Living Lightly is a collection of local stories about sustainable living.
The column commenced in 2012 and until 2023 was published in the Border Mail newspaper each week.
The content is community sourced – groups, organisations and individuals have written and contributed each of these informative and entertaining articles – all overseen by a local volunteer coordinator.
We are currently considering a monthly schedule for articles, stay tuned as we explore this option.
Here you can browse and search previous articles or subscribe to receive an email each time an article is published.
The Living Lightly coordinator is always keen to receive articles! Use the link below to find out how you can submit an article for the column.
With a big thank you to all the Living Lightly authors for contributing to this wonderful collection of articles.
By Lizette Salmon, Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) With Spring here, many of us will be contemplating our vegie patches and planning summer crops … unless we’re too busy battling weeds. But what if we turned weed warfare into a nutritional harvest? These wild plants are generally richer in a
By Karen Bowley, Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) and Wooragee Landcare If you want to learn about how to live more sustainably or are keen to see how other people live sustainably, there are two wonderful events close by where you can do just that. On 13 September 2015 between
By Alan Hewett, Chiltern Landcare member My partner is a pescetarian. That is not an insult. It means she is a vegetarian who eats fish and other sea food. That has been her choice for twenty years and it is a decision that has considerable health and environmental benefits. A
By Melissa Kane, Eco-friendly Mum Suddenly everybody is talking trash, trash-talking our local councils, after the recent introduction of the new organic bin. Perhaps we can have a conversation about what to do with your trash instead, can you try this? Make the new organic bin your friend, become savvy about
By Lizette Salmon, Coordinator, Repair Café Albury-Wodonga Toasters, kettles, watches, hairdryers – isn’t it dreadful how quickly they give up the ghost? Luckily I had a grandfather who fixed them for me. A retired Dutch engineer, he’d have them up and running in a few days, his initials and date discretely
By David Thurley, Albury Councillor From reading the articles over several years it is clear that the words mean many different things. For some it is about composting and waste minimisation, for others it is about what food they eat and how it is grown. There are those who are
By Glenn Wilson – Tallangatta Valley, currently exploring WA Putting aside any aesthetic argument that might occur between wind turbines and coal fired power stations, and before decisions are made as to which form of electricity is going to be used to meet our ongoing energy needs, consider this: Wind
By Elizabeth Leathbridge I read the anguished letters to the editor of the Border Mail objecting to green bins as a financial waste. They provide a striking contrast to the viewpoint of a friend living with a family member who has severe disability. When I asked him how the green
By Jenni Huber, Secretary, Friends of Willow Park, Wodonga Friends of Willow Park and Planet Ark are inviting Albury Wodonga residents to take part in an exciting National Tree Day event, marking the 20th anniversary of this much-loved campaign. With support from the State Government, though the Local Landscape Enhancement
By Maureen Cooper, Wooragee Landcare I have been reading “Where Song Began” – Australia’s birds and how they changed the world by Tim Low and was delighted in his chapter on the importance of Lerps to our native fauna. For those of our readers who don’t understand what lerps are, this quote
By Dave Cromarty, retired forester and Landcare Facilitator Did you know that the city of Havana in Cuba produces 80% of all its own food needs? This interesting fact, presented by David Suzuki at a recent Landcare conference I attended, is cause for optimism about global food security into the
By Jill Keith, Beechworth On Sunday May 3 on a sunny day I joined about 50 people at Mayday Hills Heritage Gardens for a free guided tour organised by the Beechworth Treescape Group inviting us to ‘Walk the Colours of Autumn’. Our brochures identified 48 native and exotic trees in
