Vele “Christopher” Neluvhalani believes that on a fundamental level that people have always been connected to the earth, visible by the traces they leave behind, like the ancient rock art on the sandstone outcrops in Mapungubwe

Neluvhalani feels a deep connection to this ancient place, because his ancestors lived there thousands of years before him. He is bound to the area not only by tradition, but when he visits there and climbs to the top of Mapungubwe hill, he feels he has returned home

Mapungubwe is one of South Africa’s most sacred places. It is a World Heritage Site, the site of the earliest Southern African kingdom, a National Park and a Transfrontier Conservation Area. But by July 2011 the South African Government had granted Australian-owned mining company Limpopo Coal a series of permits to construct a large opencast coal mine in this ancient cultural landscape.

Many people, including Neluvhalani, do not agree with this;

This is because the recent announcement that authorisation has been given to Australian-owned company Limpopo Coal to construct an open-cast mine just outside of the boundaries of the park will irreparably alter the landscape. It is for this reason that Neluvhalani believes that “it would be an offence to our ancestors to start mining in the area.”

Neluvhalani was involved in the reburying of his ancestors’ remains at Mapungubwe, after they were recently reclaimed back from a museum collection and restored to their rightful place- a place that will be disturbed if mining is to go ahead

“Once we tamper with Mapungubwe we will be tampering with the past,” says Neluvhalani, who feels that the ties we have to our ancient places like Mapungubwe compel us to prevent them from being compromised, and that “everyone in South Africa should be united to help preserve Mapungubwe”

Submitted and written by: Green Renaissance

Article By: Carlton Krumpfes

Many water industry experts, including Carlton Krumpfes, have exposed misconceptions held by consumers regarding bottled water. Many customers are misinformed by perceiving bottled water to be safer or healthier for people than ordinary tap water. Fact, bottled water batches have been recalled numerous times. The truth is neither tap-water nor bottled water is favorable for human consumption. At the Food and Drug Administration, only one person oversees the entire department responsible for bottled water. The FDA classifies water as a food and uses the same nutritional metrics which tell the consumer no relevant information regarding the water as the label consists of all zeroes. Pertinent information regarding the water we drink does exist such as: Total Dissolved Solids, PH Level, Minerals Present, Source and Date of Production.

Multi-national corporations like Nestle (the world’s largest owning ice mountain and perrier) have become known as “water hunters” as they dig holes all over the Earth like oil companies to exploit the Earth in the name of profit. Like oil the good is an inferior option, an unwise choice for consumers, and detrimental to the planet. Water bottles are made from (you guessed it) oil! If you really want to go green, give up bottled water today and do not buy a bottle again until our voices are heard.

The plastic water bottles are made from PETE also known as polyethylene terephthalate a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family. Acetylhyde is a colorless volatile substance that can diffuse from the plastic water bottle at high temperatures and absorbed into the water. When bottled water leaves the factory acetylhyde is usually not present which the bottled water industry loves to tout. However, by the time consumers receive the bottled water, acetylhyde can be present due to high temperatures as semi-trucks travel through the desert to destinations.

In addition to the scary compound acetylhyde, antimony is also a catalyst in the production of plastic water bottles. The FDA recognizes antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) to be hazardous in levels exceeding six parts per billion. Trace amounts of the antimony toxic substance are present on all water bottles prior to being filled. Commentary published in Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2010 suggested that PETE might yield endocrine disruptors under conditions of common use. Mechanisms include leaching of phthalates as well as leaching of antimony.

Bottled water does not disclose the total dissolved solids or the PH level regarding the product we consume. Water with a PH level below seven is classified as acidic and above seven is alkaline. A number of water experts, including Carlton Krumpfes, recommend drinking water that is alkaline and has a PH level higher than seven. Alkaline water also known as kangen water will boost the immune system, benefit the body’s ability to maintain homeostasis, and can even help with weight loss.

Some water enthusiasts even claim that alkaline water slows the aging process. Almost all bottled water from Crystal Geyser to Ice Mountain and even Evian is acidic and potentially may be adversely impacting the health of their customers. Purchasing an alkalinizing reverse osmosis water purifier is a means of empowering one’s self to save money, help the environment, and drink the best water in the world.

http://www.bottledwaterboycott.com

Written by Loren Phillips

Given that entire industries are in the process of re-evaluating their business models to figure out whether they can carry on doing business in the same way as they did post-2008, this is a question the fashion industry warrants asking. What the recession certainly showed us was that if your business is not sustainable, it will have to shut its doors. Even the famous Lehman Brothers were not immune to the fatal Wall Street crash. So what practices within the fashion industry are not likely to survive the next fifty years?

