How effective are personal changes really when trying to combat something as humongous as climate change; a problem so large that even entire countries going carbon neutral would only make a dent. Personal action isn’t everything without systemic changes it will be hard to make progress. The very idea of measuring your personal impact of the environment was popularized by the fossil fuel giant BP to reframe climate change as the fault of greedy people not greedy organizations. The rise of the carbon footprint started in 2000 when BP launched the Time for a low carbon diet campaign. Which was crafted for them by renowned public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals. The BP lower carbon diet adds present the carbon footprint as a new thing that most people are just learning about as an unseen camera man takes to the streets asking people what they know about their personal impact on the environment. The ignorance of the people in the video shows us as ignorant of these issues and therefore partially at fault. Needing the BP guy to come by and inform us of our planet racking tendencies. And finally, by positioning themselves as an ally ready to help with their emission reductions projects and their emissions calculator tool and learn how to reduce your carbon footprint at bp.com/carbon footprint. To have the impact the world needs we need many people using a range of these strategies imperfectly to have any effect. If you had to eradicate any trace of fossil fuels and plastic from your life before qualifying as an environmentalist, we would have a movement of five people. Which is exactly what big businesses want. So do your part as best you can and try not to be harsh on people who don’t have the space for a compost pile or the time to find a farmers’ market. My own experiences with sustainable transition have been rocky. I will leave the subject of vegetarianism alone here because that topic has already been exhausted it in another article and precede to cover the failures and success I have had on other branches of sustainable change. I have tried many times to give up the nye irresistibly cool cans of sparkling water my parents used to replace soda. Soda is long gone put the cans persist it is one of my eco failures. At college they will no longer be an inevitable part of my environment and perhaps the habit will be kicked for good. I’ve tried bar shampoo goes poorly with my long thick hair. I tried I can’t I’m done. Sustainable experiments that have gone well include the bamboo toothbrush felt a little harsh at first but works and is totally compostable along with its cardboard packaging. Thrifting the new gen z hobby has served me well so far. I have found comfortable pants a casual top and two sturdy Capri for gardening and general summer wear.
My own history is not particularly majestic, but I want to illustrate that every contribution helps and doing something for the environment is always better than doing nothing. Despite the origins of the carbon foot print we can effect change by taking what actions are in our power and encouraging others to take what actions they can. Our societies must learn to live more simply so the earth may simple live. I hope my blog has provided the resources to help people change aspects of their life to achieve that. Sources https://www.thecapture.club/post/the-term-carbon-footprint https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon- footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywrZPypqSB4
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What does organic really mean? Is the extra money for organic chicken and avocados really helping to preserve the natural world? Let’s start with how organic farming is defined according to Meriam Webster as, “the use of food produced with feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin, without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides.” The exact standards for organic are different for every category of food produced. Growing organic fruits and vegetables requires using natural fertilization methods such as composted manure, fish meal and cover crops to boost the soil’s natural fertility. Organic pest control includes crop rotation, releasing beneficial insects to consume pest insects and natural pesticides, including products with plant- and mineral-based ingredients and microorganisms. Organic pigs must have access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air, clean drinking water, and direct sunlight. However, the amount of living space required for each pig varies from company to company. Organic pigs must be fed primarily organic grains and protein sources and must be processed at an organic processing facility. For dairy products to be deemed organic, the cows must have access to the outdoors throughout the year including living on pastures for at least 120 days per year, during which time at least 30 percent of their diet comes from pasture grass. No use of antibiotics, growth hormones or GMOs (genetically modified organisms) is permitted. Only 100 percent organic feed containing no hormones, plastic pellets (yes code 6509 on animal production practices and materials states that plastic cannot be used for roughage) or food by-products from other mammals. Organic poultry must feed on grains that are organically produced and pastures that are organically managed, and they must be processed at an organic facility. Birds must be allowed some access to the outdoors though the amount is not defined, and birds must not be kept in battery cages (stacked metal cages with an egg collection system in which chickens barely have enough room to turn around.) What does organic farming do to help the earth? Organic agriculture does not create fertilizer runoff that harms local water sheds. Natural means of pest control that are used on organic farms do not cause harm to insect populations. Animals that are allowed to graze will use up less grain and take generally less land for their food production. Organic animals are not routinely given any drugs or antibiotics that allow the growth of super bugs.
