Chewing Gum for Good…ish
By Jenn | March 18, 2010
I bought two packs of gum recently, which is a bit odd for me, as I’m not a huge gum fan. But this gum is by Project 7 and is called “Feed the Hungry” gum. I was skeptical but curious, and figured if nothing else the subject would make a good blog post…
The flat package of gum is wrapped in a blister-style pack, which I never like as it’s made from non-recyclable plastic. The outer wrapping is recycled cardboard made from 40% post consumer recycled material, which I always like, and it’s full of facts, including: “We willd donate more than 50% of profits from the sale of tis product to support 7 areas of critical need across the globe.” According to their website, those 7 areas of critical need are Build the Future, Feed the Hungry, Heal the Sick, Help Those in Need, Hope for Peace, House the Homeless, and Save the Earth.
This is how it works: “Non-profit organizations supporting any of these seven areas of need can submit applications to Project 7. Seven of these organizations, one from each area of need, will be voted on a by consumers and supported by product proceeds for the upcoming year.”
The gum was good enough, and the ingredients seemed natural enough. Of course, after reading Beth Terry’s post about how practically all chewing gum is made from plastic (including the most natural brands), I take the ingredient “gum base” with a hefty grain of salt.
I love that the social entrepreneur behind Project 7 has dedicated time and energy towards raising funds for humanitarian projects. It’s always a little frustrating, though, when such funds are raised by selling disposable products such as “bio bottle” water bottles and (admittedly super cool) recycled plastic test-tube mints.
Seen any interesting “goods for good” products lately?
[Image by Jason Spaceman via Creative Commons]
Topics: Food | 2 Comments »
Urban Farming in Detroit
By Karina | March 17, 2010
A few weeks ago I came across an article that I’ve been mulling over ever since - about the millionaire John Hantz and his plan to make Detroit into an ultra modern urban farm. See, Detroit has been dealing with foreclosures and urban blight for longer than most of us - and now it’s looking at about 30% vacant land, which can be dirty and ugly, or lovely and repurposed. One of the big problems with this vacancy rate is that it stretches city services too thin - it takes longer for police or fire to respond to emergencies, for one. The mayor is urging residents to move into the downtown city core, but others are concerned that this is just a land-grab effort.
Regardless of motivation, Detroit is pretty bleak (as an urban center). If you do a Google Earth Flyover you can see how many blocks just have one or two houses on them,and how much empty space is available. So what’s to be done with all that open space? Organizations like Greening of Detroit are going out right now and planting, and there are lots of urban farmers making a good go of it currently in “downtown detroit” - and have been for several years, as this 2008 NPR story would indicate - and not coincidentally, back when the housing crisis was really picking up, and foreclosures were becoming more common. And in general, Detroit is very large in area for it’s population, and I dare say always has been. The graphic above shows the population compared to the area of Detroit vs several other cities - and Detroit is larger Boston, Manhattan and San Francisco combined - but the population doesn’t even go anywhere near (these cities combined - or even grouped together. So what’s the solution? Urban farms for everyone, with a spreadout infrastructure? Or have everyone crowd into the downtown?
Anyone out there familiar with Detroit, or other similar infill proposals for areas hard-hit by foreclosures?
[[Map by Dan Pitera, a professor of architecture at University of Detroit Mercy, via cityfarmer.info.]]
Topics: Food, General, Media | 3 Comments »
Electric Bikes Are Kinda Cool!
By Jenn | March 16, 2010
I’ve been noticing a lot more of those electric bikes around town lately, and they’ve got me a’pondering. I’ve not really been sure of my feelings towards them, but after reading this Treehugger article, I think I get the point a little bit more than I did.
The way I see it, they’re a bit like a cross between a moped and a bicycle– pedal when the going’s easy, and get some electric assistance when paths get steep or long. It’s kind of a win-win I guess– electric bikes get people out and about, perhaps making the decision to leave their car at home or skip public transportation for shorter trips– and even a little pedaling is a healthful thing.
As biking in NYC has proven, when there are more cyclists on the street, the streets become safer for cyclists. The number of city cyclists rose 66% in the past two years, and I can understand why– it’s really the best way to get around– air, exercise, smiles, and the relief of avoiding mass transit. If electric bikes get a few more folks on the road, it’s good for them and good for the rest of us.
As an enlightening exercise, I punched my address into the Two Mile Challange mapping tool, and was really surprised at what’s encompassed in a 2-mile radius around my home. I don’t currently own a car, so it’s not like I’m driving to all those places now– but I know lots of people who do drive everywhere in the city… 2 miles is walkable and bikeable for most folks in decent shape, and it’s inspiring to see what’s so close by!
Karina had sent me the link to the new Google Maps Bike Directions feature, and it’s really neat– it provides bike directions for safer, flatter routes in many cities– and check out this video for more features, like drag-and-drop re-routing:
What do you think about electric bikes? Are you, like me, looking forward to de-rusting your ride once Spring hits?
Topics: Transportation | 7 Comments »
No-Till Gardening?
By Karina | March 15, 2010
I’m entering into Spring Number 1 in my new home, which means the first year to get a real start on planting a garden from scratch. Last year when we were cleaning up the yard (I moved here just too late for setting seeds, but just in time for the annual “oh we didn’t rake leaves last year and we have to clean out everything so the new grass has a chance to grow” effort. [note we are looking forward to this effort again this year, having not done a good job with leaves last fall.] So, the general ideal last year was we would pitch all of the yard waste back into the far back corner of the yard - the area where we will eventually plan a garden of some sort, and where we will be building our compost bin this spring. This area is on top of a rock outcropping and while I haven’t dug down to actually check, I am guessing there’s not much topsoil back there either. And the general plan was we would just pitch all that stuff back there, let it decay on it’s own for a couple of years, and then till it under and plant an awesome garden with berries and herbs and tomatoes. I was hoping to amend the thin soil covering the rock outcropping back there with even more delicious organic matter, and to avoid bagging and transporting all our lawn waste to the town compost. (Though there are lots of largish tree limbs back there, too, which will have to be addressed somehow. They can’t be tilled under!)