According to Wikipedia1 , “Sustainable fashion, also called eco fashion, is a part of the growing design philosophy and trend of sustainability the goal of which is to create a system which can be supported indefinitely in terms of environmentalism and social responsibility. Sustainable fashion is part of the larger trend of sustainable design where a product is created and produced with consideration to the environmental and social impact it may have throughout its total life span.”

The new mantra of the business world is “triple bottom line”. Companies need to start taking a triple bottom line approach when it comes to re-evaluating their business models. Profit, of course, is inseparable from business, but what this new model includes are both people and planet. Important questions that need to be asked at this stage are:

• “What is the impact of my business on the lives of others?”
• “What is the impact of my business on the planet?”

Asking these two questions above and beyond the “How am I going to make money?” you should get a good idea of whether your business will live to see the 21st Century.

Fashion is an industry that is guilty, through its messaging and its non-stop turnover, of portraying itself as cheap, readily available and “must-have”. “The collective result is a homogeneous look that is far less interesting and much more disposable”2.

The fashion industry is responsible for the use of sweatshops and child labour. As the world becomes more connected, these types of business practices are simply unsustainable (not to mention unethical). The price tag usually lays testament to this fact, the cheaper the garment, the more likely it is to have come from unsound sources. An important question has become: “What is the true cost of this garment?”

The true cost underlines the environmental and social damage that it has caused making its way through the value chain and to you, the end user. Shoppers also need to take responsibility for their part, realising by making that purchase, they are creating the demand that feeds the supply.

Then there are fashion shows. Gorgeous, glamorous affairs no doubt, but at what cost? Fashion editors fly from all around the world to attend these soirees and no cost is spared moving textiles, trims and any other accoutrement from point A to point B. The carbon cost of these events is staggering, and more importantly, unsustainable in a world that is increasingly counting carbon dollars. It’s also worth a mention at this point that models starving to death is hardly a sustainable state of affairs.

And all of this for what? So that the world can watch the show on FTV as it happens, and the photographs can be spread digitally just minutes later. Fashion editors are just not the be-all and end-all of the fashion industry like they once were. The digital age is here, and rising to prominence are street style sites and fashion blogs. So what is all the fuss about? Savvy designers like Victor and Rolf have noticed the shift and are gearing up for the new world, presenting digital fashion shows online for all to see. The democratisation of fashion is already in full swing.

Sustainable fashion, a contradiction in terms?

The recent PSFK Salon held in Soho, panelists discussed various key issues related to sustainability in fashion. An important point that emerged was that: “Given that aesthetics and style concerns drive the industry both from a brand and consumer perspective, it became clear from the get-go that in any conversation around fashion, the fashion itself has to come first, meaning that sustainability has to naturally co-exist alongside these expectations.”3 It was also noted that brands play a central role in the education of consumers around issues of sustainability. Although there is a trend, mostly within mature consumer markets, towards slower, more considered consumption, people on the whole need to learn how to purchase with a different set of values in mind, for example:

• Will it last?
• Does it really suit me?
• Can I wear this in five years time?

The onus is also shifting onto big brands in terms of education. Brands leading in the sustainability discourse are integrating sustainable thinking into their core value system, allowing these messages to role out through the various media channels they have available to them. Of course, one of the positive benefits of this is an upswing in positive brand sentiment, especially amongst the younger generation who see “doing good” as one an essential tenet of being a big brand with a massive reach and influence. Big brands need to consider themselves more responsible in the race towards a sustainable future, as the have global reach and are in the financial position put do the research and development necessary in the creation of greener alternatives.

Moving through this transitionary period, we are seeing a large instance of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing refers to “the deceptive use of green Public Relations (PR) or green marketing in order to promote a misleading perception that a company’s policies or products (such as good or services) are environmentally friendly. The term ‘green sheen’ has similarly been used to describe organisations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.”4

Greenwashing is dangerous to the entire sustainability effort as it erodes consumer trust, something which is very difficult to rebuild (note how much damage Nike has suffered with their sweatshop scandal). The difficulty lies in the fact that the terrain is largely unchartered, without the proper legislation to guide best practices. Time will see this rectified as sustainability auditing comes into place5, but in the meantime, savvy consumers have already woken up to false claims and are taking companies to task. Companies need to recognise the importance of authenticity in their messaging, and need to be honest about what has been accomplished and what challenges lie ahead.

Sadly, sustainability thinking is featured more in the posts of green blogs like Treehugger, than on the pages of fashion magazines, where the “green” trend made an appearance but then passed like another waning fashion fad. Digital activists are at the forefront of this debate with websites like Care2 and locally, I Am Changing the World , providing useful information to consumers about the environmental and health benefits of “conscious consumerism”. Some of the trends in sustainability viewed through the lens of fashion include seasonless fashion, the return to craft, localisation, vintage shopping and the move towards organic fibres.

