Earth Hour will be on Saturday 27th March from 20h30 to 21h30 this year.
For more information visit the Earth Hour website: www.earthhour.org.za
We hope all concerned people will take part.
It can be great fun.
We switch off everything but the fridge for the whole evening,
and have supper by candle light,
with card games and Scrabble afterwards.
Remember the important THREE R’s
Reduce – your needs. Try to limit what you want, and what you use.
Don’t waste food – cook only what you are going to eat.
Don’t waste water – shower instead of bath, water the garden in the early morning
or evening when there is less evaporation.
Don’t waste fuel – pick up the kids on your way to the library and shop on the way home – one trip not three.
Re-use – Wherever possible, find a use for ’stuff’.
Buy re-usable shopping bags.
Egg boxes and newspapers can go into the compost heap.
Plastic bags can be cleaned and used to wrap food.
All vegetable matter can be used for compost – if you live in a flat, give to a friend.
Recycle – only as a last resort.
Glass, paper, tins and most plastics [PET 1 and 2, and soft plastic bags] can all be recycled easily.
There are several depots who will take your recycling. e.g
Oasis [Cerebral Palsy Association] on Lansdowne road.
There is a large recycling depot on Rosmead Avenue Wynberg [Just after the Fire Station and the Electricity Dept.]
They take electric and electronic equipment, plastic, metal, polystyrene, garden and builders rubble, as well as used engine oil.
Do you know of other recyc-sites? Please let us know.
You sit on your ’stoep’ and contemplate your neighbour’s state of the art ‘deck’.
His lawn has been shaved down to the roots and every tiny bit of grass etc. has been
turbo-blower removed.
Yours has been cut, and there are still bits of grass and leaf litter lying around.
However there are thrushes and starlings fossicking in the leaves, a family of mossies
is teaching the ‘kids’ how to find grass seeds, and a turtle dove is collecting nesting twigs.
His elaborate water feature splashes and tinkles away, while your small
basin on a pile of old rocks does not lend any elegant ‘ambience’ to the scene.
However some white-eyes and pigeons are enjoying a bath and a drink and a lizard
is sunning himself on the rocks.
The garden next door has hundreds of Rand spent on chemical fertilizers and pest control.
You use only compost.
However your garden is full of wildlife – starlings and thrushes eating the slugs and snails,
robins and white eyes keeping the insect population under control, hadedahs aerating the lawn as they probe for worms and the flowers and loquat tree are abuzz with bees, fruit bats and birds.
The elegant pedigreed hound next door is looking down his nose at you.
However the poor dog is overweight and neglected, while your SPCA-mutt is slim,
trim, loved , rolling around in the grass and waiting for you to take him for his daily walk.
The expensive 4X4 revs up next door to take the family to lunch at the new Che Expensivo Bar
and Eatery where Kudu a la potjie is on special. Your old family sedan needs a service.
However here comes Mum and the kids to join you in a family walk, and buy some rolls for lunch.
Question – Which family is happier, and more in harmony with themselves and more importantly – with the earth?
The Joneses – who needs them?
Earth Matters will cover:
and more…
