When Earth Day Was Every Day and Everyone Walked

The Big K, Greenwich, NY, James Howard Kunstler, 2010

Ever since March, my calendar began filling up with Earth Day activities. Lectures, demonstrations, mixers and, of course, the big 2012 Austin Earth Day Festival at the Historic Browning Hangar at Mueller. I was all set to go on Sunday, but as I was having coffee that morning in my kitchen, with the French doors swung wide open letting in the cool backyard breeze, I thought about a few things.

The radio was tuned to KMFA, one of my favorite stations because the commercials are generally non-intrusive, classical music keeps me and my dogs sane, and the station has innovative programming so you are not stuck listening to the same old Mozart, Beethoven and Bach over and over.

A commercial came on announcing a store that was locally and independently owned, selling 100 percent cotton and organic clothing. (Would have been better if they were sustainable and fair-trade as well!) Not too long ago – maybe some time before World War II – these qualities weren’t luxuries, or options for the eco-conscious. These were part of normal everyday life.

Read the rest of the article in the Austin Post.

Pantene Nature Fusion vs. Ancient Ayurvedic

The Ecoloxica blog spun off my original blog, Chronicles of Undercover Mexican Girl, when I realized I was frequently writing about my adventures in sustainable living, whether it was growing my own organic garden, eating locally, reducing household and office waste, using products that had a low impact on the environment and a positive impact on my health, and generally learning how to be more resourceful. It was also during this time that I began learning how fellow bloggers who focused on a particular niche were often invited to review products, so I was honored when I was contacted to review Pantene's new Nature Fusion collection...just in time for Earth Day 2012!

Pantene uses natural, renewable resources in its product packaging to help reduce its environmental footprint. The Pantene Nature Fusion collection, which combines Pro-V science with naturally-derived Cassia in a more sustainable bottle, is the first hair care brand to use renewable, sugarcane-based plastic in its product packaging.

Lately, the first thing I do when I evaluate a personal care product is to read the label and look for the following ingredients: sodium laureth sulfate and "fragrance." The toxicity of both of these ingredients is debatable and somewhat controversial. Sodium laureth sulfate, or sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES), is a detergent and surfactant found in many personal care products such as soaps, shampoos, and toothpaste - it's basically what creates the foaminess.

Some products containing SLES have been found to also contain low levels of 1,4-dioxane, with the recommendation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that these levels be monitored. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies 1,4-dioxane to be a probable human carcinogen at concentrations significantly higher than those found in commercial products. So what does this mean? It means that even if SLES is found in products like Pantene's Nature Fusion collection, the levels are probably too low to cause any health damage.

At any rate, I decided to give Nature Fusion a try. While I'm a geeky environmentalist, I'm still a girl at heart, and because my hair is extremely thick and frizzy, I always enjoy trying hair products that will smooth out my hair, making it look and feel silky. Although my hair did not remotely resemble the television commercial models' long, perfect hair, after using Nature Fusion shampoo and conditioner - without any blow drying - my hair did feel incredibly soft. Shortly after I washed my hair, I went to have lunch with a Latina blogger friend. Without mentioning to her that I had tried a new hair product, she commented that I smelled as if I'd walked out of a natural herbal, beauty store.

But many dedicated environmentalists, including me, choose not to take a chance and opt instead for products that do not contain any SLES whatsoever. One online resource for locating these types of products is the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep® Cosmetics Database. Because I'm also a fanatic of using locally manufactured products, I've developed an affinity for the Ancient Ayurvedic shampoos sold at Austin's Herb Bar, which use a pure herbal formula, contain no sodium lauryl sulfate, fragrance, sulfites, or artificial colors, and are vegan and have not been tested on animals.

Another ingredient that I avoid is the ever vague "fragrance." The presence of fragrance is usually an indicator of phthalates, which are not only used to soften plastic, but are also one of the oily substances used in cosmetics, perfumes, and many beauty products. Phthalates are labeled on common household products as "fragrance." If you want to learn more about phthalates and plastic, read my article reviewing Bag It, the documentary.

With all that said, not every single personal care product is absolutely perfect. Ancient Ayurvedic products still come in a regular plastic container. The largest size comes in an 8-oz. container, and it doesn't foam up like regular shampoo, so you have to use it very sparingly (otherwise you will be going through lots of plastic bottles). Mine lasts about four to six months, if I alternate with other shampoos, and I only shampoo my hair every 2 or 3 days. (Shampooing your hair every day causes damage anyway - although there is nothing wrong with rinsing it with plain water  on a daily basis, unless your local water is harsh with minerals and chemicals.) Also, it's significantly more expensive. The 8-oz bottle of Ancient Ayurvedic is $20.