What are designers doing locally?

Local designers largely have their hands tied as far as sourcing is concerned. We do not have a fully functional textile sector of which to speak, thus rely on imports of finished fabrics and have very little say over the process involved in manufacture.

If you are a designer, try source as much as you can locally. Design you own fabric. Start your own factory run on principles of fair trade, which maintain fair practices throughout the fashion value chain

What are retailers doing locally?

Perception of vintage shopping is changing in South Africa. In the last year or so we are seeing the mushrooming of vintage sales, from downtown to Jeppestown, with designers with an eye for a great vintage find selling their goods on to a market that is ready to start shopping in this way. Vintage styling marks the epitomy of individuality, as you can be almost sure that what you find, certainly only comes in one of a kind. Furthermore, it marks a huge backlash against mass produced, cheap, disposable goods.

What can you do as a consumer?

Realise that every single purchase you make, you are casting a vote. By creating a demand for whatever that item may be, you are requesting that more of it be supplied. Take a moment. Consider your next purchase. Mend your clothing. Buy vintage. Accessorise more. When you have the option, buy organic, even if it is only 5% at this stage. What you are telling the retailer is that that is what you want,and that is what you will pay for. Companies understand the language of money, and this is the way we should speak to them.

Fast Facts

• Cotton receives as much as 7 kg per hectare of herbicide and 5 kgs per hectare of insecticide (Source: US Geological Survey)
• Cotton uses more than twenty-five percent of all the insecticides in the world and 12% of all the pesticides (Source: Organic consumers)
• Global retail sales of organic cotton apparel and home textile goods have been soaring 40% per annum since 2001, according to the Organic Exchange
• The world’s top 10 organic cotton using brands last year, according to the OE, include Nike, Walmart, H&M, Levi Strauss & Co and Adidas
• Organic cotton production grew 20% in 2008/09 over 2007/08, across India, Turkey, Pakistan and 19 other countries, with growth forecast to set to continue at 20-40% through 2011
• Dozens of brands and retailers – who together consume 15 percent of the world’s cotton – have signed up to a global scheme called the Better Cotton Initiative, which aims to cut water and soil pollution while battling child and bonded labour. It involves 100,000 cotton farmers in China, Central Asia, Brazil and West and Central Africa. Retail giants Ikea and Levi Strauss sit on the council of the scheme (Source: Business Daily Africa)

References

1. wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_fashion
2. www.psfk.com/2010/09/innovation-and-sustainability-in-fashion.html
3. www.psfk.com/2010/09/video-psfk-salon-ny-how-sustainability-is-driving-the-fashion-business.html
4. wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
5. retail.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/457/52551.html

Well then why are companies still practicing impossibly cruel tests on animals?

The answer is that nobody stops them, until now. As a consumer you are singularly the biggest influence on the decisions that these companies make. If you stand up and refuse to purchase any product or drug that has come at the expense of cruelty and murder, then you will change the entire industry.

Below is a list of Companies that test on Animals, please also download a copy so you can have it handy and share it with friends

NOTE: this is an incomplete list, there are in reality thousands of companies who do testing on animals, unfortunately we do not have an accurate list for South African companies, we have highlighted the more well known brands

Allergan, Inc, Answer, Arm & Hammer, ArmorAll, Arrid, Axe, Aziza, Bain de Soleil, Ban Roll-on, Banana Boat, Bausch & Lomb, Bic Corporation, Benckiser, BenGay, Biotherm, Block Drug Co. Inc., Bounty, Boyle-Midway, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Cacherel, Cargill, Carpet Fresh, Carter-Wallace, Chesebrough-Ponds, Church & Dwight, Clarion, Clairol, Clear Choice, Clorox, Commerce Drug Co, Consumer Value Stores, Coppertone, Coty, Cover Girl, Crest, Dana Perfumes, Dawn, Del Laboratories, Desitin, Dial Corporation, Diversey, Dove, Dow Brands, Drackett Products Co.Drano, EcoLab, Eli Lilly & Co., El Sanofi Inc, Elizabeth Arden, Erno Laszlo, Faberge, Fantastik, Fendi, Final Net, Finesse, First Response, Flame Glow, Garnier, Giorgio Armani, Givaudan-Roure, Glade, Glass Plus, Helena Rubinstein, Helene Curtis Industries, Huggies, ISO, Ivory, Jhirmack, Johnson & Johnson, Johnson Products Co, Jovan, Kaboom, Keri, Kimberly-Clark Corp, Kiwi Brands, Kleenex, Lady’s Choice, Lancaster, Lancome, Lava, Lever Brothers, Lipton, Listerine, L’Oreal USA, Lubriderm, Lux, Lysol, Matrix Essentials, Max Factor, Maybelline, Mead, Mop & Glo, Nair, Naturelle, Neutrogena, Neutron Industries, Inc, Olean, Orange Glo, Oscar de la Renta, OxiClean, Pantene, Parfums International, Pearl Drops, Pennex, Pfizer, Inc, Pine-Sol, Plax, Playtex Corporation, Pledge, Polident, Ponds, Post-It, Prestige Brands, Prince Matchabelli, Proctor & Gamble Co, Quintessence, Raid, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Reckitt Benckiser, Redken, Resolve, Richardson-Vicks, Sally Beauty Supply, Sally Hansen, Sanofi, SC Johnson & Son, Schering-Plough, Scotch, Scott Paper Co, Scrub Free, Sensodyne, Signal, SmithKline Beecham, Snobal, SoftSheen, S.O.S., Stanhome Inc., Sterling Drug, Suave, Sun Star, Sunsilk, TCB Naturals, Tegrin, 3M, Tide, Tilex, Trojan, Truvia, Unilever, Vaseline, Vichy, Vidal Sassoon, Visine, Vivid, Warner-Lambert, Westwood Pharmaceuticals, White Shoulders, Whitehall Laboratories, Windex, Woolite

