In a perfect world, we would use everything we have.

David Quilty, founder of The Good Human, recently wrote a story on being an ‘eco-sinner’. He writes: “We drive cars, we eat unsustainable food, we shop at big box stores, we use computers, we watch TV. Many of the eco-sins we commit are unavoidable in the modern world, and as much as I try to live a sustainable life, the fact is that none of us live a truly ‘green’ existence. It’s simply impossible.”

Agreed.

He touches on a lot of good points but there are a number of people counter-acting their so-called eco “sins” with tickets to a proverbial heaven where the pastures are a lot greener. Here are five stories we think stand out when it comes to being less wasteful.

Last week in New York City, EcoSalon had the opportunity to stop by the Textile Arts Center’s Yield Exhibit Making Fashion Without Waste. Is zero-waste something all designers can achieve? Does it simply take a lot of practice, like any art, to improve? We caught up with Yield curator Holly McQuillan to get some answers in EcoSalon at NYFW: Yield’s Zero Waste Exhibit.

Truth: In Britain, the amount of yearly food waste can fill London’s Wembley Stadium. Our very own Brit writer, Mike Sowden, says “We’re so careless with our groceries that we throw away around a third of them each year – at a total cost of $20 billion. Appalling, dreadful and…unreal.” In What Does $20 Billion In Wasted Food Look Like? we look at food waste as a horrific challenge that must be addressed.

Gone are the days of the McMansions representing anything but excessive waste. In their places have blossomed houses of purpose that cater to everything we need them to do and at a fraction of the size. Downsizing is noble and a challenge so we ask what it’s like to consider an even smaller, more drastic downscale. When it comes to tiny living, have we gone too far where our psychological health is being compromised living in such little spaces? In The Incredible Shrinking House, we take a look at the repercussions of little waste from so little a space in the context of mental health.

“Why must everything come in packaging that’s seemingly ready-made for nuclear meltdown?” asks writer Luanne Bradley – and who are the people who are putting our safety after their fears of product theft? In The Packaging of Our Lives, we give you solutions to all your over-packaged problems.

What six lifestyle choices endow the much-celebrated French women with their ageless beauty, trim figures, and je ne sais quoi? Well, it’s true they don’t eat much and when they do, it’s exceptionally good food and drink. They choose versatile and classic pieces for their wardrobes, and they walk, a lot. Waste not, want not – and leave it to the French to look so damn good while doing what they do. In Sex by Numbers: French Women Don’t Get Fat we take a look at these sensibly indulgent femme fatales.

Keep plastic out of the landfill with a clever gift card alternative.

Plastic gift cards: those little irresistible envelope stuffers are everywhere – markets, book shops, warehouse stores. Thousands are being printed up for Father’s Day, alone.

Add that batch to the 1.6 billion cards made and shipped across the country each year, prompting sites like Treehugger to question if these are the new bottled water.  Arguably the most convenient and least creative gift to pick up, this new currency is often coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a known human carcinogen. After being swiped and spent they are usually tossed out, since few recipients are aware of online alternatives or take part in gift card recycling programs aimed at reducing our plastic jungles.

Among the forward-thinking alternatives: GiftRocket, an entirely digital email-based gift card recently launched as a start-up venture by three founders who decided it was time for the redemption process to go digital. You simply go to the site and purchase a customized and personalized gift for a friend, perhaps $50 for the coffee shop in their neighborhood. The recipient is notified of the gesture via email or Facebook. They stroll to the shop for breakfast, click a button on their phone to redeem, et voila, free scones and cappuccinos! The money is instantly transferred to spend as you like.

“A way that we are different is we send out reminder emails to make sure they are used, a feature you would never get with a physical gift card,” explains co-founder Kapil Kale. “At my college graduation, I received so many gift cards they ended up being lost. I’m sure I still have a drawer full of them at home.”

Kale argues going digital curbs the no-brainer physical act of grabbing a card on the run and instead adds some thought to the process, since another cool feature is the giver isn’t limited to businesses enrolled in a gift card program. They can choose any business they like and GiftRocket will manage the money in an escrow account until it is redeemed.

