Vinegar and bi-carb soda were non toxic products used by our grandparents and parents as cleaning agents before the advent of mass produced, heavily marketed, usually plastic bottled 'specialist' cleaners.  
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​If you are interested in finding out more about the use of bi-carb soda, you can access 'McKenzie's Bi-Carb Soda Tips and Uses' booklet by clicking on the image.  

Recipes are provided for making a paste (combine 3 tablespoons of Bi-Carb Soda with 1 tablespoon water. Adjust for your desired consistency; a solution (dissolve 3 tablespoons of Bi-Carb Soda in 1 litre of warm water) and for wiping: (apply  Bi-Carb directly to a damp or moist cloth). 

BSFG member and paramedic Jenny often travels overseas, both for pleasure and to volunteer as a paramedic in disaster zones.   Jenny reports discovering a great use for those single use shower caps which are provided in most hotels.  Her idea?  To use them instead of single use cling wrap to cover bowls of left overs etc. in the fridge.  Jenny says they fit well on many bowl sizes and that they remind her of  the durable use plastic covers with elasticized edges her mother used in the fridge.  (I'd forgotten completely about these - and suddenly had a flashback of similar covers in my parents' and grandparents' fridges...) Good thinking, Jenny!

We found this link on http://www.plasticbagfreevictoria.org.au - looks like a fun and sustainable rainy day activity.

How frustrating and what a huge waste of paper to print content from a web page!  A year or so ago I was pointed in the direction of PrintFriendly.com and ever since have used it on occasions when a printed copy was needed. All you need to do is copy the web address you want to print; go into www.printfriendly.com, paste the address into the URL box provided and voila, a print friendly copy which can then be printed or downloaded as a pdf file.

​From PrintFriendly's web site... "The PrintFriendly Story"  - Web pages usually look terrible when printed, and waste tons of paper and ink. It's bad for your wallet and the environment. In 2009, I had had enough, and set to work on solving the problem with PrintFriendly.com. The PrintFriendly team is Taylor Norrish(Founder, Customer Support, and Light Tech Stuff) and Manu Janardhanan (Programming, Servers, and Serious Tech Stuff).'​

 Source: North East Waste & Recycling Recovery Service--What Can I Recycle? 

Do you know that there are 'green hacks' and 'digital green hacks'... and that you can find digital green hacks at http://bienvivreledigital.orange.fr (in French... need to click to translate). 

Digital green hacks are keen on 'e-cleaning' and adopt practices such as

• sorting emails as soon as they receive them
  
• deleting the biggest emails - sorting emails in size allows them to delete the biggest emails quickly
• clearing out the spam folder and unsubscribing from unnecessary newsletters
• emptying the trash folder regularly

On our 'Links' page you will find a link to the 'Ecoportal'.  The Ecoportal's 'Articles' page is a wonderful source of light ideas.  Articles are written for and sourced from the weekly 'Living Lightly' column in the Border Mail.  'Light Ideas' abound!  You can also subscribe to the Living Lightly mailing list from this page. 

On December 2nd, 'The Joy of Op Shopping' by 'eco-friendly Mum Melissa Kane', featured in the Living Lightly column.  It's well worth reading through the articles!  

Here's the direct link to the 'Living Lightly' articles on Ecoportal - http://ecoportal.net.au/articles/