Sustain the wander

The Trafford Eco House, our visit

2010-02-23T02:09:00.012+11:00

This morning I visited the Trafford Eco House, a home in suburban Manchester where Andrew lives with his family.

They have moved from Brisbane to Manchester to be nearer their family and have been in the house since July 2009. In that time the house has gone from being an average home with a large garden to an extraordinary beginning in self-sufficiency (see the picture of the garden, right).

The garden has been the primary focus of the family's time and resources so far and now contains fruit trees, garden beds, composting and most impressively a polytunnel that houses an aquaponics system.

Aquaponics is a balanced system of food production that utilises a nutrient cycle (see picture of nitrogen cycle, below). This picture is sourced from Backyard Aquaponics.

What this looks like practically is a one or more grow beds connected to a fish tank via pipes that circulate water with a timed pump.

The scale can vary in size and complexity depending on the space and resources available. A balcony system might have a small tank with gold fish and a small herb garden while a system like Andrew's has a large tank for edible fish and many grow beds for herbs and vegetables that will feed the family of four. (See picture, left, for an example of a basic system - sourced from Backyard Aquaponics).

The grow beds contain media such as expanded clay or river gravel to hold the plants in place and the nutrient rich water from the fish tank then floods this bed at timed intervals to feed the plants, thereby cleaning the water to put back into the fish tank (Note, there are variations on the flood and drain methods such as continuous flow or floating raft. See websites below for more information).

Andrew hopes that eventually his system of grow beds and fish tanks will provide the family with all of their non-root vegetables and much of their protein. The family aims to close the loop in this system by feeding the fish using both what they grow and the worms and fly larvae that are naturally attracted to their compost. This is impressive from a sustainability perspective because it avoids the pitfalls of large scale commercial fish farms that often use wild fish to feed to the farmed ones thereby depleting the overall stocks and causing a dangerous imbalance in the ecosystem.

The Trafford Eco House system, a little more complex than a basic one, has 6000 litres of water in circulation. The 3000 litre fish tank will eventually grow Rainbow Trout and three smaller tanks act as sumps. When water is pumped from the sump into the fish tank it causes the water level to rise and the overflow to be channelled via pipes at the top of the fish tank into the grow beds.

There are three large grow beds down the middle of the polytunnel and five or six smaller ones along each side wall all using expanded clay (see picture, right). Once these are filled their overflow system drains the water, now cleaned of fish effluent, into the sump to wait for the next cycle.

At the moment the system is cycling water once per hour in order to build up the bacteria necessary to the nutrient cycle and to adjust the flows to each grow bed. Once this is complete the fish can be added and vegetables planted, either as seeds or seedlings. Andrew has planted some rocket seeds as an experiment and they are beginning to sprout (see picture ,left).

Andrew's experience of setting up this system over the past six months has provided the following valuable lessons:

Using large grow beds rather than many small ones requires less resources such as piping and the time spend installing it.
Plastic tanks will buckle under the weight and pressure of water so need a good wooden frame around them. Andrew would consider using just a wooden frame and a plastic lining for a fish tank if he were to repeat the process.
The foundations that the whole system is build on must be solid. Andrew has spent extra time and money on reinforcing the ground under the weight of the tanks and grow beds after they began to sink.
The use of just one pump in the entire system is preferable. If many smaller pumps are used to pump water through the system and one fails this can cause flooding.
Expanded clay is very effective at retaining moisture and the necessary bacteria but smaller bits can block pipes.
Engaging local council in your activities can greatly expand the network of people who may show interest in this system and provide assistance in the future. The council promotes the Trafford Eco House and Andrew holds workshops on site.

I have been interested in aquaponics for a year or so but until now have been somewhat of a fringe dweller to the whole experience. Visiting the Trafford Eco House has awakened all sorts of possibilities for me.

I now understand that this technique can be made as simple or as complex as you like but it still remains low maintenance and low impact in terms of food production techniques. I can also see why this system has been so successful in Australia - in many areas of the country a polytunnel is not necessary because there is less temperature variation than somewhere like Manchester. A simple cover from the rain is all that might be required. And we can grow Baramundi because it is native (yum).

For me Aquaponics should be part of our eating future in Australia. I definitely want to make it part of mine.