It’s a good way to go, consider just how wasteful some of those printed plastic cards are, such as the iTunes card which can be gifted and downloaded electronically. This way, there is nothing to lose. And nothing to get swiped by a sister or roommate. Best motivator: No wallet filing. It’s hard enough keeping track of those frozen yogurt cards that reward you with a freebie after buying a few dozen you probably don’t need.

Images: Apple; GiftRocket

SeriesEnvironmental cleanup in the wake of Japan’s twin disasters. Part 4 in a special series.

A surreal and compelling mix of headlines (read: Royal weddings, Osama bin Laden) may be dominating this week’s news, but the unfolding events in Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami – compounded further by nuclear plant instability – continue. Among the many significant issues: all that garbage.

Nothing illustrates the growing glut of plastic in the ocean from land-based sources like a natural disaster. All of those bleach bottles, all of those candy wrappers, all ending up somewhere. Whether littered or properly disposed of, it doesn’t actually matter when natural forces manifesting in the ocean overcome the borders of sea and land. And rather than death by a thousands cuts (plastic litter and watershed trash from land), Japan’s tsunami unleashed a vast amount of debris virtually overnight into the Pacific. (To see how the theoretical path of the debris works over time, click on this link to view an animation.)

This figure exhibits the projected pathway of flotsam that entered the ocean after waves hit Japan on March 11, 2011.  The model is based on historical data from drift buoys pinging GPS locations in The North Pacific over several years. Image Credit: Nikolai Maximenko, International Pacific Research Center.

The garbage is coming.

Within about a year, garbage will start hitting Hawaii’s shores and the coast of California within three, before circulating back out again to Hawaii and adding to The North Pacific Garbage Patch where it will circulate in the gyre.

Initially, it is difficult to determine how much we’re talking about, but think of it this way: Imagine taking all the plastic for a couple of miles or more from several cities situated on a coastline, and sucking it into the ocean. Think about taking thousands of grocery stores full of plastic products, all those single-use yogurt cups and half and half containers, lifting them all at once, and throwing them into the ocean. Think about all the dumpsters. The reycling bins. The storage facilities. The freight containers. Interesting, if disheartening, California beach-combing is on the way.

University of Hawaii at Manoa‘s Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner created the model. (Full disclosure: Maximenko advises the non-profit I work for on our gyre expeditions to search for plastic pollution.) Modeling, as a science, is still a very difficult enterprise as so many vectors affect how flotsam will actually travel when at sea. But judging by the vast amounts of debris pulled out to sea by Japan’s tsunami, the ultimate impact will be significant.

Finding remnants of the waste three to five years from now, after it has traveled thousands and thousands of miles at sea, will remind us as a society that although the 24/7 news cycle might forget past tragedies, plastic is forever. And it will remind us of the legacy of our culture. 24/7.

Editor’s note: This is part 4 in a special series on plastic. Read part 3, part 2 and part 1.

Images: Official U.S. Navy photographs

ColumnWhere we’re going, little lady, you won’t need this.

Edward Abbey had his dust and rocks from which to cry; I have my HTML. Today I hone my hypertext on Hammacher Schlemmer, proud purveyor of uselessly clever objects and distraction of last resort from the pressure earaches I always get when the plane’s about to land. One word: Skymall.

Allow me to introduce for posterity the self stirring pot. This is, of course, making the rather bold assumption that we will have posterity springing forth from the kind of stupid sires who invent things like self-stirring pots.

I discovered this marvel of ingenuity not seen since Billy the singing bass by way of Roger Ebert on Twitter. EcoSalon retweeted Ebert, helpfully adding @hammacher. (Only on Twitter will you find a movie critic, a green publication and a manufacturer of wasteful gadgets keeping company.)

The nonstick self-stirring electric pot, with its built-in autonomous spatula and virgin ore, will set you back $99.95 and civilization back a bit more, as noted by perennially snarky Jezebel and Calorie Lab. (Year ago, the latter’s publisher sagely advised a much younger me to pick up the phone before embarking on a product rant, but Scrimscher, you’ll have to forgive me this one. My hands are both too busy stirring.)

