A Vision For Sustainable Restaurants

Arthur Potts Dawson, founder and owner of multiple green businesses gives us some insight into his sustainable visions for restaurants. Because the restaurant industry is undoubtedly the most wasteful industry in the world, Dawson has opened a handful of restaurants that exclusively employ green practices. For example, the first restaurant he opened is constructed of floors and chairs that are not only recyclable, but that are made from recycled materials. Furthermore, the entire restaurant is powered by sustainable energy- wind power. Perhaps one of his most brilliant ideas, although not part of the physical design of sustainability, is that he created a menu in which the customers are free to choose their portion size. Finally, in the restaurant there is some form of a dehydrating apparatus that breaks down and turns food into inner material that can be stored and composted at a later time.
Dawson’s most recent business enterprise is a project that is extremely necessary in order to foster sustainable practices in the average person’s life. It is called “The People’s Supermarket” and is a non-profit social cooperative project that was created to serve as a food bridge between urban settings and the rural communities in which their food is grown and harvested. Dawson’s goal is to make this the most “sustainable supermarket in the world” by committing to a zero food waste policy. Although Dawson has spent the majority of his work in the realm of sustainable restaurant practices, he understands the importance of launching something like “The People’s Supermarket” because it transfers that restaurant model of sustainable awareness and participation into the very core of our communities. Generally speaking, the working class probably won’t seek out to eat at a green restaurant, but with something like “The People’s Supermarket” everyone, on some level is able to make informed decisions when going to purchase food.
Within his work in the restaurant business, Dawson’s initiative that gives customers the choice in determining their portion sizes is truly revolutionary. In an industry that accumulates so much waste, reshaping the customer’s relationship to food, and giving them a role of responsibility in the restaurant is crucial if we as a society are going to adapt to more sustainable methods concerning food. As Dawson states, it is not about eliminating waste, it’s about minimizing it.”

Canopy Living in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a special place. The dense Rainforest climate and untainted landscapes provide visitors and residents alike with a pure and uninhabited experience. Over the past 100 years, vast deforestation and environmental mishaps have forever altered how many places in this region function and thrive, Costa Rica is trying to change this. As a country, Costa Rica has made a commitment to becoming a sustainable and environmentally viable place to live, learn and love.

Many social programs and initiatives have taken place to bring the country to a stable and sustainable level, my favorite of which is within Canopy studies. I watched a TED talk given by Nalini Nadkarni about the topic of Canopies. Nalini is an advocate, author and educator who spent her life devoted to the appreciation and understanding of our need and use of trees and more specifically, Canopy growth. I focused not only on her talk, but on a community named Finca Bellavista on the island. Finca is a tree house community which is built within the canopies of Costa Rica. They are commited to being 100% self sufficient and off the grid, all while having a very comfortable and enjoyable living experience. They use zip lines as transportation, rainwater as hydration and nature as it’s cradle. I have posted a promotional video that Finca Bellavista has posted for our viewing pleasure.

Community Waste Management Environmental Educational Socio-Green(Up)Building Activism!




In Grenades Guatemala, elementary students learned about green building, the environment, waste management, and build themselves a school in the process all with the help of Laura Kutner. While serving in the Peace Corps Kutner was helping out at one of the local elementary schools. She was asked to help raise funds for the completion of two classrooms that had already been framed. She obliged and noticed the frame was the width of the plastic soda bottle in her hand and thought immediately of a fellow volunteer who was constructing building blocks out of plastic bottles stuffed with inorganic trash called Eco-Bricks. She thought this building method might be a cost efficient approach to finishing the classrooms.
With the help of neighboring students and littering citizens, the elementary school collected 8000 Eco-Bricks. At about one pound per Eco-Brick, that's 8000 pounds of garbage picked up off the ground and put into a wall, a wall that is even more flexible in earthquake territory than cement blocks.

Kutner knows that its not just the new classrooms that are important, nor the six new "bottle schools" recently built that are important but it's the underlying educational aspect of the project that is important as she states here: "The real long-term goal of these projects is the educational aspect to it, because this is not a long-term solution to trash management in any way, but just the educational aspect in learning how long it takes trash to decompose and what you can do with trash, and how much we produce. We produce enough trash to build buildings with it. And also, bringing communities together...it's in every sense of the word, a win-win."

I said it before and I'll say it again, us humans are good are creating waste, now we need to be creative with our waste. Waste management and recycling are going to be crucial survival skills for future generations. This building method and grassroots community organizing helps teach students to be conscience of their environment and more aware of their effect on it, while producing a positive outcome for themselves and their community. In an area where there was no conventional system set in place to recycle, the people created a way to recycle. This instills in the students the very essence of recycling at its most basic form. This is also a testament the volunteers of the Peace Corps, who can make the best of what they are given, a notion that is at heart, sustainability.


Link to Podcast: http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=11-P13-00006#feature6
Link to Bottle Schools website: http://hugitforward.com/

Are mushrooms the new plastic?

Eben Bayer, is a co-inventor of mycobond, an organic adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam material for packaging and insulation. Eben Bayer says he has a new organic recipe for a packaging material that protects fragile things from being damaged while in the box. A new age, 100 percent compostable Styrofoam. It is not made up of all the chemicals that Styrofoam is, or the "toxic white stuff", as Bayer puts it.

Eben Bayer took the hard facts of how bad Styrofoam is for the earth and all its habitants. He states that twenty billion dollars is spent every year on making things out of Styrofoam, from surf boards, coffee cups, to table tops, packaging material for just about everything we buy that comes in a box. According to the EPA, Styrofoam eats up about 25% of all landfills. Styrofoam does not go away, it will be around for thousands of years after use. It may be broken down into tiny microscopic pieces, so we cant see it, but we are breathing it.

