A Climatarian diet involves choosing what you eat based on the carbon footprint of the food, and using your power as a consumer to drive down the production of beef and lamb which have the biggest impact on our climate. A climatarian is about eating local food to reduce transportation and reducing food waste.
My easy suggestions on being a Climatarian:
Walk or take the bus to purchase groceries.
Participate in Meatless Monday, and go meatless other days, also!
Eliminate beef and reduce cheese consumption.
Work to reduce all food waste and compost any food waste you have.
Choose minimal packaging, and recycle as much as possible.
Use real dishes, and reuse jars and products.
I love “clean out” the refrigerator stir fry and ideas from Tom Colicchio
This is an argument against Jeff Bridges video. Fish, birds, other wildlife, our oceans and all of us are being harmed by plastic. The below argument is very weak:
How can E-Commerce be more environmentally friendly?
As a person who prefers to walk or take the bus to do my shopping, I thought Fed Ex and UPS delivering packages was a good thing; it cut down on my driving. packages came in cardboard, not plastic, and it seemed like an efficient way to shop. I don’t like some of the oversize shipping boxes, or the Styrofoam and packing peanuts I see littering the street. The article below came as a surprise to me.
What can you do instead? 1. Bundle your own shopping trips into one trip. 2. Slow down, do you really need an item shipped to you in 2 hours? 3. BUY LESS 4. Return Packing peanuts to UPS. 5. Reuse packaging.
What can shippers do to be more sustainable? Refuse to use Styrofoam? Bundle their deliveries? What do you think?
Biodegradable packing materials offer a low-waste alternative to polystyrene packing peanuts. High-profile companies, including Dell and furniture-maker Steelcase, have already embraced a foam-like packaging made from mushrooms, eliminating the waste from polystyrene.
When shipping packages yourself, simply use paper from your recycling bin to insulate breakables rather than reaching for polystyrene peanuts. Crumpled newsprint, junk mail and other waste paper will do the job just as well and will be far easier for your recipient to recycle.
A river of plastic bottles on the way to the Aegean Sea
A recent study by the Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation has found that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. This is a terrible man-made crisis, and not enough is being done to stop the cascade of plastic. Everyone of us needs to take personal responsibility to reduce our plastic consumption. The plastic industry is unchecked, and never should such a nuisance product been put into society without a plan to clean up or reuse. We are stuck with plastic, but we can all reduce the amount of plastic we use today and every day from now on. Especially think carefully before you purchase a plastic tubes that cannot be recycled. There is too much information in this post, but I hope you can find one thing below to help you to reduce your plastic consumption!
The MPCA study says recycling pumps billions of dollars into the Minnesota economy. The 60,000 jobs and the new products created from recycling are worth billions to Minnesotans. Products created from recycled materials are the most exciting! When you purchase products from recycled materials, you are closing the recycling loop.
What happens when you close the recycling loop? The first arrow
represents the first step of recycling, Collection of materials for recycling. Arrow two represents the manufacture of new products from the recyclables. Arrow three is the purchase of the products made from recycled items. This is “Closing the loop” or a circular economy. A win- win!
Why do we recycle? It saves valuable resources, keeps material from the landfills, reduces polluted landfills and as this report (below) shows produces economic opportunity and jobs!
My series, 31 days of less waste continues. Three easy ways to cut landfill waste this week: ** Always use real plates, cups, glasses and silverware.
If you lack enough real dishes
Use real dishes
for your party or dinner, borrow from a friend or relative. The quality of your party improves 100% even if everything doesn’t match. It will still make your event special. Using paper/plastic plates and glasses creates lots of landfill waste.
** A very wasteful trend has developed. Often the only water served at parties is water in small plastic bottles. Serve municipal water in real glasses. A great way to cut waste and save money is to drink water from public water systems. Run tap water through a Brita or other water filter and you have water better than bottled water. Water filters can be recycled at Terracycle.com
No need for plastic bottles!
** Get in the habit of using reusable table napkins. Make your own napkins from remnant pieces
Cloth napkins are the best!
or purchase napkins from reuse stores. Use your imagination, wash cloths or bandanas also make good napkins. They don’t need to match, I like a contrasting colors look.