Meanwhile on the tweet, one reader, @abbesol, declared it “Lazy!” while another, @rufola, staked out the gray area: “At first glance: bad. But my Mum loves to cook and has bad arthritis, maybe this would help.”

Hammacher’s own defense was charmingly no-means-yes:

Upon further grilling (but not stirring), Hammacher explained that the product is great for those who are busy doing other things when preparing the meal. I thought stirring was part of preparing the meal, or at least a boring chore to entrust to a fourth grader. Once again, I am out of touch with what’s going on in hands.

I’m unfamiliar with the Hammacher demographic but I’m duly impressed by its cohort’s apparent adherence to cooking so many courses simultaneously at least one pot is left to a tragic fate of sink or swirl. Too many cooks in the kitchen? Try too many hands. The EcoSalon audience, by contrast, prefers to stumble along in the beleaguered darkness of doing more than one thing at the same time. And I, your fearless leader, shall stumble, as well as possibly burn, clump, stick and scald right along with you, most likely because I didn’t get off the phone. On the multitasking brink of the twentieth century, and also every century before that since the invention of cookery, we stand firm.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and anything else. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: ginnerobot

Pretty images are like crack. I can’t look away. I can’t stop clicking on page after page, link after link, saving many of them to peek at later, surreptitiously, like something forbidden. The thing is, they kind of are. Because seeing all of these beautiful things on a daily basis – dresses, jewelry, lanterns, pillowcases, even stupid things like paperweights – make me want to collect. To spend. To accumulate. Groan. Am I once again buying things I don’t need?

I blame the internet.

For example, something wonderful arrived in my inbox yesterday: an invitation to join Pinterest. Not only is Pinterest a personal online ‘inspiration wall’, a place to digitally ‘pin up’ things you love, whether items of clothing, pretty hairstyles or simply images that strike a chord – it’s a feast for the eyes. A dangerous one. Take a look and tell me you don’t sigh and ooh and covet.

Having just recently joined Polyvore, the site that lets you arrange items from practically any store on the internet into lovely little ensembles, and inevitably falling into hour after hour (oh man, I really just revealed something about myself there, didn’t I?) of browsing the images created by others, I feel myself wanting. Me, a woman who just sold or donated three-quarters of her possessions to be free of the burden of too much stuff. A woman with a somewhat austere, carefully edited closet of matching items that can be worn in as many seasons as possible.

The last time I brutally culled a dozen blouses, skirts and dresses I told myself that from then on, each individual item I added to my wardrobe would have to earn its place.

But… look at that perfect little black dress… oh, and the way it’s complemented by those vintage mustard-yellow heels… and wouldn’t they both be set off to utter perfection by that eggplant wristlet? A simple pendant of rough violet-hued quartz on a long brass chain would pull it all together… Sigh. Just. Stop. Already.

And then there are all the other sources of sartorial temptation. My browser bookmarks are packed with blogs curated by enviably stylish people, like Kathleen and Hannah and Tamera (whose musings on digitally-induced desire inspired this post). Street style blogs like Lookbook.nu give me all sorts of ideas for possible additions to my closet.

It’s not just clothes. I have folder after folder on my Macbook of beautiful interiors, and get caught up in online shelter mags that make me want to get rid of everything I own and start from scratch with a newly acquired aesthetic that will change again in a few months, thanks to all of these pictures.

Help, I’m drowning in beauty, and I just clicked Add to Cart.

Of course, it’s possible to still feel this nagging sense of want without the internet. For centuries we have walked down main streets in cities all over the world and peered into store windows and wished or perhaps purchased. And we are surrounded by advertisements that are designed to provoke a lust for material things.

But the internet has opened up a whole new world of temptation. It exposes us to objects and styles that we might never have seen otherwise. And it makes it so damn easy to track those things down, to have them in a cardboard box on the doorstep within days.

Does this promote the problem of overconsumption, or pave the way for more considerate purchasing? It certainly has the curious effect of lowering that all-important number on my bank statements. There’s a reason I’ve become a clothes nazi: I’m planning to build and live in a tiny house (a plan that has been delayed but is nonetheless still on). Piles of possessions are out, edited is in.

