If you live in an apartment building or have a shaded yard, growing some of your own food might seem nearly impossible. However, there might be a great solution – joining a community garden. These shared spaces are a simple solution to promote local food production and food security while fostering relationships. Community gardens are maintained collectively by their members. […]
Old-school environmentalists, with their emphasis on function over form, have a certain aesthetic that can read as virtue-signaling – or worse, frumpy – outside of the environmental movement. There is an inherent benefit in buying less, but you can care about the environment without being crunchy. As sustainability starts to go mainstream, it’s getting easier to help save the planet […]
The personal care products aisle at the store is super confusing for most green-minded shoppers. Making your own personal care products is a great way to sidestep this issue. It is surprisingly simple and delightfully fun. Many of the products on the shelves labeled “organic” or “natural” are filled with synthetic ingredients, some of which are harmful. Reading the ingredient […]
Mom used to make the most fantastic pizza for birthdays and holidays in this old beat-up flat pan. I have so many memories of wonderful festive meals that are attached to this old pizza pan. It taught me to share years later. When Mom passed, my brother Dominick, who was an excellent cook, inherited the pan along with other bulky […]
I don’t think I was bad at making donations to environmental charities, but it did feel like something was lacking. I built PennyLoafer to help fill this gap. Despite our best intentions, a lot of things get in the way of our charitable giving. Maybe we don’t know where to start, or we don’t have time to do the research. […]
Even if you are not one of the 30 to 50 million people in the United States who are lactose intolerant, you may, like myself and over a million others, suffer from an allergy to one of the proteins found in milk, such as casein or whey. For the allergic, it means we can’t consume any milk, cheese, ice cream, […]
From an environmental standpoint, the fashion industry is wearing a very bad look. Globally, 40 million tons of textiles are sent to landfills or incinerated every year and the fashion industry is responsible for over 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions. There are a lot of ways to make your wardrobe sustainable, but eventually, you’ll have to dispose of some old […]
Vegan diets have been praised for their variety of benefits, like lower mortality rates and less stress on the environment. The vegetables, legumes, and grains that compose vegan diets use less land and water to cultivate than animal products. And they produce less waste and greenhouse gasses than raising livestock does. In fact, a 2017 study in the journal Climatic […]
The sharing economy has grown significantly in recent years with everything from ride-sharing and bike-sharing programs to community tool libraries cropping up across the country. Participants in this new economy choose to buy less and consequently produce less waste, while at the same time engaging with their communities. Libraries are a centuries-old example of the sharing economy, but since 2009, […]
Becoming vegan is one of the most impactful things an American can do to reduce their environmental footprint, because meat, especially beef, is so carbon-intensive. Many highly processed and luxury items like wine and chocolate generate emissions comparable to some meats. However, for those who are not ready to give up their glass of wine or eliminate all animal products […]