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Cooking Oil Recycling NYC
Are you seeking a reliable restaurant oil recycling near me? At Food Preparation Oil Recycling New York City, we aim to oil collection and cooking oil recycling methods and extensive waste administration according to our clients' needs. We give made use of cooking oil recycling, oil collection option, and trustworthy and extensive waste administration, for all sorts of food establishments in New York and Brooklyn.
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Regarding United States
New York Hood Cleansing began with a solitary emphasis- to establish a reliable oil collection and cooking oil recycling service to the locals of New York. We proudly serve hundreds of restaurants proprietors in New York, Brooklyn, and nearby communities.
Our mission is to give budget friendly and exceptional cooking oil recycling service in the locations we serve. We offer restaurant proprietors and food producers with personalized remedies efficient in minimizing expenses and improving their earnings margins. As soon as you pick to work with us, you'll understand what it resembles to have a company that respects your company as much as you do.
What sets us in addition to our fellow cooking oil recycling companies is our dependability. Sustainability empowers our development.
Our Solutions
· Made Use Of Food Preparation Oil Collection and Recycling Solution
Food Preparation Oil Recycling New York City supplies reputable cooking oil recycling in New York, Brooklyn, and various other nearby locations. We collect and reuse all sort of made use of cooking oil and restaurant oils like vegetable oil, fish oil, chicken fat, pork fat, and bacon oil. While some people see it as a waste, we attempt to recoup lasting worth from this source in an environmentally-safe manner. The majority of the businesses do not understand just how to reuse the cooking oil they utilize in their procedures. We intend to repair that by giving company establishments with top of the line oil containers.
· Oil Catch Cleansing
Our oil catch cleaning supplies the best means to determine, clean, and evacuate waste, completely protecting against any type of new concerns from occurring. We arrange a site check out to service the contaminated oil catch and ask a couple of inquiries to establish the pumping timetable that will certainly fit your needs. Oil catch cleaning is vital to keep oil traps in food service establishments successfully. Most of the times, neighborhood state law requires a regular oil catch cleaning frequency depending upon variables such as:
· Size of the oil catch · The determined thickness of the oil and sludge · Sort of foodservice establishment · The volume of food created · Seats capability · Amount of wastewater generating components
We offer budget friendly, reputable, and adaptable organizing choices to fulfill the needs of the foodservice market. We specialize in regular oil catch cleaning and 24/7 emergency services.
· Kitchen Area Hood Cleansing
If you are a restaurant owner, you ought to understand that restaurant hood cleaning is an outright requirement. Among the best defenses versus fire dangers is the consistent maintenance of your kitchen area hood system. According to NFPA, one in 3 fires in the United States results from excess oil buildup, so it's crucial to carry out regular restaurant hood cleaning. Some of the benefits of kitchen area hood cleaning are boosted health and wellness criteria, decreased danger of fire, much better ventilation for smoke and smell removal, and greater energy cost savings in the long run.
Why should you Choose United States?
· We are a fully certified and guaranteed company for your peace of mind and protection. · We have the largest and most well-kept fleet in New York. · We give automated organizing. · We give exceptional record keeping, so you do not need to pay fines. · We have the best feedback time in business. · We deal with all locations of New York, Brooklyn, and a lot more. · We offer competitive prices for edible oil. · We offer professional and reputable service. · We give a no-obligation quote over the phone.
Cooking Oil Recycling NYC reuses 100% of the oil and oil we collect, so you will certainly feel good about contributing to the health and wellness of our earth. Provide us a call now and allow us assist you in your oil recycling needs. Cooking Oil Recycling NYC supplies full facility-management remedies.
Cooking Oil Recycling NYC 469 Clinton Ave #46 Brooklyn, NY 11238 (917) 201-7326 https://www.newyorkhoodcleaning.net/cooking-oil-recycling-nyc.html
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Anything but Granite! How Homeowners Really Feel About Their Kitchen Countertops
YinYang/iStock
I know my crumb-colored granite countertops are unfashionable, but I’ll defend them to the end of time. Their speckled appearance hides fingerprints and flakes of food, and I don’t have to be vigilant about wiping down my countertops every single time I cook. I prep, and I move on. No one sees those stray bits of mushroom, shallot, or granola until approximately 11:30 a.m., when the light from the window hits the counters at just the right angle. Then the crumbs stand out in stark, shameful relief. But until then, I’m off the hook.
But while I’m perfectly content with my granite countertops, others see them as the ugly ducklings of the design world.
“I find granite hideous,” says Jenn Cole, a designer from Brooklyn, NY. “I don’t find the patterns that are typical to granite very pleasing. They remind me of those weird, heavily varnished wood clocks and coffee tables from the ’70s.”
In fact, people hate granite so much, there’s an acronym for their attitude: ABG, or “Anything but granite.” So if you’re redoing your kitchen and on the hunt for ABG, here are some popular countertop alternatives—and honest opinions from homeowners who have them in their own kitchens.
Quartz
Photo by SSC Countertops
There’s no getting around it: People are passionate about quartz.
“We recently traded black granite inherited from the prior owner to quartz, and I’m so happy with it!” says Bettina Elias Siegel, a writer in Houston. She didn’t like how dark the granite made her kitchen look, but quartz turned that around.
“I love the super clean, bright look, and it stands up to even the worst stains, like red wine and rust,” she says.
So what is quartz? It’s a natural stone crushed with pigments and polymer resins and cured to create the ultimate gleaming, easy-care surface.
“White quartz countertops are great because they’re super durable and don’t share the weakness of natural stone,” says Taylor Spellman, interior designer, stager, and co-host of the Bravo television show “Yours Mine or Ours.”
“A natural stone is porous and won’t stand up to a lot of stains—like red wine—which is a deal breaker for me,” he says.
One of the most popular types of quartz is Caesarstone.
“Caesarstone all the way,” Brooklyn food writer Matt Gross insists. “It looks nice, is heat-resistant, and doesn’t need regular treatment. It’s a pretty countertop for lazy people.”
Most quartz countertops cost $50 to $80 per square foot before installation, according to HomeAdvisor.
Soapstone
Photo by Buckminster Green LLC
For Larissa Phillips, a farm owner in upstate New York, soapstone is an A-plus surface for the kitchen. You can place hot pans directly from the oven on the counter, and it’s flat enough for rolling out pie dough. She also loves the way it looks.
“It scratches easily, but it’s not really an issue. I just had to train the kids not to cut directly on it,” she says.
Soapstone does require a bit of maintenance and needs to be oiled every now and then to really look its best.
Soapstone can set you back about $70 to $120 per square foot before installation, according to HomeAdvisor.
PaperStone
Photo by Brennan + Company Architects
PaperStone is one of the most eco-friendly countertop options out there. It’s created with recycled papers and a non-petroleum resin, making it a good option for homeowners concerned with having a green home with LEED certification.
Shelley Rogers, a documentary filmmaker in Florida, loves her PaperStone counters because they are heat- and stain-resistant, nonporous, and warmer to the touch than quartz or marble.
The cost of PaperStone varies depending on the color and size you choose, but you can generally buy it for $50 to $80 per square foot.
Marble
Photo by Saint Clair Kitchen & Home If you have an unlimited budget and enjoy the finer things in life, be sure to check out marble countertops. Compared with other surfaces, they’re a splurge at $50 to $120 per square foot. They’re also high-maintenance and not very scratch- or impact-resistant. But some people, like Amy Blankstein of Queens, NY, take pride in the way marble wears with use over time.
“It’s pretty and I love it,” she says. “I’m not overly uptight about keeping it pristine, so it’s fairly easy to take care of.”
A lax attitude like hers seems to be key, otherwise you might drive yourself crazy trying to prevent stains and chips.
“I just try to wipe up acids as soon as possible,” Blankstein says.
The post Anything but Granite! How Homeowners Really Feel About Their Kitchen Countertops appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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Our mission is to provide budget-friendly and also excellent food preparation oil recycling service in the locations we offer. We provide restaurant proprietors and also food producers with personalized options efficient in decreasing expenses and also boosting their earnings margins. Once you pick to deal with us, you'll recognize what it is like to have a business that appreciates your company as much as you do.
Cooking Oil Recycling NYC 469 Clinton Ave #46 Brooklyn, NY 11238 (917) 201-7326 https://www.newyorkhoodcleaning.net/cooking-oil-recycling-nyc.html
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Adam Richman’s Tips for Hosting an Epic Football-Viewing Feast
TV personality, cook, and author Adam Richman has wolfed down a 7-pound burrito, violently spicy suicide wings, and a towering 12-patty cheeseburger on the hit Travel Channel show “Man v Food,” which he hosted from 2008 to 2012.
But Richman has posed as more than a glutton for our entertainment before that time and since then. And our football parties can benefit.The Brooklyn-born graduate of Emory University and the Yale School of Drama possesses the skills, talent, and charm that enabled to do other projects since then — such as NBC’s food competition show “Food Fighters” in 2014. Richman has authored America the Edible by Rodale Publishing in 2011, and Straight-Up Tasty by Clarkson Potter in 2015.
