Frankston’s Worm Water

Staff and residents at our Frankston Home Choices house have started a fantastic initiative to make the most of their worm farm. Home Choices Team Leader, Helen Beaver, shares their story.

Since we bought the worm farm with the vouchers that we received for last year’s sustainability efforts, we have been collecting the liquid that it produces. We then transfer this Worm Water into reused plastic bottles, which we have been selling for $1 per litre.

Staff and residents have been very active in saving all plastic bottles for us to reuse in this way. The bottles are also clearly labelled for safe use and storage and include instructions on how to use the liquid. The Worm Water is collected every week and yields approximately 9 litres, which makes a great fertiliser for the garden.

We would like to make this valuable Worm Water available for others to buy. Kim O’Donoghue will be collecting orders from the Statewide Coordination Centre in Carnegie on behalf of the house. We have both 3 litre and 2 litre containers available, which are $3 and $2.

All the money raised through sales of the Worm Water will go towards the communal vegie garden being developed at the Frankston Units. As we do not have a large garden area, we’ll create this garden in pots and containers.

We have also been using one of our recycle bins to collect used aluminium cans. Once the bin is full, we will cash the cans in at Cranbourne and the money will go towards the vegie garden as well.

Two great initiatives from the HomeChoices team and residents – and if anyone is interested in buying some worm water, please let Kim know on 9564 1063 or kim.odonoghue@tipping.org.au.
 

Setting up a Worm Farm at Aberdeen

At the end of last year, John, a resident at our HomeChoices Macleod house planted a vegie patch at the house after being involved in a gardening program for more than six years. Recently, the residents decided it was time to set up a worm farm to complement their vegie garden.

So, on a cold wintery day, with the help of staff, John, Mark and Peter enthusiastically put together the worm farm. They also set up a new ‘vegie scraps’ box to put aside the food for the worms. The worms have now been in their new home for a little over a week and Mark has volunteered to feed the hard working worms and watch them do their work.

It’s great to hear that so many residents and staff are getting really involved in their SustainAbility Stars Project… and it sounds like we have lots of happy worms out there in our HomeChoices houses!

Click here if you would like to download this newsletter in PDF format.

In Other News

In conjunction with TRU Energy (our energy provider) and FieldForce (their installer), most of our HomeChoices houses have had energy efficient light globes and low flow shower heads installed.

In total we have replaced 321 light globes and six shower heads, and it is all free of charge!

Did you know that you can save 2,800 black balloons and up to $19 per light fitting a year by using energy saving globes?
A balloon can hold about 50 grams of greenhouse gas, so we have now saved almost 45 tonnes of greenhouse gas in a year simply by using energy efficient globes.

For more details click here.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has created a Sustainable Cities Index to provide a snapshot of Australia’s 20 largest cities. It compares different areas of sustainability with the aim of encouraging healthy competition as well as discussion around new ways of thinking about our cities.

They established 15 categories across three broad areas: environmental performance, quality of life and resilience. Then, after evaluating each city, they compared them with each other.

Click here to see how Melbourne fares.

SustainAbility Star-ter Kit

For more information about EW Tipping Foundation’s SustainAbility Project, the SustainAbility Stars program, or to download our free SustainAbility Star-ter Kit, go to www.tipping.org.au or email sustainability@tipping.org.au