TAKE ACTION:

If you aren’t sure which brands do or don’t, simply by natural & organic, they are freely available in most stores, home-made brands are the best which you can get from any Saturday market

NOTCH IT UP:

If you feel strongly about this then use the power of your signature and join these organisations in stopping these cruel practices:

Peta
Petition Online
Care 2 Share
Go Petition
Petition Spot

Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any way

The Principle of the Stacked Bin Worm Farm
Today’s suburban worm farmer wants a composting system that takes up minimal space, looks good and is clean and convenient to use. The home worm farmer, or amateur vermiculturalist can use suitable modern products and a better understanding of the habits and requirements of the compost worms in the worm bins to design a system that is both convenient to handle and efficient in the usage of materials and manpower.

The principle of the stacked bin worm composter is that, unlike the drab earthworms, who dig deep, our red compost worms always migrate upwards, towards the food, leaving their castings to fall below them. We use this information about red worms to our advantage. Generally the idea is to build up a multiple stacking system of connected worm bins or trays that are slightly tapered to allow the bins to nest, one within the other. Worm castings (the compost) are collected in the lower bins and worm food (kitchen or garden scraps) is consumed in the upper levels. When a lower bin is nearly full of castings it is emptied and rotated to the top and so on.

Choosing Your Bins
The size and number of the nesting bins is variable, depending on the desired scale of the operation. Common plastic storage bins, sold for general household use at hardware stores, supermarkets and camping goods outlets are quite suitable for making your worm farm. Usually the sides are not vertical, but slightly tapered for convenient stacking on the retailer’s shelves – this suits us, as it allows for partial nesting of bins . A lid would be required for the top bin. Worms hate light – so don’t get opaque bins. Heavy black bins are good. The plastic storage containers are not expensive and come in a variety of sizes. For a small scale composting set-up, for processing kitchen waste, three containers of about 45 litre each would be adequate. For processing a greater amount of waste such as from large gardens or stables, bigger bins with more tiers can be set up, just as easily.

The Sump
The lower sump bin is configured differently from the upper bins and would be prepared first. Its function is to collect excess fluid leakage, called worm tea or compost tea.

• The sump may be fitted with a 15mm barrel tap, through a small hole drilled in the base for conveniently draining out the excess fluid (the worm tea) that will accumulate there. This tap is not essential, but would avoid the otherwise potentially messy job of having to tip the worm tea out by rotating the bin
• If you do decide to put in the tap, make sure it seals well in the hole, by providing good washers and lock nuts

The Composting Bins
The two upper bins will actually hold the worms. They are to be identical and are prepared as follows:

• Drill a pattern of 6mm holes across the entire base of each container for drainage and to allow for ventilation and the upward migration of the compost worms, these holes should be regularly spaced at approx 50mm apart in either direction.
• For further aeration, drill a row of 6mm holes at 50mm, in a continuous line around the walls of each of the bins. This line of holes would be about four 100mm below the top rim of the bin.
• It is not essential to drill holes in the lid, which is closed tightly over the upper bin. as you should get enough air through the sides.

Setting It Up
After preparing your bins, you first set up the lower (sump) bin on bricks or blocks, allowing enough space to tap off the fluid from beneath it. Choose a shady location for the worm farm (in a shed or garage, if you are subject to frosts).