From this last book of Richman’s, we pulled two recipes that will make your tastebuds cheer as you watch the game with your friends and family this football season. But you need more in your game plan than those two decadent dishes. Passionate about food and entertaining in his personal life as well as professional career, it’s no surprise Richman is expert enough to give us a bunch of winning pointers to up our party-hosting game.
Remember, it’s not just about the food (or the game! Yes, we said it). When people come your home to watch a football game, it’s a gathering at the end of the day, he says. “You can’t lose sight that while it may not be a hearth — it’s a flickering box with a bunch of guys smashing each other on the grid iron — you still have to be the hostess with the mostess,” Richman says.
1. Know your crowd.
Angie’s List/iStock
Plan according to the vibe you expect. You could have a crowd of calm, civilized, married couples or a bunch of jersey-clad bros, pacing, betting and talking smack.
For the calm crowd, you can have a potluck-buffet-style table so guests can go in the kitchen to fill their plates. But you still should have something for snacking in front of the TV. You can do a little more food that requires a fork and knife, or save that for half time. “You can ask more from your viewing experience than most people do,” Richman says, who once brought his grandma’s sweet and sour meatballs to a football-focused potluck. Pasta salad is another good idea.
For the rowdy crowd, focus more on finger food and communal dishes. Use disposable plates, utensils, and plastic table cloths. Set out an additional trash can within arm’s reach of the coffee table and couch. “People are more protective of their seat when they watch the Super Bowl,” so they’ll be more reluctant to leave their viewing spot, Richman says. “I’ve seen a friend demonstrate a tackle while holding wings with a dollop of blue cheese dip.” With that in mind, have easy-to-eat dishes for the guys who stand and pace the whole time, as well food for the guys who sit and relax and socialize during the game.
2. Make everything obvious and easy to eat.
Getty
Put everything out, including your disposable utensils nestled in Solo cups. You can get a big sandwich loaf and pre-cut the slices, marking them with toothpicks. But remember to make a big sign that says “Remove toothpicks.” It’s not as obvious as you think when all your attention is zeroed in on the action onscreen. “I’ve had to tell guys that,” Richman says, laughing.
Remember, people are multi-tasking. Most people are watching the screen and gesticulating wildly while eating and drinking. “There’s something to be said for acknowledging that ahead of time,” Richman says, and creating for your guests “the ability to absentmindedly pop something in your mouth while watching television and have a flavor bomb.” If you make a pizza at home, slice the crust so people can just grab it and eat. Do that with everything.
3. Put more thought into the drink situation.
Getty
“There’s this classic idea of beer and wings, and that’s great,” he says. But do more. “I’ll mix in with the alcoholic beverages some nonalcoholic beverages so the guy who doesn’t want to drink doesn’t have to go somewhere else and feel ostracized.”
Richman recommends a cool bourbon drink in a pitcher, a peach sangria, or spiked Arnold Palmer (lemonade-tea mix). “For people who want an alcoholic option that’s not beer, they appreciate it,” he says. “Again, know your crowd. If you know guys are into craft beers, you’ll drink it from bottles, or maybe they want a case of Coronas.”
Tie in the drinks with who’s playing on the field. “It’s a chance to customize the experience to that particular game,” Richman says. If it’s Cincinnati versus ‘Nola, consider offering Fat Head beer v. Abita beer or pitcher of Hurricanes.
4. Prevent a mess with good strategy.
Getty/Burlingham
You need to seriously consider the logistics of the event. Be a true entertainer: Let people know where the bathroom is, what towels to use, and where the trash is. Make everything self-explanatory. If it’s snowy or wet out, have a clear, designated place for people to take their shoes off so they’re not stepping on wet stuff the whole time.
Create a specific spot to go for beverages that’s not the fridge. Use a metal tub or cooler filled with ice and beer. If you’re doing the tub or cooler in the living room, spread out a vinyl, disposable tablecloth, or lawn-leaf bag underneath to protect the floor. “When people reach in this ice thing to get a drink, they’re bound to drip, and ice shifts and melts,” Richman says. “It’s a great way to avoid spillage ahead of time and prevent people from slipping or ruining your floors.”
Use a completely separate container, lined with a bag, for ice. A red Solo cup can be the ice scoop, and “literally take a black Sharpie and write on it ‘ice scoop’ because you don’t want people digging with their hands where ever they’ve been been, scratching and all,” Richman says. Or use a kids’s sand-sculpting shovel.
You probably want to recycle the bottles and cans. Richman lines one trash can with blue liner for recycling bottles and cans. “I always make it clear this is where the bottles go,” he says. It’s important to make this bin easy to reach from the TV viewing area, because you don’t want everyone to leave empty glass bottles on the edge of the coffee table where it could break with all the commotion, kids, and pets.
Provide antibacterial soap or hand sanitizer. “I’m not above getting a Purell and putting it on the edge of the table next to the Solo cups full of silverware,” Richman says. If people are going to reach in to get chips from the communal bowl, they’re more likely to wash their hands beforehand if it’s right there.
As for the bathroom, make sure you have backup toilet tissue and provide air freshener to keep your guests from being embarrassed or compromised.
5. Elevate the classics.
Tangy horseradish roast beef sliders on Hawaiian sweet rolls. Image: Getty/Msaandy033
A big sandwich doesn’t have to be a cold-cut submarine like you get at corporate affairs. Your massive sandwich be a salmon steak BLT. Make wings, but flavor them with lemon pepper and Champagne. “You can play with elevated flavor profiles on the most mundane dishes,” he says. Place four cheeses in your grilled cheese, make your own tortilla chips for nachos, and top your pizza with Fontina cheese, speck, arugula, and truffle oil.
If you’re doing a buffet, create pasta dishes studded with big flavor, such as sausage and shrimp. The bulk of the dish is pasta, so you can feed a crowd with less expense.
Set up a charcuterie plate, with good local bread, cheeses, and olives. “People can find the combinations they like. It’s a customizable experience,” Richman says. “You can put it out in the first quarter, and it’ll still be good hours later; the meat might sweat a bit but it won’t go bad by the fourth quarter.”
People love dips and intense, crunchy foods when they’re anxious. That’s partly why fried food works so well as sports bar fare. Cut chicken breast into tenders, bread them, fry them, and serve with honey mustard and ranch dressing.
People love spring rolls and egg rolls, but you can be even more creative, combining those with everyone’s love of Southern barbecue: Crunchy, pulled pork egg rolls with dipping sauce.
“In the winter and at these games, you want something hearty and stick-to-your-ribs,” he says. Richman made both the recipes below for his friends, and they’re included in his Straight-Up Tasty cookbook.
Creamy Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Sandwich Dumplings
Chowhound
White Wonder Bread, waxy slices of American cheese, and comfort food classics don’t conjure images of sophistication, and they’re not supposed to anyway. But this technique that puts a twist on this simple American comfort meal is impressive — and still easy to do. Get our Creamy Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Sandwich Dumplings recipe.
Baked Gouda with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
Chowhound
Serve an “ooey-gooey melted cheese and a nice crust” with a technique that’s not hard at all, Richman says. But it produces a wow-worthy result that will have guests digging in with appreciation. The creamy Gouda with the fresh herbs and acidic bite of the sun-dried tomatoes creates a winning appetizer that can work for an elegant dinner party as well as a rowdy football-viewing afternoon. Get our Baked Gouda with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto recipe.
Related Video: How to Make Mini Football Potatoes
— Head Photo: The Adam Richman.
Source: https://www.chowhound.com/food-news/180127/adam-richmans-tips-for-hosting-an-epic-football-viewing-feast/
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No Yard? No Problem: You Can Still Compost at Home
Composting is a natural practice that dates all the way back to biblical times. It’s a contained form of decay that provides a nutrient-rich fertilizer — meaning one less expense for your garden.
It’s also an important and easy thing we can do for the environment: The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that food scraps and yard waste currently total 30% of what gets thrown away.
Most composters create a pile in their backyard, typically next to their garden. But eco-minded families with small yards, or even no yard, can compost at home and use the fertilizer for indoor plants or donate it to a local community garden.
What You Can — and Can’t — Compost
Composting is all about layering: To help with drainage, the first layer should be twigs or grass. Then, according to Gena Loraine, horticulturist at Fantastic Services, you need to “alternate between green and brown layers. Keep the ratio 50-50. First, add a green layer, then a brown one, and keep it moist by adding water.”
Green layers include green yard waste like grass clippings and plant materials as well as coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells and even flat beer.
Brown layers include dead leaves and tree branches, shredded paper (think of all that junk mail), egg cartons, cardboard, sawdust and wine corks.
However, there are several items you should not compost: cooking grease or oil, dairy products and meat/fish scraps, including bones.
Too much water can also be counterproductive. Keep it moist with water from your hose, but if rain is in the forecast, cover your pile or bin with a tarp. You should also regularly cover your compost with wood or carpet scraps to retain moisture and heat.