According to The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), plastics make up more than 12% of the municipal solid waste stream in landfills in the United States, a dramatic increase from less than 1% five decades ago. The largest category of plastics waste are found in containers and packaging such as soft drink bottles and shampoo bottles, and only 8% of the total plastic waste generated in 2010 was recovered for recycling.

The use of sugarcane-derived plastic in Pantene's new Nature Fusion packaging is one step towards reducing its environmental footprint. The old Nature Fusion bottle used 100% petroleum-based plastic. The new bottles use 59% plant-based plastic plus 41% petroleum-based plastic. Sugarcane-derived plastic is effectively chemically identical to traditional plastic. According to Pantene, the only way to differentiate it is through carbon-dating.

NATURE FUSION'S SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION PROCESS:

Sugarcane-derived plastic has a positive carbon footprint, meaning that it reduces the CO2 in the atmosphere by using as much as, or more, than it releases.

The facilities that make the sugarcane ethanol operate almost exclusively on renewable energy that comes from the sugarcane by-products.

Sugarcane-derived plastic uses less fossil fuels and has a lower potential to cause global warming*:

It uses less of the planet’s non-renewable resources than traditional petroleum-based (HDPE) plastic

Its production process uses over 70% less fossil fuels than traditional petroleum-based (HDPE) plastic

Its production process releases over 170% less greenhouse gases than traditional petroleum-based (HDPE) plastic

*When compared ton per ton (or gram per gram) to petroleum-based plastic.

With all these facts, the choice is now yours. Which shampoo will you choose?

in.gredients Plans Nation's First No-Waste Grocery Store

Urban Patchwork Farm Plot (courtesy of in.gredients)

Every day, packaging makes up more than one-third of the 700,000 tons of garbage placed in American landfills. This summer, an Austin grocery store aims to rethink the packaging part of the equation. in.gredients will open on the corner of Manor Road and Walnut Avenue in East Austin as the first package-free and zero waste grocery store in the United States.

While most of us are familiar with the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” in.gredients founders the Lane brothers (Joseph, Christian and Patrick), Chris Pepe and Brian Nunnery, felt that precycling was the way to go. Precycling is the practice avoiding items that will generate waste in the first place, and it is much more energy efficient than recycling.

Read the rest of the article in the Austin Post.

Deep Green Resistance: Going Beyond a Sustainable Lifestyle

As a teenager, I considered myself globally conscious, following my mom’s advice to recycle for the sake of future generations, and donating to the World Wildlife Federation so I could get my cool set of stickers. In college, I joined Model United Nations and took a course on Environmental Policy, and I learned about how First World countries were helping Third World countries become agriculturally self-sufficient. I read Lester Brown’s books on saving the planet and dealing with the earth’s overpopulation.

After living in Austin for thirteen years, I’ve amped up my sustainable lifestyle. Instead of simply recycling, I try to reuse. Instead of buying a hybrid car (that I can’t afford anyway), I drive a 1983 Mercedes-Benz diesel that I hope one day to run on used cooking oil. When it breaks down I walk, bike or take the bus. Instead of buying misleadingly labeled organic packaged food from the corporate-owned supermarkets, I buy sustainably and locally grown meat, dairy and produce from the farmers markets and CSAs. I conserve electricity, water and gas at my house as much possible.

But is this enough to save the planet? Read the rest in my original article published in the Austin Post's Green Scene.

Courtesy of Stephanie McMillan's Code Green

Don't Just Recycle...Upcycle!

ZeroLandfill Austin

Many who work in design and construction businesses find themselves creating a staggering amount of waste from expired samples or unused building materials, which inevitably make their way to the dump.

ZeroLandfill collects these materials and makes them available to local artists, teachers and students who can "upcycle" what would have been garbage into arts and crafts projects.

Started in Ohio in 2006, ZeroLandfill project sites have spread to more than a dozen locations all over the United States. Since then, this national collective has repurposed over 500,000 pounds of materials back into local communities and is looking at 2012 as the year they will hit one million pounds.


Read the rest of the article in the Austin Post.

Taking Farmers Markets to a New Level – The Rise of the CSA

Ever since the fall of 2010, I’ve been shopping down the food chain – buying my food closer and closer to the source. Like most Americans, I started out buying meat and produce from grocery stores like H-E-B (whatever happened to be on sale) and supplementing it with bulk packaged food from Costco or Sam’s Club.