However, lately I’ve been reading and hearing more and more about no-till agriculture. On a commercial level, no-till farming - where the old crops are left in place, not tilled or moved around, and new crops are planted directly in with the old stubble - has been shown to reduce carbon releases from the soil. That’s right: it turns out that agriculture is a greenhouse gas producing industry not because of pesticides and fertilizers (though these don’t help!) or the machinery used, but because the act of stirring the soil as you till it releases carbon into the atmosphere. From the NPR article linked:
“That reflects the past century of plowing and such. We’ve seen the organic carbon content of the field go from 5 percent to about 3 percent.”
It may not seem like much, but it means that over the past 100 years, every acre of this field has vented about 50 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That’s about as much as eight average cars pump out in a year.
Of course, there are billions of acres of farmland around the globe. Rattan Lal, a soil scientist at Ohio State University, has traveled the world to study those fields, trying to calculate how much carbon farmers have unleashed.
“From time immemorial when world agriculture began, we have lost roughly 140 billion tons of carbon from trees and soil,” he said to an audience on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Over half of that, almost 80 billions tons, is from the soil alone. In fact, up until the late 1950s, plowing had released more carbon dioxide into the air than all the burning of coal and oil in history.
Which of course makes me start to wonder: how can I prevent this carbon release at home? An article about this last year hints on how to start no-till gardening at home:
“The first year is the hardest for no-till practitioners. The ground must be cleared of debris, weeds and other obstructions before nutrient-rich compost and protective mulch can be used.
“Initially, some digging of perennial roots may be required,” said Charles Dowding, a commercial gardener and author of “Organic Gardening the Natural No-Dig Way” (Green Books, 2007). “If the soil is full of durable perennial weeds, a long-term (smothering) mulch for a year is worthwhile. It becomes much easier thereafter.”
Also many of the on-line resources I read say that no-till gardening is great at home, but only as long as no one walks on the garden beds. We don’t have garden beds yet, we just have giant piles of leaves and grasses and the odd volunteer pumpkin (we chucked our halloween pumpkin guts back there too) and tree limbs.
There are a couple of good resources on how to get started at home here and here, but you know, I’m a little nervous about this whole situation. I want to clean up the back yard over the next few months (well, I don’t *want to,* but I am going to) and I really am not sure the best situation. Should I just leave everything in place as best as I can, dealing only with the really big stuff and roping off a big area to become my new no-till area?
Or tell me straight: we are talking about a teensy tiny piece of my yard here, and honestly, I’d only be plowing it up once to get the garden started, after which I’d use more hands-on methods like direct hoeing where needed only. Am I being reactionary and alarmist here?
I am turning to you!
Are there any no-till practitioners out there? Garden commandos? What would you recommend I do with my back yard organic debris heap?
[[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stawarz/ / CC BY-ND 2.0]]
Topics: Home | 7 Comments »
Easy Peasy Tip: Fixit!
By tinychoices | March 13, 2010
Taking a tip from the Fixers Collective in Brooklyn, NY: start to think about the things in your life which can be coaxed back into life. The Collective have repaired favorite umbrellas with broken spines, brought ceiling fans back to three working speeds, and reattached workboot soles.
While some fixes may require detailed knowledge, others may just need a blob of glue or a new cord spliced into place!
What’s laying around in your junkpile just waiting to be noticed with an eye towards a fix?
[Image by klinslis via Creative Commons]
Topics: Easy Peasy Tips | 1 Comment »
Friday Tiny Confessions
By tinychoices | March 12, 2010
So, as happens occasionally, we are out of surveys. [big hint! go fill one out! and send it to us!] and the Favorite Green Place has never taken off [um, it’s not too late to share one of those with us either!] So, what to do for Friday content?
it’s TINY CONFESSION TIME!
We’ve done this before - this is your no-guilt place to let off some steam about a tiny choice which you think may have not gone in the right direction. Today’s topic: What’s the most frivolous purchase you’ve made that has really been eating you up? You know what we mean: something you bought that you didn’t need, couldn’t justify, and feel pretty silly about it now that the moment has passed.
Karina: Almost immediately before we started this blog - spring of 2007? I purchased some of those over-the-counter tooth whitening trays. The disposable plastic trays that are wrapped in plastic and have weird bleachy gel in them. And I didn’t use them all up, and I am STILL thinking about them, years later. Of course it doesn’t help that I’ve never gotten rid of them, and in fact *moved them* to my current home. Gah!
Jenn: Lately I’ve been buying cups of coffee in disposable cups. Like, more frequently than I’d like to admit. I had given the stuff up for years, but now am back to drinking it (though I’m trying to cut back), and so I’m in this middle ground of not really being a coffee drinker but kind of being a coffee drinker. So, the part of me which is denying the addiction refuses to bring my reusable mug along, because I’m not going to get coffee on my way to work! And then the animal half of my brain takes over between the time I exit the subway and enter my office… and thus, disposable cups. It’s unnecessary and embarrassing. And now ya’ll know.
So, what about you? Leave your Tiny Confessions in the comments! (anonymous is ok too!)
