"sustainable" news and stories

The meal is done: Dishes hit the sink; plastic bottles and tin cans go into the recycling bin. But the scraps from dinner and cooking prep -- egg shells, garlic skins, vegetable stems and cheese rinds? A few counties in California have come up with a simple, smart solution for utilizing those, too.

"You put a small bin on your kitchen counter, divert all your organic waste into it, and then just dump it in the larger bin outside when it's full. The rest is taken care of," says Sarah Rich, co-founder of Foodprint Project, a traveling advocacy group and educational panel on urban agricultural. The larger bin is picked up at the end of the week during regular garbage collection. "You don't need to be a gardener yourself in order to make good use of your food scraps," she says. Foodprint Project was formed early this year to evaluate the viability and potential of local food in urban areas. So far, they've hosted panels in New York City and Toronto, and this coming January, they're headed for Los Angeles.

If you look at a landfill, most of the waste is food -- it'll decompose, sure, but then what? Where does all that nutrient-rich soil go? That was the thinking behind the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority's new Food Scrap Recycling Program, which started in September 2007 and is expanding this month to California's Walnut Creek area, along with existing areas: Lafayette, Orinda, and Moraga in Contra Costa County.

You've seen the "dirty dozen" list for produce -- fruits and vegetables that are laden with pesticides, making it worth the cost of buying organic. But did you know there's also a dirty dozen list for fish? Food & Water Watch -- a non-profit group that works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced -- publishes an annual "do not eat" list.

Why is it noteworthy? As Barry Estabrook, writer at The Atlantic, explains in a recent article, "Seafood guides tend to focus either on species that should be avoided for reasons related to environmental health (overfishing) or species that should be avoided for reasons related to human health (their flesh is contaminated with chemicals). Food and Water Watch publishes a useful guide that takes both concerns into account."

The below fish fail at least two of their criteria for safe and sustainable seafood. The five criteria are: contaminants; status of the stock; catch method or farming method; economic/social/cultural significance (a community predominantly fishes for this species and depends on it); and key species (it's a primary food source for other wildlife or does it create critical habitat for other wildlife).

• Imported catfish
• Caviar from wild-caught sturgeon
• Atlantic cod
• American eel
• Atlantic flounder, sole, and halibut
• Imported king crab
• Imported shrimp
• Farmed salmon
• Chilean seabass
• Shark
• Atlantic bluefin tuna

The good news? Food & Water Watch offers a downloadable wallet-size guide to "smart" seafood, and also has resources on the site to help you find sustainable alternatives based on your fish tastes (mild, thick and flavorful, etc.).

We can't help but wonder if Guido Rahr, president of the Wild Salmon Center in Portland, Ore., thought he was smack in the middle of ABC's hidden camera series, "What Would You Do?"

Rahr spotted Atlantic bluefin tuna on the menu at Sinju Restaurant's Pearl District location while having lunch, and proceeded to do exactly what groups like Seafood Watch, Environmental Defense Fund or Blue Ocean Institute encourage: he politely spoke up. And as a result, got himself banned from the restaurant. That's right, according to Rahr, they said he was no longer welcome at Sinju and would refuse to serve him.

In an email dated August 16, to Mike Chen of Sinju's management team, Rahr writes:

"I have been a regular customer of Sinju for years and the Wild Salmon Center has given Sinju quite a bit of business. So when I saw Atlantic Bluefin tuna on the menu, I felt it was important for Sinju to know that this is not just another declining species, but perhaps the most high profile endangered fish species on earth."

Rahr had been eating at Sinju for nearly a decade. The headquarters for his environmental group is located in the Ecotrust Natural Capital Center, across the street from the restaurant, and is home to several other conservation and sustainable development groups who share similar concerns about endangered species.

Adding to the (occasional) guilt of finishing off a greasy, cheese-laden pizza is that awkwardly large, hard-to-trash pizza box -- do you bend it? Rip it into pieces? Leave it for someone else to deal with in the morning?

Whole Foods will be breaking this vicious cycle with the newly designed GreenBox, made to sustainably package, serve and store their take-out brick-oven pizza. Announced today by makers ECOvention, LLC, the boxes are manufactured from 100% recycled cardboard and are said to replace the need for paper plates (for serving), as well as plastic wrap or tin foil (for storage). The company realized that a standard 14-inch pizza box could breakdown into smaller reusable compartments, which could then be recycled more easily.

What's their secret? Clever perforation.

For you eaters who avoid farm-raised salmon and instead seek out wild-caught varieties, your job just got a little more complicated.

According to The Oregonian, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program has assigned a red "avoid" recommendation to wild-caught California and Oregon salmon, based on continued low levels of salmon returning to the Sacramento River. While that advice may seem clear cut, the change in recommendations can be confusing.

The avoid rating for Oregon salmon applies only to fish caught south of Cape Falcon. It does not apply to the entire state of Oregon. That's because there are two different salmon stocks being fished on the Pacific coast -- those that spawn in the Sacramento River, where stock levels have been troubled in recent years; and salmon fished from the Columbia River, thought to have moderately healthy population levels.