What organic can’t do. Organic does not fix over consumption of water by any means. Organic farms water fields to sprout weeds early so they can be tilled under, using more water than traditional farming. Organic foods use the same amount of energy being transported to distant grocery stores as conventionally grown foods. They are just as prone to being wasted or swaddled in unnecessary packaging as conventionally grown foods. And the lot of farm workers on an organic farm is no better than a regular one. Organic is helpful in protecting waterways and preventing superbugs so buying organic does help but will not fix much without other eating sustainability methods. Sources https://www.epa.gov/greenerproducts/introduction-ecolabels-and-standards-greener-products https://www.msc.org/what-we-are-doing/our-approach/what-does-the-blue-msc-label-mean https://www.epa.gov/agriculture/organic-farming https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/organic https://www.safefruitsandveggies.com/organic-regulations/ https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Organic%20Pig%20Production_FINAL.pdf https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Poultry%20-%20Guidelines.pdf According to my parents my first experiences in our vegetable garden involve eating a green pepper like an apple and helping to pick cucumbers, one of which I would eat on the walk back to the house. The first things I can remember for myself are “helping” to weed and traveling to little explored portions of the yard to pick blackberries, then trooping inside to make blackberry sauce with the old metal sieve used for garden tomato sauce. In second grade my science class started our own tomato plants which I eventually took home and planted in an earth box. I remember seeing that plant grow huge and eventually become a fallen giant. I watched it slowly die. I had planted it not thinking that it would grow or amount to anything, but it became this huge plant and then collapsed and died all within a few months. I had remained unchanged while the tomato plant I had named Fifi had lived its entire life. A strange lesson in mortality. My most recent childhood garden memory is planting a bed of potatoes all by myself and being weirdly proud when they were successfully harvested. We used to plant everything on Derby Day as a family. One year we successfully trained a black-eyed Susan vine up the old, repurposed trellis at the head of the garden. Last spring, we made arches for vining plants and had the most snap peas I have ever seen. My dad and I went out to pick them every day and they just kept coming. I hope we have the same experience of vines and planting this year. As I got older, I went through a phase of not being interested in the yard/garden and seeing it as more of a chore than an activity. But it was chore I felt guilty for not doing. During summer vacation, I would promise myself that tomorrow I would start getting up early to go on a walk with the dog and then help in the garden. This rarely happened. Two summers ago, during quarantine, my mother got really into gardening, and we finally replaced the elderly raised beds with fresh. It was necessary that I help with this and was part of how I got back into the garden. Discovering many old books about gardening and preserving food also piqued my interest. I would read them and think about what methods and recipes I would use for myself if I had my own house and garden. Last summer I was able to start consistently helping in the garden. It felt so good to hear that I was helpful. Things my mother has gotten into over quarantine: winter sowing in plastic bags and starting seeds in the house. For some reason I don't like starting seeds. I still can’t see tiny seedlings and think they will amount to large plants. Or maybe I just don’t like messing with potting soil. I like to read about canning recipes more than to can foods. Last summer I spent many an hour packing our green beans into glass jars. It was worth it; we still have some left and they are better than store bought. Besides the green beans our canning successes include dried beans, bread and butter pickles, tomato sauce, roasted pepper spread, and honey spiced with lemon cloves and cinnamon. If I ever obtain my own garden as an adult, I will probably begin making my own canned goods. This year we will be trying to make canned whole tomatoes, Italian eggplant, homemade baked beans and vegetable stock.