[[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]]
Topics: General | 8 Comments »
Tiny Tea Choices
By Jenn | March 11, 2010
I was making myself a cup of SleepyTime tea the other night, when this statistic printed on the box caught my eye:
“Because these natural fiber tea bags don’t need strings, tags, staples or individual wrappers, we’re able to save more than 3.5 million pounds of waste from entering landfills every year”
That’s an impressive number of waste! We talk a lot about tiny choices here, but sometimes it’s hard to feel like our small choices really do make a difference. Sure, govenment legislation may be needed to make the huge, across-the-board impacts– but not putting strings, tags and staples on tea tags? Apparently that makes a significant difference, for one tea company alone.
What if most (or dare I say “all”) tea companies rebranded themselves and removed the string, tag, and staple from their products? And what if all those tea purveyors who are now individually wrapping each teabag within their box, sheathed inside a paper/plastic envelope stopped *that* inane process? It would make a significant reduction on resource use, not to mention the pollution avoided by the manufacture and shipment of those items.
Everything we buy has an environmental impact– we can sometimes remove this by growing/making things ourselves, but in many cases we just need to make the best choices from the options available to us. As an example, let’s look at the options facing us when we want a cup of peppermint tea, from most sustainable to least:
- Grow our own peppermint
- Buy bulk dried peppermint, using our own containers
- Buy loose peppermint in prepackaged boxes/bags
- Buy peppermint teabags: unbleached paper, no tags, no strings
- Buy peppermint teabags: tags & strings
- Buy peppermint teagags: tags, strings, & individually-wrapped teabags
I’m not saying that the last option is wrong, per se– heavens knows I fall into that bulletpoint myself, more than occassionally. I just find it personally helpful to think about the whole scale of choices available to me regarding a purchase, and try to make the one with the least negative impact, when possible. It’s what Tiny Choices is all about, after all!
Notice any great product packaging decisions lately?
[Image by House of Sims via Creative Commons]
Topics: Food, Waste | 9 Comments »
Tiny Choosin’ Keeping Me Healthy
By Karina | March 10, 2010
I have to preface this post with: I am not a doctor! nor a medical professional of any sort. So take everything here with a grain of salt (so to speak).
Because of my day job as an environmental engineer who occasionally has need to go onto hazardous waste sites, OSHA requires that I have an annual physical in order to monitor my health and make sure, well, I’m not being impacted and that I am fit for that sort of activity. I just got my physical results back and I’ve been thinking about them for a few days and I have to say, I really think that my food choices are doing a great job of keeping me healthy!
I think to understand how big of an issue this is to me you should know that my family has a whole lot of heart disease. It’s a big problem, with lots of young heart attacks being had by various people, and I’m so happy that my dad is doing so well now after several scares and several surgeries. (The photo is of an embroidered heart I gave him for fathers day one year. He pointed out where his problem areas are!) I’m not sure if I have good luck in this area because of my lifestyle, or if my mom’s genes have so significantly moderated my heart disease risk, but every time I get blood work back I call up my daddy and tell him how healthy my heart is. This time around my cholesterol was 141 (normal is under 200) and my triglycerides were in the 70s (normal is 150). Best of all, my cholesterol ratio indicates that I have a below average risk of heart disease! PHEW!
So as I have been thinking about my test results, I realized how worried I am every year at blood test time because of my family history. And to be honest, I’m a tiny bit overweight and while I do like to run I am not always a 3x a week active person like I should be. In some respects I am no poster child for healthy eating. If I could get all my required protein from cheese I would be happy to do so, and since I met my partner about two years ago I’m afraid I’ve eaten more butter than I have in my whole life before that… and I have *never* skimped on the butter. Ever. Plus, in the same vein as protein, I am also happy to satisfy any calcium requirement with ice cream. Very happy to do so, yes sir.
When I mentioned how happy I was that my diet hadn’t impacted my triglycerides or cholesterol to my dad, he suggested that he thought maybe butter got a bad rap - maybe it was really the processed foods that American’s eat so much of. And it’s true. Other than my favorite microwave burritos (a lunch standby, despite their plastic wrapper) I would guess I eat processed or packaged food just once a week, probably - and it’s less during the summer when I’m wrassling with my giant CSA share. Personally, I think I have a fairly moderate diet - one full of whole grains, fresh seasonal vegetables when I can, and I always try not to eat in my car. Because I don’t like to throw away plastic I don’t buy many processed or packaged foods to eat, and certainly not in individual serving packages. I always choose the option with the most fibery and green stuff when I’m in a grocery store. I do eat meat - but not every day, for sure. And I really think that the “no meals in the car” rule helps moderate my junk intake a lot - after all, I am in the car a whole lot between commuting and various other obligations I have.
(And for the record, I actually *have* been working out several times a week - but it’s not that aerobic, more of a cross-training weights-and-fitness program. I am phasing in running more, especially as the weather is getting nicer!)
For more ideas about eating healthy - I love this run down of eco-friendly healthy diets from LA Green Girl!
How do you moderate your diet? Does it help keep you healthy?
Topics: Food, Health | 13 Comments »
Tell Me What to Grow
By Jenn | March 9, 2010
Sure, it’s still winter here in the Northeastern U.S., but with recent temperatures in the balmy and beautiful 50s, I’m beginning to have springtime daydreams. In fact, I just noticed the first little pointy and tenacious green buds beginning to poke their heads out of the urban soil around a street tree on my block– yipee! Life is beginning to bloom again.
This has brought me, once again, to thinking about growing some of my own food. You might recall my previous attempts at this: rosemary, peppermint, chives, lettuce, and tomatoes.. all dead. They were strong contenders, but all ended up biting the bullet. And the previous year I had a gorgeous tomato plant out on my fire escape, but lost all but the final two fruits to squirrels.
