For the month of May, I told myself (and all of you) that I would avoid meat unless it was ethically and locally raised. I ate some super delicious, organic local sausages from a friend's farm. But I did eat normal meat twice, somewhat accidentally. Once, I went to someone's house for a barbecue, and it would have been rude to refuse meat. I also thought that May only had 30 days, so at midnight on the 30th, I had an amazing sausage, thinking that I had just finished my challenge. I realized the next day that it was actually May 31st. So I didn't quite make it the whole month without factory farmed meat, but I was fairly close. I've been trying to figure out what my next challenge is, and I decided on it last night: No high fructose corn syrup! Why did I choose this? It's summer, which to me means Tim Horton's ice caps, cold soda, popsicles, and anything else cool and sugary. However, I've been researching more about the impact that systemic pesticides that are used on corn have on bees. My own bees died over the winter, seemingly from colony collapse disorder. Although colony collapse seemed like a mystery for a few years, the scientific evidence now points to neonicotinoids, a type of pesticides that is used on 99% of corn. Bees can be exposed to this when they get corn pollen, or when the water droplets catch the pesticides. The pesticide has sublethal effects, but over time it can weaken and kill them, leaving basically no trace that the pesticide was the cause. I believe the corn grown on Mac Campus, at McGill where I had my bees, poisoned my bees. So I've been compiling the scientific literature about how this pesticide on the corn has been killing bees. I just installed two new colonies of bees at my cottage. As I was reading the scientific articles, I thought - how can I possibly support products made from corn, when I have been so upset and frustrated that this corn killed my bees, and pollinators in general?
So that's when I decided- I can't eat high fructose corn syrup.
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It's been a little crazy here in Montreal in the past few months. Personally, the feeling of craziness started in March with the Anti Police Brutality march, which culminated a few blocks away from my apartment. Next was the start of the tuition hike protests, which celebrated the 100th day of protesting on Tuesday. On my walk to work, it became really common to see smashed bank windows, extra traffic, spontaneous groups of people shouting, and busses of policemen zooming by with the sirens on. Since I work at three English universities, it was all people talked (mostly debated) about. It has been interesting to get one perspective at work, and completely another from my family and friends, and a third perspective from the media. No matter my thoughts on the tuition issue, it's obvious to me that it is growing into a bigger issue: should we accept the norm, or fight for what we believe in? The older people I've talked to seem to say "suck it up, stop whining." and the younger or more open-minded (is that the word I'm looking for?) people seem to say "it doesn't have to be like this, but it will be like this if no one speaks out."
I haven't been too involved personally with the tuition hike activities, but I've found it really inspiring to see people speaking out for what they believe is right. A few weeks ago, the federal budget got passed, with scary implications. The government is budgeting $8 million on auditing charities like environmental groups. It will completely change the Environmental Assessment Act, so that projects like the Enbridge pipeline could get passed much more easily. There will be less emphasis on public consultations, so that politicians can pass things or issue permits behind closed doors. For a better explanation, see here: http://blackoutspeakout.ca/about.php In a time when we need MORE transparency, MORE public consultations, BETTER regulations, LESS power of lobby groups, this is ridiculous. The government is getting more power to pass projects that certain companies (cough cough, oil) want, and gives less opportunities for environmental groups or the public to speak out about it. So people are speaking out. And blacking out. On June 4th, organizations and bloggers will be blacking out their website, to represent the