“As soon as you are done [layering], the mixture will start to heat up,” Loraine explains. “You can use a meat thermometer to keep checking the temperature as it rises. It should be between 49 and 77 degrees Celsius (120 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit). If [the temperature] falls down, just stir it a little bit.”
In fact, weekly stirring with a shovel or pitchfork is crucial. “Stir the mixture often to speed the process,” says Loraine. “Don’t leave your pile alone and just wait. It may take several months to a year to be ready.”
“You will know that the pile is done when it stops heating up,” she adds. “It should be just like dirt, with an earthy smell, and dark brown in color.”
How to Start a Compost Pile in Your Yard
If you own or rent a house with a backyard, you can most definitely compost. You can either create a compost pile or use a bin, but location matters.
In the northern half of the U.S., consider a place where your pile or bin will get more sunlight; in the southern half, scout out a spot that offers some shade. For convenience, keep it close to the area(s) you’ll be using the resulting fertilizer and ensure you can reach it with your garden hose.
If you have a small backyard, Loraine suggests talking to your neighbors first. “Make sure they don’t mind you making your own compost. It may produce a slight smell; however, well-managed compost piles do not smell.”
If creating a pile, make sure it has contact with the ground soil to allow the necessary organisms to naturally find their way up. Composting on a slab of concrete will prohibit worms and other organisms from easily accessing the pile.
If using a bin, Loraine says it should be square or cone-shaped. She emphasizes that ventilation is also important to the process.
One major deterrent to regularly composting is the inconvenience. When you crack an egg or empty your coffee maker, you are usually within an arm’s reach of your trash can, but you may have a significant walk outside, in extreme temperatures or weather, to dispose of your kitchen waste.
The solution? Keep a small compost bin under your kitchen sink. Summer Rayne Oakes, founder of Homestead Brooklyn, says, “If you want, you can line it with a compostable ‘plastic’ bag or a paper bag, and you can store your food waste in there. Some compost bins have a charcoal filter at the top to prevent air from seeping out.”
Then, when the weather is nice or you’re already making a trek out back, simply grab the contents of the small bin and add it to your outdoor compost.
How to Compost Without a Yard — and With Worms
Not everyone has the luxury of a large backyard. If you have a small yard (or perhaps no yard), you can still recycle your kitchen scraps via composting.
“If you live in an apartment, choose a plastic or ceramic container. Poke holes in the lid and the bottom of the box. This will provide ventilation and will allow the water to drain, ”Loraine says. “Before layering your scraps, cut strips of paper. Soak them in water and coat the bottom of your container. Pour some soil on top of it, and add red wiggler worms. Your bin should be one square foot per every pound of worms. Cover your compost pile with soaked paper strips every time you add scraps to it.”
And if you think that Loraine is off her rocker for bringing worms into her home, you should know that other experts agree. Rayne tells me a similar story: “I have no backyard, so I have a vermicomposter, which is a fancy term for ‘worm composting,’ under my kitchen sink. You can either purchase one or make one yourself, and it’s actually nice to have, particularly if you have plants indoors or on your balcony, because even though worm composting indoors is slower, you can get some really rich soil additives in place.”
If composting with worms inside your home isn’t your cup of compost tea, you can still save your food scraps to donate. After food waste spends a few days inside your DIY compost bin under the sink, “you can add this waste to a paper bag that you can store in your freezer,” Rayne explains. “This is what I do, and eventually, I take that to the farmers market here to get properly composted, or I can take it to a local organization that does composting.”
Looking for more ways to save by composting? Research to see if your city offers any rebates or other incentives to residents who compost.
Timothy Moore is an editor and freelance writer in Germantown, Ohio. He recently purchased a house and plans to start his own compost pile soon.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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No Yard? No Problem: You Can Still Compost at Home published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/
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Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
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Oct. 16, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT
By Lynne Peeples
The world’s oceans are awash in plastic, and the problem is only getting worse. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic debris ends up in the oceans, and that’s on top of the 150 million metric tons already in marine environments. The debris ensnares seabirds, starves whales and infiltrates the entire marine food chain — including humans, too, when we eat seafood.
Recently, there have been some high-profile efforts to remove plastic debris already in the oceans. Less well-known are efforts that aim to keep plastic from getting into oceans in the first place.
In one especially promising initiative, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company called Plastic Bank is promoting plastic recycling in developing nations — which contribute disproportionately to the ocean plastic problem — via a blockchain-based system that lets locals trade collected plastic for health care, tuition, cooking oil and other goods and services.
One of Plastic Bank’s physical drop-off centers, where community members can exchange plastic for cash or items from the store, including solar power cell phone charging.Courtesy Plastic Bank
Plastic waste is a particular problem in poor nations because they often lack a reliable waste-management system. In some countries, large swaths of land are now carpeted with bottles, bags and other plastic debris — and much of that eventually winds up in rivers, and is ultimately dumped into the ocean. According to one recent study, 90 percent of plastic debris in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“We have to stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean,” says Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz. “And to do that, we need to go to areas leaching the most into the ocean and do what we can there.”
So Plastic Bank went to Haiti and set up 40-odd recycling centers where plastic is exchanged not for cash — which could be vulnerable to the petty theft that is a problem in many parts of the country — but for cryptocurrency, which is largely theft-proof. A blockchain platform developed in partnership with IBM records transactions in an encrypted digital ledger, with the digital tokens placed into an account via a mobile phone app and then used to make purchases.
Plastic Bank’s app is free to download and offers a way for locals to get paid outside of traditional currency.Courtesy Plastic Bank
The system “ensures the right person is getting the right amount at the right time,” says Plastic Bank’s other co-founder, Shaun Frankson. “When you stave out cash, you increase the value this brings into communities without adding danger.”
Plastic collectors in Haiti get an above-market price for the waste, which can amount to $5 per day — a decent wage in a country where the average citizen lives on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Over time, they can build credit and earn low-interest loans — a rare opportunity in a nation where citizens often lack a birth certificate or even a last name.
Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, praises the initiative for addressing poverty as well as the plastic problem. “That’s a part of this equation that we urgently need to address,” he says.
Since it opened the first center in Haiti in 2015, Plastic Bank has taken in the equivalent of more than 100 million plastic bottles. The plastic is processed into flakes or pellets and then exported to other countries, where it’s used to make new products.
Plastic Bank is now expanding into the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia. The goal is to have centers everywhere there is an abundance of poverty and plastic waste.
“We know that poverty is persisting and that those areas with the greatest poverty are the greatest contributors to the plastic problem,” Katz said. “The beauty of this is that we are using one problem to solve the other.”
Still, the effort is not without challenges. One of the biggest is finding customers willing to buy the plastic that Plastic Bank has collected. “But if end users, like consumer brands and, ultimately, consumers, are willing to pay a premium price for plastics collected by Plastic Bank, then that’s an opportunity for their market,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, a Brooklyn-based investment management firm that’s working to find solutions to the ocean plastic problem.
To encourage potential buyers, Plastic Bank has coined the designation “social plastic” to make it possible for manufacturers that purchase the plastic to highlight the cause on product labels, much like companies label coffee, cotton and other agricultural products “fair trade.”
“This gives the consumer the ability to participate, just by buying something,” Katz said.
But for all the potential in Plastic Bank’s approach, Katz and other experts say it won’t be enough to save the world’s oceans from the continuing deluge of plastic waste. Bans on plastic bags and straws could help, as could a greater awareness of the problem among consumers.
“The massive dump of plastics has brought home to us that decisions we make every day in the coffee shop and grocery store are showing up in our oceans at a scale none of us thought possible,” says Leape. “And it is bringing to the fore the imperative to build an economy around materials that we can use over and over again.”
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Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Get the Mach newsletter.
SUBSCRIBE
Oct. 16, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT
By Lynne Peeples
The world’s oceans are awash in plastic, and the problem is only getting worse. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic debris ends up in the oceans, and that’s on top of the 150 million metric tons already in marine environments. The debris ensnares seabirds, starves whales and infiltrates the entire marine food chain — including humans, too, when we eat seafood.
Recently, there have been some high-profile efforts to remove plastic debris already in the oceans. Less well-known are efforts that aim to keep plastic from getting into oceans in the first place.
In one especially promising initiative, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company called Plastic Bank is promoting plastic recycling in developing nations — which contribute disproportionately to the ocean plastic problem — via a blockchain-based system that lets locals trade collected plastic for health care, tuition, cooking oil and other goods and services.
One of Plastic Bank’s physical drop-off centers, where community members can exchange plastic for cash or items from the store, including solar power cell phone charging.Courtesy Plastic Bank
Plastic waste is a particular problem in poor nations because they often lack a reliable waste-management system. In some countries, large swaths of land are now carpeted with bottles, bags and other plastic debris — and much of that eventually winds up in rivers, and is ultimately dumped into the ocean. According to one recent study, 90 percent of plastic debris in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“We have to stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean,” says Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz. “And to do that, we need to go to areas leaching the most into the ocean and do what we can there.”