So, here we are. I love the idea of growing my own food, and yet have had no real success at it yet. I feel ready to try again this year, and am asking you, lovely readers who may have a greener thumb than I do: what should I grow? I’ve got windowsills which get indirect light, and a fire escape which attracts squirrels. Does peppermint stand a chance in a large pot indoors? Is it possible to grow tomatoes indoors without direct light? Is there an herb or leafy green which would somehow miraculously thrive in these conditions? Or should I just go join a local community garden, get my hands in real soil, and learn from those who know?
Help, please!
[Image by Itzafineday via Creative Commons]
Topics: Food | 9 Comments »
Where is my milk from?
By Karina | March 8, 2010
I stumbled across this neat webpage that non-vegan readers may appreciate: the Where is my milk from? page. I am excited to find this reference, because as someone who tries to lead a more thoughtful omnivorous life, it’s nice to be able to double check and verify where the food I buy at the grocery is from. As they say over at The Kitchn, “Do you know where your milk comes from? Whether you’re trying to eat local or just curious about the origin of your milk, yogurt, or cottage cheese, the site Where Is My Milk From? will help you identify the city, state, and dairy where it was processed.”
Now the word “processed” is a big one - there are some pretty big things that happen at this big scale - namely, milk from bunches of cows and bunches of dairy farmers is mixed together to create various consumer products. So even if you do know where your milk is processed you still have no idea where it actually CAME FROM, nor how well the animals are kept. But this is a small but important step towards granularity of information on the consumer level.
I plugged in the milk in our fridge - it is Garelick Farms All Natural 1% Lowfat Milk (no artificial growth hormones) and it says “From Local Farms to Local Families” on the back. When I plugged the code into the website I got back “Dean Ne Llc Dba Garelick Farms Ny, Rensselaer, New_york. To compare that to the back of the jug, it says “Dist. by Garelick Farms Inc, Franklin MA.” Now, if I google maps the towns, we’re looking at 95 miles from my house to Rensselaer, and it’s 195 miles to Franklin MA. You can see how, if you’re just going on the “distributed by” labels on the back of the milk, it is really hard to get an exact idea of which product is *really* local. In our fridge I also checked a can of aerosol based whipped cream (it was a dire necessity when we had the power out and a dinner party simultaneously - I will whip egg whites by hand, but cream is just too horrible) - the can is a grocery store name brand (Hannaford, based in Maine) but the code on the bottom says Morningstar Foods Inc, Delhi, New_york.” Another situation where the dairy is much closer than the distributor! Also,
But what is really exciting is the container of Trader Joe’s organic yogurt actually comes from “Stonyfield Farm Inc, Londonderry, New_hampshire,” which is REALLY cool, because I am always worried when I buy things from Trader Joe’s that they’ve been shipped all the way out from California - and also, Stonyfield Farm is a well trusted yougurt producer who I LOVE, and it’s nice to know I’m still eating their product.
I tried to track down where this came from but all I could find is this site claiming it is a bunch of kids from Brigham Young University. So I can’t tell you the motivation, but it appears to be just a bunch of people who want to make it easier to get between federally collected information and the consumer. I am a fan!
Of course, this is a stopgap until I am able to find a local milk producer and find the time to make all of my own yougurt at home… that is, of course, the ideal.
[[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/garlandcannon/ / CC BY-SA 2.0]]
Topics: Food | No Comments »
Easy Peasy Tip: Don’t waste the Soap!
By tinychoices | March 6, 2010
Occasionally many of us travel for business or for pleasure, and we may find ourselves staying at a hotel or motel. Now, you’ve probably noticed that there are many complimentary little packages of soaps and shampoos and shower caps and drinking cups - all tiny, cute, handy, and also disposable!
If you’ve got favorite toiletries, take them with you and don’t use the small size that are provided. If you do use them (for example, the soap) only open what you need, and take it home with you! You can use the travel sized soaps as bar soap in your bathroom or by the kitchen sink, or you can collect it and use it to make your own liquid soap from lots of soap ends.
If you’re neat and set aside all the complimentary toiletries that you’re not planning to use, the housekeeping staff at the hotel or motel may be able to reuse them in another room. Nothing taken, nothing wasted!
Do you travel lots? When you do, what is your policy on soaps and shampoos?
[[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrtruffle/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]]
Topics: Easy Peasy Tips | 4 Comments »
Tiny Choices Survey: Nupur!
By tinychoices | March 5, 2010
Vital statistics (name, age, location)?
Nupur, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. I write a food blog at http://www.onehotstove.
How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)?
I live in a small apartment in an urban neighborhood with my husband and our dog.
Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
We choose to live close to our workplaces.
How do you travel (transit, car, etc)? Are your travel decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
We walk to work, and although we own a car, we use it only on the weekends. We live in a very walking friendly neighborhood and can walk to do many errands, and there is a huge park only a few blocks away. St. Louis does have some public transport, for which I am very grateful, but having a car gives us a lotof freedom to go to places where the bus/metro won’t go.
Tell us about a Tiny Choice you’ve made in your life.
I choose to cook on a daily basis, because that is the best way I can guarantee that the food I eat is fresh, made from quality ingredients, cooked to my taste, and nutritious.
What is the one environmental dilemma you personally struggle the most with?
Throwing compostable waste in the trash. We generate only 1 medium bagof trash every week (and about 2 bins of recyclables every month) but I feel quite sad that most of my trash consists of compostable things, like vegetable and fruit peels, coffee and tea ground and eggshells. I have not able to get a compost bin started- there’s so little space under my sink and where else would I put it?