Websites with useful information:

http://www.aquaponics.com.au/ (Commercial, New South Wales based)
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/ (Commercial, Western Australia based)
http://www.aquaponics.net.au/ (Commercial, Queensland based)
http://traffordecohouse.wordpress.com/ (non-commercial)
http://aquaponics.org.uk/ (non profit)
http://www.uvi.edu/sites/uvi/Pages/Research.aspx?s=RE (University of Virgin Islands, Research based)

Huge thanks to Andrew and his family at the Trafford Eco House who so generously took the time to show Maureen and I around their home and garden.
Also, thanks to Charlie and Rebecca, who run Aquaponics UK out of Stirling University, for chatting to us back in January about their experience of aquaponics.

Maternal waif inspires shoppers

2010-02-18T20:45:00.006+11:00

Is anyone else slightly disturbed by the 'look' of this mannequin?

This photo was taken at a major clothing store in Manchester.

Women are expected to part with £20 of their hard earned cash for this t-shirt - that comes in sizes 8 to 18 - based on a size 6 mannequin that has been stuffed with two plastic balls for breasts and another plastic ball for the 'bump'.

Nobody on staff had bothered to do her size 6 jeans up and her plastic bump was humiliatingly revealed. Shoppers were laughing at her and I took her photo.

I'm inclined to think that if a clothing brand has gone to the trouble to design and manufacture maternity wear they could at least show some respect to the women who have to purchase and wear the clothes by using a decent looking mannequin.

I found a much more realistic maternity mannequin online for only £49. Fair enough she has no head but at least her bump and breasts are genuine parts of her.

Off we chug again

2010-01-29T23:04:00.002+11:00

After drinking approximately 300 cups of tea and surviving on a diet of carbs alongside more carbs my wee Scots lassie and I are driving off into the cold and pink sunset tonight.

We are Edinburgh bound - a whole 30 minute drive. After being in the UK for about three months I have got the hang of misinterpreting distance. The other night Moz's uncle referred to Cornwall as the end of the earth. This leaves little doubt that we will not be seeing them in Australia in a hurry. And this is despite me selling the halfway point (somewhere in south east Asia) as a weekend shopping stop.

After a weekend in Edinburgh we plan to head down to the borders (the area that unsurprisingly hosts the border of England and Scotland) and onto Newcastle for some walking and a catch up with Moz's old university friend. Then it's off to the Lake District for more walking then to see the fabulous Matt in Manchester.

Not that I've been a super wonderful regular and reliable blogger but I predict a proper lack of action in this space until we are back in London selling Vincent the van in a few months time.

Until then....

The conundrums of a sustainable traveller

2009-12-31T23:47:00.011+11:00

In my very first post I said the following with regard to avoiding aircraft:

"I'm leaving Melbourne ... the general intent is to make it back to Australia in 6-12 months without flying (ok - maybe just one flight from Singapore) .... The themes I am hoping to capture in this 'journal' are sustainability (particularly energy related initiatives I'm hoping to visit), fantastic passionate people and various travel insights that come from avoiding aircraft".

I would like to share four very obvious insights and a hypothetical that come from avoiding aircraft and then I will go on to explain our conundrum more personally.

It is ridiculously cheap to fly

It is ridiculously expensive to take the train

Some parts of the EU don't see sunlight for the better part of a year (think UK)

Some parts of the EU have sunlight for much of the year (think Spain)

Now for a hypothetical. Let's say Ms Piccadilly is fed up with the grey days of London so she decides to go to Barcelona for a week in February. Here are her options:

Bus- Route, Eurolines London to Barcelona. Time, 27 hours there and 23 hours back. Cost, £137. Carbon, 34.1 kg

Train- Route, Eurostar London to Paris then change trains to Barcelona. Time, 20 hours there and 20 hours back. Cost, £200. Carbon, 65.6 kg

Aeroplane- Route, London to Barcelona. Time, 3 hours there and 1.5 hours back. Cost, £40 without luggage and £58 with luggage. Carbon, 194.3 kg

I'd say Ms Piccadilly is in a picaninny of a pickle.

What should she choose if she wants to travel sustainably? The bus right. But Ms Piccadilly is on a budget and only has a week off work. The £60 odd saved is one or two nights accommodation in Barcelona and the 45.5 hours she saves means an extra two days of sunshine, rest and relaxation. If you have ever lived in the UK you know how rejuvenating this can be.

This is a real conundrum because for most travellers it costs to care about carbon and for millions of people flying away to get away is now the norm.

Moz and I are six months into our travels. We spent three months taking a train around Europe and it was very lucky that we had pre-purchased Eurorail tickets because the trains are super expensive - certainly more so than aeroplanes. We then purchased a diesel van called Vincent Van-Go and have been travelling around it in the UK to avoid the extortionate cost of rail fares and increase our ability to reach remote places.