silence that the budget will entail. So I'll be blacking out, and speaking out. Two days ago, before meeting up with a friend, I stopped into a pizza place to grab supper. (don't worry, I don't normally eat pizza for dinner). Choices for pizza: cheese, pepperoni, veggie, lots of meat. I knew that I should pick cheese, or veggies with no meat, but I went with pepperoni. This happens to me pretty much every time I go to a restaurant. And every time, I feel guilty about it, but I never eat meat at home, so I always see it as a rare treat. I'm tired of feeling bad about it, and I know I should do better. New challenge: Factory Farm Meatless May. I can eat hunted, ethically raised local and organic meat, but no conventional, factory farm meat for the whole month of May. I have to admit something embarrassing: I LOVE the taste of processed meats. I rarely eat a steak or a hamburger, but I could probably eat a hot dog every day. I know, I know: hotdogs, saussages, bacon, lunch meat...these are disgusting. But they taste amazing, and occasionally I indulge at restaurants. I'm not really a vegetarian (I think in moderation, it's good to eat hunted or ethical, organic, local meat is okay) and I eat meat at a restaurant maybe once every week or two. At home, I'm a veg stir fry or pasta salad kind of girl. It's silly that I only eat meat at restaurants - if I'm going to purchase meat, shouldn't it be the kind of meat that I want to support, not from a factory farm? I kind of rationalize it by saying that I don't eat meat in the other 85 meals in the month, so 1 chicken quesadilla, 2 ham sandwiches, 1 hotdog, and 1 steak in a month isn't that bad. Lame excuse. I had a really good experience with the Zero Waste Challenge for the month of March. My friends and family knew that I was doing it, my blog readers (...crickets chirping) knew that I was doing it, and I even got some random comments that people thought it was a good idea or that they were inspired to cut down on their garbage too. I already do most of the things environmentalists are "supposed" to do: eat organic and local, reduce packaging, turn down the heat, take a short shower, walk or take public transportation everywhere. So how can I keep raising the bar, especially without banning everything suddenly and making myself seem like an eco-nut? (Actually, I may have already reached that distinction.) Bring on the month-long challenges. Two documentaries that I've seen lately have made me think that this kind of project can get people talking, and show others that another way is possible: All of my garbage for the month of March For the month of March, I took the Zero Waste Challenge at Sustainable Concordia. Every single thing that I could not compost or recycle for the entire month, I kept in a little bag. Before it started, I vowed that I wouldn't have any garbage. But I realized on the first day that this would be way harder than I thought. I did end up with garbage, unfortunately, although definitely less than I would have made if I wasn't participating in the challenge. So, how much garbage did I end up creating for the entire month of March? A half a pound, baby! Some of it was just random bits of plastic, like the part you peel off of a new margarine container. Some of it was embarrassing, like an individual creamer from tea at a restaurant, or just how many bags of chips I caved and ate during the month. And some of it seemed inevitable, like when my toothpaste tube ran out on the third week. One sort of surprising thing that happened to me during the month is that I noticed garbage WAY more than I normally do. Walking down the street, I felt like I was aware of every single disposable coffee cup in someone's hand, every piece of litter around me. At a restaurant, I had to either eat ALL of my food, or tuck the rinds, teabags, or raw tomatoes (ew. I can try to eat them sometimes, but I'm not a fan.) into a napkin to compost later. At parties, I had to make sure that my beer caps were recycled, and that I didn't eat any candies or anything individually packaged. I was hyper-aware of everything everyone else ate, all the paper towels that ended up in the trash can instead of getting composted, all of the apple peels that get thrown out because composting really isn't available to most people, unless they do it at home.