What is one Tiny Choice you can make in that direction?
We’re thinking of renting a place with a backyard (for the dog) and I’l lstart a compost bin just as soon as I can. I’m reading up on it.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you make that people question (in either a positive educational or a negative hassle way) you the most about?
I don’t eat meat or poultry or seafood, and people are always interested in knowing why. Sometimes they ask me about it in a curious way, in which case I am happy to explain and discuss it with them. Sometimes, they just want to start an argument, and that’s when I explain that it is a personal choice and change the subject. I don’t believe everyone has to stop eating meat but we would benefit enormously by eating less of it.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you would like every single person to adopt?
Learn to cook, and as you do so, learn more about buying foods locally, using seasonal foods, and minimizing food waste. There are so many benefits to doing this. Cooking is a fun and creative process and can bring family and friends together. Cooking from scratch means that you are consuming less processed food, and cutting down on food packaging waste. We eat several times a day, every single day, and choices around food make a huge environmental impact.
Do you feel like you make sacrifices for environmentalism? Please explain.
No, I live a very comfortable and privileged life and whatever smallchanges I make for the environment only improve my own life by making it cleaner, simpler, less wasteful and happier.
Are you generally: optimistic, pessimistic, neutral about environmentalism and the future?
In general, I am a pessimist and pretty melancholic by nature. My heart sinks as I see what is going on in the world around us (and realizing my own role in it). But I feel empowered by being able to make small changes in my own life to hopefully improve the way we live on this planet.
- Click here to read all of the Tiny Choices Surveys!
- Take the Survey: email us your answers to the questions above, along with a photo!
Topics: Surveys | 3 Comments »
Compostable Cutlery
By Jenn | March 4, 2010
I’ve wanted to love “compostable cutlery,” I really have. Every time I see slightly differently-textured disposable cutlery at a to-go shop, it’s exciting for the first few moments… until my doubts kick in. Does this stuff really compost? If so, will it compost in a home compost pile, or does it require an industrial composting machine (which most communities don’t have)?
I’ve wanted to believe, I really have! Because those potato forks and starch spoons seem a heck of a lot better than the virgin petroleum-plastic options… sadly, turns out, not so much.
Beth Terry did some research into this situation, and contacted a recycling company in San Franscisco. They sent her photos of a potat0-starch based spoon and fork, before and after they’d been composted at extremely high heat in an industrial composter. In both photos, the cutlery looks identical– they didn’t break down at all in the composting process.
She then ran a test herself, burying a comb made from wheat-based plastic in her yard for three months. Even after assurance from the company that their product would compost, it didn’t, at all.
So, the take-away here for me is that, in the end, disposables of any kind are still that– disposables. They’re made for single use, and require a lot of resources to create. While some may be better than others– bagasse plates, for example, are made from byproducts of the sugar industry and will in fact biodegrade– disposables by their very nature are wasteful and in most cases unneccessary.
My current solution is so fun! I was gifted a To-Go Ware bamboo utensil set
What’re your thoughts on disposable cutlery? Do you avoid it, or is it inevitable?
[Image by Mathias Baert via Creative Commons]
Topics: Food, Waste | 7 Comments »
Greening Cookware
By Karina | March 3, 2010
So, I’m about to write about something that is complicated, necessary for everyday life, and yet not easily resolved. That’s right: COOKING POTS.
I know! so fraught with shadowy grey areas of environmental danger!
OK, OK - not to be overly melodramatic about things, but cooking pots are something that I can’t really wrap my head around. They’re necessary for every day! and you will probably need a wide range of them! in many different sizes! They can be incredibly expensive, or incredibly cheap! And after thinking about them for a long time, I really can’t recommend any particular type as a best purchase.
My first experience with worrying about what pans were made of was when I was a kid, and my mom was very clear that she would only use stainless steel pans as the aluminum pans were linked to Alzheimer’s disesase. (There’s a good summary of research here, but the Alzheimer’s Association maintains that there’s no proven link.) Then the issues of teflon off-gassing (linked to here) came up after that, and our family avoided all pots of that type. We used mostly stainless steel, though Dad did get onto a Caphalon kick and he is now set for life with his collection of cookware. Of these cooking pans, stainless steel can be very toxic during manufacture, so depending on where it is made and the manufacturers concern with the environment, it could be introducing toxins into the environment - and arguably worse - into the people working in the factory. Caphalon comes in a few varieties - one is hard-anodized aluminum, which is supposed to be more inert than regular aluminum, and the other has a non-stick coating like Teflon (with potential for off-gassing).
Happily, I am in possession of several large cast iron skillets in varying sizes, and also a dutch oven (with lid!). I joke that these are my dowry (you know, if I were to participate in a timeless transfer of property and ownership such as that), but in actuality they have belonged to various people in my family. The last additions to my collection were given to me by my Dad, who found a couple of rusted pans in the barn out back, cleaned them out, and reseasoned them. Cast iron is known to be reasonably non-stick if it’s been properly seasoned, which means cooked with vegetable oil of some sort in it so the iron pores fill with oil, and NEVER WASHED WITH SOAP EVER. you don’t want to lose that patina of non-stick. If you care for it well, it lasts forever (see also: pans found in old barns that are still full of use and life). I have to say, that based on these criteria as well as the relative non-impact of most iron foundry’s (well, most regulated foundry’s) I would say cast iron is probably close to the best choice.
