Posted by Sean Paxton
It's hard for the children of today to learn to be sustainable when the way they are living at home does not reflect it at all. This is easier for those families that already practice things like recycling or live with solar energy, but most families are still too busy and not really concerned enough to attempt instilling these values in their kids. What some parents take for granted in their life right could be very different for their children in the future if the trend that is taking place continues to worsen at the rate it is now.
Sustainable living values can be taught one step at a time. In fact for most people that is the way it has to be. Most families are not going to pull up stakes in the city and move to a country setting where it is much easier to achieve. One of the first things that is important for kids to learn is to conserve energy. There are all kinds of books and internet information available that tell you the most common and most effective ways to conserve fuel, electricity, and reduce waste which uses energy to create. Keeping energy sucking appliances and electronics unplugged can save lots of energy and limiting their use to only when needed could cut our over all energy consumption drastically. We waste a lot more energy than we actually need to.
Teaching little things like buying food and other items that have minimal packaging can show kids how that can save energy because it takes less to make and it creates less waste. It is not necessary to live on a farm to use this planet saving tip. A good example of less packaging is buying fresh produce in the grocery store. You usually need no packaging at all for fresh vegetables. The grocery store is also a perfect place to teach your kids nutritional values. They can learn what is in certain prepackaged foods that are good for them and the things that are not good for them that they should always avoid.
Visiting the supermarket to buy most of our food items is common to almost all of us, but we are learning that sometimes we can not rely on even the fresh produce to be safe. This brings up the idea of having your own vegetable garden. If you are short on outdoor space or have none at all, then you can try container gardening indoors or on balcony or patio. Community gardens are also becoming very popular in urban areas where several families or more join together to grow things where they can find a place. This is a great example of how society can work together so that everyone benefits from the work involved.
Parents must take the initiative when it comes to teaching more home friendly and earth friendly values. If you show them that walking or biking is a good alternative to using a car every time you want to go somewhere, that is so helpful to our pocketbooks and the planet. Keeping the air conditioning or heating in the home off when we could easily wear less or wear more cost us nothing and saves a great deal. We sometimes waste a lot of food, but in tomorrow's world this will likely have to be stopped at all costs. It is a parents obligation to teach their kids to survive and the world they are left might be very different from the one they live in now.
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Tags: food, Gardening, growing, kids, sustainable, sustainable living
Posted by Ganga Patel
A buying group I'm associated with has helped 100s of food service businesses over the past several years push toward zero waste. Zero waste is a school of thought that encourages the reconstruction of resource life cycles so that all products are reused or recycled.
Restaurants pushing toward zero waste focus on minimizing waste wherever possible and then rerouting all leftover waste toward recycling & composting facilities. To accomplish zero waste, I have found these food service businesses incorporate 3 major tactics:
1) Removing Non Recyclable And Non Compostable Waste - I have seen a variety of our generations green bistros and cafes effectively get rid of all waste that can't be sent for composting or recycling. For outbound packaging supplies (the ones used by consumers), numerous businesses have shifted over to compostable food packaging (e.g., biodegradable cups, compostable plates, compostable forks, biodegradable containers). Note: Managers should make sure that any item labeled "biodegradable" meets ASTM D6400 for compostability in a commercial composting facility. Incoming packaging supplies are a little tougher to control (e.g., it's harder to make sure that your supplier does not wrap your vegetables with cellophane), but still many restaurants have been able to ask vendors to avoid using product packaging which is difficult to recycle (e.g., Styrofoam).
2) Doing Away With their Trash Bins - I have seen several green minded business owners dispose of or substantially reduce the size of their trash can. This appears to be a very powerful strategy assuming that you have already executed strategy #1 and reduced a majority of your packaging to items such as biodegradable cups and biodegradable plates. By eliminating your trash bin, you effectively force consumers to think before discarding their food & packaging waste into a composting or recycling can; and particularly when combined with proper recycling & composting signage, this is a very powerful tactic for getting consumers to self-sort their recyclables & compostables.
3) Staff Education - I have found that businesses that are the most effective at moving toward zero waste take significant effort to train their staff on effective recycling practices, composting practices, and the use of re-usables. Education is key when answering questions from customers (e.g., which bin does this fork go in?) and for the sorting of waste left on counter-tops or in the kitchen. Additionally, having employees that are excited about a business' transition toward zero waste will definitely go a long way toward embedding that feeling into a restaurants' culture and the minds of its customers.
Hope you enjoyed hearing about the eco-oriented steps being taken by small businesses. Good luck on your eco-minded journey!
Learn more about zero waste solutions and get access to steep discounts on biodegradable cups and biodegradable plates.
Tags: biodegradable, business, business practices, composting, eco friendly, environment, food, Gardening, Gardening Articles, recycling, restaurants, small business, sustainable, waste, zero waste
Posted by Judy Stevens
In the past greenhouses were used for small gardens and caring for individual horticulturalists prized flowers but commercial greenhouses are in the focus more lately with all of the attention given to green and sustainable living choices.
For example, universities and agricultural departments have built commercial greenhouses for their studies. These were only a larger version of smaller greenhouses made for individuals. Many elementary and pre-schools were also building greenhouses to teach and to educate the generations to come. These children and students were learning about our world, our earth, life, organic growing, eating habits and self-worth.
As our land and our soil become more and more obsolete, another good reason to build a greenhouse is to plant a garden using hydroponics. Hydroponics is used to grow without the use of soil but something more available that can transport nutrients to the roots of the plants.
Recently, I have been reading about building acreage up, a system termed "eco building". It is the process of building large high rises to use as greenhouses. By growing up and not out, we can use less land, and also generate crops without the dependency on other countries. One example of this is the tomato industry. South America dominants the growing of the tomato crop, however shipping and spoilage present problems. With Greenhouse structures going up and not out, we could capture some of the vegetable and industry back and regain some economic features for our own country. Also consider the world's poor populations. If we can supply healthy vegetation to otherwise dry climates, we could feed a nation by building these greenhouse structures upward. And lastly, consider the oil crisis. Our development of corn and other types of fuel can only better our world.
Organic fertilizing has been an issue we have struggled with over the years. We know chemicals placed on our plants is bad for you and we know that harmones injected into our livestock is also harmful. With organic living we can control the insects by allowing the good insects to kill off the bad and growing indoors allows this cleaner "greener" living. Our world has always had some faction carrying the mantra of "getting back to nature" but now is the time to take action and do this.
We are all learning so much about the earth, the economy and about green sustainable living. Greenhouse plantations would conquer a lot of these issues very quickly. Building greenhouses could be the answer.
If you want to Build YOUR Southern Greenhouse or go to http://www.SouthernGreenhouses.com.. Unique version for reprint here: Greenhouses: Sustainability.
categories: economy,green living,sustainable,off the grid,horticulture,growing your own produce,helping the poor,country,economics,horticultural,environment,agriculture,future
Tags: agriculture, country, economics, economy, environment, future, Gardening Articles, green living, growing your own produce, helping the poor, horticultural, horticulture, off the grid, sustainable