• The second and third bins are “nested” within each other and dropped into the sump bin. To maintain a working space for the worms, and for accumulation of compost, you need a few spacers or packers of about six to eight inches height, between the two upper bins and some smaller packers of about 10cm in the lower (sump) bin. You can use wood blocks or sealed food jars for packers.
• The packers also prevent the tapered worm bins from jamming together and cause a gap between the bins, which improves ventilation.
• To prevent “nasty bugs” from squeezing in between the bins, you should close (caulk) the small gap between them with strips of shade cloth, or mosquito netting.

Starting Production
Now you are ready to go into production : -

• Set up your worms in the top bin with a good (damp) fibrous bedding such as coconut coir, (or just shredded newspaper), put in a little compost and a handful or two of damp soil with the worms and after a few days you will be ready to start feeding in your kitchen scraps. Cover the food with more bedding material to discourage pests and keep the lid closed.
• Make sure the worm farm is never allowed to dry out, by sprinkling water over the bedding periodically, if there is not already enough moisture coming from the food scraps.
• When the top bin has been fully productive for a while, the worms will multiply and compost will be start accumulating from the worm castings. When the quantity of compost is meaningful, stop putting feed into this bin and swap over the upper two bins by putting bin No 2 to the top of the stack, with bin No 1 now in the middle.
• Set up this new top bin with clean bedding, a small amount of the old castings and immediately start feeding your kitchen scraps into it. Over a few days, the worms will naturally migrate upwards towards the new food source, leaving the lower bin with only a few stragglers and it should be ready for the harvesting of your compost within about three weeks after the swap.
• To get at any specific layer, to add food, bedding or to remove the vermicompost, just lift off all the overlying worm bins, one by one until the desired level is exposed for examination and then replace them in the same order. They will not be too heavy – but don’t try lifting more than one layer at a time, unless you have a good chiropractor!

All you need to do is to keep repeating the process of alternating the top two bins on a regular basis, taking out the compost, whenever it accumulates, and tapping off the worm tea from time to time. This vermitea, is a very valuable product as it is a highly concentrated liquid fertilizer that can be diluted for immediate use on your garden.

Bedding
To set up the composting in a new worm bin, a fairly damp, but not saturated worm bedding layer, preferably of fibrous material such as coir, wood shavings (untreated) or carpet under felt, would be laid over the perforated base of the bin. Shredded newspaper can also be used. A thin layer of damp garden compost or well rotted manure would give the optimum temporary home for the worms, until the process is underway. Depending on the size of the bin, a couple of hundred red worms should be enough. Cover the worms with some more of the bedding material, to keep out flying pests and after a few days start adding food scraps under the top layer.

The Feeding
It is always better to mash up the kitchen scraps before feeding the worms, but an even better idea is to first place the scraps in a plastic bag in your freezer as freezing will greatly speed up the feeding process as it breaks up the cell structure of the worm food, making it easier for the worms to digest the material. Avoid citrus, pineapples and onions as these make the material too acid and too much meat and fat is not good, especially as these may attract rats – which can gnaw right through plastic. Every so often, replace the worm bedding with new material. Some soil or sand is also needed in the worm’s diet, as they use this in their gullet to act as a grinding/ calcifying medium. Crushed eggshells or a little agricultural lime will raise the PH, if the composting environment becomes too acidic. A PH neutral environment is optimal.

Your Worms Need Air!
Your worm farm, should always smell good, and have a slight earthy odor. If you notice a sour/ rank smell developing and the bedding and compost is beginning to look over damp and slimy, with possibly some fungus present, it probably means that the environment is becoming anaerobic and primarily needs better ventilation to bring in more oxygen. This condition may be caused by excessive feeding, too much greasy food, such as meat and dairy, acidic conditions or not enough air circulating. Firstly, make sure the ventilation holes are not blocked and that the drainage is effective, then fluff up the bedding and rake up the vermicompost, to allow the air in. If there is too much unprocessed food lying around, stop feeding for a few days and thereafter put in less food, or get more worms. A we have said, it is also important to avoid putting in too much greasy food and acidic fruits such as citrus and pineapple.

Acceptable Temperature Range
Temperature is important and compost worms generally prosper best at temperatures that we would be comfortable with ourselves. Although different species have their preferences, as a generalization, they will breed at temperatures as low as 12º to 18ºC but stop all activity under 8ºC and as the temperature increases to around 25ºC they will become more active and productive, but above this the performance will drop off. As the temperatures rise or fall much outside this range they become more and more at risk and steps need to be provided to protect them from extremes, by having the worm farm set up in a shed or garage, where the temperature can be controlled. We need to be careful of not putting too much organic waste (especially fresh manure) into our worm farm at any point as the natural rotting process gives off heat and a bed of compost can easily get too hot for the compost worms to exist in it. The solution is to heap up this sort of material away from the worm composter for a few days to allow the heat to be generated and then dissipate naturally. Once it has finally cooled down it will be safe to use.