Why should you be out gardening when you can buy vegetables for less money probably? Gardening helps you to appreciate the work that goes into producing the food. It is a form of exercise that produces something besides tiredness. It can help to teach children about nature, bugs, how good soil is created, the carbon cycle, life, and death. It’s just good to do something that is productive but does not require your brain and to have a good reason to go outside every day. Like many other vegans or vegetarians, my first foray into a plant-based diet was after watching a documentary encouraging veganism. It happened during a family movie night when it was my turn to pick. I saw a documentary about the food system and was interested; my parents might not have been. The documentary was titled What the Health and was aimed at the risks of a diet high in processed meat and dairy products, and how health related nonprofits like The American Diabetes Association have been accepting sponsorship from companies that make money from processed dairy and meat products. Meat and dairy sponsorships bias them against investigating the effect our diets have on health and chronic diseases. It was the first time we had seen anything like it and we rashly decided to go vegan. This quickly failed as it was a spur of the moment decision and we had done literally nothing to prepare. I will now give you an example of how and why suddenly going vegan does not work out. A few days after our rapid conversion, I and my mother went to a new restaurant in town that was supposed to be a specialty breakfast restaurant. The only vegan option was oat bran with withered restaurant fruit, so instead we awkwardly got vegetarian meals, not willing to sacrifice actually good food for the principles. You can be vegetarian without the sacrifice. The veggie Florentine with skillet potatoes is wonderful. My household has always been low meat and try's to purchase our food locally; my dad has been influenced in this by the excellent works of Michael Pollan. After our vegan train wreck, we continued to be a low meat household. Not doing much of something is always a helpful start to not doing it. Two and a half years ago I became vegetarian, and my parents became pescatarian. Part of why I have found it easier to commit to vegetarianism is that it has become more prevalent in our society. Almost everyone knows what it means, and most restaurants have a vegetarian option that is not comparable to ingesting sadness. One of the factors that will determine how sustainable any change in your life will be is how much work it is to maintain around others. I understand that I am privileged in having a cooperative family and that making changes like this are very hard for many people. I am in no position to preach to anyone and just want to honestly state my current situation and the reasons I am here so that those reading my blog will fully understand if I have any biases in my writing. If you are considering becoming vegetarian, here are some recipes for easy side dishes and other simple vegetarian resources my family uses. Recipe: roasted cabbage https://www.food.com/recipe/oven-roasted-cabbage-441862 (we leave off the sugar and balsamic vinegar) Recipe: roasted cauliflower https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/roasted-cauliflower-recipe-1945072 Recipe: good, cooked brussels sprouts start off with buying fresh brussels sprouts. Peel off sketchy outer leaves like you would with a cabbage. Cut off the stalk on the bottom, slice sprouts in half. Place in hot pan with oil, turn once ensuring sprouts are browned on both sides. Add water to the pan and turn heat down and cover. Test every few minutes until sprouts are to your liking. Recipe: mixed vegetable soup. Start with flavor additives such as tomato paste, minced onions, garlic, and celery, brown flavor ingredients in bottom of pot for additional flavor. Add the stock. Add potatoes or pasta as a starch, then a root vegetable such as carrots, turnips, parsnips or sweet potatoes. A type of greens. Lentils or beans or tofu or broccoli for protein.
