Food Waste Friday - on Sunday!

Sorry for the lateness of Food Waste Friday, it's been a busy weekend so far!



I'm not too disappointed in my waste this week. There's a bit of Chilean Dal, which might have still been ok, but frankly I've eaten a lot of it and it wasn't that great to start with. There's also some celery. We have a real problem using celery up before it goes bad. We do a bit better if we clean and chop it all at once, but even then we just end up with some cleaned and chopped celery going slimy in a pool of water.

I am going to be doing something to reduce waste tonight though. It's the start of the massive garbage nights in my area, when you can throw out as much and as large an item as you want to. Which means it's also time to see about a Landfill Rescue! I'll let you know if I find anything.

Green Birthday Presents

Yesterday was my birthday! Given that I now blog about being green, that could make gift-giving a little harder. Luckily my husband was up to the challenge. The most important part of being a green gift is that the recipient will actually use/want the gift. Frankly, that's fairly important for any successful gift. In my case, he went with a combination of practical and fun. For practical gifts, I needed a new pair of running shoes and I'd been putting it off for awhile (I don't really like shopping that much). So, since it was a birthday gift I had no choice but to go out and pick up a pair, and I'm glad that I have them now, my old ones were definitely used up!

My fun gift came from the liquor store. :) I'm a big fan of apple cider, and I've mostly always drunk Strongbow or Blackthorn. Both are imported from England, but they were the best choices available at the LCBO. However, it looks like cider is gaining in popularity, and the choices have expanded as well. Last month I discovered County Cider from Picton, ON and was very happy with the taste, and the fact that Picton is a lot closer than England. Proving that he pays attention, and that he reads my blog, my husband picked up four bottles. Another great thing about this cider is that it comes in refillable bottles, so there's never any waste. One's chilling in the fridge right now, getting ready for the weekend.

So, that's my advice for giving green gifts. 1. Make them useful gifts 2. Make them local products.

First Day of School!

This was my first day as a teacher and I'd like to have an ecological feel to my classroom(s). I've quickly realized that paper free is NOT possible in our school. The idea of doing a lot of work on the computers is great, but not when you have two computers and 27 students!

I think what I'm going to do to try and reduce paper usage is a) a lot of group work and b) a dedicated duotang for each student where they must place their papers as soon as they receive them. One thing I noticed in my practice teaching is that a class of 30 students can somehow go through 50 copies of the same handout! I'm hoping that by me keeping the duotangs at school for the most part, they'll stay organized and complete. It's horrible when you give a handout, and then find them all over the hallway! I'm also hoping that once the students know that there are no extra handouts, they'll be more careful of the ones they have. I figure the first time they have to copy a handout onto lined paper themselves will encourage them to keep their handouts!

I'd also like to find some articles/books that the students can read on their own that have an environmental theme. I'm sure I'll come up with a few more ideas as the year progresses, but if you have any, feel free to email me or leave a comment!