Portland, Or - A Model of Sustainable Living

We spent several days in Portland. I am amazed each time i visit there at how much progress they are making towards sustainable urban living. We visited Zenger Urban Agricultural Park which is a farm purchased by the city to protect a wetland behind an industrial development. They turned the rest of the farm over to a non- profit organization to be an education center for urban farming. A farmer grows vegetables and chickens on 3 of the acres that are sold at a CSA.
They have a community garden that is used by immigrant families to grow their own food. They have a solar power system and collect 6000 gallons of rainwater for use during the dry summer season.
There are lots and lots of restaurants that serve local organic food and they promote it heavily. We had breakfast at a restaurant/yoga studio that served their food on real plates and used cloth napkins. Imagine that!
We went to a farmers market that was started 15 years ago. It is held in the parking lot of an awesome food coop called the Peoples Market. We were able to buy salmon, fresh mushrooms and lots of vegetables for our dinner all in one place.
We visited The Rebuilding Center which is a Non-profit that recycles building materials. It was started in a down and out neighborhood a few years ago to provide jobs for local residents. Now it is thriving and so the the surrounding neighborhood. Businesses have moved in, houses have been restored and new construction is under way.
There are rain gardens all around the city that capture rain water and allow it to soak into the ground replenishing the groundwater instead of allowing polluted water to wash into the rivers.
We need to look to Portland as a shining example of what Atlanta can become through our collective efforts.

Trashed on the road

I've been out west for 8 days. In the beginning i tried to keep up with my project documenting my trash, recycling and reuse project. As time went on I found that doing so was detracting from my ability to have a relaxing vacation so i relaxed my vigilance to some extent. However i did have some insights along the way. The first one is that other cities are way ahead of Atlanta on the path towards sustainability. Both the airports in Denver and Seattle have recycling containers readily accessibly throughout them. Wake up Hartsfield! The second is that it takes a lot of planning and discipline to eat healthy food and to tread softly on the planet while on the road. It has been suggested that we need to be more responsible about taking frivolous or unnecessary trips on airplanes anyway. I don't feel that was the case on this trip because i traveled to a workshop to learn about growing mushrooms. Once I put what i learned into practice i will more that offset the carbon expended on the trip by growing and using mushrooms and by teaching others how to do so as well.
More about that in future posts.

Trashed

In the latest issue of Orion magazine ( a great magazine, excellent writing, fantastic photography and art) there is a piece about Tim Gaudreau who photographed they stuff he threw away every day for a full year. He is a self-proclaimed recycler, is "ecologically conscious, limited what he bought and didn't participate in any of the traditional consumer holidays." Still he threw away a lot of stuff. And don't we all.
I've decided to follow in his footsteps and post photos of the stuff i throw away every day for the next year. I hope that this exercise will make me a better steward of the earth and maybe it will help you to be better too.
Being a recycler myself i think it would be only fair to also post photos of the stuff i recycle too. We can all learn from that as well.

Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle

That is on of our mantras here at The Funny Farm. As soon as I knew we were going to get the place, I began planning how to exploit the large roof areas to capture as much rainwater as possible. I plan on using 1500 gallon tanks which are 7.5' wide and 5+' tall which will require flat spaces on which to sit. My landscape crew was about to remove an old concrete patio on a job so, instead of taking the material to the landfill we stored it until we could repurpose it as wall-building material at the farm.
We needed a wall to make a flat area for a water tank at the corner of the house by the downspout. For some reason there are large amounts of broken concrete all around the farm so we used that along with the material we had previously stored to build a wall. My crew was amazed at how good it looks so now they all want to build themselves a wall with what a friend has dubbed "urbanite" or broken up concrete.
There was some sedum, sempervivum and variegated liriope growing in places where we didn't want them so we harvested them and incorporated them into and below the wall to create a finished look. The mulch we used is wood chips we stockpiled when we cleared out some tree saplings elsewhere on the farm. Everything organic we will use in some fashion here. It will be reused, repurposed or recycled as compost. More on that subject later.

Paper or Plastic?

That used to be a question we were asked whenever we shopped at the grocery store. As a responsible environmental citizen I always thought it was a no-brainer. Paper please. I've heard it said that paper may not in fact be the environmentally correct answer after all.
Living in the suburbs has presented a whole new set of decisions i must make in my quest to save the planet. I now park my somewhat fuel-efficient medium sized pickup truck in my new garage. I got in the truck the other morning and reached for the garage door opener when a possible conundrum popped into my head.. Wait, i don't need to be using this battery powered device to turn on a light bulb (a real one that uses electricity) and activate a motor that also uses electricity to lift up the door.I can lift up the door using muscle power. So I did. Then i drove my truck out of the garage, put it in park then thought, well should i turn the engine off or let it idle while I get out and shut the garage door. Or, God forbid, would it be better for the planet if i just used the garage door opener.

I have no idea. Do you?