I was inspired to start this blog, first by a good friend and food blogger and more recently after celebrating Earth Day (and a birthday) with friends on Friday, April 22. The hosts, who I admire in many ways for their commitment to cycling everywhere (literally EVERYWHERE!!) were decked out in their "Go-green" attire. The mood of the party was light-hearted and fun, but I couldn't help but feel heavy as I read the facts they posted around their apt. that point to American wastefulness and overconsumption. Some that I remembered (after the glass of hard cider were):-Landfills are the largest source of anthropgenic methane emissions and methane is 20times more effecitve at trapping greenhouse gasses than CO2.
-Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 lbs of organic garbage that can be composted.
- Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour. Most (90%) of them are thrown away
-If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year!
-Approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.
I already compost, recycle, use reusable shopping bags, drive a prius and bicycle to work when possible, but I know there is still so much more I can do to "tread more lightly" on the earth. I made a resolution this year to generally reduce my consumption of "things" and when I do buy/consume try to buy locally produced foods and goods. Of my resolutions, these were definitely two of the most ambitious. I wasn't so much worried about the food as I was the other things. The firs thing that came to mind was "locally produced fabrics??" I assumed there may be a few textile mills in NC, but to limit myself to just those! Of course I was super psyched to learn that there are many textile mills in NC. Still need to research which ones have the most envr. friendly practices (will share these later). I see this blog as an opportunity to share what I learn about living more sustainably with others who are interested in doing the same.
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