A New Use For Lemons, Ketchup and Vinegar

Here at KISC as many of the cleaning chemicals we use as possible are eco friendly, but could we come up with an alternative to some of our harsher chemicals? Using natural products, that can be found around the house, to clean with is both eco friendly and cheaper than buying most fancy cleaning products.

VINEGAR  

 
Uses: Multi-purpose cleaner, disinfectant, deodoriser.

Particularly good for: Bathrooms and Kitchens.

How to use it: Mix up a solution of half vinegar, half water. This can be used like a multipurpose cleaner to clean hobs, most appliances, counter tops, floors, bathtubs, toilets, sinks, soap scum and hard water stains.

Pure vinegar can be used instead of toilet cleaner to remove nasty rings around the bowl. ½ a cup of vinegar can be added to your laundry as a natural alternative to fabric softener (just add to section of machine where softener would usually be put).

Beware:  Improperly diluted or undiluted vinegar may eat away at tile grout. Do not use on marble surfaces.

Surprisingly: Doesn’t smell of vinegar after it has evaporated!

LEMONS AND LEMON JUICE

Uses:  General cleaner, stain removal, freshening hands and kitchen appliances, bleaching, polishing.

Especially good for: Bleaching.

How to use it: Use it pure to dissolve soap scum or polish and clean copper or brass. Cut a lemon in half, dip in baking soda and use it to scrub surfaces and dishes. To remove stains on plastic tubs, rub on, leave to dry in the sun then clean off. The same can be done with chopping boards. ½ a cup of lemon juice can be added to laundry for extra strain removing power! Lemon juice can be rubbed on hands after handling unpleasant smelling ingredients such as raw fish to remove the odour.  

Beware: Do not use on marble or stainless steel, it may bleach them!

Surprisingly: Half a cup of lemon juice can be mixed with a cup of olive oil to make furniture polish!

BAKING POWDER

Uses: General cleaner and deodoriser

Especially good for: Removing nasty smells.

How to use it: Baking powder can be used as a general cleaner, just sprinkle on a surface and scrub with a wet sponge. Place some of the powder in a box anywhere that needs nasty smells removing, such as the fridge, stinky shoes or the rubbish bin.  

There are lots more out there; Ketchup is good for cleaning all kinds of metal, white bread can be used to dust and is great for picking up smashed glass, coffee can be added to pot plant soil to deter insects and is a great deodoriser, rice is great for cleaning inside bottles and green tea is great for removing smells and cleaning the inside of microwaves!

Why don’t you try some of these at home? Be careful, any new product you try should be tested on a small, hidden area of the item to be cleaned, to ensure that it doesn’t damage the surface.

If you want to read more about this try this website: http://housekeeping.about.com/od/environment/a/Homemade-And-Natural-Cleaning-Products.htm

Helen (UK)

STS Winter 2014

Leave No Trace @ KISC

Greetings from snowy Kandersteg! As part of my first blog as the new ECO Assistant, I want to share about a topic very important to me from my country. In the United States, I am avid about being in and having fun in the outdoors. Over the years though, others have realized that this can cause negative impacts on the land with more and more peoples each year recreating. That is why the organization of Leave No Trace (LNT) was founded, in order to set aside principles to follow in order to encourage a proper outdoor recreational ethic. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and LNT have a great relationship, but there is no reason why Kandersteg couldn’t also profit from the LNT Principles, since we follow them all very well anyways. What are those principles? Read ahead and find out!

1.   Plan Ahead and Prepare

·         “Be prepared” is not only the Scout motto, but also something we are very active with while running our activities.

·         Programme guides check with all crews to make sure they have all the equipment they need and that they don’t, be it a hiking, climbing or skiing!

·         Our upperhut in the Ueschental already has warm army blankets, so no need to bring weighty and wasteful sleeping bags.

 2.   Travel And Camp on Durable Surfaces

·         When hiking, we always stick to the well marked Wanderwegs and Bergwandern of the Swiss Alps.

·         Not only do we have well marked campsites (over
     60 of them!) we also have two alpine huts (Gfellalp and Ueschinenhütte) to concentrated our impact in a small area.

·         Winter allow us to travel on snow, but we still stick to the main valley for most of our activities to limit or affect on rock fall or avalanches.

                                                                                

 3. Disposal of Waste Properly

·         Mini-Recycling centres are placed on each floor of our chalets and huts to encourage all guests to recycling and think of their waste.

·         We recycle PETE bottles, paper, plastics, wood, metal, and aluminium cans at the centre, with assistance from the local recycling centre in the village.

·         Even in office, we recycle old paper in our printers, making no recycling task too big or small to do!

4.   Leave What You Find

·         Switzerland is full of flora, but we encourage guest to take pictures of the wildflowers rather than pick them.

·         The mountains are also full of old huts and some ruins. We explore these safely with the Scouts but also tell them to be careful of their impact.

·         Sometimes we must clean up what we find. Kate, our Assistant House Manager from Australia, introduced to us Pick 3. It is a program that tells recreationalists to clean up 3 pieces of litter per person while hiking, something easily incorrigible to all guests.