Another, weirder thing happened to me. I became oddly attached to my trash. Keep in mind, I carried my bag of trash with me pretty much everywhere I went. At work, it was in my desk or in my backpack. At home, it was pinned up on the fridge. I kept some of the grosser trash (tofu packaging, sandwich wrappers) in the freezer so they didn't get rancid, but the rest of it came with me everywhere. But I felt like I knew really well what was in that bag at all times, and even now, almost a month later, I feel like I could make a list of everything in the bag. A coworker and I were discussing our trash, and we joked that we were going to to feel kind of sad to throw our trash away. I'm sure it sounds pretty weird, since most of the time we only keep trash for only a few seconds before throwing it in the garbage can. But bring it everywhere for a month, and suddenly it's not someone else's problem- it's yours. I'm going to watch a documentary called The Clean Bin Project on Tuesday at Green Drinks downtown. It looks pretty cool; it's about this couple who have a competition for one year of who can produce the least waste. It'll be playing on April 24th at 6pm in the Thomson House basement on the McGill campus. In the environmental science class that I teach, one of the assignments is for the students to calculate their ecological footprint, write a response on it, and choose one action to change for the next two weeks. I always love reading these assignments! It's later in the semester, so students have learned more or less where their food and energy comes from, a little about global water issues, and are generally more aware about environmental issues than when they started. Some students are surprised, or horrified even, when they learn that if everyone lived the way they did, we would need four or six earths. Some aren't - they assumed that their lifestyle was pretty average, and by now we've learned in class that Americans generally produce more waste and use more oil per capita than most other countries. For their two week lifestyle change, some students usually choose to go vegetarian (some had always been curious what it would be like, or if they could even do it for so long). Some students decide to take shorter showers (from 30-45 minute showers down to 6 minute showers)...I don't even know how you can take a 45 minute shower. Sometimes students find these actions fairly easy, and feel that they can adopt it somewhat permanently into their life, but I'm sure that many students just take it as an experiment. Either way, this is the best way that I can come up with to challenge the students to try a change to reduce their impact. And for myself? I also do the assignment (but I don't have to do the writeup! The perk of being a teacher). My ecofootprint has very slowly decreased over the past two years, as I've found new ways to use less. For the past assignments, I've stopped using a clothes dryer at home (I installed a pretty sketchy looking clothesline in my room), asked my landlord to turn down the heat (this was not successful, but now we have our own thermostat so I can keep the apartment a chilly 18 all winter long. I have lots of fluffy socks), and joined a community supported agriculture (from Lufa, the amazing Montreal-based rooftop greenhouse). I have to say that joining a CSA probably made the biggest impact, since all winter long I've been eating more in season (I never want to eat another freaking beet or turnip again) and since it's all local and organic, I think I've cut down on my pesticides and transportation. This year, I decided to reduce my water consumption. I had a few goals for my two weeks: 1) put a full bottle in the toilet tank to reduce the amount of water used for flushing every time 2) FINALLY change the low- flow showerhead that I got for my birthday two years ago (I know, I ask for very exciting birthday presents) 3) fix all the damn leaky faucets in my apartment It was pretty easy to put a full water bottle in my toilet tank, once I figured out how to put it in there it without knocking into anything. Surprisingly, my toilet still works totally normally, and I'm sure you can't notice that there's less water used for flushing. Same with the low-flow showerhead. It was hard to unscrew the old showerhead, so I had to convince my brother to come over with some tools to change it. I thought at first that it would be a little unpleasant to shower with less water, but I can't really tell the difference, and it saves tons of water. My last goal was to fix all my leaky faucets myself. I asked for help on this one too, but I could only turn the water off for one of the faucets. I did fix one leak, but I couldn't fix the others. Those will have to wait. In the meantime, I think I'm saving a lot of water with my low-flow showerhead and my home-made low-flush toilet. I don't live a zero-waste lifestyle. It's halfway through the month, and I have definitely made some garbage. I have been bringing my little bag of garbage in my backpack to work every day. There was a joke on one of the first days of the pledge that the little bag of garbage is the bag of SHAME, and let me tell you, it feels like it. Here are my most embarrassing pieces of garbage that I've collected so far: 5) Chip bag. I haven't eaten any chocolate bars, granola bars, gum, or individual candies in two weeks. However, last weekend, my friend Daryn came over. As we had planned for serious chilling out, I made cake, and he brought a big bag of chips and reese pieces. God they were good. But I had to add them to the bag of shame. 4) Empty chocolate chip bag. These lasted a while, since I bought them to make chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine's day. I have to say that they were excellent, and my very not local strawberries were so incredibly delicious dipped in these melted chocolate chips. 