With cold and flu season upon us, it's important to focus on something we normally forget about: Waste. Being sick produces a lot of waste, from tissues to throat drop wrappers. All of this waste heads directly to a landfill where it will sit for decades. Here are three ways to have a low waste sick season without hurting the environment.
Halloween should be a fright fest for the kids, not the environment. Unfortunately, all the waste produced from single-use costumes, candy wrappers, and face paint takes its toll on our earth. Try greening your Halloween with some of these eco-friendly tips.
The beginning of autumn is an incredible abundant time of harvest, and many plants are just coming into the height of their fruiting. This includes many plants that would normally be considered “weeds.” Many of these plants, however, are performing important ecosystem services in addition to being beneficial to humans. Get out your wild edibles guidebook and go hunting for these three plants you can find in early fall.
The conventional methods of putting the garden away involve pulling up your hard-grown plants and tilling your soil. While this method works for a few seasons, permaculture has a longer-term view of soil health. Tilling the soil destroys much of the delicate soil structures that allow for high levels of biodiversity. There are little pockets of water and air in the soil where nutrient-carrying mycorrhizal fungi can grow and beneficial insects can reside.
Those long, warm summer nights are dwindling. The sun is setting earlier in the evening; there’s a welcome coolness to the morning air. But before you swap out all your summer recipes for pumpkin-spiced everything, there’s one last summer chore you should take care of: cleaning the grill.
The summer may be coming to an end but that does not mean that your garden has to go to bed quite yet. There are several solutions for extending the season of your garden including small hotboxes, row covers, and selecting fast growing vegetables that you will be able to harvest long before the snow flies.
Getting your period can be a pretty wasteful event: A woman can easily go through a whole pack of pads once a month. Unfortunately, these go straight to the landfill. While a woman should never feel ashamed of her period, there are ways to curb waste during the menstrual cycle. Here's how to create a low waste menstrual cycle that will also help you save money while bettering your health.
After food, water, and shelter, what’s the fourth basic human need? Air. More specifically, clean air.
Imagine a world where weekly garbage pickup didn't happen. Would you still make as much trash every day, knowing it would eventually consume your entire sidewalk, possibly even your home? We often forget how privileged we are to have garbage pickup services—not everyone is so lucky. We give very little thought to what happens to our garbage when it's sent away. The truth is, it doesn't go away. It goes to landfills, likely located in poor communities, where it emits toxic gasses bad for people's health and the earth.
I recently returned from a writing residency in Slovenia, the small country that sits east of Italy and lays wedged between Austria to the north and Croatia in the south. Few people are aware of its existence, and prior to spending several weeks there, I considered myself to be fairly unaware of it, too. Unfortunately, Slovenia deserves a lot more credit than it gets, specifically for its greenness—think low pollution levels, preservation of natural resources, encouragement of biodiversity, and more.