Finding alternatives to single-use plastics, reducing our waste, and reducing our environmental footprint.
Have you ever seen a cyclist biking through the city in the dead of winter when there's snow on the ground and it's freezing cold?
If you're from Ottawa, that might have been JP Torunski, an avid cyclist who also lives a zero waste lifestyle.
Deep in the Amazon jungle, scientists have found soil called terra preta, thousands of years old, made from human waste that's still fertile for growing crops today! Everything ancient civilizations used went into a midden heap after they were done with it - pottery, fish bones, food scraps, human waste - and then once it was burned, the midden created such valuable soil that it's still thriving at least 3,000 years later.
What a different waste management system the ancients had, compared to our toxic landfills and incinerators of modern times. But, the ancients never had to deal with plastic.
Biochar is charcoal made from organic matter instead of charcoal from fossil fuels, and it has some surprisingly valuable uses. Tom Miles is the Executive Director of U.S. Biochar Initiative, Chair of International BioChar Initiative, and the president of TR Miles Technical Consultants Inc., and he joins the show from Portland to talk all about biochar and healthy soils.
If you're interested in building your own healthy soil this episode is for you!
Ken Burns' Dust Bowl documentary on PBS
Jocelyn Moroneaux has a bachelors in business and a masters in applied environmental science and has used both to create Waste Not Farms, a closed loop company collecting food scraps from offices in Toronto. Jocelyn brings the food scraps back to her farm north of Toronto and feeds all of it to her worms. The worms, in turn, eat the food scraps and excrete worm castings, a highly viable growing medium.
Laura and Jocelyn discuss the worm business, detrimental farming techniques, microbes in soil, tilling vs. no tilling, ancient growing knowledge, and how to have a healthy garden soil.
If you're interested in buying some of Jocelyn's Soil Booster, you can use the discount code Jocelyn gave us zerowastepodcast for 20% off soil booster bags and soil-aid tea bags.
Don’t Skip The Dishes… EAT The Dishes!
Marissa Bergeron lives in Vancouver and creates vegan soups and hot chocolate in cups we can eat afterwards.
These aren’t just any cups and bowls – soups are served in delicious bread cups people just can’t get enough of.
Plastic waste is a big problem that spans our entire planet – from Mt. Everest down to Marianas Trench, and everywhere in between. Marissa offers an alternative that happens to be delicious, vegan, and good for us and the planet.
MUSIC CREDITS: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/About P&G’s Approach to Citizenship.
Do you want to help the environment but aren't quite sure what to do? Have you thought about starting a Zero Waste Group in your local community? Kristina Mattson is a nurse, mom, wife, and co-founder of the group Zero Waste Saint Paul Minnesota and she's been successful in passing packaging ordinance in her city, engaging with councillors, and hosting popular meetups for the zero waste community.
Music Credits:
Johnny Cash. (1964). Big River. Sony Entertainment.
Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/About P&G’s Approach to Citizenship.
Larissa has spent extensive time advocating and engaging government, regional and rural communities, lecturing at universities and teaching at schools on the economic, social, health and environmental benefits of renewable fuels. She has led environmental education programs in Queensland schools, devised sustainability plans and environmental auditing for schools and companies nationally.
Glowing Green Australia provides services for clients in environmental auditing, advisory for development approval applications, waste management plans, carbon impact assessments, sustainability plans, ecological reporting and facilitation and embedding environmental education programs into schools.
Larissa has represented Queensland and Australia speaking on a numerous global conference stages from United Nations COP level, through to significant domestic speaking roles in Australia from public community forums to national conferences all within her respective knowledge themes.
As Managing Director and Founder of the Queensland Renewable Fuels Association (QRFA), and the Senior Environment Consultant and Director of Glowing Green Australia, Larissa is evidently committed to delivering outcomes for industry and offers her drive to succeed, her practical and theoretical knowledge and experience to her industries.
Filmmaker Julia Barnes joins the ZWC for another episode to talk about her new upcoming film, Bright Green Lies.
Her last film, Sea of Life, took Julia around the world to point out the mass extinctions currently happening in our oceans. In her new film, Julia exposes the myths that solar and wind will save us from climate change.
Justine Burt is the author of The Great Pivot: Creating Meaningful Work to Build a Sustainable Future and leads an environmental sustainability firm called Appraccel in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a climate optimist who focuses on implementing energy efficiency, alternative transportation, and waste prevention projects to reduce an organization’s environmental impact.
The Great Pivot describes 30 sustainability projects in five areas – advanced energy communities, low-carbon mobility, the circular economy, food waste reduction, and nature restoration – that will create millions of meaningful jobs.
Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the eighth and final episode of the series.
Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
This episode features Suzanne Lindsay Walker, Director of Sustainability North America at Brambles CHEP, a company that provides over 590 million pallets, crates and containers. The company specializes in the sharing and reuse of those containers, while taking part in a few other sustainable initiatives too.
Zero Waste World is an innovative approach that brings all different kinds of companies together to eliminate physical waste, eradicate empty transport miles and cut out process inefficiencies.
The Zero Waste World initiative is a working collaboration of multi-company coalitions and open innovation events to create smarter and more sustainable supply chains. There's a dual challenge of businesses needing to meet growing consumer demand faster, easier and cheaper, while simultaneously shrinking the environmental impact of their operations.
Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the seventh episode of the series.
Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
From the World Wildlife Fund, Sheila Bonini, Senior Vice President of Private Sector Engagement, Erin Simon Director of Sustainability R&D, and Linda Walker Director of Responsible Forestry and Trade sat down with Laura at the Sustainable Brands conference 2019 in Detroit to talk about their plastics initiative.
ReSource: Plastic is a newly launched WWF activation hub to help companies realize their plastic waste commitments and turn those commitments into meaningful and measurable action. According to the WWF, as few as 100 companies can prevent 10 million metric tons of plastic waste!
The WWF’s vision: No plastic in nature by 2030 – but that doesn’t mean completely getting rid of plastic.
At the same time, Linda Walker is focusing on trade offs – ensuring we aren’t creating new problems when solving for one (i.e. solving for plastics with unintentional consequences for forests).
Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the sixth episode of the series.
Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/About P&G’s Approach to Citizenship
