Earth Friendly Family Travel - Breakfast Milk in the Bud Light cup?

My family took a two day get-away to Duluth last week for some swimming and sight seeing. While its fun to take those trips, we are quite disgusted by the way traveling generates so much waste. Disposable serveware at meals, beverages in disposables, no recycling bins and housekeeping are all culprits in filling up our hotel trash bin.

Earth friendly family travel for us means:

• Bringing our own water bottles and thermoses so that we do not need to acquire disposable beverage containers.
  
• Bringing along a small set of dishes including a cutting board, knife, and small mixing bowl.
  
• Collecting all recyclables and toting them home- paper, cans and plastic! It is a bit easier to commingle these while on the road and then sorting them once home.
  
• Collecting all compostables and toting them home to the composter- coffee grounds, orange peels and paper with food waste are all examples. Yes, we really do this on car trips. Its not really that big of a deal once you designate a spot for compostables to go. The hotel ice bucket sure works well for this job!
• Bring along a dishwashing wand and dish soap to clean up our dishes. The kids are sure more eager to help with this job when we are vacationing.
  
• Reusing any plastic cups and plates that we do acquire. Who wants their breakfast milk in the Bud Light cup?
  
• Bringing along some food. Takeout meals means takeout food packaging. By having sandwich fixings, fruit, a bag of salad and snacks on hand we can make lunches in our room and avoid more packaging while saving some change. A few spare sandwich bags in the suitcases allows us to have the sandwiches with us on the road.
  
• Declining housekeeping during our stay. Many hotels are doing this more routinely, even promoting their "eco-business". These claims are often akin to greenwashing considering the rest of their practices are so wasteful (Where are the recycling bins exactly?). But regardless, by declining housekeeping, we minimize the amount of laundering required for our stay along with less garbage bags, plastic cups, shampoo bottles consumed.
• Bringing our own shampoo and conditioner. There is never enough in the little hotel bottles anyway.
  

Granted, we buck the disposa-society trend hard, and definitely are not within the norms set by our fellow vacationers. However, the reward of a trashcan NOT filled with clamshells, foodwaste and recyclables is motivating, and allows us to have a more carefree vacation. We are looking for more ideas, please suggest yours!

Christmas Trees and Natural Decor can go to Ramsey County Brush Sites

Smart thinking Ramsey County! There are a few winter dates being made available at the compost sites, just in time to take holiday greenery. Additionally, a handful of sites will be open once per month during the winter season. Details can be found here.

In the Midway, you can bring holiday greenery to Pierce Butler near Vandalia on January 9th (9am-5pm) or 10th (11am-5pm). Please remove wires, ribbon, ornaments, lights, tinsel, tree bags and tree stands prior to drop off. Leaves, branches, natural wreaths and other plant waste are also accepted.

For gardeners, hen keepers, and home composters, this is a valuable back-up to our systems we have at home or if we have a tree come down during the winter.

Undoing the Wrap

Last week, a neighborhood list-serve that I am on had a long thread on alternatives to wrapping paper. The list members had many cool suggestions for wrapping gifts in such as old maps, architectural drawings, trendy newspaper sections, and fabric. Lots of enthusiasm was expressed for kicking the resource-dependent wrapping-paper-habit.

Here is an exhaustive collection of 36 alternates to wrapping paper to get one started from Wisebread & by no means do they mean a gift needs to look shabby. Above is a cloth wrapping guide put out by the Japanese government aimed at reducing waste. Once you see the possibilities, there is so much paper & fabric that could be re-purposed, it seems silly to spend money on unrecyclable and single-use wrapping paper.

This takes my thoughts to school fundraisers that sell wrapping paper. During gift wrap season, our household will easily get requests from five or six different schools. That is a lot of wrapping paper being pushed for a demand that maybe isn't there. I have been declining wrap for a few years now, instead writing a check to the school directly (which then doubles my contribution on my sale). Another MidPoint Green post should ponder school fundraising, but for now this site appears to have potential- fabric gift bags & recycled gift papers . At least paper purchased here would contain recycled content. Do you have experiences with the Greenraising.com site?

