Welcome to Change The World Wednesday (#CTWW)!
Wondering how to live greener? You've come to the right place. Each week we challenge ourselves to try a new task ... or "amp up" something we're already doing. We raise our awareness, learn from each other and develop Eco-friendly skills which will improve our lives and protect our planet. Doing so together gives us power ... the power to Change The World!
If this is your first visit, please click
HERE for information and a complete list of all the challenges we've taken on so far.
This post contains great information and I encourage you to read through it at your leisure ... however, if you are short on time, you might find the following quick links helpful:
Before we get started:
I'd like to congratulate Mrs. Green on a brilliant Zero Waste Week event! She worked long hours to bring us tips, ideas and even recipes designed to eliminate food waste. Take a bow, Mrs. Green!
(standing applause with cheers of "Bravo" from the audience) You did a fabulous job and made a huge, worldwide impact. I, for one, look forward to next year and another wonderful event!
Last week we "saved" overripe bananas from landing in the trash bin. One participant got very creative and turned them into a body scrub. Wow! In my house, bananas never go to waste. When they become too ripe to enjoy, we simply toss them into the freezer for use, later, in smoothies and baking. Did you know that mashed bananas can be used in place of oil in baking? Yep ... perfect for any recipes which lend themselves to a banana flavor.
The second part of our challenge asked that we clean out the refrigerator, organizing it such that foods which are close to "expiring" are moved to the front where we'll have a better opportunity to use them. There were forgotten items lurking in the dark recesses of my fridge. Some needed tossing out but more than just a few were usable. It's an activity which we'll be repeating often!
The Honor Society are those people who help us spread the "green" word by writing an article about our challenges and/or leaving pertinent comments.
EcoGrrl has this challenge "down":
"1) Bananas when they get soft/dark are perfect for banana bread and smoothies! As far as banana peels, if it's not composted, they can be buried below rose bushes as they're great soil fertilizer! 2) I don't have enough food in my fridge to have to clean it out. The more whole foods I eat, and the simpler I live, the less that I have that requires refrigeration. Almond milk, regularly-used condiments, and produce (which I prep ASAP and put in little glass containers so they always get used) are all I've got in my fridge these days :) "
Eco Thrifty Living has been working hard, all week, to reduce food waste. In
I've decided to give it away! she talks about her lessons learned and came to a conclusion which will help others. Be sure to check out her other posts in the series ... she offers a lot of information.
Argentum Vulgaris gave us a full account of his waste. Most of it went onto the compost pile instead of in the trash bin. Did a special birthday event derail his efforts? Find out in
Change the World Wednesday – 4th Sep where AV also talks about using bananas with brown spots and refrigerator hygiene.
In
Zero Waste Week #CTWW Amber made an interesting discovery about food waste in her house. It isn't about what gets wasted ... it's about who does the wasting. How many of you can relate to her situation?
Brenna shared CTWW in the
Change The World Paper #ecotalk. Quite a number of your posts got a nice mention! Was yours one of them?
The Flora Foster Daily gave CTWW a headline spot. Other interesting articles include one about getting a good night's sleep and one about a Silicon Valley tycoon who’s paying young people to skip college.
Lois only had 3 wasted food items last week ... but even these items went to a compost pile instead of the trash. She recently acquired an appliance which allowed her to successfully meet this week's challenge. It wouldn't have been possible a couple of weeks ago. Can you guess what she got? Read more at
Change the World Wednesday, All About Food.
Petunia GreenBeans gave CTWW a headline spot in
Tweets for Good. I found a fascinating article entitled
The Playbook on How to Become an Agent of Innovation and one about wildfires and climate change.
McBride’s Organic Farm Daily mentioned CTWW. I also found a recipe for a gluten-free zucchini bread and an articled entitled
What’s killing our bees? The answer is complicated.
Tammy Curry mentioned CTWW in
Sustainable Education Initiative. Other interesting content includes posts about fig beetles, a cooler which keeps beer cold without ice, and the possibility of seeing water footprint labels on consumer goods.
Alicia shared some wonderful ideas for bananas:
"We use lots of bananas and when they start to get to ripe we make banana bread, banana pudding made with almond and coconut milks and then freeze the rest. We make "green drinks" everyday and I just juice the greens but my husband likes his with a half of banana mixed in. I chop the bananas into chunks and freeze them in small containers. It makes it easy to drop a few into the blender for the smoothies. Our four year old grandson loves the ice cream that you can make by just putting frozen bananas in the food processor and processing until it is smooth and creamy.So I always like keeping some on hand for that.We compost the peels also. We already rotate the items in the fridge but because of this challenge I see I need to get the freezer organized. I am going to rotate the foods by the date they were frozen."
Earth Source Services shared our challenge in
Sunflowers & Edibles. One of your articles was also included in this paper ... was it yours?
Lisa wrote
Zero Waste Week. She did some serious research and found a couple of unique things to do with overripe bananas. Want a hint? One use involves Monarch Butterflies.
Our Twitter friends joined the conversation and shared the following:
From @HerbGir1972
- A Positive Attitude Moves Ideas Toward An Advantageous Outcome. #DoSomething #Good
- If you can make one person smile in a days time, you've done good. (Imagine if everyone tried this) #CTWW #Simplicity #HealingAttitude
- We grow our own (food), lessening gas emissions from trips to the store, &
Omitting loads of unhealthy chemicals on & in our food
- If we must ride we try to do all errands in one trip, as much as possible
- We live about 25 minutes from anything so not driving is really not an option, but we lessen it as much as possible
- We collect rainwater as well for pet watering, and plant watering.
- Most Organic stuffs can be composted/vermiposted into usable soil amendments or brew a compost tea.
From @myzerowaste
- When you're in a hurry, do you hack more off the veggies than you should when you trim them asks @smallftprints #zerowasteweek
- "Procrastination, is rewarded with blue mold" My fave #zerowasteweek quote to date from @smallftprints!
- Bread ends are food processed, dried, toasted & frozen for tasty crumbs in @smallftprints household #zerowasteweek
From @pinkladyapril
- I've slipped a bit recently due to being ill. Now is the time to get back on track by cleaning out the fridge! #ctww
From @ladyjcmuses
- This is a must! It's on my list for this week. :)
From @officialcwerner
- My #CTWW I love this one! Bought green onions last week. I used the tops and put the bulbs in water to root and Viola pic.twitter.com/C3xfNGNddJ
- They have been planted for three days and already sprouting new tops! #CTWW pic.twitter.com/T00W1KggMq
- I wanted to update on the growth of the green onion experiment. This is another 3 days of growth #ctww pic.twitter.com/DrD5SODfVz
The #CTWW Gang are those folks who tweet our challenges using the hashtag #CTWW. If you're a Twitter member, I recommend following them ... they share great things. Let's meet them:
Thanks, everyone! If you wrote an article, I
Stumbled,
Tweeted,
Facebooked and posted it on
Google +. You can help spread the "green" word by using the share features located below this post.
This Week's Challenge:
Quite some time ago, our friend Joanne (aka @givetreegifts on Twitter) shared a post about Eco-Friendly Hair Removal. Sounds like a challenge to me! Here you go ...
This week, green your hair removal routine. If you can, simply don't shave ... that's the most Eco-friendly option. If furry body parts aren't your thing, consider body sugaring or use environmentally safe shaving equipment and non-toxic shaving lotion. Avoid disposable razors and lotions in canisters. Joanne's recommended reading, which includes several tips, can be found
HERE. For a discussion on razors, check out my post entitled
The "Best" Shave.
Are you up for this challenge? Let's make hair removal safe for us ... and the earth!
Until next time ...
WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ... ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!
