Everyday Environmentalism

The beginnings

Originally inspired by dreams of an herb garden for tea, I have launched a mini edible garden with plants for tea, cooking, and beyond. It’s nothing special yet, just the beginning adventures of testing out my green thumb, but I plan on expanding it.

After combing the web for advice, frolicking around SF gardening stores, and playing in my beautiful backyard, I have a hodgepodge of herbs and vegetables planted. I found a good selection of starter plants at Cole Hardware and Sloat Garden Center.

Here is a list of plants I gathered, suggested uses, and growing advice:

• Chocolate mint: Great for tea, mixed drinks, or with strawberries. A hardy plant that requires full or partial sun and moist soil. Mint tends to aggressively take over garden space, so I keep it in its own planter.
• Spearmint: Great for tea, mojitos, or mint juleps. See above. Generally same instructions for growing all mint varieties.
• Lemon balm: Great for tea or in chicken, seafood, herb butter, etc. Related to mint, but with a lemon aroma. Partial shade and dry soil.
• Rosemary: Great for tea or with roasted potatoes, chicken, or Mediterranean dishes. Requires full sun (but can handle some shade) and drained soil. Little water once established. Needs a lot of room for root growth, upward growth, and to breathe.
• Sage: Great with tea, poultry, or in white bean dip. Full sun and moist soil, but not too particular with soil.
• Green onion ‘bunching’: Requires full sun and well-drained soil.
• Baby Spinach: Requires full sun or partial shade and well-drained soil.

Planting options

My backyard can go from sunny to shady in a step or two around it. Since the tree coverage and shade is a bit scattered, I’ve decided to keep my edibles in planters then maybe plant them later after testing different spots in the yard. Per shopping at different stores around SF, I’ve found that circular planters are plentiful but rectangular planter boxes are scarce. After searching for planter boxes all over the city, I decided to purchase one and then buy materials (1″ x 12″ redwood panels) to make a second. I found all my planter box items at Discount Builders Supply. [Stay tuned for a later post for DIY Planter Box project.]

Harvesting

From researching the plants, I’ve learned that harvesting generally involves cutting leaves an inch or a few above the base of the stem or right above the node. Harvesting should be done occasionally to maintain the plants. Green onions should be harvested young, at 6-8″ height, by cutting 1″ above the root. Then, cover with an inch or two of soil and the plant should re-sprout.

Filed under: Urban Nature on March 21st, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Waste, art, and environmentalism have crossed paths in interesting ways: Artwork has been used to inspire others to reduce waste and be resourceful or recycle. Waste has been used as both an inspiration and a medium for artwork. Reusing waste for artwork is a form of upcycling. Per wikipedia’s definition of upcycling, it the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value.

Here are a few examples of these trends:

1. My friend Maia, a very talented artist, would occasionally visit a landfill at the edge of San Francisco for inspiration. This specific junkyard has a very scenic view of the water and around the time of frequent visits to it she painted a beautiful triptych of waves.

2. San Francisco’s waste management organization, Recology, has a program called Artist In Residence (AIR) which was created to inspire and educate people about recycling and resource conservation. AIR provides specially selected local artists with studio space, resources, and discarded treasures from its interim dump site before items are sent to landfills or recycling plants. AIR had a reception and showcase on January 22nd and it happens that a friend of a friend, Erik Otto, was the resident artist. I wasn’t able to attend the event but here is Erik’s blog post.

3. In March 2008 I traveled to Berlin to visit one of my best friends from college. One day we visited a place on Oranienburgerstrasse called, “Tacheles”, a salvaged building turned art collective/warehouse. Inside is an open, five-story, graffiti-filled warehouse with exhibits and a funky coffee bar on the top floor as well as a junkyard with junk to art projects on display. This East Berlin building went through many lives and is a good reuse and renovation story. More information about the site can be found here.

Other thoughts:

a. What are the facts and figures regarding air pollution caused by landfills? According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), municipal solid waste landfills are the second-largest human-generated source of methane emissions in the US. From this an estimated 32 million metric tons of carbon equivalent were released to the atmosphere in 2007 alone. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. More details can be found here.

b. Are there other cities with similar programs?

I haven’t found anything notable. If anyone else has examples, let me know!

c. Have other artists incorporated waste into their works?

I came across a few articles about Trash Artists on the Web Urbanist, a site about “sensational, educational, and inspirational art, design, photography, and visual culture”. Check out these posts about 7 Innovative Artists Who Create Art from Trash: Projected, Recycled and Other Amazing Art and 20 (More) Amazing Works of ‘Garbage Art’: From Pottery Sculpture Parks to Giant Newspaper Portraits.

