  It is about creating a life that fits with your values and encourages slowness in your days.  You don’t have to bake your own bread or make every meal from scratch unless you want to.  But what if doing these things not only reduce the waste you created but gave you back control of what you eat and the beauty with which you do it?

 

 

There is lots of depressing information out there about why reducing waste is so important.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or birds that are dying on some random island somewhere filled with our rubbish, or thousands of acres of forest that are lost every day, or the orangutans that are dying because of our love affair with cheap palm oil.  This information doesn’t help you move forward.  What helps you move forward and do the things that are going to help are finding ways to integrate good practices into your life.

I’ve been on this journey for a few years now and at the beginning, it was completely overwhelming.  There was so much to change and it felt as if it was too much to add to an already full life.  But what I have found over that time is that by going back to basics and reducing the waste, it has saved me time and has given me a better appreciation for how I live my life.

I’m hoping for this blog post to inspire some sort of change, but that might just be a change of mindset.  It might be a growing awareness of the little changes that you can make.  Changing to a slower and more intentional life, especially around this issue of waste.  As we like to involve our children in our growth, our first step might be around the naked lunch box.

A naked lunch box simply refers to packing a lunch without disposable packaging, and instead using reusable containers.  Those of you new to this idea should know that each school-aged child packed a disposable lunch creates 30kg of waste per year with their lunch alone (Australian statistics).  Just changing this one thing can have a significant impact!

There are lots of ideas for lunchboxes and what to fill them with available – so many Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram photos out there to inspire!

For those of you who have been packing a reusable lunchbox for some time and want to take your waste reduction skills to the next level, I encourage you to step it up a level and try to source your ingredients without packaging.  This might be taking a cloth bag to the bakery and asking for unwrapped bread.  Or it might be going to a bulk food store and buying your goods there.  Or it might mean taking produce bags to buy your fruit and vegetables (little reusable mesh bags instead of the disposable plastic ones).  Or maybe it is going to the farmers market and simply filling a box to take home.

This is just one way to get started.  It might sound like another thing to add to the to-do list that is a mile long or another challenge in an otherwise overwhelmed life, but what you might find is that by living this way you cultivate a skill.  You get to have an intimate and caring relationship with the food that you put into your children’s and your own body; as well as saving time and money.

 

 

Photo credits

Photo by Michał Grosicki on Unsplash

Photo by Jenn Evelyn-Ann on Unsplash

Photo by Litterfree Living