Big Fat, Old TVs. All About Recycling Stuff.

Matt and I have been tidying up around our house. It's been happening slowly, and once we open up a space, it feels good. Then it gets re-populated with the kid's toys that sprawl into empty spaces, and, well it has to start all over again.

In the last week we've cleansed our house of the portacot, some clothes that don't fit, some old books - and best of all - the big fat old tv. While everything else went to charity, no one wants a big fat old tv. And I didn't want to toss it out on the side of the road, hoping and praying someone else would either:

a) pick it up thinking it was the score of the century

or 

b) let some teenagers smash the TV and then let it sit on our footpath for the next few months.

After some research I discovered that those big fat old tvs are not only a footpath eyesore, not only outdated, and not only big and fat, but they carry 2kgs of lead and other heavy metals. If you toss them in landfill, not only does it overstretch limited capacity, but the toxic contents can leach into the ground. 

So I discovered that for a fee of $50 we could recycle our e-waste with a better conscience - as well as removing the space hog from our living room floor. We went to Planet Green Recycling (in Artarmon), but I've since discovered other places that do it. The City of Sydney host e-waste drop off days every three months, and this includes collection of computers, printers, electronic games, CDs, DVDs, cameras and phones (although you can donate your old mobile handsets to YouCan to help raise money for teen and young adult specific cancer wards). 

I hate the idea of tossing things into landfill, which I pretty well documented when I went through "the bin" reclaiming someone else's 'stuff' over the course of a couple of months, I'm pretty chuffed we found somewhere to recycle our big fat old tv. 

Yo Mama! An Interview with Jayne Hughes

Back when I first had babies, many, many years ago, I went hunting for eco-friendly solutions for parenting problems. What I came up with was Ecobabe - a family-owned online store chocked to the brim with quality products with minimal impact upon the planet. I was pretty chuffed with this discovery - and frequented the online aisles perusing the goods. 

Over the last few years I've been fortunate enough to get to know the brains behind Ecobabe, Sydney-based Jayne Hughes. An intelligent, quick-witted broad who's devoted to her family - and dedicated to her business, she's fast become an inspiration in small business. 

Today I'm sharing an interview with Jayne, to give you an in on her daily life. Let's go!

PMM: How did Ecobabe start?

JH: I started ecobabe nearly 7 years ago when my big girl Olivia was 14 months old. I knew that I didn't want to go back to the sort of work I'd been doing before having children and I had this insane notion that I could start a business that would bring the same financial stability to our home as I could if I worked at a full time job outside of the home. I look back at those early business plans and wince, my bank manager must have laughed his head off when I left his office!

My first experience of internet shopping was the purchase of modern cloth nappies, I became quite obsessed about cloth nappies, natural fibres, chemical free products and eco-sensitive lifestyles and I discovered that there was a gap in the Australian online market and that I could be the eco-warrior to fill this gap.


How do you find working online VS working in an office? What are the pros and cons?

I love working online, although Facebook and blogs can become massive black holes that eat away at my valuable time, under the guise of 'research'. Fortunately I have to take my big girl to school each day so this gets me out of pjs and keeps me out of tracky dack mode and I'm generally dressed at my desk with a hot tea in hand by 9am like most busy worker bees. The big pro for me is the flexibility that working online and from home gives me. I am responsible for my time, I can work when and where I want, so if it's a stunning morning I will pop down to the beach for a walk after school drop off, or I can work remotely - my parents live in Far North Queensland, just over the Daintree River on an isolated beach so I will often pack up the kids and my iPad and head to Queensland for a couple of weeks where I work for a few hours in the morning while Mum looks after the girls and then I join them once my morning chores are complete.

The major con is that working from home, I get distracted by the domestic front, the kitchen and particularly the fridge... and laundry are unfortunately my greatest distractions. Unfortunately for my husband and family I don't touch housework on a working day :) I do see and talk to a lot of people during my workday so I don't experience the isolation that many work from homers can feel.


Working online can wind up being a 24 hour gig. How do you manage that while parenting two daughters?