5.   Minimize Campfire Impacts

·         In our Campsite, we strongy support groups to bring stoves to cook meals. Additionally, fire barrels are located at our upper huts to limit scaring of soil and plant life.

·         The wood burner in the Chalet generates most of our heat in the summer and winter seasons. The wood sources comes locally from our own woods, which has been downed and dried.

·         Ashes are collected from our campfires in the summer and winter. 

6.   Respect Wildlife

·         Majestic animals like Steinbeck and local farm animals like Swiss cows can be found all around the mountainsides. We remind guest to be respectful ad keep our distance to these animals both wild and domesticated.

·        Dries, our Ground Manager from the Netherlands, has checked with local wildlife authorities with ways to encourage Red Deer further up in the mountains. Being a beekeeper at home, he also is investigating ways of encouraging insects and avian life to our end of the valley.

7.   Be Considerate of Other Visitors.

·         On and off the trail, KISC is thinking of others. While hiking, we also let other non-scouts have the right of way.

·         International friendship is one of the cornerstones of the Programme Department. Weekly campfires, International activities and workshops are just some of the ways we encourage the mixing of thoughts and cultures from Scouting the world over.

·         Lastly, we think of our favourite local village, Kandersteg. A chalet and campsite wide quiet time of 10:30 PM happens nightly, to give everyone a restful night sleep.

Leave No Trace not only introduces new concepts to explore but also reinforces already existing positive ones. I hope to encourage all my fellow staff, Scouts, and guest to recreate responsible all the while exploring the wonders of the Swiss Alps.

Interested? More info can be found at Leave No Trace’s website.
 
Tad (US)

ECO Assistant

The Kander: The River That Flows Uphill

Two years ago, we wrote about the chameleon-like river on our doorstep: the Kander. Depending on the weather in Gasteretal and what kind of rock the Kanderfirn glacier has recently ground up, the river changes from brown to blue to green to colourless.

But I have noticed another peculiar thing about the Kander, it flows uphill. Not the whole river, but certain parts of it, and only in certain places. If you have visited us you must have seen one of those places, in the river bend underneath the bridge.

Figure 1: Point bar in the Kander

The little “beach” in the picture above, called a point bar, was a lot smaller half a year ago (And it was not because of higher water levels). Over the course of the summer underwater currents in the river deposited more and more sand and gravel in the inside of the river bend.

The way this works is that because of the water flow through the bend the water pressure in the outside of the bend is higher than on the inside of the bend. This difference causes water at the bottom of the river to flow from the outside to the inside of the bend, (uphill!) as shown in the sketch.

The way this works is that because of the water flow through the bend the water pressure in the outside of the bend is higher than on the inside of the bend. This difference causes water at the bottom of the river to flow from the outside to the inside of the bend, uphill (!), as shown in the sketch.

Figure 2: Secondary flow

As the water flows uphill, it moves sand, gravel and rocks across the river, creating the point bar. You can see this for yourself when you put a lot of sugar in your tea and start stirring it: the sugar moves to the middle of the cup.

This underwater current is called the secondary flow. It’s a funny coincidence that the first to describe this process was Albert Einstein. Okay, maybe that’s not so funny, but it’s small and slow processes like this that make rivers define or even create entire landscapes with their meanders, like the Argentinian Río Negro and U.S. Colorado River pictured below.

Stay tuned for more posts about the Kander in the near future!

Dries (NL)

 

Figure 3: Rio Negro, Argentina (all the curves are routes the river took in the past, sometimes leaving a lake behind)

 

Figure 4: Colorado River, U.S. (“locked” meanders; weird colours showing different geological layers)

Dries (NL)
Grounds Manager

On the SCENE at Kandersteg International Scout Centre

NEWSFLASH: Kandersteg International Scout Centre is a SCENES accredited centre!

A what centre?

SCENES.

You know. SCENES.

Scout Centres of Excellence for Nature and Environment.

Ok. So it isn’t exactly a NEWsflash. KISC was one of the first centre's credited with the SCENES award. Since then, the SCENES Network has been growing and there are now SCENES centres in countries around the world.

We asked Paul (UK), our Assistant Programme Director, a bit more about the scheme after his recent trip to Costa Rica for the 3rd SCENES Seminar.

In a nutshell, what is SCENES?

To be a SCENES centre, there are three key requirements that the centre needs to fulfill.

 
1. The Centre must have a natural area.

2. The Centre must provide environmental education.

3. The Centre needs to practice environmental management.

So how does being a SCENES centre help?

Being a SCENES Centre has several benefits. After all, as Scouts we should all aim to have the smallest impact on the environment as possible. In working with the natural area around us, we can practice efficient and sustainable environmental management while still providing our full service to our guests.

Nice. But thats it?

Well no. There is also something called the SCENES network. This is a platform to share ideas and information between all existing centres as well as to all Scout Centres that are interested in gaining the SCENES accreditation. WOSM has recently rolled out the new scouts.org website and the SCENES Network should have a place on here in the near future.