Handling Vermiculture Pests and Other Problems
Ok – you’ve started your worm farm for vermicompost, worm tea, worm castings, to do your part against global warming, to provide bait for fishing – or whatever. But suddenly things start going wrong! Pests can be a big problem. So lets roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty as we look at some ways to prevent pests from ruining your worm bed.

Protecting Your Worm Bed (prevention is better than cure)
The best way to handle worm farm pests is to ensure that they don’t establish themselves in the first place. Therefore it is best to keep your worm beds well maintained by ensuring that:

• Your bin lid or farm enclosure is secure.
• The worms and bedding are covered with either a sheet of plastic or a damp sheet of burlap (Hessian).
• Food scraps are covered with bedding to prevent them becoming mouldy and attracting pests.
• No meat, greasy food, or pet faeces is included in the feed as these attract flies – therefore maggots – and possibly even rats, which can literally gnaw their way into plastic bins.

For continuous worm farming, it is recommended that you house your worm bin, or other worm farming medium, in enclosed places such as: garages, sheds, basements or out-buildings; therefore making them less accessible to pests. It would also be helpful to screen the buildings as will help limit your losses to rodents, birds, mammals, snakes and most of the larger earthworm pests. Of course, screens and gratings placed at the top and bottom of the beds can also be effective, but you can never have too many lines of defence. A sheet of Mosquito netting draped over your bins would eliminate most flying pests and is little hassle to use.

How to Deal with Worm Composting Pests
All of the following creatures pose a threat to earthworms: ants, mites, slugs, raccoons, springtails, rats, moles, amphibians, reptiles, gophers, certain beetle larvae, maggots, and a variety of other insects. Fortunately, most of these villains can be neutralised by properly constructed bins, screening, or – most importantly – good worm bed management. Nonetheless, we’ll take a closer look at some our beloved worm’s greatest enemies and what can be done about them.

Ants
Watch out for ants as they can wreck your beds in a matter of days and therefore require immediate action. Ants are attracted to the feed, so don’t spill any near your bins and clear away any old spillage as soon as it is spotted. If your bin isn’t too big and has legs, another way to keep ants out is to put each of your bin’s legs in a dish of water – alternatively, most of the garden centres sell ant goo – a sticky substance that is painted around the stems of rose bushes to trap ants. It is eco friendly as it doesn’t contain any insectide poisons.

If all else fails and the ant invasion has already become serious, you can dust the area around your beds with pyrethrum dust or douse the ant nest and the trails leading to your bin with a granular insecticide, or use commercially available ant traps, which contain slow release poisons that the ants take with them back into their nests. Please be sure not to use any insecticide on the actual worm bed soil or you will kill your worms. If ants are already established inside the beds soak the section they are in and they will usually go away.

Mites
Most worm beds usually contain several species of mites (the most important for, our purposes, being the earthworm mite), which pose no real threat to the worms unless their population spirals too high – this usually happens as a result of poor bed management. Earthworm mites are small and are usually brown, reddish or somewhere in-between. They tend to concentrate near the edges and surfaces of the worm beds and around clusters of feed. They are not known for attacking the earthworms but do eat the earthworms feed. When the mite population is too high the worms will burrow deep into the beds and not come to the surface to feed, which hampers worm reproduction and growth. High mite populations usually result from:

• Over-feeding. Maintaining a proper feeding schedule (for example: one that ensures the feed is eaten in a few days) will prevent the feed from going off in the beds.
• Feeding the earthworms meaty or wet feed. Large mite populations are often the result of using over moist garbage and vegetable refuse as feed. Adding the occasional soggy vegetable leftover probably won’t cause a problem but don’t make a habit of it.
• Over-watering. A rule of thumb when watering is to keep the beds damp but not wet. Poor bed drainage can also facilitate a mite problem and make the beds less hospitable to worms. Ensure that there are adequate drainage holes at the bottom of your worm bin or housing.

Remember the same conditions that ensure high worm production will be less favourable to mites. If you find your worm farm overrun by mites, expose the beds to the sun for a few hours. Cut back on water and feed and then, every 1 to 3 days, add calcium carbonate. Another method is to over water the bed forcing the mites to the surface and then burning them with a blowtorch. Both of these methods though are only short-term remedies and eventually you will have to improve the conditions in your worm farm if you want to keep the mite population low.