In the early years of ecobabe I used to work at night and on the weekend because during the day I was very busy parenting 2 children. This worked well for me at the time. As my children have grown up, they're now aged 5 and 8yrs, I've clawed back most of my nights and weekends and try to keep ecobabe within business hours purely so that we can function as a family. My husband and I are massive nerds though, we both have an ipad and phone plugged in on each side of our bed and the first thing I do after morning bed snuggle cuddles with the 5yr old is check my site and check what orders have come in overnight. Because even though I've been sleeping I have customers who don't ever seem to sleep. There's a lot of midnight breastfeeding shopping that goes on out there!

What's the best part of your day?

The best part of my day is the wakeup cuddles I have with my 5 year old, every morning she comes thumping through the house to crawl into our big bed for cuddles. She's seriously the best snuggle cuddler on the planet.


Workwise, the best part of my day is the cup of tea after all orders are packed and the Australia Post courier has left each day. That's when I allow myself 10mins of personal time on Facebook or to read an awesome blog.

Retail is hard in Australia right now - how do you keep motivated?

I had some motivational issues mid this year when the market was really tough for me. I just couldn't see an end to the negativity in the market, so we went to Bali for a couple of weeks, forgot about everything on our plate and amazingly since we've been back things have improved - starting with my attitude. I am now very proud to be a business that has survived the GFC and have a very positive outlook for the future of ecobabe and online retail.

What do you do to treat yourself?

Where do I start? That lovely glass of wine at 6pm is a pretty good treat. I love a good girls weekend, that's my ultimate treat - sorry husbandos. My daily treat is good music and good candles or Nag Champa incense in my office. A good hot cup of tea is a regular treat. Yoga is another treat, the peace, the quiet, the listening to my body, to my breath, that is a delicious treat in itself. Another treat is a good book, I love reading a good book and always have a pile ready to go on my dressing table. I'm currently reading "Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stegner, a good book gets me off the couch and in bed at a reasonable hour each night.

Any tips on how to manage the work-family juggle?

I'm not the right person to answer this question, my family will tell you that the only way to get me out of work mode is to get me out of the house, so we tend to get out of the city for a weekend away quite regularly. I think the best way to manage the work-family juggle is to give everything 100%, when it's work time - give it your 100% and when it's family time give it the 100% it deserves and when it's you time give it 100%, tune out all the other demands and give yourself 100% to what you're doing, we call this "setting yourself up for success" in our house which basically means remove all the distractions or obstacles before you do something and then you can do it properly. Children don't understand multi-tasking, they want you 100%, they don't want a parent absently answering their questions about life death and the universe while you're busy scrolling through FB on your phone :(

What's coming up next for Jayne Hughes?

2013 will be a year of big change, my youngest starts school and I will have 5 childless days each week. I have some big plans for ecobabe and I'm personally really enthused about retail and the 'eco-friendly' market, what was once a quite niche market is becoming more and more mainstream and there are great opportunities for me personally and for my business www.ecobabe.com.au out there now. Oh and I bought a 'luxury travel in Thailand' magazine in the newsagent this morning, I think a trip to Thailand is definitely coming up next winter.

Be sure to check out Ecobabe here. It's not only baby/parenting products, but a vast array of awesome things that can help you live a lighter life. 
And hear more from Jayne on the Ecobabe Facebook page here. 


This is the fifth interview in my Yo Mama! series. Interviews with creative working mamas. Look out for them weekly. 

A Big Question

Back at high school, my classmates all guessed that I would become a Greenpeace PR consultant. I am a PR consultant, but alas, I haven't worked my way to Greenpeace. Yet.

Yesterday I was reading SMH. They had a story about radiation - in particular Japan's precarious nuclear reactors.

Now while I am now nuclear physicist (thank goodness for that), don't we want to explore something that's less volatile?!

While a whole country waits - and in fact - the whole world, waits breathlessly, hoping, praying that Japan isn't further inflicted with pain via their nuclear plants - respondents to SMH's poll were having their say.

I think the results are pretty flipping scary. It might be a 'green' option - but what about safety? What about the three-eyed fish in the Simpsons? Didn't we learn anything from Chernobyl?

I'm happy to be educated if you think I'm misinformed. Educate me.

But hear me. What about renewable energy? Why can't we harness that - it's safer, it's greener (isn't it?!), and we're not mining Australia to fund it.

Each one of us are teetering on the edge of our chairs, hoping these damn nuclear plants don't blow. People in Japan are terrified - evacuating Tokyo en masse. We're terrified - for what does this mean? What happens? No one knows enough.