How about these other SCENES Centres. Where could I see one?

Well actually the number of accredited Centres is always increasing. In Denmark alone there are 3 Centres you can visit. Recently, Zellhof in Austria has been awarded the certificate. Further afield, there are 2 Centres in Canada (Camp Nemo and Blue Springs), one in Australia and many more.Kakani in Nepal is one of the most recent, check out Jon's (UK) Eco blog all about Kakani. And if you go to one of these, be sure to check out what they are doing for environmental education or witness some of their environmental practices in action.

It sounds great. But what does KISC do?

Well you will see in the SCENES Guidelines document, a list of actions that KISC does.

1. KISC has a very advanced system of recycling and reusing for guests and staff.
2. KISC use bicycles and trailers wherever possible instead of the vehicles.
3. KISC has maintenance staff to repair instead of replace broken items.
4. KISC uses the wood burner as much as possible to heat the chalet and its water.
5. The timber used in the wood burner comes mostly from its own forests and is dried for two years to maximise efficiency.
6. KISC aims to use 100% energy saving light bulbs, timers and sensors to reduce energy consumption.
7. KISC use solar energy to heat the water in one of their campsite shower blocks.
8. The Tower (accommodation building) is heated using water (heat – exchange system) from the Lötschberg train tunnel.
9. KISC use eco friendly chemicals for cleaning.
10. KISC constantly improves and extends its available Eco Programme for guests
11. KISC buys products wherever possible from local suppliers.
12. During Staff training at KISC, a very large emphasis is put on the eco practices and staff are strongly encouraged to improve their eco footprint personally, professionally and in their staff accommodation
13. KISC has obtained the EU Eco Label for hospitality companies

And finally, where can I find more information?

Like I said, scouts.org is constantly updating with more information. Keep checking back to that.

Meanwhile, you can find lots of information about SCENES, the recent SCENES Seminar and the SCENES Network here.

More Links:

SCENES on YouTube

Scouts Canada

Mafikeng (South Africa)

Iztaru (Costa Rica)

Zellhof (Austria)

KFUM Denmark

Out of sight out of mind.

     The Swiss Alps, a pristine mountain environment enjoyed by millions of holiday makers every year, is perhaps one of the very reasons that many people strive to protect the environment. I know that rolling pasture and jagged mountains motivate me more than tarmac and concrete.

 

 

      The environmentally friendliness of tourism has been discussed before, but could it be argued that some types of tourist are better than others? The beached sunbathers? The latte sipping town tourers?  And what about mountaineers? If ever there was a group who were more appreciative of their environment, surely it would be those who’s very hobby rests upon it.

 

 

      This was certainly the case in the 1930s, with  mountaineers living a simple existence, using locally sourced stream or melt water, eating simple but filling food while being in the mountains with little or no mod-cons. However the 60s and 70s saw this all change; peoples free time and disposable income grew and mountaineering was revolutionised with the entrance of synthetic clothing and equipment. The tiny mountain huts of old turned into mountain hotels where you not only had a roof and somewhere to cook, but received duvets and were cooked 3 course meal.

 

 

     This presented the hut wardens with a problem, albeit quite a simple one: an ever increasing pile of rubbish to deal with.  I say it’s a simple problem because in those days it came with  a simple solution: just burn the rubbish and bury it. Out of sight out of mind.

 

 

40 year old cans lying partially decomposed under moraine behind the Fründenhütte. Labels are still visible on many, as it can take up to 100 years for these to decompose.

 

 

     Towards the 70s more and more huts began to take advantage of chartered helicopters to bring supplies up the mountain, but many still would not send the rubbish back down with the helicopter. With a helicopter burning around 1 litre of fuel every minute and time being money (in this case, a lot of money!) the rubbish would still be left behind. You have to ask yourself what it says about our mind set all those years ago; would it be acceptable to do such a thing these days? Was it even an acceptable thing to do then? Thankfully  it isn’t acceptable to do this anymore and huts instruct guests to carry their own waste down and fly down what is left with the helicopter.

2 Cubic meters of batteries, broken glass and tin cans dug out of the moraine around the Fründenhütte, Kandersteg, waiting to be taken down the mountain having sat in the ground for the last 20 years or more.

What inspired me to write about this is my recent work at the Fründenhütte Swiss Alpine Club mountain hut for KISC this year. Here several volunteers and staff from the hut took a stand and decided to do something about the rubbish left behind, rubbish left behind years before they even first stepped foot in the hut. It’s really impressive that not only somebody has started to clear up this mess but also that the hut warden is prepared to pay for its removal. It would be extremely easy to just leave it there and forget about it.

 

 

I think these things serve as little lessons to us all. We should not only look out for our environment in the present and future but also be prepared to take responsibility for the past. I hope to see more mountain huts follow suit and check that they don’t have any skeletons still hiding in their closets.

Dave (UK)

Snow and Ice Guide Summer 2013