The solution? Self-control, of course – which is not as easy as it sounds. In this digital age of imagery overload it’s easy to feel unfashionable. Plus, I work online all day, so the exposure never ends.

Temptation is tough. I will still save all of those pretty pictures, if only because I so enjoy looking at them, and because inspiration is a precious thing. But rather than treating it like a buffet of goods beckoning me to buy, buy, buy, I hope I can learn to value them more consciously.

Beyond the smell and decay, landfills are considered modern archeology sites, collections of discarded items that give clues to the lifestyles of those who used them. In fact, Harvard-trained archeologist Bill Rathje recently told the LA Times, “The best time capsule in the world is a landfill.”

But that time capsule has an impact.

The average American produces a little over 4 pounds of trash per day, and although we might be diligent about separating our recyclables, once the garbage truck comes along, to us, our waste is out of sight and out of mind. While we return to the house with an empty garbage can, our waste takes off on a journey for the landfill, where mountains of trash pile up to be pushed around by bulldozers and circled by vultures in the air.

Where does your trash go?

We rounded up a list of the top 10 biggest landfills, just to show the ultimate impact of our everyday waste. According to Waste & Recycling News, these are the biggest landfills, based upon tonnage received in 2007. Here are some interesting facts about these places, including some very uplifting ones (really).

1. Apex, Las Vegas, Nevada. 3,824,814 tons.

America’s largest landfill, Apex, lies just an hour north of Sin City. Storing nearly 50 million tons of rotting trash, Apex is no small operation. Surprisingly enough, things seem to be slowing down. According to General Manager Mark Clinker commercial and residential waste has actually decreased. Maybe there’s still hope?

2. Puente Hills, Whittier, California. 3,756,718 tons.

Taking in a third of Los Angeles County’s trash, Puente Hills is a big player when it comes to waste. But talking about trash doesn’t have the same effect as seeing it. Last year, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), a Culver City-based think tank, sponsored a tour of Puente Hills in an effort to raise awareness about waste. Tickets sold out in minutes. But the landfill doesn’t just process waste. Puente Hills is the largest recycling location in the US, taking more than one million tons per year of recyclable materials.

3. Newton County Landfill Partnership, Brook, Indiana. 2,692,455 tons.

A stone’s throw from Chicago, Newton County Landfill is responsible for taking a large part of the city’s waste. Chicago residents produce about 1 million tons of trash per year.

4. Atlantic Waste, Waverly, Virginia. 2,669,423 tons.

Virginia’s largest landfill, Atlantic Waste is owned by the trash giant, Waste Management. In 2008 the landfill was fined for some 8,000 gallons of leachate – in other words, garbage juice – which spilled into surrounding wetlands.

5. Okeechobee, Okeechobee, Florida. 2,640,000 tons.

Surprisingly enough, visitors to Okeechobee won’t just see piles of trash, they’ll also get a view of local wildlife. Of the 4,150 acres that make up the site, 1,550 have been placed in conservation easement, offering visitors a variety of recreation and conservation related activities.

6. Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, Aurora, Colorado. 2,561,809 tons.

Colorado’s largest landfill, Denver Araphoe Disposal Site accepts around 12,000 tons of waste per day. But some of that trash is going to good use. In September of 2008, DADS launched its waste-to-energy system to convert methane into electricity. In partnership with the City of Denver, the system generates enough power to fuel about 3,000 homes. (Photos are from adjacent landfill site Lowry, which ceased operations in 1990 and is now part of the waste-to-energy system)

7. El Sobrante, Corona, California. 2,173,216 tons.

Another landfill owned by Waste Management, El Sobrante works closely with the Wildlife Habitat Council to manage more than 640 acres for the benefit of 31 different species, two of which are endangered.

8. Rumpke Sanitary, Colerain Township, Ohio. 2,128,165 tons.

Located near Cincinnati, Rumpke Sanitary brings in a lot of trash, but like other landfills, is doing its part to put some of it to good use. The landfill site hosts three methane recovery facilities that have the potential to recover approximately 15 million standard cubic feet of landfill gas daily. In total, the facilities produce enough energy to power 25,000 homes.