Fruit Flies
These insects will be attracted by over ripe fruit and certain vegetable scraps. They lay their eggs in the decaying fruit, but are not really a major problem. Just make sure that you cover any fruit with some of the bedding. A jam jar that has a residue of sticky jam/ jello or marmalade smeared around its sides can be half filled with water and left beside the worm bin. The fruitflies are pretty stupid and get stuck to the jam or drowned in the water. I personally don’t like to use commercial insectides, but fruit farmers often use ripe fruit bait that has been poisoned to attract and kill the fruitflies – I suppose its one step better than spraying the actual fruit that we are going to eat.

Blow Flies and House Flies
Excess flies buzzing around your worm bins or worm farms are usually the result of having used meat, greasy food waste, or pet faeces as feed. They spread disease and make life miserable for the worm farmer and his family. They can also result in maggots if the beds aren’t properly sealed. If your farm is kept indoors or under some sort of shading – as it should be – then you can hang up some fly strips, which will draw them away from the farms. Again, a properly maintained worm farm will normally not stink and therefore not attract flies.

Black Soldier Fly
Latin Name: Hermetia illucens. It is a moot point as to whether this fly should actually be called a pest. It is a tropical fly, originally from the Americas, that has now spread around the world. The larvae of the fly are a type of small maggots, that feed exclusively on putrescent material. They are often found in worm farm bins, but although unsightly are not a real threat to the worms, as they do not attack them and may in fact complement the compost worm’s activities, rather than compete with them for food. Like the vermiculture worms their faeces make excellent compost and the maggots are also useful as a high protein fish or poultry feed and may be used either live or dried, as a processed meal. They may also be used by the less squeamish for fish bait. They can best be kept out of the worm farm bins, by not using meat and fatty waste and by keeping the moisture on the dry side, and making sure that there is a good cover of bedding material over the feeding area.

These remarkable creatures, unlike the common housefly, do not spread bacteria or disease – in fact the larvae ingest potentially pathogenic material and disease-causing organisms and thus render them harmless. Moreover black soldier flies exude an odour, which positively discourages houseflies and certain other flying pests. When the larvae reach maturity they leave the feeding area to pupate, preferably in a shady bush or tree. After turning into an adult fly, the female lives a further 5-8 days and produces almost 1000 eggs. The adult fly is nocturnal and characterised by very fast and rather clumsy flight. It has no mouth and cannot bite or sting.

There is a growing interest in using Black Soldier Fly for commercial processing of sewage and agricultural waste. Some hobbyists have been experimenting with the Black Soldier Fly, as an alternative to vermiculture, for for private composting/ waste disposal. For the same size of container it is said that a well stocked colony of Black Soldier Fly would be able to process waste material very much faster than a comparable sized worm farm.

Springtails
These wingless oblong insects live on decaying and sometimes living plant matter and are a sub-class Apterygota. You can recognise them because they jump when disturbed and can turn a worm bed surface white if the population is large enough. Although they have on occasion been observed to eat dead or weak worms, they are primarily a nuisance because they eat the worm’s food and can, when the populations are big enough, drive the worms deep into the beds and keep them from coming to the surface to feed. One deals with them the same way one deals with mites.

Article prepared and written by: www.working-worms.com

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IF YOU ARE A CONSUMER:

With so many different seafood options available in restaurants and supermarkets, how can you ensure you make the best choice for you and for the environment? BUT by asking the right questions, and knowing what to look for and what to avoid, you can better choose seafood that is good for you and good for the environment!

We have taken a fairly simple, yet effective, approach. It is similar to a traffic light system

• When the species is listed as green, go for it! (view the list)
• When it is orange, think twice about it! (view the list)
• And red, well that is a definite no-no! (view the list)

The SASSI seafood database
With well over a hundred species assessed, using an internationally accepted best practise methodology which captures information about the biology, the impacts of the fishing methods used and the management of the fishery, the SASSI seafood database contains all of the information you need to know about the species under assessment

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IF YOU OWN A RESTAURANT OR HOTEL:

Sustainable seafood is more than just a good deal for our marine ecosystems, it makes business sense too. SASSI is committed to working hand-in-hand with the seafood industry towards a future in which sustainable fisheries and aquaculture thrive at a level that supports the communities and businesses that depend on them.

Supporting SASSI and our vision for a sustainable seafood industry means purchasing environmentally responsible seafood by following our best practice guidelines for sustainable seafood. This in turn supports responsible fisheries and the many communities which rely on healthy ecosystems to provide them with livelihoods. Not only does this help to reduce the pressure on our threatened marine resources, but with an increasingly environmentally-aware market, it could mean a world of difference to your company´s bottom line.

Globally, as people have become sensitised to the environmental issues around seafood, businesses involved in the seafood industry have come under increasing pressure to ensure the sustainability of their operations, not just out at sea but in factories, retail outlets and restaurants. In order to be granted their “license to operate” by the public, seafood businesses now need to take a proactive stance on sustainability, not just to ensure the survival of our marine ecosystems, but also their own.