Holiday Lights: the Broken, the Rundown and the Weary

How does an Eco-sensitive household handle holiday decorations? It is a question that can haunt. The plastic light-up crèche, blow-up NASCAR Santa, laughing-motion-detecting Christmas tree all require resources to make and just what to do with them once they break? Like for many folks, reducing consumption, reusing/re-purposing, and using natural items for winter displays are becoming more common at our house.

At least broken light strings can now be recycled, thanks to Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM). Ram has created a program where the collected light strings are disassembled and each part is recycled for a different purpose .

The broken light strings are received at PPL Industry's job training facility where employees there disassemble the strings. Each element of the light string is directed to its own recycling process, for example the bulbs are recycled into tiles, asphalt and fiberglass, and the metal in the cords is captured in another process. A video of the process can be seen at this link (wav) . Since early December, 15,000 pounds of light strings have been diverted from landfill or the garbage burner through this program.

Two neighborhood groups around the Twin Cities are making sure collections are local and easy to get to. All locations for light drop off outside the neighborhood can be found on the RAM webpage. Below, list the sites arranged by neighborhood groups in SE Como, Minneapolis and the Midway of St. Paul.

HMEG Announces Holiday Light Recycling Now Available in the Midway at Hamline Hardware

The Hamline Midway Environmental Group (HMEG) invites you to recycle your incandescent light strings to reduce waste! The light recycling is sponsored by RAM and drop-off locations can be found at Snyder Drugs (coupon incentive available) and Como Zoo. However, to make light recycling even more convenient for Hamline Midway residents, HMEG has arranged a drop off location right in the Hamline Midway neighborhood.

To recycle your unusable light strings, just bring them to Hamline Hardware store (755 Snelling Ave N St Paul, MN 55104, 651-646-4049) from now until January 10th.


Holiday Light Recycling Comes to SECIA

The SECIA staff noticed that the options for recycling broken incandescent light strings were inconvenient to SE Minneapolis residents. To remedy this, the SECIA office signed on to be a drop-off location for broken holiday lights. Light recycling fits right into the Como Green Village waste reduction efforts. The light recycling is sponsored by RAM and its appropriate that there is a drop-off in SE Como because the lights are disassembled right in the neighborhood! PPL Industry's job training facility on 15th Ave SE eventually receives the broken light strings and employees there take apart the strings.

To recycle your unusable light strings, just bring them to SECIA's office from now until January 10th. Do note, the office will be closed between Dec 24th through January 4th for the holidays. It is recommended that you call ahead to make sure a staff person will be there. Some evening hours are available.

Chicken Feed Quest II

The quest for chicken feed continues here in the Midway. More trials and tribulations have been endured since my last post on the topic.

As I wrote before, the feed I am looking for would be organic, wholesome, pelleted and locally sourced and available.

It is easy to find organic feed near the Twin Cities, but its only available in "mash". Mash is ground up grains, sometimes with other suspicious ingredients that form a near powder. Hens scatter mash in such a way that much of the bag goes to waste (not to mention an invitation to rodents). The scattering issue goes away when using pelleted feed. During processing of pelleted feed, the mash is pressed in to little nuggets that prevent hens from being so selective and when spilled, they are easily pecked up. I have learned that the pelleting equipment are expensive where costs preclude many small feed producers from investing in this machinery. I can order organic pelleted feed from larger outstate sources as Eric commented on a previous post. However, this requires paying the dollar and carbon costs of shipping individual bags. Ideally, I would like my locally sourced feed to also be available in bulk, so that I could bring my own storage bin and fill up. This would eliminate having large quantities of feed hanging around the urban henhouse demanding both space and many rodent proof containers.

