Earth Month Ecochallenge 2024: Conservation

April 1 - April 30, 2024

Recycle Brevard for the Earth Feed

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Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

REFLECTION QUESTION
Action Track: Community Pick Up the Phone

What do all of us have in common, regardless of politics, race, religion, occupation, or place we live? How can finding common ground help us as a society and as a species?

Marcia Booth 4/30/2024 12:16 PM

We all want to live happy, healthy and in a safe and clean community. For all those reasons, if nothing else, we need to protect and advocate for the environment. I made a call to start a conversation about glass recycling - which in our area is not available. If there is a will, there is a way! I am sure we can find a solution for that and start recycling glass instead of sending a multitude of perfectly recyclable glass to landfills

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Action Track: Community Plant Trees

How is planting trees good for your mental, physical, and spiritual health?

Marcia Booth 4/30/2024 11:46 AM

I wholeheartedly enjoy planting anything in my backyard, especially getting fruits and vegetables started in the kitchen and watching then grow into adult, fruiting plants. What can be better than your own organic batch of juicy tomatoes, sweet pineapples, and fresh, leafy basil? I am growing some avocados and potatoes and getting some strawberries started next! Love it :-)

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Land + Forests Zero Waste Day

What was hard about having a Zero Waste Day? What did you learn about yourself and your habits?

Marcia Booth 4/30/2024 11:38 AM

It was really hard... Even when you try to cross off packaging from the list, you have vegetable peels to deal with, for example. I learned that potato peel, seasoned and in the oven with some olive oil is delicious and will definitely make more of those!

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Jennifer Logan 4/23/2024 5:28 AM

I thought I would share this link with everyone. I watched a film about the restoration of soil. It is a full length documentary but worth the watch. It makes you think and gives hope that there are smart people working on trying to find solutions. It is free to watch at the link I provided. I am not promoting this film but I felt compelled to share and to bring awareness to a huge problem that you may not have realized existed. https://grow.foodrevolution.org/

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- SHASHWAT MISHRA 4/23/2024 5:33 AM
  
  thanks for sharing!!!
  
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- Ella Arce 4/23/2024 5:49 AM
  
  Thanks so much for sharing!
  
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- Marcia Booth 4/23/2024 4:05 PM
  
  I also watched it and signed up for the other videos they offered at the end. I have not watched those yet, but I thought that The Need to Grow was very informative and I expect the other ones to be as well.
  
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Jennifer Logan 4/22/2024 1:43 PM

I am conflicted. I just read about surprising facts about water footprints. "Manufacturing polyester doesn’t require a lot of water, so a polyester shirt requires 92.5 gallons. A cotton shirt needs 660 gallons." But I have also being reading a lot about micro-plastics in clothing. To reduce micro-plastics in clothing you should be buying only clothes that are made from nature fibers. Apparently laundry is the largest contributor to micro-plastic pollution. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/laundry-is-a-top-source-of-microplastic-pollution-heres-how-to-clean-your-clothes-more-sustainably).

Anyone else feel overwhelmed on what would make the biggest impact?

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- Jennifer Logan 4/23/2024 5:21 AM
  
  Thanks for sharing the link. Now if we could just get clothing manufacturers to change their practices and start using some of these alternatives.
  
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- Anne Coudrette 4/22/2024 2:25 PM
  
  Thanks for highlighting this.
  It prompted me to search for "most sustainable fabrics" https://goodonyou.eco/most-sustainable-fabrics/
  They include recycled cotton, hemp, linen and tencel (+others).
  And as expected polyester is not on the list.
  
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REFLECTION QUESTION
Freshwater + Oceans Cooking Oil Disposal

Did anything about this action surprise you? Do you use more or less oil than you thought?

Marcia Booth 4/21/2024 11:19 PM

I try to cook with little oil and bake/boil more often than fry foods but it was interesting to learn that the best oil is olive oil and the second best is avocado oil because it is not chemically processed when compared to other oils like canola oil.
I also learned that 78% of the olive oil in the US is imported from the European Union, while 96% of our Canola oil is imported from Canada.

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- Marcia Booth 5/01/2024 12:24 PM
  We tend to use either avocado or olive oil, but I was intrigued about canola (should have read first!) and bought a bottle of it...
  I have accessed many different links to read about all that. All very interesting and informative. Here are a few:
  https://healthnews.com/nutrition/healthy-eating/why-you-should-start-replacing-canola-oil-with-avocado-oil/
  
  https://time.com/5342337/best-worst-cooking-oils-for-your-health/
  
  https://www.eatingwell.com/article/7821957/what-is-avocado-oil/
  
  https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/
  
  https://www.forbes.com/health/nutrition/healthiest-cooking-oils/
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- Jennifer Logan 4/25/2024 5:06 AM
  
  It's funny. I already use olive oil for most my cooking because of my trip to Italy. I also use avocado oil when I air-fry because olive oil tends to burn. I didn't realize that the other oils were processed with chemicals. Do you happen to have the link to the article/video? I would love to learn more about oils.
  
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REFLECTION QUESTION
Biodiversity + Wildlife Leave No Trace

Educator Stephanie Kaza advises her students to focus on what they care about most when addressing the enormity of ecological problems. Is there a specific area you feel particularly called to work on?

Marcia Booth 4/21/2024 3:22 PM

Protecting wildlife from litter is number one and I do this through Recycle Brevard. Second is watching what I eat, wear, and use in general to avoid animal products and select the most sustainable options I can. Third is being selective on how I invest, donate, and spend my money so I support others that are also working towards protecting and respecting animals and their habitat.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Action Track: Community Volunteer in my Community

How does volunteering enhance your community and/or change your relationship with it?

Marcia Booth 4/20/2024 3:26 PM

Serving my community makes me feel like a real contributor and closer to everyone that I don't even know. It feels good to help others find solutions for their waste and save perfectly good items from being sent to the landfill.
It warms my heart to think that the work I do may help people in my community and the environment as a whole. Hopefully all that has a positive impact on the place where I live and the people I meet. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that created a ripple effect and inspired others to also do more in their corner of the world?

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Climate + Air Declutter My Home Without the Landfill

How did it feel to intentionally declutter with putting things into the landfill? What did you learn along the way about yourself and our consumer and waste systems?

Marcia Booth 4/20/2024 3:06 PM

It is hard to part ways with items that have a sentimental value or bring special memories to us, but in the process of cleaning out we revisit those good memories and relive those moments, which is a good thing. Deciding what to keep and what to throw is the biggest challenge... and we find that it is hard to find places that will accept or recycle what we no longer need or want to keep. That validates the reason for having created Recycle Brevard and carrying on finding alternatives for reusable items and hard-to-recycle wastes.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Climate + Air Declutter My Home Without the Landfill

How did it feel to intentionally declutter with putting things into the landfill? What did you learn along the way about yourself and our consumer and waste systems?

Jennifer Logan 4/16/2024 11:01 AM

I really liked the article "17 ways to declutter". I plan to employ the Hanger Trick and the 4 box method.

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- Jennifer Logan 4/23/2024 5:29 AM
  
  Love the Toy Swap idea.
  
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- Marcia Booth 4/20/2024 3:51 PM
  
  I also like those but need to find a similar "hanger" method for the shelves and drawers :-)
  For toys, it is always difficult to find a solution because charities do not want them and kids get tired of the same toys, so we are having a Toy Swap next Sunday (it will be our second one) to see if more toys find new homes and are saved from the landfill.
  
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