So Plastic Bank went to Haiti and set up 40-odd recycling centers where plastic is exchanged not for cash — which could be vulnerable to the petty theft that is a problem in many parts of the country — but for cryptocurrency, which is largely theft-proof. A blockchain platform developed in partnership with IBM records transactions in an encrypted digital ledger, with the digital tokens placed into an account via a mobile phone app and then used to make purchases.
Plastic Bank’s app is free to download and offers a way for locals to get paid outside of traditional currency.Courtesy Plastic Bank
The system “ensures the right person is getting the right amount at the right time,” says Plastic Bank’s other co-founder, Shaun Frankson. “When you stave out cash, you increase the value this brings into communities without adding danger.”
Plastic collectors in Haiti get an above-market price for the waste, which can amount to $5 per day — a decent wage in a country where the average citizen lives on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Over time, they can build credit and earn low-interest loans — a rare opportunity in a nation where citizens often lack a birth certificate or even a last name.
Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, praises the initiative for addressing poverty as well as the plastic problem. “That’s a part of this equation that we urgently need to address,” he says.
Since it opened the first center in Haiti in 2015, Plastic Bank has taken in the equivalent of more than 100 million plastic bottles. The plastic is processed into flakes or pellets and then exported to other countries, where it’s used to make new products.
Plastic Bank is now expanding into the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia. The goal is to have centers everywhere there is an abundance of poverty and plastic waste.
“We know that poverty is persisting and that those areas with the greatest poverty are the greatest contributors to the plastic problem,” Katz said. “The beauty of this is that we are using one problem to solve the other.”
Still, the effort is not without challenges. One of the biggest is finding customers willing to buy the plastic that Plastic Bank has collected. “But if end users, like consumer brands and, ultimately, consumers, are willing to pay a premium price for plastics collected by Plastic Bank, then that’s an opportunity for their market,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, a Brooklyn-based investment management firm that’s working to find solutions to the ocean plastic problem.
To encourage potential buyers, Plastic Bank has coined the designation “social plastic” to make it possible for manufacturers that purchase the plastic to highlight the cause on product labels, much like companies label coffee, cotton and other agricultural products “fair trade.”
“This gives the consumer the ability to participate, just by buying something,” Katz said.
But for all the potential in Plastic Bank’s approach, Katz and other experts say it won’t be enough to save the world’s oceans from the continuing deluge of plastic waste. Bans on plastic bags and straws could help, as could a greater awareness of the problem among consumers.
“The massive dump of plastics has brought home to us that decisions we make every day in the coffee shop and grocery store are showing up in our oceans at a scale none of us thought possible,” says Leape. “And it is bringing to the fore the imperative to build an economy around materials that we can use over and over again.”
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FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.
Source link http://bit.ly/2Cd8zk1
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Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
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Oct. 16, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT
By Lynne Peeples
The world’s oceans are awash in plastic, and the problem is only getting worse. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic debris ends up in the oceans, and that’s on top of the 150 million metric tons already in marine environments. The debris ensnares seabirds, starves whales and infiltrates the entire marine food chain — including humans, too, when we eat seafood.
Recently, there have been some high-profile efforts to remove plastic debris already in the oceans. Less well-known are efforts that aim to keep plastic from getting into oceans in the first place.
In one especially promising initiative, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company called Plastic Bank is promoting plastic recycling in developing nations — which contribute disproportionately to the ocean plastic problem — via a blockchain-based system that lets locals trade collected plastic for health care, tuition, cooking oil and other goods and services.
One of Plastic Bank’s physical drop-off centers, where community members can exchange plastic for cash or items from the store, including solar power cell phone charging.Courtesy Plastic Bank
Plastic waste is a particular problem in poor nations because they often lack a reliable waste-management system. In some countries, large swaths of land are now carpeted with bottles, bags and other plastic debris — and much of that eventually winds up in rivers, and is ultimately dumped into the ocean. According to one recent study, 90 percent of plastic debris in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“We have to stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean,” says Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz. “And to do that, we need to go to areas leaching the most into the ocean and do what we can there.”
So Plastic Bank went to Haiti and set up 40-odd recycling centers where plastic is exchanged not for cash — which could be vulnerable to the petty theft that is a problem in many parts of the country — but for cryptocurrency, which is largely theft-proof. A blockchain platform developed in partnership with IBM records transactions in an encrypted digital ledger, with the digital tokens placed into an account via a mobile phone app and then used to make purchases.
Plastic Bank’s app is free to download and offers a way for locals to get paid outside of traditional currency.Courtesy Plastic Bank
The system “ensures the right person is getting the right amount at the right time,” says Plastic Bank’s other co-founder, Shaun Frankson. “When you stave out cash, you increase the value this brings into communities without adding danger.”
Plastic collectors in Haiti get an above-market price for the waste, which can amount to $5 per day — a decent wage in a country where the average citizen lives on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Over time, they can build credit and earn low-interest loans — a rare opportunity in a nation where citizens often lack a birth certificate or even a last name.
Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, praises the initiative for addressing poverty as well as the plastic problem. “That’s a part of this equation that we urgently need to address,” he says.
Since it opened the first center in Haiti in 2015, Plastic Bank has taken in the equivalent of more than 100 million plastic bottles. The plastic is processed into flakes or pellets and then exported to other countries, where it’s used to make new products.
Plastic Bank is now expanding into the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia. The goal is to have centers everywhere there is an abundance of poverty and plastic waste.
“We know that poverty is persisting and that those areas with the greatest poverty are the greatest contributors to the plastic problem,” Katz said. “The beauty of this is that we are using one problem to solve the other.”
Still, the effort is not without challenges. One of the biggest is finding customers willing to buy the plastic that Plastic Bank has collected. “But if end users, like consumer brands and, ultimately, consumers, are willing to pay a premium price for plastics collected by Plastic Bank, then that’s an opportunity for their market,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, a Brooklyn-based investment management firm that’s working to find solutions to the ocean plastic problem.
To encourage potential buyers, Plastic Bank has coined the designation “social plastic” to make it possible for manufacturers that purchase the plastic to highlight the cause on product labels, much like companies label coffee, cotton and other agricultural products “fair trade.”
“This gives the consumer the ability to participate, just by buying something,” Katz said.
But for all the potential in Plastic Bank’s approach, Katz and other experts say it won’t be enough to save the world’s oceans from the continuing deluge of plastic waste. Bans on plastic bags and straws could help, as could a greater awareness of the problem among consumers.
“The massive dump of plastics has brought home to us that decisions we make every day in the coffee shop and grocery store are showing up in our oceans at a scale none of us thought possible,” says Leape. “And it is bringing to the fore the imperative to build an economy around materials that we can use over and over again.”
WANT MORE STORIES ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT?
FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.
Source link http://bit.ly/2Cd8zk1
0 notes
Text
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Get the Mach newsletter.
SUBSCRIBE
Oct. 16, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT
By Lynne Peeples
The world’s oceans are awash in plastic, and the problem is only getting worse. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic debris ends up in the oceans, and that’s on top of the 150 million metric tons already in marine environments. The debris ensnares seabirds, starves whales and infiltrates the entire marine food chain — including humans, too, when we eat seafood.
Recently, there have been some high-profile efforts to remove plastic debris already in the oceans. Less well-known are efforts that aim to keep plastic from getting into oceans in the first place.
In one especially promising initiative, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company called Plastic Bank is promoting plastic recycling in developing nations — which contribute disproportionately to the ocean plastic problem — via a blockchain-based system that lets locals trade collected plastic for health care, tuition, cooking oil and other goods and services.
One of Plastic Bank’s physical drop-off centers, where community members can exchange plastic for cash or items from the store, including solar power cell phone charging.Courtesy Plastic Bank
Plastic waste is a particular problem in poor nations because they often lack a reliable waste-management system. In some countries, large swaths of land are now carpeted with bottles, bags and other plastic debris — and much of that eventually winds up in rivers, and is ultimately dumped into the ocean. According to one recent study, 90 percent of plastic debris in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“We have to stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean,” says Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz. “And to do that, we need to go to areas leaching the most into the ocean and do what we can there.”
So Plastic Bank went to Haiti and set up 40-odd recycling centers where plastic is exchanged not for cash — which could be vulnerable to the petty theft that is a problem in many parts of the country — but for cryptocurrency, which is largely theft-proof. A blockchain platform developed in partnership with IBM records transactions in an encrypted digital ledger, with the digital tokens placed into an account via a mobile phone app and then used to make purchases.
Plastic Bank’s app is free to download and offers a way for locals to get paid outside of traditional currency.Courtesy Plastic Bank
The system “ensures the right person is getting the right amount at the right time,” says Plastic Bank’s other co-founder, Shaun Frankson. “When you stave out cash, you increase the value this brings into communities without adding danger.”