But what’s a cook to do if they don’t have access to a barn full of rusty cast iron pans? You can get them used at flea markets, and sometimes all they need is a little tender loving care. You can also try purchasing them from a U.S.-based-and-located manufacturer - Lodge Cast Iron is the big name - and the reason to stick with a U.S. manufacturer is so you can be sure the company is being held to somewhat stringent environmental emissions standards at the manufacturing level. Also cast iron isn’t everyone’s bag - it has to be washed differently than other dishes (by hand, and no soap! ever!), occasionally reseasoned, and you really shouldn’t simmer tomatoes in cast iron for too long (the acidity can damage the finish). It’s also not shiny and pretty, because that lovely non-stick finish is dark and black and matte.
The next-best option is probably enamel-coated cast iron. Again, Lodge makes some pans coated in enamel - but this line is manufactured in China. There’s also Green Cooking Pots - again, made in China, but tested for leachability of lead and cadmium in glazed ceramic surfaces. Of course there is the most famous enamel-coated cast iron: Le Creuset. It’s super expensive, but a good investment for your kitchen. This NYTimes article goes over the non-stickness and clean-up-ability of several different types of pans and chooses Le Creuset as the best overall.
There’s another option I’d be remiss to omit, and that’s Green Pan, which is a non-stick pan made with a mineral coating called “Thermalon” instead of Teflon. I haven’t looked into it much, but I will say that my feelings are much aligned with GreenLAGirl’s - it sounds good, but I don’t really understand it. So lots of other people seem to love it, and the webpage of the manufacturer sounds great too, but… I am on the fence.
At home we use the cast iron pans mentioned above for most stuff, but we also have a wide mix of aluminum pans and stainless steel pans from various sources which we use frequently. We even have a small heavy Teflon-coated aluminum that we use for eggs, because it’s so hard to find a pan that cooks eggs evenly and lets you flip them onto a plate cleanly afterwards.
So, earlier melodrama aside, choosing an eco-friendly cooking pot is a hard decision to make. I think that as long as you’re not buying a non-stick coated pan, I think the most important thing to do is not to buy lots of pans, period. Get some that you like, get them used if possible, and don’t buy any more. This might be a situation where not buying anything is really the best environmental choice.
Have you considered your cookware? What is your opinon on the best type to use?
[[Photo of bok choi in cast iron pan by yours truely. Please ignore the dirty stovetop.]]
Topics: Food, Home | 28 Comments »
Crop Mobs Descend
By Jenn | March 2, 2010
Have ya’ll heard about Crop Mobs? They’ve been getting lots of press lately. The concept is so simple, so beautiful, and so exciting:
From Grist: “The Mob is essentially a group of young people of all ages… who alight upon an area farm once a month and do a whole bunch of work together: weeding, moving compost, digging up fresh beds, harvesting ready-at-once crops like sweet potatoes. In short, the kind of work that seems crushing when one or two people set out to do it, but that’s downright fun with a crowd. When the work is done, everyone sits down for a meal.”
Small-scale organic farming is even more labor intensive than conventional farming, and those farmers often don’t have the financial capability to pay farmhands to help. So, a Crop Mob descends for one day on a chosen farm, and makes huge inroads on multiple projects: building structures, planting crops, harvesting, sorting, packing, etc. It’s reminiscent of barn raisings, and ladies helping each other finish quilts, and neighbors pitching in when there’s a bumper crop of tomatoes to be canned before they spoil.
From the New York Times: “In five hours, these pop-up farmers would do more on his fledgling farm than he and his three interns could accomplish in months. “It’s immeasurable,” he said of the gift of same-day infrastructure. It’s the beauty of being Crop Mobbed.”
The Mobbers are rewarded only with the satisfaction of dirty hands, an honest days work in the fields, the good-neighborly feeling of helping out a local farm, and a local-as-can-be meal at the end of the day.
And, I love the idea of Crop Mobs spreading within city limits, too: transforming vacant lots into lush community gardens with a sweaty weekend of work, or descending on a small patch of farmable land and bringing the locals with the ability to grow some of their own food, even within a concrete jungle.
Here’s an NPR interview with two of the Crop Mob founders.
Have you heard of other examples of mob-minded positive actions?
[Image by Jeannie Wallen via Creative Commons]
Topics: Activism, Food | 2 Comments »
Power Outage!
By Karina | March 1, 2010
We had our share of that nasty weather that’s been going around this winter this weekend - where I live I got about 30 inches of snow from Thursday through Saturday. Which, you know, NO BIG DEAL. Sure our driveway is about 170 ft long, and kind of steep at the bottom, but we’re young and tough and good at shoveling. I was able to work from home on Thursday and Friday (when they declared a State of Emergency for our county) to avoid dangerous road conditions, and it just seemed like a big adventure at the start.
The BIG DEAL, however, was that the power went out! Thursday night! and it stayed off for 48 hours! I was mentally prepared to be one of those people you read about - the ones without power 5 or 7 days after the storm. When the lights first blew it was just a few houses around us impacted. Overnight, however, all those other houses lost power too, until according to our unscientific guessing it seemed that nearly our entire Village was dark - and also most of the surrounding towns around us too. According to an early estimate, over 90% of our local power company’s customers in our County were without power on Friday!
Being without power really raised some appreciation for our modern luxuries. As much as Jenn and I talk sometimes about moving Team TinyChoices to an idyllic homestead somewhere, it is really nice to have heat on demand. We don’t have operational fireplaces, so we had to rely on our old house to retain heat as best as it could… and with no attic insulation and proven drafty walls, it wasn’t long until we were resting at about 50 degrees. Without heat input, though we were steady at 50 degrees until the second night, which knocked us down to 45 degrees! THAT was cold. I was pleasantly happy with the house, though - it was great that it retained so much heat for so long. This was important because we didn’t want our pipes to freeze. I recalled all those books where our pioneer ancestors had to break the ice on the washbasin every morning and had the sudden realization that this was an acceptable way to live because there wasn’t any centralized plumbing to freeze up! Because we live in an old house (1890 with a 1920 addition) we only have water on the “new” side of the house, so if we did have to abandon our frozen ship and head for a friends house, it would have been easy to drain the water lines so they wouldn’t freeze and burst.