He helped invent a new type of packaging. This packaging is made from mushrooms. It is completely compostable, does not cost any more to make it then Styrofoam, and only uses 10 percent of the energy to make than that of Styrofoam. The process of making this new packaging material takes about 5 days, but the mushrooms do most of the work. Mycobond is created by using natural growth process of fungus call mycelium. It is produced from crop waste like seed husks, seed husks and mushroom roots, (which bind the food scraps as they eat them). Again the foam is organic and compostable.

Material can be used as:

-fire retardants

-Insulation

-packaging components

Although the Internet dubs it to be catching on quickly, I feel as though its not quickly enough. If this new material is not toxic, completely compostable and cost as much to make as regular Styrofoam, then someone should start spreading the word and making it mandatory for companies to use this new mushroom packaging.

Green Schools in Indonesia

I had the pleasure of watching a clip about a green school in Bali Indonesia by CO founder John Hardy. This Idea put into motion is giving students a relevant, holistic and green education in the most amazing environment on the planet.

Their classrooms are made of bamboo, in which have no walls, so the students feel the breeze as it passes through. The black board are made of bamboo, this school is nested on 20 plus acres of rolling gardens. There is a community built around this school, houses in which are also green houses. All food in this village is organic, are picked and harvested by the children themselves. This school also has, Compost toilets. This beautiful school is all built by hand.

I think this is the best idea I have seen so far in building a greener future, by shaping the minds of our future. Giving children a new way of thinking, we are on our way to a cleaner more greener, sustainable future.

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hardy_my_green_school_dream.html

POO-GLOOS, Where does your waste water go?

Gresham, Wisconsin, a small town of 600 is experimenting with their wastewater. Right now all of the wastewater is drained off into a "lagoon where there's bacteria, or bugs if you want to call 'em, that eat at the waste and they take and turn that into oxygen and get rid of all the sludge and heavier materials." Says Art Bahr, the Town Administrator.
The problem is that in the cold winter the bacteria in the lagoon doesn't work as fast at breaking down heavier materials. So the folks of Gresham have been experimenting with a Poo-Gloo. The Poo-Gloo or Biome is made up of seven small domes (figure 1) inside one big dome. Between them is a plastic material thats a fixed film technology. This basically increased the surface area in a warmer environment (biome) for bacteria to thrive and convert waste. The wastewater enters through the bottom, and after the bacteria remove harmful materials, the water drains out the top.
The town currently has one Poo-Gloo that is in an experimental phase. According to Bahr, the town will need thirty four of these Poo-Gloos dispersed between two ponds to handle the towns 275 utility consumers. At five thousand dollars a Poo-Gloo thats around $325,000 with installation and technology updates.
But whether it is cost effective or not, the Department of Natureal Resources is very interested in Gresham's experiment and how it can be used through out the midwest.



Figure 1

We generate a lot of waste as humans, especially modern American humans. I think small towns taking the initiative to find a better solution to pollution is 100% American Awesomeness. The cost of these little crap-shacks is 5000$ a piece. I don't know how long they last but the podcast said that, if they are maintained they should last for "many years." well for those kinda clams you'd wanna get your money out of it. I don't know if the 325,000$ start up cost for 275 utility costumers is reasonable or not. there are a lot of other questions this brings to mind. Who flips that bill? What is the alternative to Cold Weather Biome Lagoons? septic systems? How clean is the water that comes out the top? Can one household have their own biome lagoon? is a biome lagoon system better than septic? Are community wastewater treatment systems better than a residential system? how can we reduce waste altogether?

Waste is not going away, Waste is an integral part of American society, American as McDonalds apple pie. Waste is a product of humanity, and how we make it, deal with it, through it out, flush it down, is connected to our daily behavior and practices. HOW CAN HUMANS KEEP UP WITH THE WASTE WE GENERATE?

To check the podcast out yourself go to: http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=11-P13-00005#feature6

Is a grassroots movement enough to change the conventional food system?

Our conventional industrialized US food system is at the core of pressing issues such as food access/security, obesity, and widespread pollution. It is simply unsustainable.
The locavore movement is an attempt to transform our current food system by promoting urban farming for the most part. Here are a few examples:

• Detroit, which has lost a third of its population, could be home to 10,000 acres of arable land in deserted urban neighborhoods, and create up to 35,000 jobs connected to the food economy.
• West Oakland CA lost access to fresh food as white residents moved out and the neighborhood became predominantly black; as a result, the rate of child obesity rose. Today, there is urban gardening, a food coop, and farmers markets thanks to grassroot efforts.
• Re-think, a New Orleans group led by engaged students, has vowed to change food in public schools. As a result of their efforts, school gardens have been established and sustainable practices have been introduced in the kitchens and cafeterias.

Food is political and our food system clearly reflects our values as a society. Shifting our entire system towards a more sustainable model entails profound changes in our society. While all these projects are encouraging, I think they are almost anecdotal. Change from the bottom-up might take a very long time to reach a critical mass. But we are facing pressing issues such as food security and obesity that, it seems to me, require immediate attention and action. I don't believe that regulatory changes at the federal level would be effective, but perhaps at the state level where there could be less partisanship and more focus on problems to solve. I am thinking about the Farm-to-Plate initiative in Vermont as a model to drive change. Maybe I am a bit naive though...

*Post is a response to Going Locavore show*