Plastic collectors in Haiti get an above-market price for the waste, which can amount to $5 per day — a decent wage in a country where the average citizen lives on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Over time, they can build credit and earn low-interest loans — a rare opportunity in a nation where citizens often lack a birth certificate or even a last name.
Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, praises the initiative for addressing poverty as well as the plastic problem. “That’s a part of this equation that we urgently need to address,” he says.
Since it opened the first center in Haiti in 2015, Plastic Bank has taken in the equivalent of more than 100 million plastic bottles. The plastic is processed into flakes or pellets and then exported to other countries, where it’s used to make new products.
Plastic Bank is now expanding into the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia. The goal is to have centers everywhere there is an abundance of poverty and plastic waste.
“We know that poverty is persisting and that those areas with the greatest poverty are the greatest contributors to the plastic problem,” Katz said. “The beauty of this is that we are using one problem to solve the other.”
Still, the effort is not without challenges. One of the biggest is finding customers willing to buy the plastic that Plastic Bank has collected. “But if end users, like consumer brands and, ultimately, consumers, are willing to pay a premium price for plastics collected by Plastic Bank, then that’s an opportunity for their market,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, a Brooklyn-based investment management firm that’s working to find solutions to the ocean plastic problem.
To encourage potential buyers, Plastic Bank has coined the designation “social plastic” to make it possible for manufacturers that purchase the plastic to highlight the cause on product labels, much like companies label coffee, cotton and other agricultural products “fair trade.”
“This gives the consumer the ability to participate, just by buying something,” Katz said.
But for all the potential in Plastic Bank’s approach, Katz and other experts say it won’t be enough to save the world’s oceans from the continuing deluge of plastic waste. Bans on plastic bags and straws could help, as could a greater awareness of the problem among consumers.
“The massive dump of plastics has brought home to us that decisions we make every day in the coffee shop and grocery store are showing up in our oceans at a scale none of us thought possible,” says Leape. “And it is bringing to the fore the imperative to build an economy around materials that we can use over and over again.”
WANT MORE STORIES ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT?
FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.
Source link http://bit.ly/2Cd8zk1
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Text
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Get the Mach newsletter.
SUBSCRIBE
Oct. 16, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT
By Lynne Peeples
The world’s oceans are awash in plastic, and the problem is only getting worse. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic debris ends up in the oceans, and that’s on top of the 150 million metric tons already in marine environments. The debris ensnares seabirds, starves whales and infiltrates the entire marine food chain — including humans, too, when we eat seafood.
Recently, there have been some high-profile efforts to remove plastic debris already in the oceans. Less well-known are efforts that aim to keep plastic from getting into oceans in the first place.
In one especially promising initiative, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company called Plastic Bank is promoting plastic recycling in developing nations — which contribute disproportionately to the ocean plastic problem — via a blockchain-based system that lets locals trade collected plastic for health care, tuition, cooking oil and other goods and services.
One of Plastic Bank’s physical drop-off centers, where community members can exchange plastic for cash or items from the store, including solar power cell phone charging.Courtesy Plastic Bank
Plastic waste is a particular problem in poor nations because they often lack a reliable waste-management system. In some countries, large swaths of land are now carpeted with bottles, bags and other plastic debris — and much of that eventually winds up in rivers, and is ultimately dumped into the ocean. According to one recent study, 90 percent of plastic debris in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“We have to stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean,” says Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz. “And to do that, we need to go to areas leaching the most into the ocean and do what we can there.”
So Plastic Bank went to Haiti and set up 40-odd recycling centers where plastic is exchanged not for cash — which could be vulnerable to the petty theft that is a problem in many parts of the country — but for cryptocurrency, which is largely theft-proof. A blockchain platform developed in partnership with IBM records transactions in an encrypted digital ledger, with the digital tokens placed into an account via a mobile phone app and then used to make purchases.
Plastic Bank’s app is free to download and offers a way for locals to get paid outside of traditional currency.Courtesy Plastic Bank
The system “ensures the right person is getting the right amount at the right time,” says Plastic Bank’s other co-founder, Shaun Frankson. “When you stave out cash, you increase the value this brings into communities without adding danger.”
Plastic collectors in Haiti get an above-market price for the waste, which can amount to $5 per day — a decent wage in a country where the average citizen lives on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Over time, they can build credit and earn low-interest loans — a rare opportunity in a nation where citizens often lack a birth certificate or even a last name.
Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, praises the initiative for addressing poverty as well as the plastic problem. “That’s a part of this equation that we urgently need to address,” he says.
Since it opened the first center in Haiti in 2015, Plastic Bank has taken in the equivalent of more than 100 million plastic bottles. The plastic is processed into flakes or pellets and then exported to other countries, where it’s used to make new products.
Plastic Bank is now expanding into the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia. The goal is to have centers everywhere there is an abundance of poverty and plastic waste.
“We know that poverty is persisting and that those areas with the greatest poverty are the greatest contributors to the plastic problem,” Katz said. “The beauty of this is that we are using one problem to solve the other.”
Still, the effort is not without challenges. One of the biggest is finding customers willing to buy the plastic that Plastic Bank has collected. “But if end users, like consumer brands and, ultimately, consumers, are willing to pay a premium price for plastics collected by Plastic Bank, then that’s an opportunity for their market,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, a Brooklyn-based investment management firm that’s working to find solutions to the ocean plastic problem.
To encourage potential buyers, Plastic Bank has coined the designation “social plastic” to make it possible for manufacturers that purchase the plastic to highlight the cause on product labels, much like companies label coffee, cotton and other agricultural products “fair trade.”
“This gives the consumer the ability to participate, just by buying something,” Katz said.
But for all the potential in Plastic Bank’s approach, Katz and other experts say it won’t be enough to save the world’s oceans from the continuing deluge of plastic waste. Bans on plastic bags and straws could help, as could a greater awareness of the problem among consumers.
“The massive dump of plastics has brought home to us that decisions we make every day in the coffee shop and grocery store are showing up in our oceans at a scale none of us thought possible,” says Leape. “And it is bringing to the fore the imperative to build an economy around materials that we can use over and over again.”
WANT MORE STORIES ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT?
FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.
Source link http://bit.ly/2Cd8zk1
0 notes
Text
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Ocean plastic is a huge problem. Blockchain could be part of the solution.
Get the Mach newsletter.
SUBSCRIBE
Oct. 16, 2018, 9:14 PM GMT
By Lynne Peeples
The world’s oceans are awash in plastic, and the problem is only getting worse. Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastic debris ends up in the oceans, and that’s on top of the 150 million metric tons already in marine environments. The debris ensnares seabirds, starves whales and infiltrates the entire marine food chain — including humans, too, when we eat seafood.
Recently, there have been some high-profile efforts to remove plastic debris already in the oceans. Less well-known are efforts that aim to keep plastic from getting into oceans in the first place.
In one especially promising initiative, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company called Plastic Bank is promoting plastic recycling in developing nations — which contribute disproportionately to the ocean plastic problem — via a blockchain-based system that lets locals trade collected plastic for health care, tuition, cooking oil and other goods and services.
One of Plastic Bank’s physical drop-off centers, where community members can exchange plastic for cash or items from the store, including solar power cell phone charging.Courtesy Plastic Bank
Plastic waste is a particular problem in poor nations because they often lack a reliable waste-management system. In some countries, large swaths of land are now carpeted with bottles, bags and other plastic debris — and much of that eventually winds up in rivers, and is ultimately dumped into the ocean. According to one recent study, 90 percent of plastic debris in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“We have to stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean,” says Plastic Bank co-founder David Katz. “And to do that, we need to go to areas leaching the most into the ocean and do what we can there.”
So Plastic Bank went to Haiti and set up 40-odd recycling centers where plastic is exchanged not for cash — which could be vulnerable to the petty theft that is a problem in many parts of the country — but for cryptocurrency, which is largely theft-proof. A blockchain platform developed in partnership with IBM records transactions in an encrypted digital ledger, with the digital tokens placed into an account via a mobile phone app and then used to make purchases.
Plastic Bank’s app is free to download and offers a way for locals to get paid outside of traditional currency.Courtesy Plastic Bank
The system “ensures the right person is getting the right amount at the right time,” says Plastic Bank’s other co-founder, Shaun Frankson. “When you stave out cash, you increase the value this brings into communities without adding danger.”
Plastic collectors in Haiti get an above-market price for the waste, which can amount to $5 per day — a decent wage in a country where the average citizen lives on $2 a day, according to the World Bank. Over time, they can build credit and earn low-interest loans — a rare opportunity in a nation where citizens often lack a birth certificate or even a last name.
Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions, praises the initiative for addressing poverty as well as the plastic problem. “That’s a part of this equation that we urgently need to address,” he says.
Since it opened the first center in Haiti in 2015, Plastic Bank has taken in the equivalent of more than 100 million plastic bottles. The plastic is processed into flakes or pellets and then exported to other countries, where it’s used to make new products.