From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. (EPA)
Have you ever waded knee-deep through the detritus of discarded paper, tissue, and ribbon after a gift-opening frenzy and thought, “What a waste”? Well, you’re right. According to Use Less Stuff, during the holiday season Americans throw away 25 percent more trash than usual—or 25 million tons of garbage. What’s more, many wrapping materials are not recyclable because they have a high metal content
6 Eco-Friendly Ways to Wrap Gifts
Furoshiki is a type of traditional Japanese wrapping using cloth. Take any square of cloth—a bandana, a scarf, or even a cut-up shirt or pair of jeans—lay it out in a diamond shape, and center the gift on it. Flip the southern corner of fabric up over the gift, tucking the cloth under if necessary, and bring the north corner over the top and let any extra material hang. Then tie the east and west corners at the top of the gift.
Decorate a paper bag with stencil or crayon.
Use an out-of-date map or some sheet music.
Recycle vintage containers, such as cigar, shoe, or hat boxes.
Incorporate environmentally friendly items, such as raffia, string, or strips of cotton or silk, in lieu of synthetic ribbon.
Use natural gift-box fillers, such as leaves, straw, pine needles, or shredded recycled paper scented with a few drops of essential oil.
My favorites for wrapping gifts are:
My husband’s gift wrapping
** Use washable, reusable shopping bags as gift bags
** I reuse the gift bags from last year for this year’s gifts.
We can all do something about this tremendous influx of trash and I will be posting ideas for 31 days on how to reduce trash and waste:
Plastic, what an amazing and awful product at the same time.! It is cheap and it is light. Unfortunately, it has become an enormous environmental problem. Many lack the personal responsibility to get single-use plastic bottles and bags to the recycle bin. Many developing nations I visit seem oblivious to it, except in tourist areas! Days 6 through 11 of #31daysofreducingwaste are going to focus on how we can have less plastic pollution.
So what is the problem with plastic? Many say the materials in plastic cause cancer. Plastic will never dissolve, but will break into thousands of pieces of litter. The plastic in the oceans will be here on earth for hundreds of years and it will be found in the intestines of many fish, turtles and birds. Plastic creates a terrible waste and litter problem. According to the http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/tag/plastic/ If left unchecked, there could be 250 million tons of plastic in the ocean by 2025 — about one pound of plastic for every three pounds of fish. We can’t let this happen.
Avoid plastic, fill your glass or metal bottles with liquid
** The best way to reduce plastic trash is NOT to drink bottled water. Bring a reusable water bottle to work, school, and for all your adventures.
**Avoid plastic bags. Always bring your reusable shopping bags.
Shop with reusable bags
** How can you avoid baggies? I love these compostable wax paper bags
** Reuse and recycle all plastic bags.
Please recycle plastic bags at grocery stores!
* Reduce packaging: Try to purchase items with no packaging or packaging that can be recycled.
From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons all adds up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills. (Source: EPA)
November 15 is America Recycles Day! I am pleased how recycling has changed and awareness has increased over the past 2 years. With the advent of the big blue one-sort containers many more people and communities are participating. Even parks are adding containers to collect recyclables!
Of course with more recycling comes new problems. Plastic bags are terrible problem when placed with your recyclables. NEVER put plastic bags in your one-sort container. See the story below:
I am taking a different twist on America Recycles Day. Reuse is a higher step up from recycling. How can you reduce your plastic use? Plastic bag and bottle manufacturers make millions of dollars in profits from a product that is harmful to our waterways and wildlife. They need to take responsibility for the terrible waste they have created. How can you reuse your bags and refill some of those plastic bottles for reuse?
Some co-ops and grocery stores have fabulous selections of soaps and oils to refill your bottles
Look for refill centers.
3. Use your own refillable water bottle.
Avoid plastic, fill your glass or metal bottles with water or other liquid
4. Easiest of all: Bring your own reusable shopping bags shopping with you!
When you shop, do you try to purchase products made from recycled materials? This green business, Banner Creations, in Minneapolis is a hero of mine. They sew and make products from material made from recycled plastic. I purchased my reusable shopping bags (above) from them, and not only did they make a fabulous product, they were creative and efficient to work with.
food, and using your power as a consumer to drive down the production of beef and lamb which have the biggest impact on our climate. A climatarian is about eating local food to reduce transportation and reducing food waste.
Health4earth 