The Carrboro Free Press asked me to write a column on waste reduction from my perspectives as an
environmental planner and nutrient dense food lover, which amazingly go quite
well together. Talk about creativity on the paper’s part! Here it is:
What do you do
with your waste? The Triangle is pretty progressive when it comes to recycling.
I have been an environmental planner for 20 years and am always on the lookout
for waste, recycling, and waste reduction.
The Metro
Detroit area where I was born and lived for 21 years still does not have
curbside recycling, and most folks in my old neighborhood will not drive the
one mile to the recycling drop off location. The city of Cary hit on the idea
that curbside recycling pickup should occur every two weeks, thus reducing the
fuel burned by the recycling trucks. In the southwest Florida area where I used
to live, the landfill was filling faster than anticipated and the county needed
a fast solution. New land suitable for a landfill is hard to come by in southwest
Florida when your county boarders the Everglades. The solution? Larger
recycling bins, which caused people to recycle more, thus extending the life of
the landfill by 10 years.
I did not
examine waste reduction more personally and closely until my husband, son and I
began to change the way that we eat. The outcome is not one that I would have
even remotely guessed, and how fun it has become!
A year ago my
family removed all processed foods from our diet. We now purchase approximately
85 percent of our food (and sometimes more) from the Raleigh State Farmers
Market or directly from local farms. How does that affect our waste production?
Our landfill waste and recycling dramatically declined. Why? Because cracker
boxes, pasta boxes, yogurt cups, juice boxes, egg cartons, cereal boxes, cookie
boxes, jars of various sauces and more are banished from our waste stream. If
we don’t consume it, we can’t recycle it or bury it.
I make about 98
percent of our food, and the benefits are far reaching. Our health has soared
because of eating local grown, mostly organic, nourishing food. Seasonal
allergies, ADHD, and aches and pains that people associate with being 40 have
been almost eliminated. Our local farmers are supported in the face of assaults
by industrial farms and the federal government, who make it increasingly
difficult for local farmers to survive. Bogus lawsuits and new laws make
farming ever more expensive and burdensome for local farmers.
What do I do
with the egg cartons that come along with the eggs that I purchase directly
from the farmer every week? I return them so that she can reuse them. And the
community supported agriculture (CSA) box? Return it to the farmer for reuse.
How about the jars that hold the honey I purchase? I either use them to store
the broth that I make from the chicken and beef bones, or I return them to the
honey farmer so that he can reuse them.
The dramatic reduction in our contribution to the waste stream did not occur to me until I was sitting in a meeting one day and someone mentioned that her family was the best recycler on their block. She was proud that they consistently had the most stuff in their recycle bin. That is when the unanticipated benefits of our food experiment became clear.
Comments