3) I could seriously eat vegetarian sushi every day for lunch. The foil of the individual soy sauce containers at Sushi Shop are not recyclable. I have a few of those. 2) Daryn also brought me a lotto ticket. Not only did I not read the instructions and did the game totally wrong, but I didn't win. And I've been carrying it around ever since. 1) Styrofoam take-out container. Man, that thing is shameful. Let me explain. This past week, my friend Stefi and I went out for lunch. I had already explained my no-garbage situation, so we had to pick somewhere that only had real plates and silverware. Of course, I forgot a tupperware that day, but I told myself I would just have to eat everything on my plate to prevent food waste. I didn't take into account how little time I had until my class would resume, so I ended up with a big plate of fries, salad, and a hamburger with 15 minutes to devour it. I had just taught my class about how food in landfills rots due to lack of oxygen, and produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas. So which is worse to sit in a landfill for hundreds of years- a Styrofoam container made from oil, or rotting food that contributes to climate change? I scarfed away, but with only two minutes and half my meal left until I was supposed to get back to teaching, I had to ask Stefi to get a to-go container for me. I hoped that it would come in a clear plastic recyclable container, or an aluminum one with a carboard lid. When I saw her again, I realized with horror what I was stuck with carrying around for the rest of the month: STYROFOAM! I don't mean a little Styrofoam container. I mean a big, spongy, bright white huge container that makes me really wish I had remembered to bring my tupperware to lunch. These past two weeks have definitely been a challenge. But it's kind of funny sometimes, when I notice I've been hoarding snotty tissues or orange rinds at work so I can compost them at home. Or trying to explain to the ladies who work at the bubble tea place that I want a bubble tea with NO straw, because I brought my own and they can't be recycled. You have your own straw? Yes, I brought my own plastic straw. Or the other day, when I went to a lunch meeting. I figured there would be reusable dishes, since it was a pretty environmentally-themed project. Nope. I stared at the food, figuring out which I could eat without a disposable fork without completely embarrassing myself. I snuck out of the meeting with a paper plate so I could compost it at home.
I was working in Quebec City over the weekend, and I brought my own tupperware to the sushi shop before leaving for the bus. Realizing that I forgot my own chopsticks at home, I decided that I probably don't even need chopsticks as long as my hands are clean. People looked at me kind of funny when I ate sushi on the bus out of a tupperware with my hands. I work with some awesome people at Sustainable Concordia who have been working super hard to reduce the waste on Campus. Their goal is to get Concordia to become Zero Waste. This means that all materials are reused, recycled, or composted, and nothing is thrown into the garbage. Honestly, I was pretty skeptical about this idea at first. No garbage? At all? No granola bar wrappers, no water bottles, no coffee cups? But as I've seen how their team is working on it, I think it's something that can become real. The first step to achieving a goal is believing that it can be done. But we have to make some changes to the types of packaging that's created, and all have to make some better choices. Sustainable Concordia has teamed up with the other Montreal universities to create a zero waste pledge. This means that for the month of March, you can pledge to create as little garbage as possible. Everything you use should be reused, recycled, or composted. At the end of the month, everyone can get together and compare how much waste they've created, and tell the manufacturers of the products that their packaging isn't recyclable. The idea is to have the least garbage as possible, and people can bring this bag of garbage around them all the time as a means of talking about this issue. They will also be meeting up to talk about how it's been going for people. Today is only March 3rd, so you can totally still sign up! Check out the facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/zerowastecampusconcordia Two days of garbage I think I've been doing pretty well so far in the first two days, but I has definitely been a challenge. I will definitely have some garbage this month, but I've tried to be super cautious about not making waste. The tricky part started out at 9am on the first day. I chewed a piece of gum on my way to work, and only when it started to taste gross a half hour later did I realize...uh oh. I'm going to have to throw out this piece of gum. I thought at first that I could compost it, so I put it in a piece of toilet paper to save for later. I did a little research afterwards, and found out that you can't compost gum. BAM! Fail at zero waste. Next, I didn't have much for lunch, so I had packed a Lipton cup-a-soup to just add water to. I realized later that not only was the whole thing way expired, but that the packet probably isn't recyclable because it has foil inside. I composted the soup, but had to add the packet to my garbage. Yesterday was day two. I was determined to be better! I was meeting my out-of-town friend Andrew for lunch, so I had to decide a place in advance that wouldn't have any disposable plates. However, when we got to Le Panther Vert on Mackay, there were no empty tables. Uhhh...okay, new plan. Pressed for time before a meeting