What do you think?

Super Cool And Wowsers

Jayne from ecobabe is online with us at MumSpace today sharing her top 5 green tips for everyday living. Do you have any tips you can share?

While I was cruising the aisles of ecobabe, I found these awesome and ace iron-on transfers.. I am now envisioning a brand new wardrobe for my smalls.. Cute huh?

Fridge Buyback

I am still madly decluttering and trying to break the ring of silverfish that have taken up residence at our place (they're like some creepy style of squatter, except I keep finding them EVERYWHERE and yowsers, they are huuuuge).

Part of this declutter was our fridge. Our fridge (which was given to us) kept freezing everything. My most memorable frozen thing was getting out a fresh container of tabouli that I had made, and was so excited to eat for lunch - to find it was frozen. I ate it anyway, but it was more like parsley sorbet - not so crash hot.

It froze everything. Frozen watermelon - not good. Frozen capsicums - not good. Frozen cheese - not so good. Frozen artichokes - not so good. I shan't go on.

We've switched fridges to a younger model. Perhaps we're having a mid-life crisis of sorts. Hopefully this one is not hell-bent on freezing everything.

And this is where it gets really exciting (as if it wasn't exciting enough - come on, you know it was!). If you've got a spare fridge and want to get rid of it - click here (for Sydney-ites only) to learn about the Fridge Buyback!

The fridges are taken away (if they fit the criteria) and the metals recycled - and you get $35 and a reduced electricity bill (and less greenhouse gases is the best bit yet!).

So, Plastic Is Not So Fantastic

One of my friends wrote an ace piece for Sunday Magazine a couple of weeks back. It detailed just how much of the stuff we buy everyday is wrapped in plastic. Things that I (ashamed as I am to admit it) had never thought about. Bread - plastic. Cereal - yes, it does come in a cardboard box, but it's in a plastic inner bag. Yoghurt - plastic. Biscuits - not only are they usually in plastic, but they're also in a plastic tray. Come on - they're not Laura Palmer - why is everything just wrapped in plastic?

So my friend, Carrie, did an experiment, and attempted to go two weeks without buying anything wrapped in plastic. By no means was this an easy feat.

Morning coffee - hold the plastic lid.

Buying fruit and veg - without the small plastic bags. Yes the people the check-out people do roll their eyes when you approach because your apples invariably roll away - but who cares?

Buy bread from a bakery - and take your own bag.

Try to shop at more organic places - they have large bins of pulses etc, so you can scoop in and take your own containers.

Plastic, plastic, plastic. It's pretty darn ordinary.

On reading this article, it's made me even more aware of everything I am buying. Not that I was walking around in some kind of bubble, but after her experiment, it made me really examine what I was putting in the trolley.

The article also detailed how there are many areas in the ocean just littered with all kinds of plastic debris, toys, bags, bottles etc - some places are at least 70m deep (I am going off memory here, so if you read this and remember better than I - correct me!). So basically the plastic breaks down, the fish mistake it for plankton etc and eat it, then it turns up on your dinner plate. Mmm. How about a piece of plastic with your tuna steak? Anyway, I won't bang on about it - but you can read more about it here - this is not the Sunday Magazine article - but one from Greenpeace's website.

One thing I have done is stocked up on lots of green bags.. But, there's a flaw with these too. They're still made of plastic. Yes, it is recycled plastic, but it's still plastic. So I went exploring with trusty friend, the internet, and ordered some of these great string bags from here some time ago. They are fantastic - you can just pop them in your bag, et voila - when you need them, they're scrunched up small, but they are strong enough to hold all your groceries, they're biodegradable.. And look at those gorgeous colours, sorbets, gelatos - how can you go wrong (and they're pretty darn cheap too).

Honestly, check out people do laugh when they see I have these bags - but lots of people have asked me where they can get themselves some of these bags. Let's start a revolution.

I did read a great tip about a woman who ordered take-away, and when she called up - the people knew her and knew not to put her food into take-away containers, as she'd always bring her own containers to put her food in. Good idea huh?

Anyone else got any plastic-free ideas to share?

Here's mine.. I have so many of the green bags, that sometimes I leave a spare one at the cash register for the person after me - in case they've forgotten to bring their bag. That way, we can all work together and save the planet so our babies can have and enjoy babies too!