Then I decided I wanted to eat healthier, regardless of the price tag. So I started shopping at Central Market and Whole Foods. I bought all USDA organic meat, fruit and vegetables, and instead of buying twin-packaged giant cereal boxes of Special K, I bought smaller-sized single boxes of Kashi cereal (also owned by the Kellogg Company). Much of my fruit still came from faraway places such as Chile and New Zealand, and although my meat was labeled "organic," that term is loosely and complexly defined by the U.S Department of Agriculture.

Read the rest of this article in the Austin Post.

Greetings from 5-Mile Farms, a hyper-local CSA in Austin, Texas

Lessons from the Dirt

After buying most of our food at the Sustainable Food Center’s Farmers’ Market in Sunset Valley every Saturday morning since October 2010, we were inspired to take “eating local” one step further. Why not eat right from our own backyard? Last spring, we started our first full-blown vegetable garden. In the past, I had grown herbs and native perennials, most of which had the inherent capacity to grow wild with very little water and tending. We had big plans for this next one.

Start of overly ambitious vegetable garden, Spring 2011

We built a 2 x 7 raised garden bed with square foot plots, and we dusted off the six terra cotta pots we’d been storing in the garage. We hauled in sacks of pure organic dirt and compost from The Natural Gardener. By reading their info sheet on effective planting combinations and asking a ton of questions, we decided to get the following seeds: two kinds of carrot, potato, two kinds of chard, corn, melon, two kinds of radish, and bush bean. We also bought various seedlings: two kinds of lettuce, two kinds of pepper, four kinds of tomato, two kinds of lettuce, and two kinds of strawberry.

After reading the directions on the back of the seed packets, we determined that the instructions were meant for much larger plots of land and that we had been too ambitious, both in the quantity and variety of seed. We did the math in our head, liberally scattered the seeds, and wished for good things to grow. Even though one of the experienced vegetable farmers at The Natural Gardener warned us that we “weren’t doing a good job unless we killed a few things,” we were resolved to grow bountiful crops of everything that would not only feed us, but maybe even feed our neighbors and friends, should the end of the world (or the demise of the American dollar) happen upon us.

One of five strawberries harvested, Spring 2011

We built a frame over the garden bed and the pots, and we covered them all with bird netting to keep the cardinals and blue jays away. We carefully sheltered them under a sheet during the recent freezes that snuck back when we were absolutely sure spring was in full season. We watered them once, sometimes twice a day, and hand-picked the bugs off the leaves to avoid using any harmful chemicals. We propped up the lazy plants and spoke kindly to them to give them encouragement.

But we forgot one thing. That life is not perfect, even if you do all the right things and follow all the rules. Learning to garden successfully, just like playing a concerto or running a marathon, takes a lot of time and patience. And as we’d been cautioned, we needed to be willing to fail and make notes from our mistakes.

Measly, stringy carrots, Spring 2011

Because we had planted so many carrot and radish seeds too close together, they resulted in a bunch of scrawny roots when we harvested them. We were too eager to try our potatoes because the instructions said they’d be ready after 60 days, so we dug out one of the plants only to get pecan-sized tubers. The tomatoes and peppers did well because each plant had its own giant pot with plenty of space to take root. The chards didn’t do so badly either – we’d been more frugal with scattering their seed so the plants did not crowd each other out. And close to 90 days after planting them, we dug up another crop of potatoes with much better results since we’d given them more time to grow.

Last fall, we decided to be less ambitious. We narrowed down our crops to chard, kale, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, and carrots. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Maybe the dirt was thirsty and couldn't do much for us, after the historical 10-month drought. But then the rains came early this year, and it rained, and rained, and rained more than we'd seen in a long time.

Carrots, chard, and the "accidental" lettuce, Spring 2012

A bit late in the season, all our fall vegetables have finally come to fruition. Although we lost the kale to the aphids, the cabbage to the caterpillars, and the spinach just never grew, we have more chards than we can eat ourselves, and they're fleshy and savory. Our carrots and broccoli didn't yield much, but they were the most delicious I've ever had, crispy, juicy and sweet. And then, as a complete surprise, we got a massive crop of what we call the "accidental lettuce" - butter head and red sail lettuce from last spring that had re-seeded itself.

From our second attempt at a vegetable garden, we've had enough lettuce to share entire bags of pickings with friends and neighbors. We still can't feed the world, but we're one step closer. And imagine if we all had backyard gardens - just imagine how many people we could feed. All it takes is dirt, water, sun, and a lot of patience, dedication, and love.

Plenty of lettuce to share with friends and neighbors, Spring 2012