9. Frank Bowerman, Irvine, California. 2,059,859 tons.

One of California’s largest landfills, Frank Bowerman also boasts the world’s first landfill gas-to-LNG plant. The plant has the capacity to produce 5,000 gallons of LNG per day, which has about the same environmental benefits as taking about 150,000 vehicles off the road per year.

10. Columbia Ridge, Arlington Oregon. 2,050,602 tons.

Columbia Ridge processes waste from all over the Northwest, serving major cities Portland, OR and Seattle, WA.

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: D’Arcy Norman, Steve Marcus, Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, WM, Google, Farache, EPA, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Craig Ruttle, n6vhf, Eric Mortenson.

How often do you have to empty the trash cans around your home? If you take a trip outside to the dumpster every couple days, it’s time to examine why your garbage bins fill up so quickly. To cut down the amount of waste you send off to the landfill, here’s a list of things you shouldn’t be throwing away.

Water Bottles

Yes, they can be recycled but, with a water filter on your faucet and a reusable thermos, there’s no need for disposable water bottles. Stopping the bottle habit is one of the best things you can personally do for the environment.

Tissue Boxes

When you go to the store to restock your supply, buy refills for the boxes you already have instead. Better yet, switch to a handkerchief.

Paper Napkins

Cloth napkins are a much better choice in all regards. They’re reusable and much more stylish.

Paper Towels

Bar towels are just as effective as their disposable counterparts. Though washing cloth towels year after year may seem counter-intuitive to eco-friendly folks, in the long run it’s much better for the environment than disposables.

Razor Blades

Buy a razor sharpener to make dull blades like new again. (Whoever invented the idea of throwaway shaving razors has a special place in a melting ice cap.)

Counter Wipes

Your counters will gleam all the same when you clean them with a sponge or rag.

Paper Coffee Cups

When you swing by your favorite café for a steaming cup of joe, bring your own reusable cup. Consider purchasing personalized photo mugs for yourself and your loved ones, and spread the eco-friendly inspiration.

Cotton Balls

There’s nothing a disposable cotton ball can do that a washcloth or reusable make-up applicators can’t.

Plastic Utensils

If you’re going on a picnic, bring along a reusable flatware set.

Paper Plates

Laziness is not a sufficient excuse for using paper plates. So, when you throw a big party, suck it up and wash a massive load of dishes instead. Or, our favorite, put the kids to work!

Plastic Shopping Bags

When you go shopping, bring along a reusable tote to carry your purchases. You’ll look more stylish than you would lugging around flimsy old plastic bags, and you’ll make a non-confrontational eco statement, too.

Dryer Sheets

You can easily make your own reusable dryer sheets and kiss the disposable alternative goodbye.

Printer Cartridges

When you run out of ink, refill your printer cartridges at places like Walgreen’s or CVS instead of throwing them away and buying new ones.

Coffee Filters

Replacing disposable coffee filters with one that’s reusable will cut down your amount of daily waste.

Ziploc Bags

To keep food fresh, rinse out empty containers of cottage cheese or yogurt to store leftovers time and time again.

Swiffer Pads

Convenient? Yes. Eco-friendly? Not by a long shot. So, stick to your old-fashioned mop.

Baby Wipes

Considering how many times you have to wipe your baby’s butt every day, the environment would be better off if you used washcloths instead.

Paper Lunch Bags

Pack your lunch in a reusable bag instead of the more traditional paper alternative.

Plastic Hand Soap Dispensers

Invest in a reusable hand soap dispenser. In addition to giving your bathroom a decorative touch, it’s less expensive to refill them with bulk quantities of liquid hand soap.

Disposable Contact Lenses

As long as you take proper care of your contact lenses and clean them in solution every night, substitute disposables with non-disposables. Instead of tossing a pair after a couple weeks, they can last up to a year.

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. This original post can be found here.

Image: L’Enfant Terrible

It seems, the bigger the store, the bigger the carts. SuperTarget, which has introduced fresh grocery products into its offerings, keeps us in the red with enormous carts to contain the bulk items we buy. Box stores know you will also pick up little extras in the aisles along the way, like electronics and kitchen tools. You didn’t even know you needed towels and sneakers until you saw you saw the sale sign and could stuff them in with the toilet paper.