Extra ingredients include peas or corn and herbs, fresh or dried. all of these should be added roughly 5 minutes before the soup is finished cooking. Zatarain’s red bean and rice for when you are in college or have only 25 minutes to prepare dinner This method of food consumption aims to reduce emissions by reducing the amount of fuel needed to transport food cross country or the fossil fuels used to grow food in artificial light and temperature-controlled greenhouses. Food grown out of season in industrial greenhouses require more water and large amounts of chemical fertilizers to grow to maturity. Food that has been shipped from far away is often more processed, even if it doesn’t appear to be. Many kinds of produce are picked while still green to survive transport and forced to ripen with gas after arriving at stores. This process is part of why a farmers market or home-grown tomatoes taste so much better than a store bought tomato. It is estimated that we currently put almost 10 kcal of fossil fuel energy into our food system for every 1 kcal of energy we get as food. These processes must stop if we are going to get a handle on climate change before the ocean consumes us all Local and seasonal eating is often tied to supporting small business and small farms. Buying from local market stands, self-pick fields and CSA boxes, which is a box of seasonal produce from the farm you signed up with, support local businesses along with local food. Both CSA boxes and farmers markets directly empower small farmers by allowing them to charge store prices and not have a middleman. These alternative methods of shopping are often much easier than finding local and seasonal food in large stores. If you live in Louisville for example, you have access to upwards of eight farmers markets. If living through Louisville’s slate gray winters has you bulking at the lack of produce, try Garden Girl Foods in Louisville which sells natural canned goods and helps to teach kids cooking and gardening skills. Local and seasonal eating requires the most work on the part of the consumer out of all the rules of eating I have talked about. To eat locally and seasonally you must research good places to buy food, recipes for what produce is available at different times, and it is useful to do some basic food preserving for when your favorite vegetable is out of season.
Finding good produce in winter can be extremely challenging for people who live in remote areas or in areas where it is hard to access fresh food to begin with. However, there are online resources that can help people wanting to eat more seasonally, such as seasonalfoodguide.org and many other websites for different regions; search your area with a seasonality guide to begin your journey. I have listed sources for simple recipes using seasonal vegetables https://blog.seasonalroots.com/winter-recipes https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/recipes/occasion-and-season/winter/ https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/slideshow/spring-recipes If you want help preserving your favorite vegetable https://marysnest.com/ Sources https://cuesa.org/learn/how-far-does-your-food-travel-get-your-plate https://www.slowfood.com/about-us/ https://www.seasonalfoodguide.org/about The Bardstown Road farmers market had the best omelets in the world. I would pay nearly anything to experience that omelet stall again. Our omelet of choice, the vegetarian omelet, had cubed potatoes, beets, goat cheese and spinach. Most weeks the ingredients were all sourced from the farmers market. Once, when I was about 5, we were in line at that omelet stand. A couple behind us asked if we liked the vegetarian omelet and little me replied with great excitement, “Yes, it’s got beets!” The omelet stand was so successful it became the Harvest restaurant in downtown Louisville. This market and wandering through the collection of raised beds at one end of my parents’ back yard are my first memories of sustainable food. After four years we changed to the Jeffersonville farmers market which is much closer to our house and is located partly under a walking bridge giving its vendors additional protection from rain and sun. The best way to get to know a farmers market is to learn about the vendors, so I have comprised a list of those that we have gotten to know over the years. The Italian lady sells homemade baked goods and excellent jams. Her best item is the vegetable pocket, a completely flat hand pie filed with magic and dill. There is also an apple and cheese variant. As I have gotten older I go to her stand with a set amount of money while my dad is in line for something else to make the trip more efficient. The fruit ladies are a fixture of the market that I look forward to each year. They are the only stall that has three kinds of apples and Asian pears which are like normal pears but have a firm crunchy texture when ripe. Mr. and Mrs. Crumb are the most senior of the farmers market vendors. For some reason they always call my dad by his first name even though he can’t remember how they learned it. They always have unique items on their table. I owe their stand my first experience with papaws and unshelled chestnuts. In these last years of the pandemic, they have decided not to come. The Mennonite family is who we usually get our eggs from. They have always had a baked goods table, but Friendship Bread and pies have slowly taken over their stall. Possibly because they have found that is what sells best for them or is easiest to produce. This seems to be a trend. Almost all the new vendors at the market are selling a nonvegetable product: candles, baked goods, knitted bags, hot sauce and woodworking. Golden Watermelon, Pink Blackberries, and the Honey Stick
