Blog and life on hold : Taking some time to myself

To all my readers :

Due to personnal loss and unexpected circomstances, many of my personnal activities have taken a back seat. I wanted to assure all my readers that this is only a temporary break and that I will be back in full force in a week or two. It has just been very hard to find inspiration in this time of grief.

I wish you all a very happy july and promise to be back soon to share my thoughts and experiences with you.

This is a time of healing.

happy greening and I will see you all soon.

MOVING TIME - Off line for a few days!

MOVING DAYS !!!

I wanted to let everyone know we'll be going off line for a few days during the move into our new place. Hope everyone has a nice couple of days and I'll catch you up on the challenge and all when I'm back on.

Happy greening!

Change the world Wednesdays… Become a locavore for a day!

So, in the spirit of continuing our blog sharing for Reduce Footprints “Change de World Wednesday” challenges, I’m reposting this week's challenge :

“For one full day this week, eat only local foods. No tropical fruits from across the world ... no veggies that traveled hundreds of miles to get to your table ... only locally grown foods (this includes meats, dairy products, etc., if you eat them).

OR, if you're already eating only local foods full time ... and may I say congratulations to that ... post one of your favorite "local food" recipes on your blog.”

What does this mean?

It means take a few days, look around, and think of seasonal foods you love and find them at your local farmer’s markets and local grocery stores that feature local foods. This may take you out of your comfort zone, but what is a challenge without a bit of challenge?

What does this do?

For a day, for every food you buy and eat that didn’t have to travel thousands of miles to get to your plate, you get to reduce your carbon footprint by tons of CO2 that is released into our air and atmosphere. Plus, you encourage local farmers and business!

Here are things that you can usually easily find during the growing season (from a North American point of view – I would love my readers to share their own list) :

• Eggs, meats, fish and dairy (if you eat them) : Smaller farm, locally raised meats and dairy cows are treated better, are often grass fed and have less residual pesticides, hormones and antibiotics in them. Now, I’m not saying all farms that are local are organic! But you can more easily control the amount of these toxins you allow into your body by simply being able to ask the farmer that will usually be standing there when you buy their products. You could also find a local pond or lake if you like to fish.
• Produce : Unless you are a reader on the other side of the world from me right now, with July coming up, you are in the midst of the best local fruits and vegetable you could ever dream of!
• Sweeteners : If you are like me, a bit too northbound for sugar cane plantations, sugar is not 100 miles. Honey is always available from local vendors. If you are lucky like me and live in maple country, local maple syrup and sugar is another great sweetener.
• Grains : Many regions on North America and Europe are very important grain producers and for every big industrial mill, there is a small, artisanal mill that prides itself in making good quality flours from local grains.
• Potatoes : Well… this one was pretty easy, but you get my point. LOL!

Think of this as an adventure. Take the pledge, get out there, walk around, talk to a few people and create something new. Then share your ideas and recipes with us!

Are you in for the challenge?

Plastic bags : Facts and why we need to stop using them!

Everyone knows that plastic is bad for the environment. We don’t need to spell it out again, but some facts are important to know and since people respond to numbers, here are a few facts on plastic bags I found on LivingGreen that may help solidify your resolve :

• Less than 1% is recycled. It actually cost more to recycle a plastic bag than to produce one-there is no monetary incentive to recycle plastic bags.
• Many of our garbage bags are dumped illegally in our oceans. A study in 1975 showed that ocean going vessels dumped 8 million pounds of plastic bags annually.
• Billions of plastic bags also find their way into oceans via rivers, drains and sewage pipes where the effects on aquatic animals such as turtles, sea birds, whales, dolphins and seals are catastrophic. These animals ingest plastic or become entangled resulting in agonizing deaths. The unsuspecting creatures often mistake the floating plastic for food! Plastic bags are found in most oceans of the world. (World Wildlife Report, 2005)
• A study of albatross chicks on Midway Island, near Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, found that nine out of 10 birds had plastic garbage in their gullets.
• Plastic bags do not decompose! They break into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate our soil, our waterways. In time the toxic microscopic particles enter our food chain. (CNN.com/technology/Nov.6 2007)
• Plastic cannot be burned or buried safely. When it is burned it produces fluorocarbons which are carcinogens.
• When we bury plastic bags they block the natural supply of air and water to the soil. This affects plant life directly and the chain of life indirectly.
• Plastic bags can even cause landslides when plant life in mountains is reduced. Plastic bags clog the sewage pipes and often cause water to be stagnant. It reduces the water retaining capacity of the soil and this in turn affects the water table.

We all (I hope) try our best at reducing the amount of plastic that is used and thrown away. This is not only for our environment and wildlife, but for our health as well. Recently, new technologies in plastic bag production have led us to believe that maybe some weren’t as bad, but are they?

Traditional bags are made from petroleum products which can release toxic compounds into the air that are known to cause major health issues.

Now, more and more bags are made from polymers called polyethylene that are, for most part, recyclable. Great right? Not exactly. The problem seems to be that bags can be made of different types of resin that although look very similar, when broken down, can’t exactly be easily recycled. So if you ARE going to put plastic bags in the recycling, make sure that they have the recycling symbol with the numbers 1, 4 or 5, as other numbers may not be recyclable in your area.

What about the new trends of biodegradable bags? This seemed to be the greatest idea since the corn and potato starches are made to biodegrade or photo degrade when in contact with air or light in less than 18 months! WONDERFUL! Not… this will only work if you bag is on top of a free standing hill of trash and according to an amazing article on HealthGoods.com, 95% of all trash is land filled. “In landfills, garbage is buried beneath layers of soil that make it difficult for air or sunlight to reach discarded items. The fact is that most plastic bags just don't degrade, even in a compost pile. There are some new starch-based plastics that may be more degradable. But few grocery bags are made from that type of product.”

So, short of it is there really is no easy answer to plastic bags besides stopping using them. Carry around reusable bags in your car, buy little foldable bags to put in your purse or pockets, carry out small items when you know you don’t need to carry it very far and if you MUST, ask for paper bags when leaving the store! Those are easily recycled, are often made of recycled paper and can easily be transformed.

As a final note, here is the link to Thomas’s post, on Renewables at Home, that responded to my challenge and wrote an excellent article you all should read! Thank you for jumping in Thomas!

EDITED :

Here is another one of my readers (Harri Pao) that took the challenge and wrote about how they eliminate plastic bags in their daily lives.

Change the world Wednesdays… are you ready for a week long challenge?

Hello again!

Just wanted to share with you a post by one of my favourite bloggers, Small Footprints at Reduced Footprints.

Last week, she started a challenge series with her readers of taking 10 minute showers for a whole week. This week, it’s about absolutely refusing plastic bags everywhere.

I would like to send the same challenge to all my followers and readers! Write a comment and take the pledge! Take it to your readers by sharing this challenge. And like in her blog, all of you who are already plastic-free and have a blog, write, within the next week, a detailed article on why plastic bags are so horrible to the environment. Send me your links when you write your articles and I will post them here!

Together, we can reach so many people and prove that every little action counts!

Are you in for the challenge?