Conversely, Whole Foods and many health food groceries offer the two-tier basket trolleys – developed in the late 1930s – as the best utility for shopping for your fresh items without having to carry the weight.

There is a good argument for sticking to the baskets when you can. Sure, the restriction can be tough when shopping with a baby or child and needing that cart seat, preparing for a party or shopping just one day a week or after a lull and the cupboard is bare.

But on a regular basis, a basket will help you contain your needs, buying less and with with more purpose. Think of yourself at a large buffet and what you could get on a salad plate versus a China platter. Those being mindful of what they consume usually opt for the salad plates. The same principle could aid grocery shopping, as well. That is why some stores, like Shaw’s in Boston, rolled out a large basket on wheels as the ideal compromise for shoppers.

Here are some other benefits of keeping that cart parked at the entrance to the store:

Spending less money

According to the Get Rich Slowly blog, ditching the cart (and even basket at times) is the best policy when shopping with the intention of picking up a few items, a loaf of bread, a container of milk, some fruit and dog good. This way you can avoid impulse purchases and end up saving money on stuff you can live without.

Wasting less food

We’ve learned from food guru Michael Pollan that Americans waste half of their food from failing to buy for one meal at a time – the way our Depression-era grandparents budgeted. EcoSalon food columnist, Vannessa Barrington, also sings the praises of buying fresh and local organic over bulk and to eat what you need in a couple of days, not stocking up for weeks at a time. Even if you are composting, which is better than tossing scraps, you still waste less food by buying small amounts  – which is easier to do without a cart.

Avoiding cart accidents

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission finds some 24,000 children are injured in cart accidents every year, half from the seat in the cart, first introduced as a mother’s aid in 1954, and half from the cart itself (hands getting pinched, etc).  I equate cart driving to road driving, finding in my city by the bay that the bad drivers also are careless with carts, pushing them too fast around corners or hogging the lanes. When put at the helm, my 11-year-old tends to ram the cart into my feet, arguing “you aren’t supposed to stop when you are walking in front of me!!” Lesson: Leave the kids out of the seats, and only let them drive a basket.

Minimizing the waiting in long lines

It’s no coincidence that human cashiers are disappearing from discount grocery stores and replaced by self-check out stations – which we were first exposed to about seven years back. Not paying workers allows the corporations to reap as much profit as possible. Meantime, the lines continue to grow out of control, especially at box stores where carts are loaded up to the max. We pay a price for those discounts in the time we have to wait for service, and it is better to take charge of our consumerism by eliminating carts when possible. That way we can love rather than curse the store we have chosen when we are stuck in a big line and need to be somewhere else.

Images: J. Reed; Luanne BradleyWhole

They’re convenient, cheap and widely perceived as necessary, but products such as frozen meals and bottled water can leave you cold when you think of the waste. We are spending way too much manufacturing products we either don’t need or shouldn’t buy, because of the damage they do or the ingredients they contain. An estimated 56% of all energy we produce in the U.S. is wasted during production and also chalked up to poor technology and design.

Here are a few to products to reconsider:

1. Bottled Water

According to the Pacific Institute, the production, packaging and delivering of a liter of bottled water consumes between 1,100 and 2,000 times more energy than treating and transporting the same amount of tap water. Scientists conducting the research found that making those plastic bottles alone worldwide uses 50 million barrels of oil annually – which could supply the total demand for oil in the U.S. for more than two days. Meeting the demand as a whole in the country requires energy equal to between 32 million and 54 million barrels of oil (and quenching needs worldwide is three times that amount). Most tap water is safe to drink unless you have health problems, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

2. Synthetic Fabrics

Producing clean organic Merino wool in New Zealand takes far less energy than the synthetic alternatives that are hugely popular in modern garments because of the cheaper factory assembly and retail price points.  According to the Merino Life Cycle Assessment project, yielding a kilogram of wool tops takes 46 megajoules (MJ) of energy which involves the farming and shearing of sheep, sorting, blending and scouring the wool and shipping the top (the ribbon of wool from the combing machine) to Shanghai. Meanwhile, synthetics from fossil fuels such as nylon sucks five times as much energy to make a similar fabric; acrylic takes 3.8 times as much energy and polyester 2.7 times as much.  Analysts also find cotton and viscose (from wood pulp) take more energy as well to be spun into fabrics. Cotton is closer to wool in terms of efficiency but it leaves a heavier footprint overall because it requires more water, fertilizer and pesticides to produce.