The farmers market has always brought variety and new experiences into my life. I remember bringing home what I can only describe as translucent pink blackberries that I genuinely believed to be magical. The anticipation of each year’s berries is my earliest farmers market memory. The second truly magical fruit I have encountered is the golden watermelon; it looks like a normal watermelon from the outside, slicing it open reveals a flesh of pale gold with evenly spaced white seeds. Its flavor is more delicate and floral than a normal melon. It appears at the Jeffersonville farmers market, and I have never heard of it in a store. When I was around four or five, my dad brought one home for the first time. He made me recite the magic words the farmer had given him to say right before slicing it open. I hardly believed that a watermelon could be gold. I loved it. The honey stick is the candy of the farmers market, a plastic tube filled with plain or flavored honey. The end is bitten through, and the honey is eaten much as you would a pixie stick. You never grow too old for a honey stick. Plain, inexpensive and good, the nature of the honey stick makes it the item that best summarizes the farmers market’s joys. Even though going to the farmers market takes up less than an hour a week during the growing seasons, it has an outsized place in my memory. It is a harbinger of spring and fall. There are people at the Jeffersonville farmers market that have known me since I was ten. Wherever I land in the future, I hope there will be a farmers market with blackberries, and honey sticks. A diet that substitutes grass fed meat for factory farmed meat reduces emissions by lessening the amount of land, water and energy needed to produce the meat, as well as needing less drugs. The amount of land and water needed to grow meat is reduced by grass fed operations because factory farms need to use grains to feed livestock. The grains must be watered and fertilized then processed and shipped to the location of the farm greatly increasing the amount of land, water and energy needed to produce the meat. Also, land that is unsuitable for traditional crops can be turned into heathy pastures increasing the total amount of food we can produce for ourselves. Responsible Farmers A responsible farmer can calculate the amount of nitrogen each field can absorb and how much nitrogen the average animal will create with their waste each day and adjust their grazing patterns accordingly. These calculations eliminate waste runoff pollution and fertilize the pastures. Ranchers can prevent the desertification of pastures by managing their herds to exploit the natural rhythms of grass. Grass growth follows an S curve. The growth after being grazed once starts out slow, but after a few days of initial recovery it starts to increase rapidly. As the grass starts to bloom and produce seed the curve flattens, usually around 14 days from the first bite. Ideally each pasture is grazed right at the top of its blaze of growth to maximize the growth it will yield in a year by moving livestock from one small pasture to another as they become mature, never letting the animals eat from grass that has not had a chance to recover and thus degrading it. In nature you always find birds following herbivories. The egret perches on rhinos and the turkeys trail after bison. The birds dine on insects that would overwise bother the herbivore. They also pickup insect lave and parasites breaking the cycle of infection and disease. Farmers can reduce diseases and parasites by grazing poultry where herbivores have recently been mimicking nature’s cycle. Conclusion
The heavy use of antibiotics on industrial farms is not necessary on well-run, pastured operations. The animals’ rotations, as well as the use of poultry in fields that the herbivores have passed through to forage for insects and parasites attracted by cow waste, greatly limit disease. Grass fed farmers often don't need to treat their livestock with de worming agent or parasiticides. If you live in a place that does not have land that is well suited for row crops, eating local pastured meat could be better for the Environment than becoming a vegetarian who eats many imported foods which must be transported hundreds of miles consuming fossil fuels. Resources https://extension.psu.edu/grass-fed-beef-production Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Books, 2016. Foer, Jonathan Safran. We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast. Penguin Books, 2020. https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Organic%20Livestock%20Requirements.pdf A vegetarian diet helps to reduce pollution and waste by increasing the efficiency of food production. Humans growing plants to eat for themselves is more efficient than growing plants to feed farm animals in order to harvest their meat. Farmers have learned