Eco Scouts - Backyard Composting and Food Waste

The second session of Eco Scouts was last week. That session focused on food waste. Have you noticed that a lot of recipes only use part of the plant you are cooking with? We end up throwing away stems, peels, and sometimes leaves when cooking. At this session, we got a couple of recipes that try to use the whole plant -- whole kale and stems and whole celery, including the leaves. 

Low-waste recipes

Next, we learned some shocking facts about food waste. There is so much of it from the farm, to the distributor, and the restaurant or home. We learned about the Flashfood app that allows you to get food from grocery stores near its best-by date for a discount; this prevents the grocery store from throwing the food away. We also got some information about the McKeesport Community Garden.

Lastly, we learned about Bokashi composting and got our own starter kit to compost at home! Bokashi composting is interesting because it is actually an anaerobic fermentation method. Bokashi composting is done in a sealed bucket, and once the fermentation is complete, you bury the compost in the ground.

Inside our Bokashi bucket

We also got our first badge at this session! Check it out! Can you tell what it is?

Eco Scouts - Summary and Orientation

To my American readers, do you remember Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts as a kid? Not everyone participated, but it's certainly a distinctly American experience. I participated in Brownies, which is Girl Scouts for girls in the second and third grades. Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts is meant to teach kids practical skills in a fun way that memorializes their achievements with badges they can display on their uniforms.

Well, some creative minds have created a nostalgic program for adults to help them shore up their personal and community sustainability skills with Eco Scouts. I signed up and attended the orientation. There will be six sessions in total:

1. Orientation

2. Backyard Composting and Food Waste 

3. How to Organize a Litter Clean-Up 

4. Repair and Reuse

5. Recycling Deep Dive 

6. Waste and Watersheds 

Here are some photos from Orientation:

Making name badges from discarded craft supplies

My name badge

Orientation presentation

Orientation activity

Free metal cup for drinks

PRC Hard-to-Recycle Collection Event

 Every municipality has a different way to keep hazardous and valuable items out of landfills and incinerators. For better or worse, here in Pittsburgh, a non-profit organization is the major force in the area for collecting these items and making sure they are disposed of properly. This organization is Pennsylvania Resource Council, PRC, and they operate across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

This last weekend, I participated in one of their hard-to-recyle events. This event focuses on collecting electronics and tires mainly, but they collect a lot more. The items I had to turn in included a broken vacuum cleaner, keyboard, mouse, batteries, light bulbs, and a few other miscellaneous items.

When I participated in the past, the process went quickly, but not this time around. We waited in line in our car for one hour and fifteen minutes to drop off our stuff. I was not super surprised, though. I had volunteered with them in the past and saw a similar experience then. Also, we picked the Noon appointment slot, which goes slower than having an appointment first thing in the morning. Here are some pictures from the event and an explanation of the process, including why I think it took so long. This type of situation is not ideal for the environment due to the automobile idling emissions.

A map showing the line of cars and the checkpoints for the event

Beginning of the line

Making our way through the line

They check what we are dropping off, so they can see how much we owe.

Volunteers at one of the checkpoints

Volunteers working on collecting items from people's cars

People dropped off lots of monitors and TVs

One of the reasons the line of cars moved so slowly is because they had to narrow it down to one line of cars at the end, rather than having multiple lines. They would start unloading around six cars at once, but that group of cars could not leave until everyone was unloaded. Apparently, the municipality wouldn't allow them to use more than one lane, because they wanted to keep it open to through traffic.

Well, it wasn't fun spending an hour and fifteen minutes moving slowly in a line of cars, and not the best thing for air quality, but I'm glad we were able to drop off our broken items! The volunteers and staff are amazing. I volunteered at one of these events many years ago, and it is hard work! I plan to volunteer again this year, if possible, and will report back if I do so.

Circular Economy Fair

Happy Earth Day!

Recently, I went to the first Circular Economy Fair in Pittsburgh, organized by Repair Cafe Pittsburgh.

This first one was small. It was hosted at Construction Junction, the epicenter of reuse in Pittsburgh, along with its neighbor, Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse. For those that do not know, Construction Junction is like a thrift store for materials, fixtures, and appliances related to home remodelling and home maintenance. Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse is a thrift store for crafters.

Inside Construction Junction

Outside Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse

Tabling at the Circular Economy Fair included Spoons Kitchen Exchange, REDD-UP PGH, and Pennsylvania Resource Council.

Spoons Kitchen Exchange rescues high-quality kitchenware for resale. They follow a modified buy-sell-trade model: They will purchase specific, high-value items from customers, or larger donations may result in customers receiving a store gift card.

Spoons Kitchen Exchange table at the Circular Economy Fair

REDD-UP PGH is a personal organizing and decluttering service that responsibly donates items that they declutter. They also offer self-decluttering bins that customers can use to do their own decluttering and can see which organizations their items will benefit. This will help customers avoid donating to organizations that don't align with their values.