As silly as I feel sometimes to rely on three different energy sources at our house (electricity, propane for hot water and cooking, and fuel oil to power the furnace) I am thankful to be so diversified. No matter how cold we were getting, we could always heat water for tea (we started making two pots at a time and pouring one pot into a thermos for later) or wash dishes to warm ourselves up. Plus, on the infrastructure side of things, because we have town water it is pressurized enough to get into our house and out of our faucets without any (electrically powered) pumps - those people in the area with wells were not as lucky to have available water.
Our fridge stayed reasonably cold with a saucepan of snow on the upper shelf, but I was nervous about the freezer. I have about 50 cups of corn in there still from our CSA share, and it would be tragic to lose them! The power company was giving out dry ice, and if the power had remained out I would have had to get some to cool everything off.
We got through the cold weather by wearing the right clothes - wool layers for me! lots of layers - including hats to bed. Whenever we got cold we would walk around the house or go outside to shovel. And we drank lots and lots of tea. It was really comfy at night in bed, our flannel sheets and down comforter really did the trick! but we REALLY missed our hot rice bag - without the microwave we didn’t have a good way to warm it up. This is where a hot water bottle could have come in handy. We borrowed an alcohol burner stove to take the edge off when it was super cold, and we used candles and flashlights to find our way around the house. We didn’t try to read after dark, and we were graciously hosted for dinner on one of the two nights the power was out (and we brought our cell phones and charged them up while we ate).
All in all, if we did end up without power for another 5 days, I think we could do it, but it would get old QUICK. So I’m happy that we’ve got our power back on now. Of course this is yet another reason to hurry up and insulate the attic - and I already have my eyes on the thin film solar panel market. Also we’re looking into a buying a small chest freezer so we can do a better job of freezing CSA veg and sourcing locally raised meat in bulk quantities, and if we have a multi-day power outage with a freezer, it will be really stressful for me. We have friends nearby with a generator who will share, but it seems like so much work.
And I guess our green decision last year not to buy a snow-blower was really tested this year! Thursday we shoveled the driveway about three times, and we woke up to a fresh eight inches (at least!) on Friday to deal with. It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that we’d shoveled the entire driveway - and by my rough calculations, that’s about 264 cubic yards of snow moved by hand. No wonder my biceps are huge and my shoulders ache!
Also: huge thanks to Jenn, who handled Friday and Saturday posts and was prepared to swap our regularly scheduled posting days with me so Monday content would remain uninterupted!
How have you handled extreme weather conditions lately?
[[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/djt23/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]]
Topics: Home | 2 Comments »
Easy Peasy Tip: Don’t Clean!
By Jenn | February 27, 2010
Now, we’re not advocating slovenly behavior, but think about it: even the greenest of cleaning requires resources: water, cleaning agents, reusable rags which will need to be washed, trash bags which will need to be dumped, etc.
So when things need to be cleaned, by all means, clean! But if you can let it go another day, then do. Less power will be used, less solvents will be released into the waterways, and you’ll have more free time.
And when staying in hotels, hang that “do not disturb” sign on the door so the maids don’t need to come in and clean your space every day. While it may feel like a treat, it’s also usually an unnecessary use of resources.
[Image by Dan Brady via Creative Commons]
Topics: Easy Peasy Tips, Home | 4 Comments »
Tiny Choices Survey: Kristina!
By Jenn | February 26, 2010
Vital statistics (name, age, location)?
Kristina, 30. Saint Paul, Minnesota
How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)?
I live in a two bedroom 1 bath condo with my husband and our 21mo old daughter.
Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Both. We love living in a walk able part of town. We decided before we married we would never live more than a 15-20min drive to work. We are super excited about the light rail being built near our home.
How do you travel (transit, car, etc)? Are your travel decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Both. Being a two job household we needed two cars to transport our daughter to and from her sitter. We are thinking of hiring in a sitter and becoming a one car household. Because of the harsh Minnesota winters we opted not to bike our daughter out in the cold.
Tell us about a Tiny Choice you’ve made in your life.
We have made so many. #1: limiting new purchases. We frequent a used clothing store and craigslist for most purchases. #2: We cloth diaper our daughter about 80% of the time. (only use disposables at night and naps averaging using only 2-3/day.) #3: use cloth washcloths instead of paper towels 95% of the time.
What is the one environmental dilemma you personally struggle the most with?
Eating meat. My husband loves it. I could go without most days. I shoot for 2-3 meatless dinners/week.
What is one Tiny Choice you can make in that direction?
Being more mindful of where the meat we do eat comes from. Choosing more free range, organic meats.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you make that people question (in either a positive educational or a negative hassle way) you the most about?
Cloth Diapering. Most people don’t realize these aren’t your grandma’s diapers with rubber pants! I love showing new moms the dipes when they ask.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you would like every single person to adopt?
Learn how to cook at home. It doesn’t have to be fancy.
Do you feel like you make sacrifices for environmentalism? Please explain.
I don’t do as many as I would like for the sake of my marriage. My husband has come a long way though. The pace of his baby steps can be painful. Though, slow and steady wins the race! If I tried to make him eat only vegetarian he would never be open to a couple meatless meals a week. Compromise is key
Are you generally: optimistic, pessimistic, neutral about environmentalism and the future?
