Earth Day, April 22nd, is coming up soon. This year my church is participating in Creation Sunday (which happens to take place on Sunday, April 22 this year, but is on whatever Sunday falls closest to Earth Day). Kendall and I are helping to organize it. This is the first time we or our church has done anything like this so we are definitely feeling our way through.

The idea behind it is that we believe that God created this Earth and that we are supposed to be good stewards of that creation. We have taken that to mean that we are responsible for the health and well being of that creation and that it is also something to be greatly celebrated and enjoyed.

This might be something that interests some of you and I wanted to let you know about it.

If any of you have ideas that you would like to share I would of course love to hear them.

Now that Spring is here I want to encourage all of you that can to do two things: 1) Buy a share in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)/any local sustainable organic farm or grow your own food; 2) start either an indoor or outdoor compost bin/pile.

I finally ordered the worms I needed for my own indoor compost bin and last Thursday evening Kendall and I had a fun evening working on the project. The bag of worms aren’t as bad as I thought they would be (the worms are mostly concealed by the dirt they are packed with). I am great with all sorts of creatures when they are outside, but when I find them or bring them inside my home I kind of… become… a big sissy. On Friday morning we went out of town for the weekend and I was nervous that I was going to come home to a kitchen overtaken by worms that had cleverly escaped from the compost bin. However, to my delight, they were right where I left them and after an afternoon of cooking up a bunch of fresh veggies from our CSA share I was able to gather the scraps, open the lid, and toss them to be composted!

I am a huge fan of CSA’s. They are generally less expensive, more convenient, and more sustainable than buying organic food at the grocery store. As for composting, getting it setup and maintaining it is SO easy and the cost to set it up is minimal. Composting makes extremely rich soil and is better than anything you can buy.

Happy Spring to you all!!!

I am hoping that you all get that this isn’t about bread specifically. The bread is only a specific example of a general idea…now that you are more in-tune with the waste you produce, where has your thinking led you?

My thoughts led me to what people did before our obsession with putting preservatives in and packaging everything. (It’s like we are always preparing for some huge disaster and living in fear that things are going to be taken away from us and we aren’t going to have enough.) They either made it themselves or bought it directly from the person(s) that did make it. Food may not have stayed fresh as long, so, people bought what they needed as they needed it. (I know that it wasn’t as always as rosy as this sounds, but I am trying to get at a general idea and not at a full historical account of consumerism.) It may sound strange but, this realization has made a big impact on my thinking. Part of me didn’t understand why this hadn’t occurred to me before since community, connection, and interaction are so important to me. Yet, I also understand that there is a timing to things and when we are ready and the time is right, things will settle in and take root just as they should. In the same way that I feel the need to know the people producing my fruits and vegetables and the land where they are being grown, I need to know those baking my bread and even bringing as much of that into my own home as I can. I have been baking my own bread for about 3 months now and love it. There are times where I love it less and it feels like a chore, but I love baking it in my home and then breaking bread with family and friends. I no longer have to throw out packaging (woohoo!) and when I bought a special loaf of delicious peasant bread, it was from a small, local bakery called The Monkey Tree.

My challenge to you is to begin to find creative ways to reduce the trash you create. Whether it is baking your own bread, buying it from a friend who loves to bake, make your own household cleaners, find a health food/natural remedies/body products store that sells shampoos, conditioners, lotions, etc. in bulk (You can reuse the containers you have and you pay by the once.), buy used clothing or recycled clothing, etc. Basically, begin to rethink and find solutions for what you regularly (or not so regularly) buy and the trash you are creating in the process.

I would love to hear any ideas you come up with!

I just want each and every one of you to know that you are able to so much more than you can even imagine. You are special, important, and capable.

My awareness about the amount of trash I produce started when I got to a point where I couldn’t stand throwing away the packaging my bread came in. I usually try to buy whole grain bread and default to whatever brand is on sale. However, many times this meant that I would throw away the plastic wrapper and the plastic bag the bread was wrapped in (occasionally the bag would be recyclable). We make sandwiches for our lunches so we go through a loaf of bread fairly quickly and I was left regularly throwing packaging away and hated it.

This led me to think about why in the world they had to package one loaf of bread twice and it also made me consider what else I was throwing away and what was happening to all of the trash I accumulate every week.

Let’s look at the packaging situation first. The conclusions that I came to about the reason behind double packaging were as follows: They need to keep the bread fresh and uncontaminated as it travels across the country on semi-trucks from the factories where the bread is made to the grocery stores where they will sit on the shelves. The bread that I buy is usually on sale which means that they are trying to get rid of it because there is a “fresh” shipment of bread to take its place. Even though my bread is on the older side the packaging with a lot of help from preservatives keeps my loaf soft and easily mold free. This made me think about the “footprint” of a loaf of bread which then becomes part of my “footprint” since I bought it. Are you following?

An unsophisticated and incomplete look at the footprint of a loaf of bread*:

• The electricity used to power the factory in which the bread is made.
• The toxic manufacturing of the plastic in which the bread is encased.
• The gas used and emissions created in transporting the bread.
• The electricity used to power the grocery store in which the bread is stored until bought.
• For some there is the gas used and emissions created by driving to the store.
• For some there is also the paper/plastic grocery sack which the bread will be placed in upon checking out.
• The throwing away of the twisty tie and two plastic wrappers.
• The gas used and emissions created by the garbage truck that comes to pick up the trash.
• Finally, it will either be taken to a landfill (it takes hundreds to thousands of years for plastic to decompose) or it will go to a recycling center where energy will be used to recycle it into something else.