I also stumbled upon an article in the NY Daily News called Salvation from the trash to heap: Brooklyn artists to the rescue in a fix. It discusses a Brooklyn, New York collaborative called Fixers Collective. This group of artists and enthusiasts meet on Thursday nights to help one another creatively repair or repurpose junk.

Filed under: Waste on February 26th, 2010 | No Comments »

Yesterday evening I checked out my first EcoTuesday networking event. I guess I was a little late to catch on to this group since it was the three-year anniversary! These monthly events involve (1) a presentation by an innovative, sustainable business leader, (2) brief self-introductions by each attendee, and (3) networking time. I found the self-introductions incredibly useful as it allowed me to identify good people to seek out for networking conversations.

The speaker, Joel Makower, provided his insight on the state of the green economy. Joel has been described as, “The guru of green business practices” and he is the Chairman and Co-founder of Greener World Media, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com, and the author of “Strategies for the Green Economy”. The EcoTuesday blog provides more information about him here.

What did I learn from his presentation? Joel provided a clear, thoughtful perspective on trends in the green economy as well as the encouraging and discouraging parts of these trends. Here are some key themes I took from the speech:

1. Generally speaking green practices have been integrated into businesses and the economy in two ways. (1) Big businesses have had the ability, resources, and funds to integrate successful green practices and make fundamental, well-received changes in green economy. It has allowed companies like Walmart to become green leaders. (2) It has been challenging for everybody else to get traction and attention with these practices in the marketplace.  Storytelling is crucial to making progress: How has integrating environmental practices increased profits, reduced costs, enhanced branding, etc? What should individuals know to have a better understanding of your business and how they could be a part of it?

2. Green economy technologies will likely revolutionize the market like the internet has. Innovative energy, building, information, and vehicle technologies are transforming industries across the board, providing us with the ability to do things that haven’t been done before. For example, let’s think about cars. Why do we own cars? For mobility. Innovative technologies provided us with increased convenience, sharing, on-demand access, etc that make alternatives to vehicle transportation more viable appealing.

3. The green economy is not looking optimistic. There is lack of direction and clear leadership. There has yet to be a prevailing theme of urgency. Businesses and people want to know how they fit into the green economy and where the business and personal opportunities are. Everyone is looking for help. The green economy has also moved slowly and has not scaled. Political barriers have discouraged growth and not connected the dots as they should. There also seems to be an appetite for green but not for change. People love change as a noun but not as a verb. Three ingredients that are necessary for change in the business community are (a) policy, (b) technology, and (c) money or funding. It takes committed, passionate people to bring forth this change with strong leadership, movements, and collectiveness.

4. Many small businesses are on the edge of green economy but not at the epicenter. How do we change this? Policy, technology, and money are important factors here. How do we transform sustainability from small local scales, to states, and the nation?

What are my thoughts? I agree a lot of what was said but I think there are some smaller companies and non-profits that have boomed in the industry. Looking forward, I’m interested to see how city environmental programs develop across the US. This is what crosses my mind:

San Francisco has many progressive environmental policies and programs – will they be successful and sustainable in the long-term? Will other cities see these pilot programs as successes and follow the trend? How do we measure success and reduced carbon footprint?

A few notable environmental programs and policies in San Francisco include:

- GoSolarSF residential and business solar incentives (and the California Solar Initiative) have really spurred growth in the solar industry. But what does the future look like as funds dry up and how does it hurt local businesses? For example, the program budget has reached its capacity for this fiscal year ending June 30, 2010 and so only low income residential applications are being accepted. Will new initiatives like GreenFinanceSF serve as a safety-net or alternative to programs like GoSolarSF?

*On a side note the city has a cool map of solar activity and installations: http://www.sf.solarmap.org.

- The Zero Waste program instated mandatory recycling and composting with goals of 75% landfill diversion by 2012 and zero waste by 2020. I think this is a great and ambitious program overall but think it will be difficult to enforce this mandate with all the shared waste collection containers. I hope to see other cities incorporate mandates and goals similar to Zero Waste.

- Other programs I’m keeping my eye on include: PlantSF (permits for sidewalk gardens), Recology’s Artist In Residence (AIR) program, and Pavements to Parks.

How does Bay Area activity fit into the green economy now and how will it shape the future? What about other leading green cities/urban regions – New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Portland, etc?