how to calculate the efficiency of a meat animal at producing food through food conversion rates. A food conversion rate is the mathematical relationship between the feed an animal consumes and the weight that the animal gains by consuming the feed. Feed conversion rate is calculated by dividing kg or pounds of food consumed by weight gained. The lower the feed conversion ratio, the more efficient an animal is in converting feed to hot dogs. The average feed conversion rate for cattle is 12.5, for pigs 3-3.2, for rabbits 2.5-3, and for chickens 2.8-3.2 . When we raise plants to eat it only takes the land occupied by plants and the additional water used to raise the plants, where as livestock eat grain that has to be transported long distances and use more water than any plant. Vegetarianism reduces the amount of water needed for agriculture because vegetables need less water to grow than animals. Pollution caused by eating industrial meat Raising animals for meat generates ocean pollution in two ways, fertilizer runoff and waste runoff. Fertilizer runoff occurs when too much fertilizer is applied on fields as an insurance that heavy feeding crops like corn or alfalfa will succeed. What cannot be absorbed by the soil is washed away by rain and enters the water ways. These chemicals contribute to the degradation of marine environments. Fertilizers in the water fuel algae blooms that are far larger than natural. This alga can grow so thick that it absorbs most of the oxygen in the water suffocating animals and killing marine plants through lack of sunlight. This is a cause of fish kills and contributes to ocean dead zones. The challenges of vegetarianism
Eating vegetarian is challenging for people with low income or who live in remote areas where it takes a long time to ship fresh food. Vegetables and fruits can look about ready for the compost by the time, they reach the store. Studies have found that wealthy districts have three times as many supermarkets as poor ones do. White neighborhoods contain an average of four times as many supermarkets as predominantly black ones do. This makes eating less meat harder and more expensive. Even when easy to access convenience stores have a bunch of bananas or a few apples they sell the fruits individually. Because these items are not priced, the customers are often at the mercy of the person behind the counter who determines the cost. Many people are time poor and have no time to learn new recipes or about vegetarian nutrition and how first time vegetarians can create balanced healthy food. While eating less meat is beneficial for the environment, we must not judge people who do not reduce their consumption of meat as morally inferior, any more than we would judge someone who drives a nonelectric car. Making the environmentally conscious choice is expensive in many situations. Resources https://www.livestocking.net/feed-conversion-ratio https://awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/ water pollution https://wle.cgiar.org/solutions-and-tools/science-driven-solutions/agricultural-water-pollution/ https://wateractiondecade.org/2017/12/09/water-pollution-from-and-to-agriculture/ https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/algal-blooms/index.cfm https://www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/effects-dead-zones-and-harmful-algal-blooms ocean health importance for climate change https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-ocean-so-important-climate-change https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OceanCarbon https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/water-qa-what-causes-fish-kills?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_cent https://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/09/veganism-is-a-privilege-not-a-cure/ https://foodispower.org/access-health/food-deserts/ ,The current amount of food waste in the world is shameful. The zero-waste method reduces emissions by reducing the amount of food the world needs to produce because we make sure that every bit of food is used. Between 30-40% of food that is produced for human consumption goes to waste. 103 million tons (81.4 billion pounds) of food waste was generated in 2018, according to the EPA, which is the equivalent of over 450,000 Statue of Liberties. The most wasted foods are fruits vegetables, cereals, and tubers. Food waste in America is exacerbated by unrealistic aesthetic standards for our produce and by our tendency to over purchase and over apportion food. Think of when you by the new super health food only to leave it neglected at the back of your fridge until it goes bad, only half consumed. Or the bruised bananas tossed from the pristine display when they still could have been good for a smoothie. How it works This method of environmentally conscious eating is often tied to charities or small businesses that rescue edible food from being thrown away by restaurants and stores, which is then given to people in need. One example is City Harvest, a New York based food rescue organization which collects millions of pounds of food each year from farms, restaurants grocery stores and manufacturers to help feed New Yorkers struggling to put food on the table. The Boston Area Gleaners tackle food waste on the farm with a network of volunteers and