Lately, I experimented with using a home-made feed called Ronda's Whole Grain Chicken Feed Recipe. A local chicken keeper, Jake, offered to mix a large batch. It contains 14 individual whole grains, seeds and legumes . It is not cheap, even when buying the grains in 50# bags. The reception by the hens was not particularly surprising and they have needed some encouragement. They tend to pick out their favorite grains and spill the lesser ones. I use a hanging piglet trough feeder for my feed and put a tray under it to catch spills. I can return the spills to the feeder, but not at the bird's delight. Much to my chagrin, I have now managed to train the local squirrels to now go into the henhouse and be rewarded by the unwanted peanuts and corn. I have learned that I can defeat the hen's hunt-n-peck by grinding Ronda's mix in the vitamix. It works, but then I am back straight to the mash mess. I can trick the hens to gobbling more of the feed by mixing the feed with meat drippings. Think suet-what is offered to wild birds in backyard feeders. This solution is a great way to use up meat drippings, however probably should be limited to an periodic treat. Cooking the grains in water also seems to entice them to consume them more completely too. All-in-all, these solutions are more work than a henkeeper needs on a regular basis.

Other Twin City chicken keepers report their hens are eating most of the feed, leaving behind the peas and a few of other grains. They also report that less feed is needed due to the high quality food value. Ronda's webpage says hens may need to transition into the feed. Some users mentioned that hens need to get hungry in order to eat it all up. I will keep trying, but it seems my quest continues. In the meantime, my next batch of feed may again be conventional pelleted feed, obtained after a long drive to the Anoka Ramsey Farm Store.

Hamline SPROUTS and Frances Moore Lappé: Hunger and the Food System

The season of learning has begun now that the gardens are near buttoned up. Reading, attending lectures, conferences, meeting with other folks with good ideas are thankfully re-appearing on the calendar.

This week, a Panel Discussion about Hunger and the Food System was put on by Hamline University's SPROUTS. The conversation was meaty and the panelists from IATP, Gardening Matters, HECUA, and MN Food & Justice did a fine job of connecting climate change, cultural barriers, poor quality food, wasted food, hunger and the need for community based change.

The delivery person spotted my hens and he asked, "Are the worth it?". He meant are the costs of hens and their upkeep really less than store bought eggs? I shared with him that backyard chickens are not just about getting eggs. Just as valuable is their ability to consume most of the food waste our 4-person household creates, and then make significant nutrient contributions to our urban soils via composting. All very true, however, what I did not bring up was that my homegrown eggs do not have any of the hidden costs which industrial food prices ignore. In the case of factory farmed eggs, the hidden costs include environmental, public health and societal hidden costs which never appear into their retail price. For example, how much of the price of factory farmed eggs does the farmer see? The SPROUT panel discussed that in the case of our population in hunger, calories-for-the-sake-of-calories may fill empty stomachs, but the long term chronic disease encouraged by America's cheap diet is certainly wrought with further hidden costs.

SPROUT-ites also heard that food waste reduction is a goal worth obtaining in the efforts to reduce hunger. As Addie Broyles of the Austin American-Statesman reveals, 25-50% of the food produced in this country goes to waste! Food that is produced, transported, and gotten to a market, home refrigerator or restaurant and then wastefully allowed to go bad or tossed because it doesn't meet some standard. There are known interventions to change this. It does not require sophisticated knowledge to implement smart purchasing, gleaning, or local foods initiatives. When the food waste percentage is seriously attacked, our hunger concerns will lessen, and so will greenhouse gases emitted from food buried landfills.

Frances Moore Lappé hit this message well on the Friday evening session of the Wisdom Ways Soul Conference, It's all tied together-- the choices we make in our dinner table ripple into the our food system and directly influence those around us.

Household Organic Waste: The Crib Sheet

This is a table I have been updating for the neighbors near my henhouse who contribute food scraps to our feathered friends. Just for comparison, I added the vermicomposting column too. Together, these 3 food waste options sure take care of almost any organic material from your household- some inedible. As I continue to learn about this topic, I plan re-post the crib sheet when new information has been added.

