food waste

I found two interesting articles on wasting food. I felt it was appropriate to highlight since this is the time of year where we go to a lot of parties, bring a lot of pot luck dishes, have family over for celebrations, resulting in a lot of food and a lot of waste.

From the Washington Post: Costs of Food Waste Pile Up
Food waste has been a chronic problem for restaurants and grocery stores — with millions of tons lost along the way as crops are hauled hundreds of miles, stored for weeks in refrigerators and prepared on hectic restaurant assembly lines. But the historically high price of commodities is making it an even bigger drag on the bottom line.

Restaurants, colleges, hospitals and other institutions are compensating for the rising costs of waste in novel ways. Some are tracking their trash with software systems, making food in smaller batches or trying to compost and cut down on trash-hauling costs.

From Culinate.com, The Food Not Eaten
As a symbol of American abundance, Thanksgiving hints at just how much food there is to squander. And squander we do, from farm to fork. More than 40 percent of all food produced in America is not eaten, according to research by former University of Arizona anthropologist Timothy Jones. That amounts to more than 29 million tons of food waste each year, or enough to fill the Rose Bowl every three days. Nationwide, food scraps make up 17 percent of what we send to landfills.

The author of this article also has his own website, which I am finding very interesting, http://www.wastedfood.com/.

So, enjoy your leftovers and please think twice before you throw something away.

green isn’t just the color of their fatigues

For the first time, the U.S. Army released a Sustainability Report in a move that shows its commitment to going green. This is due in part to a global action to environmentally sound living, but also because the Army has found, like many of us, that it is just simply cheaper to be green.

In their efforts, they have:

1.) committed to making all new buildings LEED certified
2.) decreased their water usage by a third
3.) moved towards making environmentally friendly “war machines”, including a tank that can be broken down into recyclable parts.
4.) built a 12 acre solar farm in Colorado

Nevertheless, “The Army is at the very early stages of its sustainability journey… There is still much progress to be made and still much to learn,” warns the 62-page report.

A shortfall is the Army’s inability to stop producing so much hazardous waste – 45 million pounds in 2006 alone. Not only is the amount large by any standard, but it is 35 percent higher than in 2003. One reason for the rise is that the Army produced more ammunition and trained its soldiers more often to prepare them in the “Global War on Terror.”

They may still have a long way to go, but at least they have started down the path. I, for one, think that is a major step in this progress.

You can find the entire article at the Environmental News Network, HERE.

how nice to wake up to good news

The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday partially backed off from unpopular plans to open land near Utah national parks to oil and gas drilling. BLM deferred leasing about one-third of the 93 tracts that the National Park Service had objected could contaminate parks with noise, water, and air pollution; the rest will still go on the auction block Dec. 19.

via Grist.org

everything you need to know about…

recycling plastic and the various symbols.

The Daily Green posted a guide to knowing how to recycle plastic. I decided to share the post for all of you. You can go HERE.

change of heart…?

I’m guessing before he leaves, George Bush will do more harm than good, regarding his environmental policy. But he will do some good.

ONE of the George W. Bush’s final acts as US president could be to create the largest marine conservation area in the world. White House officials say that Bush is considering a proposal to turn up to 2.3 million square kilometres of tropical waters, coral reefs and remote island atolls in the Pacific Ocean into US National Monuments (see map).

“As bad as his environmental record has been, he could, as one individual, protect more of the Earth’s surface than anyone else in history,” says Lance Morgan of the US Marine Conservation Biology Institute.

The article goes on to say that Presidents have the authority to designated any part of U.S. land as protected.

For every sand spit and coral reef jutting above the water line, the US retains exclusive rights to the surrounding waters for 370 kilometres in all directions. It is in these areas that Morgan has been working with the White House on a deal to secure permanent “no-take zones” for fishing and mineral extraction. This also includes the Mariana trench, the planet’s deepest ocean canyon.

It will be interesting to see how this transpires. However, maybe we will still lose. Between the changes in the Clean Air Act all the way to the leniencies in water contamination to mining to lead poisoning, will protecting this area be helpful? Or will it be an overall net negative policy?

The article can be found HERE, via NewScientist.

buffer zone

New data suggests that the ocean acidity levels are raising 10 times faster than previously thought.

Professor Timothy Wootton from the department of ecology and evolution, University of Chicago, in Illinois, says such dramatic results were unexpected as it was thought that the huge ocean systems had the ability to absorb large quantities of CO2.

“It’s been thought pH in the open oceans is well buffered, so it’s surprising to see these fluctuations,” he said.

The findings showed that CO2 had lowered the water pH over time, demonstrating a year-on-year increase in acidity.

