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Zero-Waste Basics

10 Zero-Waste Snacks for Kids (and Those Who Feed Them)

Posted on June 11, 2019by Anne-Marie Bonneau

zero-waste snacks for kids: kombucha and popcorn

Fill little bellies, not big garbage bags, with these healthy and simple zero-waste snacks for kids.

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Good news! The ubiquitous chasing arrows symbol s

Good news!

The ubiquitous chasing arrows symbol serves as a marketing ploy to keep consumers consuming. Imprinted on plastics, that number surrounded by the triangular arrows indicates the type of resin that goes into plastic. It does not indicate that the plastic will actually be recycled.

This marketing ploy convinces the public that what goes into the recycling bin will become a new product on the other side. But we know that less than 10 percent of plastic are recycled in the US.

I’m getting to the good news part. Honest…

This week, the California Assembly and Senate passed a bill that will ban companies from imprinting the chasing arrows recycling symbol onto products and packaging if they cannot prove that the materials are actually recycled. The bill now awaits Governor Newsom’s signature.

Have a glut of summer vegetables on hand? Consider

Have a glut of summer vegetables on hand? Consider preserving at least some with very little effort by fermenting them in a brine.

Place the prepped food in a clean jar, pour a brine over top, close the jar and let the vegetables sit from between five to seven days (or so). I use 3 tablespoons of salt for every 4 cups of water for the brine (5% salinity).

This jar contains whole cloves of peeled garlic, a bit of basil (for flavor and color) and Early Girl cherry tomatoes. Yum!

After we (quickly) eat these soon-to-be-effervescent cherry tomatoes, I'll ferment something else in the brine.

Link @zerowastechef for more info on fermenting vegetables in a brine.

9 More Simple Staples to Make not Buy Making stap

9 More Simple Staples to Make not Buy

Making staples makes me more self-reliant and less dependent on Big Food. Plus the food tastes delicious—the ultimate test. Well, perhaps approval from a picky eater might be the ultimate test. These pass that one too.

If you’re strapped for time and want to try one or two of these, several on this list require very little hands-on time to prepare. Many of these will save you money as well:

1. Cashew cheese
2. Homemade Nutella
3. Pasta
4. Garlic-dill pickles
5. Tomato paste
6. Tofu and soy milk
7. Paneer
8. Pita bread
9. Wine vinegar

Link @zerowastechef for the recipes.

Another country, another ban on plastic items, thi

Another country, another ban on plastic items, this time in England. The ban includes single-use plastic plates, plastic cutlery and polystyrene and will go into effect within the next two years. (Note that the EU already banned similar items this past July.) In April 2022, the government will tax plastic that contains less than 30 percent recycled content. Sometime in 2023 a phase-in of extended producer responsibilty (EPR) will start. (source: @guardian)

EPR puts the onus and cost for cleanup where it belongs—on polluters rather than individuals and taxpayers. None of these bans we're witnessing around the world would have come about without pressure from below (i.e., from all of us). When I decided to go plastic-free in 2011, these bans were nowhere in sight. Now, I read about bans and taxes on single-use plastic and EPR constantly.

Yes, the progress is painfully slow. But we are seeing progress. Keep pushing.

Homemade wine vinegar is as incredibly delicious a

"I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw pu

Kernel-to-Cob Corn Chowder is one of my favorite s

Kernel-to-Cob Corn Chowder is one of my favorite summer recipes from my cookbook.

After removing the kernels, you make broth from the cobs. I also add the husks and silks to the broth if I use organic corn on the cob. Jalapeños or serranos, garlic, ginger, cilantro and lime juice add flavor to this hearty chowder filled with corn and potatoes, while cashews add creaminess.

You can find the full recipe, excerpted from my book, on @sustainable_america’s website.

One of the many solutions to the climate crisis is

One of the many solutions to the climate crisis is as old as dirt: compost.

Decomposing organic material in landfills emits methane gas—a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. By keeping previously edible food and food scraps out of landfill, we reduce these emissions. Compost can also sequester carbon. (It is magical stuff!)

But what if you don't have a yard? @compostgeek’s book, No-Waste Composting: Small-Space Waste Recycling Indoors and Out, includes ideas for indoor composting: terra-cotta pot composting, vermicomposting and bokashi.

And if you do have a yard? Well then... learn how to build hugelkultur beds (raised beds filled with branches and twigs that release water and nutrients as they decompose), create African keyhole gardens (raised beds arranged around a compost bin in the center,) and do pit composting (as in dig pits in your yard and fill directly with food scraps).

Do you have pets? You can compost pet waste in a dedicated bin—not your regular bin!—in your backyard too 🤯 (See the book for instructions.)

Want to get additional people composting? Consider accepting your friends' and neighbors' food scraps. @sharewaste matches up eligible composters with eligible food scrap donors (it's Tinder for food scraps).

To encourage the larger community to divert wasted food and food scraps from landfill, consider working with your municipality to implement a green bin program or community gardens that accept food scraps if your city doesn't offer these programs. Working with local goverments generally brings about change much more quickly than working at the state or federal level.

This zucchini blossom fills me with hope and joy.

This zucchini blossom fills me with hope and joy. The plant started out as a small rogue seedling in my compost bin. I carefully plucked it from there and replanted it in a pot, where it grew quickly. Last weekend, it began blossoming. It's very resilient—just like people!

If you grew zucchini this year, what have you been cooking with your bounty?

One of the easiest ways for us to reduce our indiv

One of the easiest ways for us to reduce our individual emissions is to eat all the food we buy. These are just a handful of ideas for doing that.

And yes, we need collective change as well as individual change. We can write our elected reps to demand they take the necessary steps to shift our economy away from fossil fuels AND we can chop those last vegetables up to make soup that provides the necessary sustenance to help us keep up the fight. The two are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who tells you different has already given up—and that defeatism plays into the hands of the fossil fuel interests that have knowingly created this crisis.

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