Plastic Bank is now expanding into the Philippines, Brazil and Indonesia. The goal is to have centers everywhere there is an abundance of poverty and plastic waste.
“We know that poverty is persisting and that those areas with the greatest poverty are the greatest contributors to the plastic problem,” Katz said. “The beauty of this is that we are using one problem to solve the other.”
Still, the effort is not without challenges. One of the biggest is finding customers willing to buy the plastic that Plastic Bank has collected. “But if end users, like consumer brands and, ultimately, consumers, are willing to pay a premium price for plastics collected by Plastic Bank, then that’s an opportunity for their market,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, a Brooklyn-based investment management firm that’s working to find solutions to the ocean plastic problem.
To encourage potential buyers, Plastic Bank has coined the designation “social plastic” to make it possible for manufacturers that purchase the plastic to highlight the cause on product labels, much like companies label coffee, cotton and other agricultural products “fair trade.”
“This gives the consumer the ability to participate, just by buying something,” Katz said.
But for all the potential in Plastic Bank’s approach, Katz and other experts say it won’t be enough to save the world’s oceans from the continuing deluge of plastic waste. Bans on plastic bags and straws could help, as could a greater awareness of the problem among consumers.
“The massive dump of plastics has brought home to us that decisions we make every day in the coffee shop and grocery store are showing up in our oceans at a scale none of us thought possible,” says Leape. “And it is bringing to the fore the imperative to build an economy around materials that we can use over and over again.”
WANT MORE STORIES ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENT?
FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.
Source link http://bit.ly/2Cd8zk1
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Once upon a time, receiving an orange in your holiday stocking was the best gift anyone could ask for. Somewhere along the line this simplicity morphed into a complicated purchasing process that sends many into a panic about finding the perfect gift for everyone on the list. Breathe deeply, friend: We’ve got you covered. Use this gift guide to delight and awaken the holiday spirit in any modern yogi.
Bonus? Shop between November 24 – November 27 with the code “PASSPORT” to receive 35% off all clothing and accessories. Who says holiday shopping has to be stressful?
The Traveler
The traveler takes life by the reigns and moves seamlessly from one adventure to the next, but just because she’s a vagabond doesn’t meant she doesn’t like the finer things. Soothe her travel-weary soul with a natural skin revitalizer or a travel-ready tube of Fair Trade organic coconut oil. Don’t let him leave home for that next big trip without a scarf that boasts a secret pocket for his passport, or a pedal-powered phone charger that clips onto his bike wheel. You may just be asked to join in on their next big escapade. Top choice: The Wanderlust Passport! Gain entry to an unlimited number of Wanderlust events, anywhere around the world, for one price that’s just slightly more than the cost of a traditional festival.
The Practitioner
He’s the one with aerial equipment in his apartment, who wears yoga shorts to the office. She’s the friend who’s always dragging you to the newest class at her favorite studio, who is always looking to deepen her practice through experience. Give them something they’ll use all year long, like a sustainably-sourced yoga mat or gear to keep them looking good doing it. Help them take their love to the next level by gifting the experience of yoga, either through a subscription for at-home yoga lessons or, if you’re feeling generous, a once-in-a-lifetime retreat. Top choices:��WAN(DER)LUST x Manduka eKO Travel Mat + Wanderlust Eco Towel
The Spiritualist
She’s always dragging you to a new, trendy meditation studio, or reminding you of the calming benefits of lavender. He’s the one with an altar and vision board in his apartment, or who’s forever quoting his favorite new age literature. The spiritualist welcomes any opportunity to dig deeper—and loves gifts that help on the quest to inner greatness and health. Who knows? Buying for them may just add a new dimension to your own soul as well. Top choice: Wanderlust x Mala Collective Wanderlust Mala + The Moon Deck
The Eco-Maniac
You thought recycling was enough—how wrong you were. Here’s to that friend insistent on making the world a better place, one choice at a time. Never thought you could please her with a gift to keep on giving? We’ve got you covered. The Eco-Maniac will be proud to not only use these reusable products, but to support a B-Corp like Wanderlust while doing so. Top choices: Reusable Utensil Kit + Reusable Straw Pack. On-Sale for 30% off: Wanderlust S’well Water Bottle
The Artist
For the artist, living is style, flair, and the appreciation of well-made and well-crafted goods. The artist takes his tea in a hand-carved mug, wears beanies and Buddha pants, and wouldn’t be caught leaving the house without her illustrated notebook for random bursts of inspiration. Give them an inspired gift that leads them in their creative pursuits, that matches their perfectly-designed life. Because who doesn’t want to receive a thank-you note written in calligraphy on homemade paper? Top choice: Wanderlust Moleskin Notebook
The Fashionista
It’s never a bad time to show up in your mindful best. Show your love for finding your true north with designs inspired by travel, sacred geometry, and all-out mindful living. Many of our products are made with organic cotton, feature vegetable dyes, and support independent artisans. Fashion doesn’t have to be vapid, and The Fashionista in your life loves to know that her style does some good in the world. Top choices: Lake Night Crew + Crescent Moon Ladder Tee + Wanderlust Denim
The Foodie
The foodie movement is sweeping the nation and your foodie friend or family member is in her hey-day. This, of course, means that it’s more difficult than ever to come up with a creative and meaningful gift—but not to worry. Forget gift certificates to restaurants and organic grocery stores; indulge their taste buds instead with a turmeric juice, chai mix, or a special sprouted brown rice protein blended with fruits. Just keep your fingers crossed that they invite you over to dinner to test the new recipes from our cookbook. Top choice: Find Your True Fork cookbook by Wanderlust co-founder Jeff Krasno
The Go-Getter
You’re usually a step behind the go-getter, but not this holiday season. The go-getter has their jam-packed lifestyle on lockdown, but we all need tools to help us manage and slow down sometimes. Treat the most ambitious person in your life to smart jewelry that helps them disconnect, or a brain-sensing headband that monitors brain activity to help make meditationeasier. Better yet, give them the gift of self care by introducing them to the calming potential of essential oils. Top choice: Givescent Body Oil
Didn’t see what you’re looking for? Check out the Wanderlust Shop for more, and stay tuned for holiday deals. And remember that the joy of gifting extends to self-love as well—don’t forget to choose a little surprise for yourself while you’re at it!
—
Lisette Cheresson is a writer, storyteller, yoga teacher, and adventuress who is an avid vagabond, homechef, dirt-collector, and dreamer. When she’s not playing with words, it’s a safe bet that she’s either hopping a plane, dancing, cooking, or hiking. She received her Level II Reiki Attunement and attended a 4-day intensive discourse with the Dalai Lama in India, and received her RYT200 in Brooklyn. She is currently the Director of Content at Wanderlust Festival. You can find her on Instagram @lisetteileen.
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Learn to Cook with John Cage, Marilyn Minter, and Louise Bourgeois
Starving Artists banquet in Italy, hosted by Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf. Courtesy of Arthur Fournier.
Thanks to two intrepid documentarians, you can watch John Cage demonstrating his method for making Soup Des Jours, a hearty concoction that he kept simmering on the stove, sometimes for weeks, adding new ingredients each day; Jonas Mekas making potato pancakes and discussing the depredations of a refugee camp after World War II; and Louise Bourgeois carving oxtails with a band-saw, stacking the finished meat in a pile resembling one of her sculptures.
These and other artistic kitchen moments are compiled in FOOD SEX ART | The Starving Artists' Cookbook—10 hours of video interviews, captured by Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf between 1986 and 1991. They broke bread with over 160 artists, talking about food, art, and life as they prepare their favorite cheap eats.
“Beans and onions. Big red kidney beans, right out of the can, fried in olive oil, with a little cumin and lots of onions…” Paul Lamarre wistfully recalls the staple diet of his lean years, as he sips red wine this September at the comparatively posh Marlow and Son’s restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “We ate a lot of beans and onions,” Melissa Wolf adds, deftly carving an order of chicken with roasted peppers and harissa to share with her partner and collaborator of 36 years.
Lamarre, a performance artist, and Wolf, a videographer, are an artistic duo who call themselves EIDIA House, which stands for “Everything I Do Is Art” or “Every Individual Does Individual Art,” among other interpretations. They were living in the Chelsea Hotel in the early 1980s, eating that scrappy fare and filming a video narrative about the many artists who lived there. “I was getting tired of beans and onions,” Paul remembers, “and I began to wonder what other starving artists were eating. That was how it started.”
“We were already making video portraits of artists, and we thought it would be great to document artists as they were cooking, instead of just talking about art,” says Melissa. “They’d be more relaxed, and cooking is something anybody watching can relate to. You don’t have to be an art connoisseur.”
Today, the videos are housed in the collections of more than 40 major museums and libraries worldwide. The videos were originally screened at Anthology Film Archives and released as a six-volume series in 1991. EIDIA House also published a limited-edition book, with a cover designed by Lamarre, showcasing “Pravda Burger,” an absurdist treat by Russian émigrés Komar & Melamid. The concoction was made from shredded pages of the Russian newspaper mashed in a blender, shaped into patties and fried in a pan with butter “until done.”