Filed under: Events on February 25th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Yes! Only a few blocks away from my home, a new urban farm called Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) was officially opened to the public on January 24th, 2010. I’ve been looking to get my hands dirty in a community farm simply to help out and also to gain skills of my own (for use in my backyard). There’s something fulfilling about growing food – putting your mind and sweat into the process and in return gaining nutritious treats. More generally speaking urban farming contributes a lot to a city: community, education, nutrition, exercise, improved air quality, biodiversity, etc.

I went to the HVF ‘Work Party’ last Thursday (February 11th) and learned a little about the process of a sustainable farm. The HVF team was very knowledgeable and many of them come from a strong background in permaculture. Permaculture, the basic theme behind HVF, is the process of designing agriculture systems to mimic nature.

Here’s the bit I learned about the initial steps of creating a nutritious soil at HVF:
i. To begin, cardboard was placed at the foundation of the farming area to kill all plants and weeds below it as well as add nutrition to the soil.
ii. Next mulch was transferred over to the space – this is where I participated. Wheelbarrows, tarps, and, later on, the back of a pickup truck were used to transfer eucalyptus-scented mulch to the farming area.
iii. Then mulch was smoothed into rows on a hilly area at the southeast edge of the site. Each row needs enough space so you could walk through and do work without trampling over spots dedicated to seeds and plants.
iii. Once the mulch is order, next on the to-do list is to plant fava beans and clover. Both of these items will add nitrogen to the soil.
iv… TBD! I’m not sure what happens next but I’m excited to learn more.

HVF will also be offering workshops & classes, and its first course will be on Greenhouse Basics. I heard HVF will eventually take workshops into the backyards of community residents, to show people how to transform the space into edible gardens. I’d love to be involved in something like that.

On another note, San Francisco hosts an established 4.5 acre organic farm in the southeast part of the city called Alemany Farm. I’ve heard great things about this farm and plan on checking it out myself one day.

Expect to see posts in the future about Alemany Farm and perhaps some of my own gardening efforts.

Filed under: Urban Nature on February 16th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Water Conservation Section provides free water-saving devices to city residents so I dropped by its downtown location to pick up the goods: low-flow showerheads, kitchen and bathroom faucet aerators, and toilet flappers. Why not being more efficient? And for free!

The visit: The employee helping me was incredibly nice. I was provided the devices after filling out minimal paperwork and she went through our water usage history, provided feedback, and set up an appointment for an on-site Free Water-Wise Evaluation.

The SF PUC employee pulled up water usage history over the last few years via a new online system that will be available to customers in the future. Our numbers were actually quite good, except for three months of outliers (between 2 and 14 times our usual amount) likely due to leakage. I was informed that ideal usage is 5 units (or 748 gallons) per person over 60 days.

Potential water-savings: I’m really excited to evaluate this in the future. Here is a rundown of what is EXPECTED:
+ Low-flow showerhead: Water flow reduced to 1.5 gallons per minute or less. This could save thousands gallons per year.
+ Kitchen/bathroom aerator: Water flow also reduced to 1.5 gallons per minute or less. In combination, they could potentially reduce usage by 4%.
+ Toilet flapper: Warn out flappers could allow leaks/more water flow into the toilet. Replacing it within two years is ideal. We recently replaced ours so I stored the new device.

Next: I will providing updates about (1) the Water-Wise Evaluation next week and (2) our water usage in the upcoming months.

Filed under: Water on February 13th, 2010 | No Comments »

Welcome to Everyday Environmentalism!

My name is Cyndie and I am simply your average person testing out ways to be more environmentally-friendly in an urban space. I am here to take you through my experiences as I (a) try out little things one can to do to be more resourceful and energy-efficient at home, (b) highlight innovative city environmental programs and the purposes behind them, (c) review related events and conferences, and (d) chat about instances where these topics cross over to the art and music worlds. Occasionally I’ll post about cool infographics/data and funky art and music projects as-is because I enjoy it. I’m excited to have this site up and I look forward to feedback and suggestions!

Here are some broad topics I will cover:
- Environmentalism. Energy usage. Garbage. Renewable energy. Urban planning. Transportation.
– Data. Excel. Facts and figures. Research. Infographics. Creativity. Craftiness.
— Gardening. Fresh food. Cooking. Parks. Sunshine. Hiking. Exercise. San Francisco.
—- Art. Paintings. Photography. Photojournalism. Traveling. Music. Live music. Local music venues.

Filed under: General on February 4th, 2010 | 1 Comment »