in a half an hour, I had to make a decision fast. Andrew suggested Boustan, the best schwarma joint in town. I can't say no to Boustan. The trifecta of awesome Unfortunately, Boustan is a place with waxy wrappers (a no), styrofoam plates (definitely a no), and the most delicious garlic potatoes are microwaved in styrofoam bowls (soooo wrong). (but so right). I skipped on the garlic potatoes because of the styrofoam, but the schwarma HAD to come in a wrapper. I realized too late that I should have carried a tupperware on me. As I ate the greasy, super delicious chicken schwarma, I thought about the fact that I was going to carry this greasy wrapper around with me for a month. If I had planned it out better, I could have totally avoided that situation, but I wouldn't have been able to go to Boustan. (Before you think that I'm totally disgusting for toting around a greasy-meat wrapper all month, I washed off the wrapper at home and will put it in the freezer until the end of the month to add to my garbage total.) This is definitely harder than I thought it would be. My goal at the beginning was to have ZERO waste for the whole month. But my first few days have taught me a few things: First: I need to plan my lunches better. I usually eat leftovers from the night before, but I tend to bring a granola bar or a cheese string (yes, my mom buys them for me, yes they have trivia questions about animals on them, and yes I am eight years old). I need to whip up more snacks and quinoa or chickpea salads for lunch that will keep me full the whole day. I should carry a tupperware and cutlery with me if I'm going to eat out, or even in my purse at all times. Second: Before getting something, I need to think about what will happen to it when I'm done. Like the gum: only when I went to throw it away did I realize what would happen to it. I went to the Snow Village in Montreal last night, and I wanted to get a drink. I had to pick a drink off the menu that would come in a glass or recyclable container, which took me about five minutes to figure out. I thought I was doomed when they handed me a beer in a plastic cup instead of a bottle like I asked, but I was psyched when I realized they had plastic recycling. I've been really excited about this challenge, and I think this month will teach me to be much more careful about what I consume. A few weeks ago, I checked on my bees. They were pretty well winterized in styrofoam and geotextiles, so the normal method of tapping on the outside of the hive and putting my ear to see if they were buzzing inside didn't work. We had a workshop to check on the hives at the McGill Apicultural Association, where my hive is located. Someone had a plastic hose there, so I inserted one end of the hose into the entrance of my hive and tapped on the hive. If they're alive, the bees should buzz and you should be able to hear them if you put the other end of the hose to your ear. But I heard nothing. My heart started pounding, and I asked someone else near me to tap again to see if they heard anything with the hose. Still nothing. So I opened the hive. Normally, you can't open the hive during winter, because the cold air will kill them quickly. However, if you think that the bees are in trouble or already dead, it's okay to open it. There were hardly any bees inside the hive. There were full frames of honey, frames of pollen that had been eaten by a mouse, and capped brood. But I could only see five dead adult bees, instead of a buzzing cluster of bees that would normally be there. They were gone. I was hit with colony collapse disorder. At first, I was confused. Where...where were they? My last mental image of my hive looked something like this: But my hive was now definitely dead. There were good honey stores in my frames, and there were lots of capped brood, which probably means that the bees were rapidly dying last fall before the new ones hatched. There was a bit of nosema in my hive, but not much. So the bees just...took off. When I realized what happened, I didn't know how to feel. I was definitely sad, although it seems silly to be so attached to a bunch of six legged winged creatures. But this feeling of love and amazement towards the bees is something that I've heard from every beekeeper. I built them a home. I went out of my way to put them in that home, and I checked on them every other week. I spent hours watching them, making sure that everything was going well in the hive for them, that they had enough food as it fall progressed, that the hive was warm enough in the winter. Through almost no fault of my own, my bees died. From what? People have speculated that colony collapse disorder is because of diseases or parasites, because of cell phones, because of the mismanagement of hives. And I think those things contribute to the problem, for sure. But, I also think it has to do with pesticides: systemic pesticides, neonicotinides. Neonicotinides are a type of pesticides that target the central nervous systems of insects. Certain kinds have been banned in France for a few years because of their link to colony collapse disorder. According to places like the EPA, the causes of CCD are still unknown. However, the scientific literature I've seen, as well as the documentary Vanishing of the Bees has convinced me that systemic pesticides are a huge factor. I was devastated that suddenly, all my bees were gone. Thirteen of the 32 hives at Macdonald Campus were wiped out; not all from CCD, but wiped out. I was angry - why are certain people allowed to use untested chemicals that have turned out to have such horrible side effects? But more than sad, more than angry, I was determined. I felt a steady passion boiling inside of me. I know I have to do something. Something to stop this.