FOOD SEX ART | Starving Artists' Cookbook cover. Courtesy of Arthur Fournier.
The tasty documentation of the vibrant New York City art scene in the mid-1980s, features a cast of luminaries, including Cage, Bourgeois, Mekas, Hannah Wilke, Carolee Schneemann, Gracie Mansion, and Taylor Mead. The full 10 hours of videos are being screened again during Printed Matter’s 2017 New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, September 21–24, as part of the first comprehensive exhibition of archival materials from the project.
Presented by rare book dealer and archivist Arthur Fournier, the pop-up show includes 25 original artworks from the likes of Marilyn Minter and Peter Beard, as well as correspondence with contributors, and handwritten recipes. Mostly the recipes were edible but some, like William Wegman’s “Popped Vitamin C”—Vitamin C capsules heated in a lightly oiled pan until they pop—were strictly conceptual.
The cooking skills of the contributors varied greatly. Betty Tompkins served fried spaghetti, while her husband Bill Mutter prepared jumbo shrimp with a Thai sweet and sour dipping sauce.
Some, like art critic Anthony Haden-Guest, didn’t cook at all. “Instead of just boiling an egg, I said I’d mix a drink,” he tells me. “We went to the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar, and one of the girls took off her halter top and blindfolded me. I picked three bottles at random and made this thing called a ‘Sucker Punch.’ I think it was a combination of cheap wine, vodka, and Bailey’s Irish Cream. It looked like cat vomit, and tasted nearly as bad.”
Jonas Mekas, Untitled, n.d. [1989.] Courtesy of Arthur Fournier.
Portrait of Melissa Wolf and Paul Lamarre. Courtesy of Arthur Fournier.
As a precaution for such scenarios, Paul and Melissa made it a rule to eat before they went on a shoot. “We had good appetites,” says Paul. “If it turned out to be something good, we could always eat again.”
With hundreds of artists participating, The Starving Artist Cookbook had built-in, word-of-mouth publicity. The whimsical, engaging vignettes were a downtown sensation. By the spring of 1987, Paul and Melissa were art celebrities being feted in the Michael Todd Room of the Palladium at a star-studded party attended by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. As befits art royalty, Paul and Melissa also hosted a number of memorable EIDIA House banquets accompanying their own gallery shows. Guests at a dinner during a 1989 show at the Barbara Braathen Gallery were treated to a Medieval banquet of roasted goat; they ate with their hands, sitting at a long wooden table that Paul had built especially for the occasion.
“It was great fun,” Paul reflects. “But art stars have a short half-life in New York. The scene changes so quickly here.”
After our dinner in Williamsburg, we return to EIDIA House, the duo’s basement studio a few blocks away, a place they’ve had since 1981. Paul’s handmade banquet table is leaning against a wall lined with shelves of books and assorted art bric-a-brac. He’s demonstrating how to handle a small branding iron with the EIDIA logo on it, which was used to make hotdogs for an opening.
“We’ve both been very influenced by Duchamp’s idea of everyday objects as art, “he says. “In the same way, the artist can turn cooking into an artwork. The same aesthetics apply.” The front of the studio has a small glass-enclosed exhibition space resembling a greenhouse, which they’ve named “Plato’s Cave,” a place for other invited artists to exhibit their work. In recent years they’ve also been immersed in another large-scale, Duchampian project called The Deconsumptionists: Art as Archive, an experiment in creative recycling. It consists of 171 boxes, each containing older artworks by the pair that were photographed, wrapped in “caution orange” plastic, secured with a royal blue tag, and then housed in a 48-foot semi-trailer.
But over the years, food has never been far from their minds. In one food-as-art workshop they hosted in 2015, Paul and Melissa made pizzas with students at Bern University of the Arts in Switzerland. “Making pizza is very similar to making bread, which is very similar to molding clay. It’s all very similar, the process of creative function,” Paul muses. Adds Melissa: “The preparation to make a meal is so much like the preparation to make art. You need to gather your materials, learn the techniques, know what to do with your hands.”
Gilbert & George, Untitled, 1988. Courtesy of Arthur Fournier.
Amusing as the individual cooking demonstrations are, FOOD SEX ART | The Starving Artists' Cookbook also points to the simple, yet profound truth propounded by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who observed that in nature, food is eaten raw. Once it’s cooked and people share it around the ancestral fire, it’s much more than just food; it’s culture.
“Everyone we videotaped had a different recipe,” says Paul. “But in all of them, even the ones that are tongue in cheek, there’s a moment, when the artist would serve the food, and there it was: that wonderful touching, generosity. They’d shared a part of themselves. They’d shared their soul.”
—Jeff Goldberg
from Artsy News
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Inspired Feminist Children's Books On the Rise #JACBA Newsletter 1Jun2017
15 Feminist Children's Books That Will Inspire Readers Of Any Age
Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women by Catherine Thimmesh and Melissa Sweet tells the stories of the women who invented everything from windshield wipers, to liquid paper white-out, to aircraft bumpers, to the chocolate chip cookie, and more.
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy and Elizabeth Baddeley tells the (condensed, simplified) version of the amazing life and achievements of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, while combating the idea that young girls and women should always be agreeable, accommodating, and non-confrontational - a lesson I know that at least I need to keep learning over and over.
The Invisible Princess by Faith Ringgold is an African American fairy tale set during slavery, telling the story of one couple whose wishes for their child come true in ways they never could have imagined. That daughter becomes the Invisible Princess, who will one day liberate her parents from slavery, and bring freedom to all the slaves on the plantation. This one is a great reminder of the difference just one individual can make - invisible or not.
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Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909, written by Michelle Markel and illustrated by Melissa Sweet 2014 Awardee
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, written by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, 2017 Awardee
We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song written by Debbie Levy and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton 2014 Awardee
Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold 1993 Awardee
Friday essay: the feminist picture book revolution
Newish picture books out there for the budding feminist.
Books about broader activism (such as conservation, segregation, the right to vote) featuring girls or women include One Plastic Bag; Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of Gambia (2015) by Miranda Paul and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunin and The Youngest Marcher; The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist (2017).
There is power in the political picture book to reveal the marginalised stories of women in politics, but only space in this article to mention a few. So I'll start (of course) with Hillary (2016) by Jonah Winter, a biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Winter has had a number of political picture books published, including one about the work of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.
My favourite in this category is, I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes her Mark (2016) by Debbie Levy and illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley. I Dissent uses the Notorious RBG to introduce ideas around working mothers, persistence, shared domestic responsibilities and stay-at-home dads. The book explores the language of dissent while showing the (completely lovable) liberal US Supreme Court justice in her real life, thereby positing the girl with a voice as something special, but nonetheless natural.
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We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song written by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton 2014 Awardee
Lillian's Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by Jonah Winter 2016 Awardee
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, written by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, 2017 Awardee
ASU student uses literature to shine light on marginalized groups
Duncan Tonatiuh, told students at the beginning of the day, "It's important to share our stories, because if we don't, others won't either."
Tonatiuh's books reflect his Mexican-American heritage in both story and illustrative style, which is heavily influenced by pre-Columbian art with strong Aztec and Mayan overtones. Copies of his book, "Separate Is Never Equal," were given out at the event.
"This event is really about connecting youth with literature that mirrors their experiences," Flores said. "It provides a space for them to realize the power their stories and experiences can have to liberate and change lives, and how through sharing their stories and experiences, they can make a difference in the world."
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Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and her family's fight for desegregation, written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh 2015 Awardee
Angelina Jolie Is Helping to Bring a Canadian Classic to Theatres But TBH, Angelina is only one of many reasons to get excited about this film
Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai told the New York Times that the story is one that all girls should read: "The Breadwinner reminds us how courageous and strong women are around the world."
That spirit comes through in the recently released trailer for the upcoming film, which is set to be released this fall.
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The Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis 2005 Awardee
The Breadwinner Trilogy, three books by Deborah Ellis 2004 Awardee
Parvana's Journey by Deborah Ellis 2003 Awardee
A Day of Accolades at Bank Street
A Cook Prize Honor Books went to Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles (Chronicle) by Phillipe Costeau and Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Meilo So.
Hopkinson said she has been heartened to see readers' level of enthusiasm for Follow the Moon Home; it has taught her that "students are eager to participate in environmental conservation efforts. I believe that community action projects help to nurture interest in STEM and STEAM," Hopkinson said.
Also receiving a Cook Honor was Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor (Simon & Schuster) by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raúl Colón. Raúl Colón next accepted his award. The illustrator spoke about how art and science are often interconnected in that both involve the imagination.
The process of illustrating the book led Colón to conduct his own research into the science-or is it the art?-of mapping the ocean floor, allowing him to learn along with readers.
