Governor’s Island is NYC’s favorite car-free oasis. Just a 7 minute ferry ride from Manhattan you find yourself on an uninhabited island with million dollar views of the Statue of Liberty, Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn Bridge and Jersey City. The excitement for our upcoming family glamping adventure on the island (see Part II of this post coming … More Governor’s Island – Part I: Urban Gardening with GrowNYC
Plastics are polluting our waterways, choking our coral reefs and being eaten by birds and marine animals. The average American takes home 1,500 plastic bags a year, which are used for about 12 minutes. Most plastic bags are not recycled, and the ones that make it to landfill (vs. the waterways) take 500 years to … More Zero-waste? Canada to lead international “plastics charter”
A recent article in the Atlas Obscura “Fascinating Photos from the Secret Trash Collection in a New York Sanitation Garage” reminded me of all the things that get thrown away in NYC on a daily basis. Our society produces a lot of garbage, and much of it does not need to be destined for the … More Mission to Reduce Trash: 5 months later
As some of you may know, last month I shopped the neighbourhood and stopped shopping online. The primary goal was to support neighbourhood businesses, secondly to decrease the amount of packaging we receive, and a lesser goal: to see if the siren call of internet offerings could be ignored. Day 3: I walked 20 blocks … More Shopping locally in October – a reflection
Our quest to reduce garbage and packaging was going so well…the trash can became the recycling bin and one week’s worth of garbage could fit in a small unlined bin under the sink. We made produce bags and hankies from old t-shirts that were too far gone for donation, bought compostable toothbrushes and compost like … More One step forward, two steps back (and a decision to shop the neighbourhood for one month).
This is a post about reducing the amount of garbage we produce, but first, a story: A few weeks ago, some friends and I were talking about leaps in technology and the exponential tech advances predicted for the future. Specifically, the quest for the ultimate AI (which may take over the world), paired with Stephen … More Reducing trash – one family at a time.
Canadian Expatriate 