So what do I do? Keep learning about bees, and work hard to gather support to stop agri-business from using such harmful pesticides to bees (and eventually, hopefully, synthetic pesticides in general). I'll start all over again this spring. 1/3 of our diet pollinated is by bees. Maybe next winter, beekeepers won't have to worry about losing our hives because of chemicals. I've been working for Sustainable Concordia as the Sustainable Event Guide Coordinator. There has been a guide for event organizers who want to learn how to put on an event (especially a more eco-friendly one). I'll be working on this sustainable event guide, and putting together a resource section of where to find local and sustainable products and services. Check it out if you're going to be helping to plan an event soon!
I tend to work office jobs, and am equally glued to my computer when I get home. But this article from BBC has publicized that doing two Google searches uses the energy equivalent of using an electric kettle. About 7g of CO2 is used per search. This energy is used by the computer terminal, and the huge data centers that run all around the world to have such fast search results. Also, I thought I would let you know about this interesting book that will be launched on Thursday, January 26th at 7pm at the Concordia Greenhouse. The greenhouse is on the roof of the Henry Hall building on Maisonneuve + Mackay downtown. "The United Nations designated October 31, 2011, as the "Day of 7 Billion," when the global population reached seven billion people. Many environmentalists now argue that overpopulation is the greatest threat to the environment today, but Ian Angus exposes the serious dangers of this argument in his latest book, Too Many People? Population, Immigration and the Environmental Crisis. Join Ian Angus and Yves Engler at the Concordia Greenhouse to celebrate the Montreal book launch of Too Many People? Ian Angus is an ecosocialist, climate justice activist and editor of climateandcapitalism.com Yves Engler is an activist and author of Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Environmental Decay. This event is unfortunately not accessible by wheelchair. For more details email: brett.matthew@yahoo.ca “This excellent book is steadfast in its refutations of the flabby, misogynist and sometimes racist thinking that population growth catastrophists use to peddle their claims.” —Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved. (Space is limited so please come early to get a good spot!)" Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to unglue myself from my computer and read a book...in the dark. A theme that I've been thinking about in the past year is using waste materials to create something new and better. Recycling, but better. Some people call it upcycling. When my girlfriend had a pair of pants that were too ragged to wear, I decided to turn them into a hand bag. I'm definitely not an expert seamstress, but I learned a few things in girl scouts. Normally, you use the top half of the jeans to make a bag, like this. However, these jeans were too ripped up to do that, so I had to think of something else. First, I cut off the waistband to make the strap. Next, I cut off part of the leg, from a little below the knee and flipped it inside out. I sewed the more narrow section closed. It would have been better if I had a sewing machine, but it was okay to do it by hand. Then I turned it right-side out. Lastly, I sewed the strap on and attached two little snaps. You could also use a zipper if you have one. It was a bit time consuming, but not bad for a free little bag. Instead of using wrapping paper for presents this year, you can try using old magazines, posters, or newspaper. You could also re-use gift bags and tissue paper instead of throwing them out. Try it! Happy holidays! |
About ShonaI'm an eco-conscious girl from Montreal, Quebec. I'm currently an adjunct science professor at Champlain College of Vermont (Montreal Campus). I'm interested in any opportunities to expand my experience with grassroots activism, climate change legislation, or environmental education. Archives
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