Fresh Vegetables Help Your CO2 Footprint
How? Eating meat and dairy, which has to be produced, creates carbon emissions adding to the already surmounting CO2 from cars and trucks on the road.
Eating Locally
Interest and purchasing of local food is on the rise, with several counties in the region seeing over a 100 percent increase between 2002 and 2007.* Many WI counties such as Eau Claire, Chippewa, Dunn, Jackson, Trempealeau, and 14 others experienced an 86 percent increase in value of direct market AG products sold between 2002 and 2007 (50 percent statewide), with nine exceeding 100 percent. The 18 WI counties totaled $9 million and the seven major Twin Cities counties $8 million in direct market sales in 2007.
*Courtesy of the USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture.
New Uses for Egg Shells
Seed Starter – the perfect size for starting your plants. The carton provides a stable stand and the nutrients in the shell help provide the seed with extra nutrients. Make sure to poke a hole in the bottom of the shell for drainage. And you can transplant them directly into your garden, as the shell will compost right into the garden.
Recycle Your Candy Wrappers, Yogurt Containers, Plastic Cups!
Coming down from your Cadbury Egg sugar high, you realize that you consumed way too much chocolate. But what about the wrappers? Because of size and lack of value, candy wrappers have been a recycling dilemma for a while, and with Americans eating more than 23 lbs of candy each year, these wrappers are everywhere.
So the options are creative glue crafts with the kids or neatly folded starburst wrappers made into bracelets? Well, TerraCycle, the mensa minds that recycle things into other more awesome things, has teamed up with many different companies to collect candy wrappers, yogurt containers, even chip bags, all while donating to your favorite charity. The programs are called Brigades®; they are free programs that collect previously non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste. While some programs have a cost, most of the Brigades offer free shipping as well as a donation for each piece of garbage that you collect.
So if you’re going to eat those fun size M&M’s and Kit Kat bars, at least save the bags. Sign up to collect one or more of the waste streams listed, or find out more about how the Brigade programs work. www.terracycle.net.
Comments