Istanbul is a wonderfully amazing and busy city! Never seen so much retail activity, not just in the bazaars, but in the commercial streets as well. But so much plastic!! Plastic straws are presented in plastic wrappers and cutlery at a restaurant as well. There is an inflation problem in Türkiye; perhaps removing unnecessary packing may be a welcome casualty of cost cutting?

The last day of my trip around the world. Before I headed to Heathrow I did a quick rubbish pickup around Magdalen street where I was staying, as a thank you.

Saw this in the hotel at Helsinki airport. I've seen many sustainability strategies by hotels to reduce washing and water usage. But this is a new one for me. Throwing away clothes is a huge landfill problem. I had nothing to donate though as I wear my clothes until they fall apart!

Life and death in the Big Apple. I enjoyed watching this sparrow in Brooklyn having fun in the morning sunlight. And then saddened the next day finding this dead bird due to striking glass. It's estimated over a billion birds a year die in the USA from hitting windows 😢 There are strategies to reduce this. We should do more.

Barcelona is a wonderful city. But like all cities with millions of people there is a rubbish problem. Especially cigarette butts! I did my little bit picking up a bags worth around my hotel.

I went for a walk with my friend and host Cathy in Ellicott City and the local forest and river. Saw a deer, groundhog and a blue heron amongst other birds. We picked up a bag each of rubbish.

I spent 30 min picking up rubbish in downtown Brooklyn. Put over 50 pieces in the cardboard bag. Quite a clean city but still rubbish everywhere.

In Manhattan and Penn Street station to buy my Amtrak ticket. Can't be here and NOT go to a rooftop bar! And what do I see atop the station? Greenery! Hopefully more and more of it will appear in our cities 🤞🏼

I thought I'd pick up some rubbish on my walk from my hotel to the Trellis Impact 2026 conference in San Francisco. The streets are fairly clean already due to the great work of the Yerba Buena partnership. But I still picked up a small bags worth of over 20 bits of rubbish.

About to attend my first session at Trellis 2026 in San Francisco. Extended packaging responsibility, so quite relevant for greenbrand.org and all the KFC and Starbucks rubbish that's left in my street back home!

On way to Trellis Impact 2026 in San Francisco. Also testing location verification.

Test for laptop location verification

Checking out the truth verification code Soyun has created. Very exciting development in establishing truth on the internet

I came along to the New Farm Park clean up event run by Serve the City and Parents for Climate groups. Met Fiorenza there and had a great chat about Serve the City and Greenbrand. I picked up over a hundred pieces of rubbish, which would have filled a shopping bag. The park was pretty clean compared with many others around Brisbane, but it is even cleaner now!

One person can make a difference. First picture is the Rochedale Biobasin in June 2021 totally overgrown with glycine, when I first started to care for this spot. After a month council came in and cut everything. Since then I’ve maintained it, weeded, planted and picked up rubbish. On average I’ve spent less than 30min per month. It’s now the only Biobasin thriving out of the 4 in the area. Have a happy Queensland Environment Day. And know that each person can make a positive difference with very little effort. Just a will to do so.

Tomorrow is Queensland Environment Day. I visited the Biobasin and spent an hour collecting one bag of rubbish, removing juvenile glycine vine and planted 3 trees, a Gossamer Wattle, Firey paperbark and a Lilly Pilly, all of which are native to Brisbane. So nice to see my previous tree plantings growing so big.

Had a great time learning about the UQSIC food forest. More to come! Thank you Jordan and Milan and Keshav

On Friday I caught up with Aditya and Milan from the UQ Sustainable Innovators Club to talk about the club joining Greenbrand.org. We had a wide ranging chat which included a visit to my old stomping ground at UQ, the Steele Building, to see their hydroponics project. Brought back some old, faint memories lol Thank you both for a great meeting.

Planted another 7 trees on Lamb island. 2 firey paperbarks, 3 Lillypillies, a gossamer wattle and a forest gum. The others are growing well! Showers over the past couple of weeks have made a difference 😊