Climate Change and Project Drawdown
Climate Change can be very overwhelming and we believe that Project Drawdown (drawdown.org) which is a list of 80 solutions to reduce greenhouse gases is a great place to start.
Solutions have been categorized into 7 sectors:
- Electricity
- Food, Agriculture and Land Use
- Industry
- Transportation
- Buildings
- Land Sinks
- Coastal and Ocean Sinks
- Engineered Sinks
- Health and Education
Top solutions to drawdown greenhouse gases are (these are all easily addressed in the D.C. Metro Region):
- Reduced Food Waste
- Health and Education
- Plant Rich Diets
- Refrigerant Management
We believe that this framework gives a solid structure for businesses and individuals to "start somewhere". Here is a link to their table of solutions, which is sortable by sectors, most to least GHG, etc.
A New Kind of Grocer in Town Part I
CD Guillaudeu
June 6, 2020
Alexandria, VA.
There's a new kind of grocer in Alexandria, a bring your own container kind. All of their products are have been meticulously picked for zero packaging, transportation miles as little as possible, i.e., you won't find any bananas in their store! So we're going to check out Mason and Green grocers tomorrow. I've got my containers ready! I've been using the bar soap shampoo because the bottles aren't recyclable, but they have liquid shampoo, so I'll try it out by putting it in my old pill bottle that can't be recycled either. Aarggh.
Choosing products that have as little packaging as possible is so important, i.e., check out the Story of Plastic movie. There are so many little plastic wrappers for individual items like potatoe chips, or candy, etc., that cannot be recycled and if we're lucky they at least make it to a landfill somewhere.
So we'll let you know how the experience is. Oh and they're a cashless system too, so no paper receipts!
A New Kind of Grocer in Town Part II
Our trip to Mason and Greens grocer in Alexandria was a lot of fun. Anna and Justin showed us the ropes. Brought in my containers, and Anna showed us how to "tare" our container. Put it on a scale, it weighs it and then she scanned a small chip with a string around it. The chip is an RFID one, so after filling my container, she scans the chip and then that weight is automatically deducted from overall weight. Pretty cool.
The store itself, is such a wonderful combination of old and new, old building, high ceilings, veggies and fruits in the small cardboard containers lit up by the light shining through the windows against a background of beautiful wooden floors. What a lot of fun. They have containers to sell too! Here's some pics from our trip! Good luck!
Native Bees
We at Your Business Our World use a "Bee" as our symbol for circularity, sustainability, that we are all dependent on one another. We are not Beekeepers, hardly know anything about beekeeping, but we do know that making honey is a complicated process, from the bees to the beekeepers.
With that in mind, it was brought to our attention that we should also highlight about native bees, so we want to be sure that we bring attention to them.
Native bees, include Bumble Bees, Orchard Mason Bees, Carpenter Bees and others. The Virginia Cooperative Extension out of Virginia Tech University has a great short pdf file about Virginia native bees. Native bees are important pollinators for fruits and vegetables.
Many thank-yous to the Virginia Cooperative Extension for their information. The Virginia Cooperative Extension is a great resource for agriculture and natural resource questions (they also handle the Master Gardener program) as well as having outreach for Family & Consumer sciences, Community Viability (teaching leadership etc) and the 4-H program here in Virginia.
Recycling in New Hampshire, an Example:
There is a recycling center in Peterborough, New Hampshire that brings in revenue for the state by selling the various recycled materials which become commodities to be sold.
They have a very impressive and well-run recycling center. There were bay windows for the big types of contents, e.g., newspapers, cardboard, plastic bottles and then lots of little containers for the little stuff, even down to ink cartridges and CDs and DVDs! It has areas for brush and a large metal trash bin for all different kinds of glass.
Organization and Process
Customers drop their sorted recyclables into the designated bins. Personnel are on hand to help with any questions for the occasional odd materials. For anything that can't be recycled, the car is weighed before and after and the customer charged for the difference in weight.
Inside the building are balers for the different materials. Below is a baler for aluminum cans.
In the picture above, at the left, the box with lines in it, that's where the aluminum cans are squished into. Wire is wrapped around the bale, and then it's pushed out the end.
Below are pictures of balers for other materials, e.g., cardboard and the different plastics.
Revenue
After they get the sorted materials baled, they notify their "broker" who finds customers on the open market. He didn't know who buys what, but manufacturers come to mind who would recreate the material into new packaging for products.