As a result, mollusks like barnacles and muscles are being affected. Most of their shells are made of calcium carbonate, which cannot be sustained in high acid environments. The populations are shrinking at very high rates. In fact, the scientists feel that all of our past models on ocean acidification need to be erased, since the ocean is not buffering the CO2 absorption as thought.

The entire article can be found HERE, via BBC.

how does your garden grow?

Our food choices affect many things, but one area that has always been a concern for me is its impact on climate change. Remember, climate change is not just the warming of our planet, but it also is the effect on our water and soil due to chemicals, overuse, over population, and much much more.

That is why I found it interesting when I read today that CalTech is studying methods of urban hydroponic gardening and roof top farms. I suppose one reason why is because I tend to think if a scientist is really researching something, then there is enough support to think we really need it.

Supporters point to the environmental cost of trucking produce from farms to cities, the loss of wilderness for farmland to feed a growing world population, and the risk of bacteria along extensive, insecure food chains as reasons for establishing urban hydroponic farms.

And, so far there seems to be some great data:

Cornell agriculturist Philson Warner, who designed the program’s hydroponics system, said his students harvest hundreds of heads of lettuce a week from an area smaller than five standard parking spaces by using a special nutrient-rich solution instead of water.

The numbers have some researchers imagining a future when enough produce to feed entire cities is grown in multistory buildings sandwiched between office towers and other structures.

You can find the whole article HERE, via Huffington Post

i really don’t know what to think

Lately, I have been reading a lot about Wal-Mart’s to be a more sustainable company; switching to CFL’s, lowering air conditioning, new buildings being LEED certified, and the list really does go on and on.

I just read an article about Wal-Mart’s Personal Sustainability Project (PSP). It is program where employees are encouraged to live a more sustainable life, even going so far as ‘vowing” to do something, or not do something.

Since 2007, all Wal-Mart employees in the US have been asked to take a simple, concrete step to benefit their health, their local community, or the earth. PSP pledges, which can involve work or home life or both, have included vows to drive the speed limit (to save gas), clean up trash, quit smoking, switch to a reusable bottle, or turn off the tap when toothbrushing.

Wal-Mart has reported that 45% of its employees enrolled in the program, and this is with no financial incentive to them. However, maybe there should be? In many cases employees have found things that the stores can do to improve their sustainability (i.e., turning off lights in the breakroom). These changes have saved the company over $1Million dollars.

The criticism is that yes, these employees are doing this on their own, as encouraged by the company. But, the company has a long history of demanding things from their employees without any gain to the employee. So, do you praise the company for implementing green initiatives or do you criticize the company for bullying its staff to change how they live without any benefit except they don’t get fired?

It is an interesting debate. I, personally, have had trouble with ‘ends justify the means’ attitude. We saw with gas prices, that when the cost was high, people were trying to incorporate ‘green’ ideas to keep the personal cost low. Now that prices have gone back down, they are back in their SUV’s having not learned a thing about being sustainable.

I think we will see more and more of this in many other companies, with many more examples. It will be interesting to see what effect it has….

You can find the article HERE, via MotherJones.

good news

In a new poll taken by WorldPublicOpinion.org, participants support green energy even if it meant higher costs.

“People perceive that oil is running out and that it is necessary to take steps right away to replace it as a source of energy,” Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, told IPS. “They really think in the long run.”

An average of 77 percent of respondents thought policy-makers should require utilities to invest more in alternative energy, with country results ranging from 50 percent support in Russia to 89 percent in South Korea.

With an average agreement of 74 percent, almost the same enthusiasm was shown for greater efforts to make buildings more energy efficient. The lowest support, 54 percent, was found in the Palestinian Territories, while an overwhelming 89 percent of French and British want to see stronger commitments by their governments.

There were 21,000 respondents from 21 countries. I think this shows how the tides are turning.

The article came via IPS and can be found HERE

just sharing

I have to admit that I, and I hope I am not alone in this, sometimes take for granted what we are told. For example, I have read Hamlet, but since I am not a student of Shakespearean literature, I don’t have the whole thing memorized. So, over the years, I have often quoted “to thine own self be true”, without realizing the next passage is critical to the first.

I think in fact it is the American way to misquote this because we are so committed to ourselves and only ourselves; therefore, you must be true to yourself. And, I won’t argue that. However, I think if you read the entire sentence, you find that you are being told a more important lessen.

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

You see the value of this passage is in the interpretation. It essentially means that in being true to yourself also means you cannot “be false to any man.” In other words, by being fake to another is to be betray yourself as well. Being true to yourself means being to true to another.

something to think about

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