3. Short Lived Cell Phones

Yep, new styles are introduced all of the time and appeal strongly to text-addict teens drawn to colors, bells and whistles. The EPA tells us if we recycled the 130 million or cell phones tossed every year, we would have enough energy to power more than 24,000 homes annually. Currently, only 10% of the phones are recycled.  Making and processing of the phones pollutes air and water and adds greatly to greenhouse emissions, and for every one million recycled, we could recover an estimated 75 pounds of gold, 772 pounds of silver, 33 pounds of palladium, and 35, 274 pounds of copper.

4. Cardboard Moving Boxes

At a time when new, green alternatives are becoming widely available, you have to wonder why we’re still stuck on making single-use cardboard moving boxes which expend energy to make and waste shameful amounts to break down and recycle – hence the massive amounts of the boxes in our landfills. Making one ton of cardboard uses some 17 trees, 79 gallons of oil, 7,000 gallons of water and 42,00 kilowatts of energy. This is a case where plastic makes more sense as long as it is reusable and made from recycled materials – as with new reusable alternatives like Recopack and the Karmaboxx.

5. Frozen Foods

The frozen foods industry argues it is highly sustainable and buying frozen peas and whatnot means fewer trips to the market which saves on gas. But critics argue most of the foods are unhealthy (often high in sodium and fat calories) and the massive energy to make, box and ship the “convenience” foods to supermarkets is only the beginning. The real chill factor is the energy supermarkets waste with their refrigeration systems. Research shows markets spend more than 50% of their energy costs keeping food and drinks cold for us, a large percentage in open front or open top units to make products more attractive. Can we live without frozen, including the good stuff like Amy’s pizza? The truth is, the healthiest foods are fresh ones we make ourselves. True, steaming on the stove or slow cooking in a crockpot uses energy too, but nearly not as much as the frozen option, and you can store it in an Energy Star appliance in your own home.

Images: Hieropenen; Dospaz; Rich 115; Rutlo; Compujeremey; Shimmergreen.

In the U.S. we waste about 25 percent of all food produced. In California alone, food is the largest source of waste, and overall U.S. food production accounts for nearly 300 million barrels of oil per year. You do the math: wasted food equals more dependence on fossil fuels, which means talking about cutting that dependence and taking a serious look at what and how much we stock our pantries.

When we talk about reducing our dependence on oil, thinking about how much we drive and cutting our consumption of single-use plastics are often the first on the item of tangible things we can do to make a difference. But food is a crucial component of our oil-based economy and talking about food waste is just as important as talking about driving more energy efficient vehicles; another link in the vastly interconnected web of ways that our everyday lives are connected to oil.

So how do we waste less? Eat consciously and seek out programs that are committed to providing local food and dealing with the issue of waste. Not Far From the Tree in Toronto is an excellent example of a community effort to harvest local, urban fruit that would otherwise go to waste. The residential fruit-picking program sends volunteers out to harvest the fruit from people who otherwise wouldn’t. One third of the bounty goes to the fruit tree owners, another third goes to the volunteers for their work, and the final third is distributed – by pedal power of course! – to local community organizations who can put it to good use.

Dealing with the produced goods sector, Food Finders in Long Beach, California works to rescue food from local grocery stores, bakeries restaurants and markets and distributes it to missions and shelters, highlighting the important role that food plays in social justice. Urban Gleaners in Oregon has a similar purpose, and fighting hunger is in turn ensuring that our food resources are put to good use without going to waste.

Want to learn more about food waste and what you can do about it? Check out Wasted Food, an excellent blog maintained by author Jonathan Bloom. And here are six useful tips to help you re-think the way you shop for food.

At the end of the day, we foodies can have a significant impact on changing how we think about food consumption and its link to our own oil dependence: making better food and less of it is immediately a step in the right direction.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

Image: lyzadanger