Organic Waste	Chickens	Compost Bin	Worms
coffee grounds	No	yes, the filters too.	Best place for coffee grounds as worms consider this bedding. Unbleached filter are OK
dried fruit	past their prime is fine, but if the dried fruit is hard and tough, then soften first before serving.	OK	OK
cheese (cream & cottage too)	OK if has a touch of mold. Hard cheeses like Parmesan or dried out cheese edges are great but need to be diced. Yogurt must be soaked up with old cereal or similar. Try to serve these early in the day so that there isn't protein sitting in the chicken run overnight attracting mice/rats.	No, attracts vermin	OK, but very liquid products should be avoided.
grain products: breads, cereal, crackers & other grain -based foods	This is the best place for grain products. Stale bread is perfect for hens, but bread can't be hard and dried out when served to chickens. Soften with leftover milk, soup, sauce. Same for hard crackers and pretzels and hard pizza crust. Best chunk up into nickle size pieces to keep squirrels from stealing it all. Rice, noodles, quinoa, oatmeal, uncooked oats, etc.	No, attracts vermin	All, but only if whole grains (100% white flour products are not good for worms, or for you)
eggs & eggshells	Hens love cooked eggs. Empty hells of hard cooked eggs are great too (no raw eggshells though due to passing bacteria). The trick is that the hens can't know that they are eggs! They will start to eat their own and its very hard to stop that behavior. Crush any shells into tiny bits. Try to serve these early in the day so that there isn't protein sitting in the chicken run overnight attracting mice/rats.Provides good calcium for layers.	Shells are OK even if raw.	Shells are OK even if raw. They provide needed calcium to the livestock.
egg cartons (and packing material made of the same stuff)	No	OK, great source of carbon	super for bedding, would need to be torn up first.
drier lint and kitchen sink gunk	No	OK	OK
meat / stockpot leftovers	Hens will definitely eat meat leftovers. Can't be rotten though, and needs to be diced if its hard or grisly. After stock-making, Hens will love to pick the bones clean (remove bones later in the day). Try to serve these early in the day so that there isn't protein sitting in the chicken run overnight attracting mice/rats.	No	OK
meat drippings	Mixing meat drippings with hen feed, or even cat food until soaked up becomes fine hen food. Think Suet served to wild birds.	no	no
nuts	Most nuts are hard, so really need to be ground up, like a coarse cornmeal consistency. Rancid is just fine. Try to serve these early in the day so that there isn't protein sitting in the chicken run overnight attracting mice/rats.	No, attracts vermin	OK
Fruit: citrus, melon (rinds & seeds too), apple/pear peel & cores (seeds removed), berries, bananas,	Fruit is a real treat! Apples must be diced in order for the hens to take much. Apple seeds are toxic, so I usually cut that part out before dicing. Grapefruit halves are welcomed, even after eating.	All can go in no matter its state	All plus worms will take peels that hens won't
paper towels, napkins and tissues	No	All can go in unless there was a chemical cleaner used on the towels.	unbleached paper products only, no cleaning product on them
take-out and plate scrapings	Generally all good. Pizza should be diced, if crust is very hard best to soften with liquid. Try to serve these early in the day so that there isn't protein sitting in the chicken run overnight attracting mice/rats.	No, attracts vermin	OK
packing material - cornstarch peanuts & egg carton materials	No	OK!	Maybe
tea leaves	hens like the size of loose leaf	OK, with any paper teabag too	OK, with any paper teabag too
pizza boxes (unrecyclable corrugated due to food residue)	No	Yes, the best place for pizza boxes. Take the time to tear up the box, but it is not necessary	No
vegetable scraps:corn lettuce, chard, beet greens, tomato, pepper seeds, cucumbers	Hens will take anything leafy without any prep and OK if they are not particularly fresh. Corn cobs with bits of left overs on them are well loved. Hard veggies should be diced. Root veggie scraps work best if cooked first to soften. I have read that folks suggest to go light on items in the cabbage family as egg flavor can be impacted.	This is the best place for onions, carrots and anything in the cabbage family, & avocados. These items are either toxic to, or not preferred by hens. Otherwise, any vegetable waste in any condition can be put in the bins.	Worms will take it all, but may have to limit onion.