We now find ourselves faced with an ever tightening budget and the last leg of our marvelous adventure - taking the Trans-Mongolian train across Russia and into China to fly home from Asia. Getting from the UK to Russia would be a cinch if we flew and it would save us loads of money but alas we will attempt to take buses and trains and maybe even hitch the odd lift.

I suppose my point is that from home, when planning a trip like ours, it seems easy and fun to take trains to see the world while also 'doing the right thing'. But, faced with the reality of dwindling cash supplies my commitment is seriously tested. Is it any wonder that emissions from the aviation sector are one of the fastest growing in the world.

George Monibot's blog from Copenhagen sums up my point beautifully. He took a £480 standard train fare from London to the climate talks in Copenhagen rather than an £18 flight.

** Try the UK based Transport Direct calculator to compare bus, train and aeroplane emission from your planned journey.

** These footprint calculators are one way to understand the impact of your household on the planet - WWF calculator is good for UK residents and ACF calculator is good for Aussies.

** The Man in Seat 61 will help you plan most aspects of a train journey anywhere in the world.

Dropping diesel in Wales

2009-11-16T06:17:00.003+11:00

Moz and I stopped the other day at a public toilet next to a slate museum in the tiny Welsh town on Llanbris. We needed to empty our overflowing chemical toilet and the environmentalist in me wanted to do it into a toilet and not on the road side in Snowdonia National Park.

After chatting to the helpful man who had just cleaned the toilet block we decided to sneak our naughty little potty into the men's, out of sight of the goings on in the area. Just as we'd worked out how to proceed in this task two men, one middle aged and one young, appeared in the doorway wearing head to toe diving suits of black rubber.

They were like lake monsters but with a better sense of humour. "Oh dear, there's been a take over" they declared at seeing two women in the men's bathroom. After some fumbling apologies and a weak explanation for our pee stained potty they told us why they looked like lake monsters and wanted to know about our lovely van Vincent.

The men, Eamonn and Albi, dive at the bottom off a water logged and disused slate quarry as practice for their summer holidays in the Mediterranean. In Wales they wear three layers including an arctic layer in order to keep warm-ish.

Curiosity lead them to Vincent and a raft of questions including fuel consumption. We discussed miles and kilometres, litres and gallons. The men took a break from the van tour to get dressed and we used the opportunity to empty the little loo into the men's urinal. That is another story....

The heroes of the story decided that we should follow them in our van to the dive shack where they needed to return their equipment and they could use the computer to do some conversions. Enter another character, John, the owner of a tiny dive shack. Over the next hour of so John, a middle aged balding, chain smoking Welshman peppered the main plot line of 'working on the van' with woes of his dysfunctional computer and stories of his son and daughter-in-law in Australia. This included photos of the woman's brain surgery to remove a parasite a week after their return. By the end of our stay I managed to plant the seed in John's head that it was probably the stop off in Thailand where the parasite jumped on board.

Back to the van.... Eamonn by now had mentioned that he was a diesel mechanic... for Ford. Would you read about it!?

When Eamonn did the maths, using the dive shack computer, and discovered that Vincent the Ford Transit was getting half the efficiency of his peers all were completely committed to solving the mystery and thus began an hour long process of working by torchlight. Eamonn banged and clanged while Albi his faithful side-kick insisted on being told every twist and turn in a diesel engine. John smoked nearby.

The culprit turned out to be a fuel leak in a small rubber pipe leading into the engine. This was dripping onto the exhaust and causing the smell, which was obvious when pointed out. This was also the probably cause of our carbon monoxide alarm screeching at us as we drive.

After some man-handling (see pic right) and a slice of faithful gaffer tape the leak was fixed but there remained a disturbing noise. The last owner had fiddled with the [enter proper mechanic speak here] to compensate for the leak. This mean the van was revving high and not using oxygen but rather burning even more diesel.

Once Eamonn finished John came with a tank of compressed air (see picture below), and a cigarette in his mouth ready to light, to clean the diesel off the engine.

Now we will wait and see how fast the gauge goes down but either way I am grateful to the kindness of strangers and sorry for all the diesel we left on the roads of Wales.

Blogging and why I'm crap at it

2009-11-16T05:56:00.002+11:00

So this blog hasn't exactly turned out the way I'd hoped. Entries for one... just aren't here are they.

Backpacking has changed a lot since I last did it. Now everyone has a mobile phone and even a mini-laptop. Alas I do not. This means finding Internet cafes and paying the sometimes extortionate cost (up to AU$9 per hour) to sit in a stuffy room and try to think what on earth about my travels would make interesting reading.

