Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

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   photo credit: cursedthing

   Buying in Bulk Saves Money
   We’re not just talking about buying giant boxes of food a warehouse store. (Although, if you eat that many Cheerios in a month, it can save you money.) We’re talking about the bulk bins at your local grocery store, where you can buy everything from rice, beans, flours, and spices to cereals, nuts, dried fruits, and pastas.
   You can save serious money shopping from these bins—10 to 30 percent off prepackaged prices.

2. Less Trash
   Compare the packaging of 10 cans of kidney beans to one bag. Or three 10-ounce boxes of cereal (three cardboard boxes and three un-recyclable plastic liners) to one bag and a twist tie. You can also reuse your bulk bin bag and twist tie to reduce your waste even more.
   If you’re super-attached to your old cereal boxes, save them and place your reusable bag inside.
3. Less Goes to Waste
   When you buy from the buy bins, you can buy the exact amount you need, so less is likely to spoil and go to waste.
4. Food Often Tastes Better
   Canned beans, for example, are more convenient, but once you get into the rhythm of pre-soaking beans and cooking them the night before, you’ll find beans from the bulk bins taste much better. They harbor none of the metallic aftertaste found in canned beans.
5. A Chemical Found in Most Canned Foods Is Linked to Cancer
   Unbelievable as it sounds, it’s true. Most food and drink cans are lined with a plastic resin that contains a chemical compound called bisphenol A (BPA). Due to a growing concern about the harmful health effects of BPA, it is being banned from baby bottles in Canada and many plastic-bottle manufacturers are voluntarily phasing it out of their products. The makers of cans, however, have not felt the wrath of consumers yet, so most plan to continue using it.

   More resources on BPA in cans, and, if you can’t buy fresh, who offers BPA-free cans:

   “BPA Danger May Be Greater in Tin Cans Than in Water Bottles,” TreeHugger
   http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/bpa-danger-from-cans.php

   A list of companies that use BPA in cans, from Organic Grace
   http://organicgrace.com/node/316

   “Where to Find BPA-free Cans,” Julie’s Health Club
   http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2008/06/where-to-find-b.html

You Can Order These Come from Trees Stickers, Too

I was at a super-cool wedding reception at the St. George Spirits Distillery in Alameda, California, when I came across a sticker on a restroom paper-towel dispenser that reminded me, “These Come from Trees.”

The sticker says the simple reminder saves 100 pounds of paper every year! Usually the stickers are put up by patrons, but management typically doesn’t mind the stickers because less paper towels used saves them money. In this way, the “These Come from Trees” people claim to be the world’s first guerrilla public service announcement.

You can order stickers yourself and put them up wherever you go. Get 20 for $5 (to cover printing and shipping) at:

http://thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com/

photo credit: Sue Richards

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council approved an experiment by the city’s Bureau of Sanitation to begin a table scrap collection program within select areas of L.A., giving hope not only to the reduction of landfill waste, but also to the minimization of sewage waste and wasted energy caused by the common practice of disposing food scraps into garbage disposal units.

The experiment will begin with the distribution of 2-gallon kitchen pails to about 5,000 households in the areas of Harbor Gateway, Lincoln Heights, and South Los Angeles.  Once these pails are filled with various food leftovers, its contents are to be dumped into the large green bins outside of each home that are currently collected for various yard trimmings.  The food and green waste combined, would then be delivered to a composting center near Bakersfield.  The program will start next month, following the lead of other regions within the state, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

According to a study conducted by the City of Los Angeles in 2002, single-family homes generated over 230,000 tons of food waste, while multi-family homes contributed almost 149,000 tons, adding up to about 380,000 tons of waste that could be turned into compost.  A  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report indicates that yard trimmings and food waste make up 23 percent of U.S. waste stream.  Although there has been surge in yard waste recovery from 1988 to 2000, only 2.6 percent of food waste was composted in 2000, compared to 56.9 percent of yard trimmings that were recovered for composting, indicating a larger need for food waste programs throughout the country.

While there are an assortment of regional composting programs and educational information available to U.S. residents, the reality is that not enough people are used to or comfortable yet with the idea of food recycling as they are with the recycling of cans, bottles and newspapers.  The benefits of composting food and organic waste cannot be ignored though, when you consider the amount of greenhouse gas that is emitted by its decomposition in a landfill or the amount of money that is wasted on disposal fees, hauling costs, fertilizers and pesticides.

For more information on Composting Programs in your region of the country, visit the EPA’s website: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/composting/live.htm

There is also a really cool website, “Composting 101,” that can provide you with tips to create your own composting program in your own back yard (no pun intended!): http://www.composting101.com/

Additional Resources:

Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-scraps13-2008aug13,0,6358339,print.story

City of Los Angeles Solid Waste Planning Background Studies Summary Report:

http://www.lacity.org/san/solid_resources/pdfs/rfp-swirp-appendix-b3.pdf)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/composting/basic.htm

National Resources Defense Council:

http://www.nrdc.org/enterprise/greeningadvisor/wm-composting.asp