Environmentalism is a very vague term in my mind. I am pessimistic about how “trendy” it has become to be “green”. Buying new “green” things doesn’t make you “green”. I think the emphasis should be more on “green conservation” not “green consumption”.
I am optimistic about our future generations being more mindful about our environment. Children LOVE to mimic. My 21 mo. daughter knows we don’t throw away paper or plastic. It’s “cycling”. I am hopeful!
- Click here to read all of the Tiny Choices Surveys!
- Take the Survey: email us your answers to the questions above, along with a photo!
Topics: Surveys | 1 Comment »
My New Flame: Continued
By Jenn | February 25, 2010
Back in October I crowed about my new lighter, a vintage Zippo which I won on eBay. I was psyched to finally remove disposable plastic lighters & matches from my life, but ended up wondering what lighter fluid was actually composed of, and where it stood on the eco-chart.
Enter Beth Terry, aka Fake Plastic Fish; she picked this thought up where I dropped it off. I thought about paper matches being a disposable item I’d prefer to avoid; Beth emailed a company which makes wooden matches to ask what the match heads are made from, and researched the strike-strips online. I wondered if butane was greener than matches; Beth reached out to Umbra for her opinion.
Her dedication to this question made me giggle, because I always love it when someone is even more intent on finding out a green answer than I am. Head on over to read her post for your own self, and then, tell us:
What are some green questions you’ve been pondering?
Topics: General | 2 Comments »
Green-Lympics
By Karina | February 24, 2010
Hey, y’all, it’s Olympics time! Now, I have to confess that I, ahem, haven’t been watching the Olympics. And that’s kind of a bummer, because 1. I love Canada, and I’m excited they are hosting, and 2. I really love the Olympics. They’re fun, I love the back-stories, I love the athleticism, I love seeing people from other countries, and also, it’s a great block of TV-time where I can get some seriously overdue xmas knitting taken care of. HOWEVER, we still haven’t wired up the TV room, and now there’s a big tree growing in front of the dish, so….
But! there’s some interesting Olympics news that I thought y’all would like to hear about - for one, the olympic medals are made from recycled electronic waste!
The manufacturer is local-to-Vancouver Teck, and they say:
Historically, metal for the medals has been sourced only from mineral deposits that are mined from the earth and refined for commercial use. Teck has created a recycling process to recover metal from end-of-life electronics (e-waste) such as TVs, computers and keyboards. This process provides a practical solution to the challenge of reducing the amount of e-waste material destined for landfills and is part of the company’s pursuit of sustainability—a core value that drives its approach to business.
Metal can be sourced from many manufactured metal products, including household appliances, electronics or cables. Teck’s process involves recovering metals contained in cathode ray tube glass, computer parts and circuit boards through smelting. The process involves shredding, separating, and heating of the various electronic components to recover a variety of metals.
The gold, silver and copper used in the medals was recovered from end-of-life electronics circuit boards collected and processed at Trail and the Umicore facilities in Belgium which was then combined with the metal from other sources for the medal production.
As they say over at Planet Green:
A total of 2.05 kg of gold, 1,950 kg of silver, and 903 kg of copper were used, which in the end means just a small percentage of recycled material in each medal, but the mining of gold and other minerals is often quite destructive, so it’s a good first step—and as any Olympic athlete would probably tell you, you’ve gotta start somewhere!
So neat! Of course the Olympics are inherently very unsustainable - new stadiums are built, people travel from around the world and overload a local community for a few weeks, snow has to be trucked in because of unpredictable weather, and OH MY GOODNESS the energy use. So it’s important that every little big of sustainable action is picked up and worked on. So just as these Vancouver Olympics are putting recycled e-waste to good use, they are also focused on many different types of sustainable actions. Vancouver has put up a sustainability page that goes from details on how the venues are more sustainable to tracking how much energy is used throughout the games (in real time!) to calculating a carbon footprint for the Olympic games! There is even an initiative with Canadian groups The David Suzuki Foundation and Climate Project Canada to start athlete driven Play it Cool, which relies on athletes to spread the word:
Play It Cool members spread the word of climate change solutions to Canadians by linking up with Al Gore-trained presenters of The Climate Project Canada. Athletes bring these presentations to life by sharing their compelling stories of the visible effects of climate change and what they are doing to help solve the climate crisis.
and also to walk the talk:
Athletes … reduce their carbon footprint caused by pollution from flying, driving, and the heating and cooling of buildings. Athletes then work toward becoming ‘carbon neutral’ by offsetting the carbon emissions from their travel. They do this by investing in clean energy projects like solar installations or wind farms from Planetair.ca after The Climate Project Canada calculates their sports-related footprint.
Athlete members pay a discounted rate of USD $33/tonne for their offsets from Planetair.ca. The average athlete emits 7 tonnes per year, which costs an average of USD $245 to offset with Gold Standard carbon offsets. Athletes are encouraged to seek sponsors to help them go carbon neutral.
There’s a good newspaper article about this here, with an abbreviated checklist from the athlete’s rule book.
So as much as the Olympics are inherently unsustainable, there’s a lot of education and mitigation going on. I would argue that the spectacle that brings over 80 countries together, moves the USA away from drama-based prime time navel gazing television for a short while, and also teaches the world a little more about sustainability is a pretty great, and I’m glad the sustainability of the games is increasing every time they are held.
Are you watching the Olympics? Any insights as to their (non)sustainability or other inherent properties?
Topics: Waste | 2 Comments »
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