employees who rescue ugly or excess food from farm fields and deliver it to a network of local food pantries, food banks, and meal programs. Another good example is Too Good to Go, an app that allows restaurants and other businesses to post when they have food they would have to throw out. The app alerts people of their chance to buy food at a reduced-price, saving food and money for both. Implementing zero waste eating in your life While trying to eat zero waste is not the most well know method for reducing our carbon footprint, it is the most generally accessible. It does not require you to change your shopping habits much because to prevent food waste, all you need to change are some small things about food storage and how you think about the food you have on hand. To prevent fruit from turning brown sprinkle it with lemon juice. To protect pasta rice noodles and dried legumes from insects store them with a bay leaf. To soften brown sugar change it to a new container and put a small piece of apple or bread in the container. The sugar will absorb the moisture and soften. Create visible and clearly marked areas in your fridge and freezer for things that need to be eaten in the next few days. Place a bag in the freezer to collect clean celery ends, carrot peels, garlic and onion ends and skins, and herb stems. When you have gathered several pounds, they can be used to make a stock. Not all food can be salvaged. There are always things that you have to throw away. Food waste takes up more space in landfills than any other type of solid waste, but it is impossible to scrimp our way out of this entirely, some things will always go bad. How can spoiled food be diverted from the land fill? Composting, allowing the food to decay naturally with other waste components into soil. Some areas have composting services just like trash or recycling. If you have a yard, you can build a compost pile for yourself or use a compost drum.
Sources https://www.rts.com/waste-type/foodwaste/ https://www.rubicon.com/blog/food-waste-facts/ https://www.cityharvest.org/programs/food-rescue/ https://toogoodtogo.com/en-us/movement https://www.bostonareagleaners.org/ https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/tips-reduce-food-waste https://www.thedollarstretcher.com/frugal-living/food/frugal-food-rescuing-tips-from-grandma/ https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/types-composting-and-understanding-process https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home Zero plastic eating means your focus is on limiting the plastic pollution caused by your food, instead of focusing on the greenhouse emissions caused by the production of it. Zero plastic food is an arm of the zero-waste movement in which people attempt to reduce the amount of trash they produce as much as possible. Origins of Plastic and Its Environmental Impact The creation of plastic props up oil and gas industries because much of the plastic currently produced is synthetic plastic, which is made from Naphtha chemicals, a distillation of crude oil. These oils must be further broken-down creating hydrocarbons like ethylene, propylene, and butylene. Once the polymers have been created, the next step will either be an addition reaction or a condensation reaction, creating plastic pellets or nurdles which are shipped to other factories to be remolded and shaped into plastic products in which our food is packaged. Plastic has another destructive phase after you are done with it. Marine plastic is responsible for killing one million sea birds and 100,000 thousand marine mammals, severely depleting ocean eco systems which are responsible for absorbing 100 PgC or 100 pentagrams of carbon. However, even plastic free foods that have traveled long distances can use large amounts of fossil fuels because they are driven in large trucks to the supermarkets. On average, foods like winter squash, potatoes and apples are shipped from 500-1200 miles before reaching the grocery store and even farther for those passion fruits and avocados, which is something to keep in mind Zero Waste and You
The main principle of zero waste food is that we as consumers vote with our dollars so that food that does not contain plastic packaging becomes the new normal. Every bit will count when we are working towards a more sustainable future. However, we can’t know the environmental impact of food just by looking at it. Not all the packaging of food is visible. Pears, plums and other more delicate fruit are wrapped in paper during transit, which is then discarded before the produce is put on display. Simple cost-effective ways to buy food with less plastic
Sources https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/plastic-pollution https://www.pnas.org/content/112/38/11899 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-is-plastic-made.html https://www.marthastewart.com/7591697/ways-reduce-plastic-use-kitchen https://green.harvard.edu/news/do-food-miles-really-matter https://ugc.berkeley.edu/background-content/ocean-acidification/ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/OceanCarbon |
AuthorI am a high school student who is creating her own blog for the first time for school about our food system and environmental issues Archives
May 2022
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