Setting this up as a sustainability focused blog was somewhat setting it up for a fall. I simply haven't had the opportunity to gain an in depth look at many sustainability related topics.

Somehow I'm finding myself a very busy little backpacker. Always somewhere to go and something to see. Go figure...

So the Scottish lassie and I have been on the road for 4 months now. We have been through Italy, France and Spain all by train and we have never been in one place for too long.

Our latest adventure sees us in Vincent Van-Go, our lovely new camper, travelling around UK and Ireland (where we are right now). For a look at the gorgeous Vincent, and an example of a high quality and dedicated blogger, see Letters from London.

So I apologise to my lovely friends and family who have been waiting to read something, anything from this page. I will try a little harder to gain some blog confidence and build up my blogger blagging skills.

recipe for multi lingual madness

2009-08-14T21:47:00.007+10:00

Ingredients

2 Chinese ladies who speak dialect Chinese and moderate Italian

1 Spanish woman who speaks Spanish, German, some English and a little Italian

1 Spainish woman who speaks Spanish and a little English and Italian

1 Spainish man who speaks Spanish and a little English and moderate Italian

1 woman from Litgenstien who speaks German and a little English

1 woman from Australia who speaks English and very little Italian

1 woman from Scotland who speaks something like English and very little Italian

1 Frenchman who speaks French, English, Russian and a little Italian

1 Basque woman who speaks Basque, Spanish and a little English and Italian

1 dog who speaks all languages when food is being offered

Add vino ......

Add more vino .......

Add a dictionary and some playing cards ......

Result .... multi lingual madness and a whole lot of fun.

more budget travel tips for Italy

2009-08-04T22:49:00.004+10:00

So yes... we are finding Italy quite expensive on the Aussie dollar!

Tip number 6:

Book a language course (learn Italian) in Siena, Florence or Milan with Scuola Leonardo da Vinci and they find you super cheap accommodation. Serious, it is cheaper to stay somewhere for a few weeks and go to school from 9-1pm than to be a regular tourist. And guess what, you learn pocco Italiano.

We will be in the beautiful, and car free since the 70s, Siena till after il Palio - check it out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palio_di_Siena

PS did I mention that I left Australia with a back pack weighing 10 kilograms? Yes, friends a sack of spuds, a very small child, the weight I put on in the last year (which seems to be falling off with all this walking).
And what can you do with such a back pack? You can run away fast from dodgy hostel proprietors, climb many many flights of stairs to other hostels, lift it well above your head onto train racks, use it as a seat... other ideas greatly appreciated.

Ciao from Siena

another brilliant Italy on a budget idea

2009-07-28T20:42:00.006+10:00

.....
5. It is more cost effective to study Italian for two or more weeks than stay in a hostel/hotel as a tourist. If you book with certain language schools they find you crazy cheap accommodation in an apartment with a kitchen etc.

We're off to Siena..... Ciao x

PS. the colour green is definately not associated with sustainability (sostenibilità) here in Florence. I asked in Cafe Verdi (green) this morning and according to the owner Italians would think of Opera (Verdi - ah yes) well before they would think of anything environmental.
See image of Tuscany - verdi si? ;)

2009-07-27T01:17:00.002+10:00

Well isn't Florence just a sheer relief when compared to the intensity of Rome. Wanted to share some travel tips as the whole sustainability thing isn't taking off as yet.

1. Don't line up just push in. There is usually a way - follow the Italians. We walked right past a massive line up for tickets into the Sistine Chapel simply because of the human tendancy to herd. In this case the herd went for the already long line and ignored the empty line that was also selling tickets to anyone willing to break free from the herd.

2. The piss smell in Rome and Florence is due to a serious lack of public toilets (another lesson I had forgotten). If you are on a budget go to a back street cafe and order an espresso to use the toilet. Cost the same as paying the service charge and you get a caffeine hit. Whoop!!!

3. If you plan to keep a blog check to see if the instructions will show up in English first. Opps!

4. Quite simply www.helpx.net

More soon

2009-07-08T18:02:00.000+10:00

I'm leaving Melbourne 20th July 2009 with Scot-lassie. We land in Rome 21st July 2009 and will head off to our pre-booked three nights accommodation.

What happens after this is a mystery. The general intent is to make it back to Australia in 6-12 months without flying (ok - maybe just one flight from Singapore). I invite you to come with me.

The themes I am hoping to capture in this 'journal' are sustainability (particularly energy related initiatives I'm hoping to visit), fantastic passionate people and various travel insights that come from avoiding aircraft.