This weekend I went to the Sustainable Living Festival in Federation Square. There were lots and lots of stall holders including organic food, ideas for house and garden as well as lots of fairtrade and organic clothing and other stuff. There was also lots of great talks, although I only made it to a few of them.
In an attempt to not take a million brochures (and thus trees) I tried to refuse brochures from people instead taking down their web addresses. Thus follows a list of links I wrote down.
By the by I have some photos and a few posts to make on my garden, it is still there despite the heat, things have just piled up lately and the blog goes to the bottom of the pile.
I didn’t actually make it into this stall as it was always crowded out, but as permaculture is a great idea I wrote down their site. They have ways for people from different areas to get involved which looks great.
The Victoria Naturally Alliance
A woman accosted me as I was walking along finishing up writing the last address down and rather than take a brochure I said I would write the address down. I think they are involved in saving forests and the like. However I am not much of a joiner so I didn’t look closely.
Oases Graduate School
I doubt I would ever do my grad dip, but these guys have a really holistic program rather than focussing on one aspect of a healthy society in isolation they look at all aspects. If I were to do a grad dip (let’s get through a BA first), then this looked good from the stall.
Very Edible Gardens
These edible garden people are awesome. They sell garden beds, some of them are raised, so it is like working at a work bench, rather than crawling along the ground, which I think is a great way of making gardening more accessible to more people. On top of that they have a deal where you pay and they set up a garden and will come and look after it for you. Basically they do all the work and you get a killer veggie patch. The reason I like this is because people who are busy or don’t want to put in the work can still see how awesome it is, and maybe even take over looking after the garden themselves after a while. 🙂
This is a government website that was listed up in the Design Tent. I wrote it down because I figured it would have some good tips. I notice one of their tips is to go to the festival, so I must be doing something right!
Alternative Technology Association
The ATA people put on a great talk on what renters can do to be more sustainable, a lot was stuff I knew, some was stuff I can’t do where I’m living, but lots was good tips for now and in the future. They also gave out a book on how to save water which I am reading through, it has some great ideas.
The ATA talk quoted some stats from this site. I believe they have statistics on good laundry powder to use and the like.
Permablitz: An informal gathering involving a day on which a group of at least two people come together to achieve the following:
* create or add to edible gardens where someone lives
* share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living
* build community networks
* have fun
Why wouldn’t anyone want to be involved in that?
Balcony Garden Dreaming
This woman was so beautiful and passionate about balcony gardens. I took down lots of notes and tips from her which may become the basis for another post.
This I did not need to write down as I saw it everywhere and remembered it. It seems to be more of a search engine for sustainable-type stuff.