*This doesn’t even touch upon the footprint of the ingredients used to make the bread.

This then made me think about all of the trash that I have created and accumulated of the span of my life so far and wondering how many landfills we have all filled up. We take out our trash once a week and never have to think about that bag(s) again. Most of us don’t have to be exposed to toxins, smells, and sight of landfills. The damage of our trash is left to affect those that can’t afford to live anywhere else.

I know this can be a little overwhelming. However, we need to take a realistic look at the impact of our actions and the affect that they have on other people and on the environment. This really isn’t as scary as it initially feels like it will be, but it definitely does take intentional actions to change the way our mind thinks and the way we approach life. A shift in our thinking needs to be made from one of convenience and carefree carelessness to one of respect for ourselves, each other, and the Earth. There is a beauty and ease to treading lightly on this earth and having respect for the shared world in which we live. The difficulty is in not everyone seeing that. I will write a post tomorrow that talks about some ways that I have begun to try to reduce my trash and some ways in which I have been re-thinking the way in which I consume.

photo courtesy of dM.nyc

The day of the Academy Awards I was on day three of being really sick. I am telling you this because I am about to admit that I watched the Academy Awards and I am a bit embarrassed to share this information….but I really was very sick so please don’t judge me too harshly. Anyways, during the award show Jerry Seinfeld did a little stand-up schtick (I think it was his consolation prize for not being picked to host the Oscars) about our attitude towards trash when we go to see a movie in the theater. The gist of it was that an unspoken deal has been made between the patrons and the establishment. The patron agrees to pay a ridiculously high price for an admission ticket, food, and beverage and in return the patron has earned the right to drop his/her trash wherever he/she desires and gets to not have to give one thought to who is going to clean it up, but can walk away with the peace of mind that someone is in place to take care of it. Unfortunately, this attitude has moved beyond the theater and we have come to possess this carelessly care-free attitude toward trash in general. We pay our fees and in return our only duty is to put our trash/recycling in their respective containers, place them on the curb, and someone will dispose of them. We feel that we have earned the right to not have to think of where that trash goes, what happens to it when it gets there, or how it effects our planet. However, that is not the way it works and our trash doesn’t just disappear.

I want to issue a challenge to your awareness regarding your trash. Each one of us leaves an imprint on this Earth and one of the very tangible ways that we can exam the size of that imprint is in the amount of trash we individually accumulate. This weekend I want you to track everything that you throw away (if you have kids their trash is your responsibility). It doesn’t matter if you mentally keep track or if you actually write it down. The goal is for you to become more mindful of the trash you accumulate and the imprint you are leaving.

Throwing things away has become second nature and in many ways a thoughtless action. Here is a list that will hopefully trigger your awareness this weekend:

Facial tissues
Paper towels
Tin foil
Plastic wrap
Grocery bags
Various beverage containers (juice, milk, soda, etc.)
The trash bag itself
Plastic storage bags
Paper
Disposable cups and lids
Tea bags
Food scraps from fruits, veggies, and cooking
Napkins
Straws
Toothpicks
Twisty ties
Diapers
Diaper wipes
Various food wrappers (granola bars, bread, butter, jam jars, etc.)
Personal hygiene containers (toothpaste, soap, shampoo, conditioner, face wash, lotion, etc.)

That should be enough to get your brain moving in the right direction.

Here are a few things to think about while you are increasing your awareness:

1) How many wrappers does this one item have? (Ex: Bars of soap usually have a plastic wrapping that holds all the individually wrapped bars together or loafs of bread many times have a plastic wrapping and a plastic bag.)

2) Recycling paper, glass, and plastic is better than throwing them in the garbage, but it is still trash. Keep track of your recycling too.

3) Notice even the little things you throw away (like the plastic band you peal away from your milk container when opening it).

Hopefully in this process of becoming more mindful, you will begin to think about and examine the impact that this has. I have been working on this for a couple of months and on Monday I will let you know the things I have been thinking about as a result.

New Belgium Brewing Company is starting a national ad campaign and getting attention for their sustainable company practices. As part of the ad campaign New Belgium has created FollowYourFolly.com and “is devoted to the whimsical side of sustainable living”. Before entering each of the company’s sites there is a message saying that like their beer, their sites are also only to be legally enjoyed by those 21 and over.

Yahoo has launched at Cannes Advertising Festival.

Make an online ad that inspires people to get off their butts and improve the planet. Create an ad for the cause that’s close to your heart. Maybe it’s about hybrid cars, energy-efficient light bulbs, or recycling.

Tell all your friends about it and invite them to give your work a “love it” rating. Our panel of creative judges will take into consideration entries with high “love it” votes when selecting the final winners. Magnifique!

Gap’s RED campaign has received a negative backlash and it has taken a cohesive form in BuyLessCrap.org.

Created by words pictures ideas (WPI) and Romantic Static, Buy (LESS) provides a more meaningful option for would-be donors to causes; instead of buying products like Gap clothing and iPods, since just a small percentage goes to causes, GIVE MORE – as in, donate directly – Buy (LESS) urges.

Read more.