SASSI currently runs participation schemes for both restaurants as well as retailers/suppliers with a view to enabling these businesses to take advantage of the benefits offered by sustainable seafood. These schemes were developed to empower businesses in the seafood industry to implement best practice principles into their business operations and proactively respond to society´s demand for sustainable and responsibly-sourced seafood products.

As part of their commitment to sustainability, all SASSI participants commit to the conducting their businesses according to the principles of the SASSI Charter, these are:

• Ensuring that all seafood on offer is legal and not on the SASSI Red list
• Phasing out unsustainable seafood products and replacing them with sustainable substitutes
• Promoting sustainable choices from responsible, well managed fisheries
• Continuously evaluating their seafood product range against strict legal, traceability, and sustainability criteria
• Providing their consumers with seafood that is adequately labeled and includes information on the species, origin, and production method (fishing gear used, or wild-caught/farmed), or any credible eco-labels that may apply
• Always endeavouring to offer seafood that is traceable to its origins, making use of suitable traceability schemes or mechanisms

Find out more about SASSI´s retailer/supplier participation scheme or SASSI´s restaurant participation scheme

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IF YOU OWN A FISHERIES:

SASSI´s goal is ultimately to implement positive changes on the water which can help to improve the sustainability of our fishing industry. In order to achieve these changes, WWF is working with the industry to develop a number of Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIPs)

A Fisheries Improvement Project is a project which has been developed to address important sustainability concerns around a fishery. These could include bycatch mitigation measures, spatial management plans, gear modifications and any number of other issues. The objectives of these projects is to improve the sustainability of the fishery and in so doing, shift all of our fisheries towards Green-list status.

Fisheries which currently have active Fishery Improvement Projects are also highlighted on the SASSI wallet card by placing the FIP icon next to the species targetted by the FIP: Kingklip and Monk, Sardine and Anchovy, Sole and Kob

• Attend training: Fisheries managers, crew, skippers and compliance officers can attend the Responsible Fisheries training run by WWF Sustainable Fisheries Program, to learn how to fish more efficiently and decrease their impacts on our marine ecosystems.
• Fish smarter: WWF and partners created the International Smart Gear Competition to inspire innovative, practical, cost effective ideas that allow fishers to fish smarter. The competition is open to everyone.
• Start a Fishery Improvement Project: Through the SASSI listing process some fisheries have proactively identified areas where they can improve so as to address the key environmental challenges facing the particular fishery

Re-Using:

How much stuff do you ‘throw away’? From left-overs to clothes you no longer like, to an old cellphone or kettle. There is a need for all these items. Simply choose a place in your home or cupboard where you can consciously collect all these items (except the leftovers of course) and once a month donate them to your nearest shelter or orphanage. Actually, you could donate to any non-profit as a lot of them sell these products to purchase things that they need for their beneficiaries.

Parents, it’s really important to involve your kids in this process, teaching them compassion and humility is an invaluable gift. Take it one step further and get your friends and colleagues involved as well.

And for your left-overs – you don’t need to walk far to find a hungry person, and the exercise is good for you!

Volunteer:

Whether it’s once a week or once a month, donating your time or expertise is hugely rewarding for your self and welcomed by the organisation. Having said that, you don’t need to only volunteer with a non-profit. You can help out a friend-in-need, a neighbor – or the community in general by going on a litter collecting spree. There are endless ways in which you CAN and DO make a difference.

Remember that helping others ultimately makes our world a better place, which helps you!

Spread the Word:

Every week we interact with hundreds of people, why not use this opportunity to ‘spread the word’ on something that you are passionate or educated in? I personally speak to shoppers when I see they are still using plastic bags, and tell them about the savings they will make on their budget (I start with this benefit) and move onto the devastating effect that plastic waste has on our oceans, wildlife and earth.

If you choose to do this – please be subtle and respect others, not everyone is as passionate as you are and honey works better than vinegar!

Links to Investigate:

www.africall.co.za

http://www.volunteersouthafrica.co.za/

Seal your Bags and Make them Air-tight with the cap of a used bottle

STEP 1:
Cut up a disposable water bottle and keep the neck and top, as in photo

STEP 2:
Insert the plastic bag through the neck and screw the top – to seal

The bottle is made to be air-tight, such that water will not leak, the secret lies with the top and screw!

When hurricane Hannah separated two white tigers from their mother, Anjana came to the Rescue. Anjana is a chimp who became a surrogate mom and playmate to the cubs, even helping with bottle feeding, according to The Sun. But here’s the truly amazing part: this is something Anjana does all the time, having helped raised leopard and lion cubs on several occasions