REDD-UP PGH table at the Circular Economy Fair

Pennsylvania Resource Council (PRC) mainly organizes community events to collect hazardous waste and hard-to-recycle items. They do so much more, though. PRC has a zero-waste collection service for events, community education programs, and more, all to help keep Pennsylvania beautiful and waste-free. 

At PRC's table, they shared information about the bokashi "composting" method, which is not technically composting, but rather a waste-fermenting method. 

They also shared about their Eco Scouts education program, which lets adults/teens be boy/girl scouts for waste reduction, including getting badges!

They also advertised part-time, paid opportunities to work their zero-waste stations at events. These seasonal event staff help people attending events sort their waste between recycling, composting, and landfill.

PRC table at the Circular Economy Fair

Can't wait to check out the next Circular Economy Fair!

ZeW-Min is Back!

 Zero-Waste-Minimalism is back. 

Wow, I cannot believe it has been more than five years since I have posted to this blog. My Facebook mini-blog is the only place I have been continuing the ZeW-Min mission. I have spent the past years focusing on my career and working on health issues, but now I have come up for air and can rededicate myself to everything I really care about.

I am adding frugality to the ZeW-Min mission. Zero-Waste, Minimalism, Frugality, and Health. It just fits with the economy we are in nowadays.

I will be sharing some volunteer work I am doing. It is important to see how much there really is that we can get involved with in our community in addition to working on our lifestyles.

See you on the Zero Waste Journey!

Zero Waste and Minimalism Habits: What Has Stuck Around and What Has Been Left by the Wayside?

For various reasons, not all of the habits I have picked up have stuck around in the long-term. Here are a list of the habits that have stuck for me and a list of the habits that have not:

Minimalist Wardrobe (sticking around)
I still have my minimalist wardrobe and I love it. I even made some improvements. For instance, I don't have pajamas anymore, I just sleep in one of my four black t-shirts that I have. Speaking of my black t-shirts, I amazingly have not become bored with them. Probably because they are just such fantastic t-shirts. I've had these t-shirts for over a year now and they are still in great condition.

Soap and Towel in My Work Restroom (sticking around)
There are some bins in my work restroom. I put my name on a  post-it note and stuck it in one of the bins and keep a bar of soap and a washcloth in there for washing my hands after using the restroom at work. I used to keep some homemade lip balm and sunscreen in there as well, but those items were stolen, I think because they wanted my reusable containers, so I just keep the soap and washcloth in there now. I keep the bin open a bit so the washcloth can dry out, and once it is pretty damp, I take it home to wash and replace it with a dry one. For the soap, I keep it in a travel soap container, but leave it open to dry out.

Furniture-Free Living (sticking around)
Maybe two years ago now, we got rid of our couch, desks, and dining room table and instead sit on floor cushions on the ground. We also have a small coffee table for eating off of. This has been amazing for our health and for our recent move. Having to get up and down off the floor and use our back muscles to hold ourselves up instead of the back of a chair is great for being physically fit. It took a little getting used to at first, including a little soreness, but that transition is long gone now. Our recent move was such a breeze as there was only one item we had that required two people to move it.

Minimalist Beauty Routine (left by the wayside)
I am going to be 38 soon and I have been having so much trouble with my skin (acne AND accelerated aging from sun and acne damage). I made some dietary changes and actually did some medical spa treatments, but soon realized that I would have to make changes to my skin care routine if I wanted to see better results and keep my skin looking better in the long run. So, I am now buying products in plastic and glass bottles again. 

Restaurant Kit (left by the wayside)
Back when I lived in Phoenix, I put together a zero waste restaurant kit that I used very consistently. Then I move to the Pittsburgh area. I was in an area that did not have any vegan-friendly restaurants (other than Chipotle) and money was tighter then, so we stopped eating out for the most part. I'm now living in the city and am eating out more, but I've lost the habit with being zero waste at restaurants. I even forget to ask that they leave out the plastic straw. This is one area I want to work on getting back into the habit on.

Minimalist Composting

If you have a trowel and and a yard, you can probably compost.

This is the most minimalist compost method I have found, and it's also a great upper body workout. Here's what you need:

-0.5-1.0 gallons of kitchen scraps
-Kitchen knife and cutting board
-Trowel or shovel
-A yard with relatively soft soil
-Ability to dig a hole


Steps:
1. Dig hole
2. Fill hole with kitchen scraps
3. Cover hole
4. Profit?

Here are my kitchen scraps I keep a jar in the fridge to accumulate kitchen scraps. Keeping kitchen scraps in the fridge keeps them from starting to break down and smell.

Chop up the scraps, the finer the better. If you have a food processor, you can use that.

Dig your hole. Your hole should be about 12 inches wide and 12 inches deep. My trowel is 13 inches long, so I used that as a guide. 

I live in an old neighborhood that used to be housing for steel workers. What do you suppose this metal thing I found is?

Add your scraps. Mix in a little bit of the dug out soil.

Cover your hole with the remaining soil. There will be a little bit of leftover soil that has been displaced so just spread it around the area.

Source for this method: https://dengarden.com/gardening/Compost-Holes-A-Cheap-Easy-Way-to-Enrich-Your-Soil