Guy Goes Green

Wannabe green guy going green

Posts Tagged ‘food waste recovery’

Reviewing a week of thankfulness and giving thanks

November 30th, 2009

This week has been all about giving thanks. Not only did we celebrate this Thanksgiving by spending time with friends and family, but we also spent some time giving back. The abundance we have is not shared by everybody and felt it giving back was an appropriate challenge for the week. The ways in which we gave back were useful for our community and also green.

One day we spent volunteering our time at Fill the Dome, where local students raised food and money to help the needy in our area. Not only does this serve the needy of our community, it also promotes reuse and being green. We also went through our closets to find stuff that is no longer, or only lightly used. We collected this stuff together and sent it off to the Boys Ranch of North Dakota so that they can better help the people of our community and promote the reuse of items.

Although we did this as a part of our journey of going green, it also was really a great feeling to help out in our community. I feel very fortunate to have the people in my life that I do and the means to get by in this world. I understand that my situation could change at any moment and so I feel we must be thankful for what we have today. Giving back is a way that I am able to express my thanks.

So we have done a few things to help out in the community, but I also know there are people that do so much every day. Here is a big fat “thank you” from us!

In closing, I want to share some of the people/critters I am thankful for. All of my family! I am also thankful for my wife Ashley, my dog Charlie, and our kitties Dufus, Velcro and Milo.

[View with PicLens]

Let us know what you are thankful for in the comment area below.

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Posted in Local Green, Week 6 Giving Thanks

Tags: food waste recovery give back recycle reuse thanksgiving waste

Week 6 is all about giving thanks and Thanksgiving

November 23rd, 2009

NEW WEEK and Ashley has a new task for me! In the spirit of Thanksgiving (for those in the US), I would like to do something green this week in a way that shows I am thankful for what I have and also give back to my community. This is the week of giving thanks in an environmental manner. Although I am not exactly sure what is going to happen this week, I know I have some ideas of what we are going to do.

Following a visit to the local Food Bank stemming from Week 4’s Food waste topic, we decided to try and help out. Well, this evening we are helping the Fill the Dome project by moving boxes and basic grunt work. This is a trial run, but I suspect we are going to continue trying to give some of our time back to the community. I think this is a great way to give thanks AND also helps continue our work from the previous food waste challenge in Week 4.

Also, I think we are going to gather up the things we no longer use and send it off to charity. This may help prevent things from going into the garbage and also showing our thanks by hopefully getting some useful stuff into the proper hands!

Our schedule is fairly loose this week, so if you have any ideas on how you give back in a manner that is environmentally aware, let us know. We would love to hear what you do and any suggestions you have for us. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

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Posted in General Green

Tags: donations food waste recovery giving back giving thanks reuse thanksgiving

Going green and stopping food waste seems easy to me

November 12th, 2009

We are a bit over half way done with this week’s green task of reducing food waste. The biggest thing I realized is how little I can throw away if I just am a little bit more conscientious about what gets tossed in the garbage. So far, this week I have learned quite a bit about food waste and also am in the process of taking steps that will help us reduce waste in the future. I feel that I am on my way to becoming a real green guy.

As I previously posted, American’s throw away 96 Billion pounds of good food every year. This is enough to feed all of this country’s hungry children several times over. I might be wrong, but I do not think the USA has a monopoly on waste. I suspect that much of the western world acts in a similar manner, but surely would be interested in hearing about any green programs in your country.

I have started to go through some our cupboards and have found a few cans of ‘expired’ food that I will need to get rid of. Although I am new to going green, I am not new to being frugal. When I used to find a deal, I would buy in bulk. Now that I am eating 100% healthier, these products no longer pass through my lips. There is too much junk in much of the canned/bagged food. This will all be eaten, composted or donated and I hope this exodus of junk food will be the last.

I have been finding some information about Food Waste Recovery, but I am still not quite sure how this works in my hometown of Fargo, ND. I know that there are food drives and several opportunities to give food to the shelters, but I wonder if there are any programs set up to recover this wasted food. I think I will look into that!

I guess a big part of this task is to not let it get to the point where I need to get rid of food. Ideally, we will buy or grow what we need, eat in a manner that is not wasteful and compost what is left. I guess the goal is to have zero waste. I realized that as far as food product goes, we have only thrown away 1 orange peel and 2 banana peels this week. I am going to change this though and the only reason I threw these items is because I was at work and did not think about it. I hope Ashley cuts me some slack on that… I am just a guy. J We have taken some junk mail scraps, hung it on the fridge and made a list of items that are close to expiring.

All other food either ended up in our bellies, in one of our critter’s belly or in the compost. During the summer, we bring our compost to the city compost. During the winter, we run our Nature Mill composter. Overall, it is turning out to be a very productive week and it feels nice to know that we were already fairly good at not wasting food.