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Steamboat School, written by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Ron Husband, 2017 Awardee
Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Terry Wideners, 2004 Awardee
Shutting Out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York 1880-1924 by Deborah Hopkinson 2004 Awardee
A Band of Angels: A Story Inspired written by the Jubilee Singers by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Raúl Colón, 2000 Awardee
BLACK WOMEN AS CULTURAL DEITIES A REVIEW OF "WE WANTED A REVOLUTION: BLACK RADICAL WOMEN, 1965–85"
Artist Faith Ringgold is prominently featured throughout the eight-panel exhibit. In 1970, she and her daughter, Michele Wallace, forced the Whitney Museum of American Art to include two Black women artists-Betye Saar and Barbara Chase-Riboud-in their Sculpture Annual for the first time.
Now, the Brooklyn Museum is honoring Ringgold's struggle for equity. Her oil painting For the Woman's House (1971) shows an array of women at work. Female inmates at Rikers Island used to be able to purchase the painting, though the jail later banned it. Just as she advocated for Saar and Chase-Riboud, Ringgold created the painting to honor Angela Davis, after she was arrested for a crime she was later acquitted for.
"An exhibition like this is years in the making, so over the course of producing the exhibition, the pertinence and necessity of it seems to have only increased. It certainly speaks to the need people have to talk about the contributions Black women have made to our culture."
Our contributions are innumerable, immeasurable, and, certainly, not to be disregarded.
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Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold 1993 Awardee
LVC Education Students Co-Publish Article with Professor
Lebanon Valley College education students Cara Dowzicky and Chelsea Bear co-authored an article along with Dr. Ann Berger-Knorr, associate professor of education, titled "Female Game Changers of the 20th Century: Picture Book Biographies and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award" which was accepted for publication by Pennsylvania Reads: The Journal of the Keystone State Reading Association.
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Good books, like teachers, acknowledge children's lives, says author Jacqueline Woodson
"You have to read slowly in order to be a writer," she said. "You learn to listen to the silences and to the unsaid things."
Woodson is cherished in the world of young-adult literature for telling the untold stories of diverse American lives with generosity, tenderness and hope.
"I wanted kids to have stories in the world that reflected their lives," Woodson said.
Musing on the common observation that children's books function as "mirrors and windows and sliding-glass doors," she recalled that "I grew up with a lot of windows into white culture. And not very many mirrors.
"That's one of the things teachers do for us: They see us. Brilliance is passion recognized," she said. "For some of us the passion gets shaped into the brilliance. And some of us never get seen."
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Each Kindness written by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis 2013 Awardee
From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson 1996 Awardee
I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson 1995 Awardee
Summer Reading Recommendations, From 6 Novelists Who Own Bookstores
Books Are Magic is opening in the midst of a renaissance for independent booksellers. The American Booksellers Association counted 1,775 members around the country in 2016, up from 1,410 in 2010. And Ms. Straub is joining a small but growing club of novelists who moonlight as booksellers - their ranks include Larry McMurtry, Louise Erdrich, Ann Patchett, Judy Blume and Jeff Kinney.
Louise Erdrich, AUTHOR OF "LaRose", BOOKSTORE Birchbark Books in Minneapolis
RECOMMENDS:
'Al Franken: Giant of the Senate' by Al Franken "Flips the classic born-in-a-shack rise to political office tale on its head. I skipped meals to read this book - also unusual - because every page was funny. It made me deliriously happy to learn that Franken has outlawed the word 'robust' in his office."
'Standard Deviation' by Katherine Heiny "About a perfectly mismatched New York City couple whose son, with autistic tendencies, is an origami prodigy. Both heart-piercing and, crucially, very funny."
'The Futilitarians' by Anne Gisleson "About an Existential Crisis Reading Group with a secret handshake."
'The Song Poet' by Kao Kalia Yang "The exquisite story of Kao Kalia Yang's father, village life, war life, refugee life, then a St. Paul housing project; America's secret war in Laos; and a people's history as sung by Bee Yang and remembered in fascinating and poetic detail by his daughter."
Judy Blume, AUTHOR OF "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret", BOOKSTORE Books & Books in Key West, Fla.
RECOMMENDS: Two illustrated books for all ages:
'Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White' by Melissa Sweet
'I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark' by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley
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The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich 2000 Awardee
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909, written by Michelle Markel and illustrated by Melissa Sweet 2014 Awardee
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, written by Debbie Levy, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley, 2017 Awardee
We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song written by Debbie Levy and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton 2014 Awardee
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Since 1953, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award annually acknowledges books published in the U.S. during the previous year. Books commended by the Award address themes of topics that engage children in thinking about peace, justice, world community and/or equality of the sexes and all races. The books also must meet conventional standards of literacy and artistic excellence.
A national committee chooses winners and honor books for younger and older children.
Read more about the 2017 Awards.
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New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/beauty/how-to-take-a-wildly-enchanting-sustainable-trip-to-new-orleans/
How To Take A Wildly Enchanting (& Sustainable) Trip To New Orleans
A version of this article previously appeared on EcoCult.
New Orleans is unlike any other city I’ve ever visited. The word “fecund” comes to mind. New Orleans was built on a swamp – its tropical, hot, humid air and French influence give it an air of a jubilant island colony wedged into the conservative foreign country that is the South.
The porches of the colorful, off-kilter houses sprout ornamentation like orchids. There’s a thick, undergrowth of subcultures: goth kids, Vietnamese food, voodoo and witchcraft, Black Indians, vast cemeteries with ornate mausoleums, a devotion to alcohol in all forms all the time, bluegrass and bounce music. It’s a place of contradictions: there are huge mansions, yet 50% of the population lives in poverty. It’s tolerant and over the top, inclusive and impressive. You can go to New Orleans and be yourself, whether you’re a southern girl in a sundress, or a queer artist of color looking to experiment. And then there is its dark past to reckon with: slaves flowing through its port from Africa–and the fresh wounds of Hurricane Katrina.
For a thoughtful tourist to New Orleans, it’s less about expressly “eco-friendly” activities, and more about learning about social justice issues, experiencing the music culture, and digging into the burgeoning farm-to-table food scene.
At a time when everywhere – Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, all of Europe, Japan – is starting to look like Brooklyn, New Orleans still feels like its manic, beautiful, cosmopolitan, pockmarked, colorful, irreverent self.
“New Orleans has a distinctive sense of place that has drawn people to it for generations, for 300 years,” New Orleans native and award-winning developer Sean Cummings told me, as we had a drink in his boutique hotel, International House. (His father also founded the Whitney Plantation.)
I also would like to say thank you to others who so generously provided recommendations for my stay in New Orleans: reader Margaret Lovejoy, Madi Holtzman, Stephanie Hepburn of the sustainable online store Good Cloth, Sara Weinreb of IMBY, and a dozen more friends, all ensuring I certainly would not be bored during my trip.
Stay
There’s not really an “eco-friendly” hotel in New Orleans. Search for one, and you’ll find demi-green initiatives from corporate hotels. I instead recommend you stay at a locally owned hotel with a strong sense of place. A friend recommended Ace Hotel, which is a cool franchise, but… well, you can find an Ace Hotel in any city, including New York. “A Brooklyn/Portland-ization like the Ace… I get it, but it’s alien to New Orleans,” Cummings told me. “If I had a fixed number of nights, I wouldn’t go to those places. There are few places in America that still have this authentic sense of place. So go to the places that speak of that.”
International House – Central Business District
This cute and modern hotel is where I stayed, and is a great way to make sure your tourist dollars stick around New Orleans and do a little good. It’s run by women – all the managers and seven of the ownership team are women – and is also the first hotel to be partly owned by black women. Plus, it has a profit sharing program that all the employees participate in. The lobby bar sources ingredients locally, including sorrento lemons from its own citrus grove nearby, and makes its own limoncello. Most of the furniture is made locally by artists and furniture makers, and seven times a year they celebrate local traditions by switching out the lobby artwork. On the sustainable side, the International House has a recycling program for soaps, used nontoxic paint, and just switched in March to an environmentally friendly cleaning system called PathoSans.
Hotel Monteleone – French Quarter
This historic, 130-year-old hotel in the French Quarter has a variety of green initiatives, including donating leftover food to a local non-profit organization and linens to charities and shelters, eschewing disposable drinking cups for glass cups and pitchers, bike storage for employees and guests, in-room digital thermostats, eco-friendly cleaning supplies, and more, earning it 3 Green Keys.
Soniat House – French Quarter
Created out of adjoining French quarter residences, this luxury hotel incorporates modern amenities like in-suite jacuzzis and a spa into the historic structure. Each of the 31 accommodations is individually decorated and furnished with period antiques. It is one of Fodor’s Choice Top 20 hotels in the world.
Claiborne Mansion – Faubourg-Marigny
Enjoy a healthy gluten-free and vegan breakfast surrounded by 18th-century decor in this historic mansion in the Faubourg-Marigny neighborhood, right next to the French Quarter. The three-quarter acre grounds include a 40-foot saltwater pool and landscaped courtyard with a gazebo and citrus grove.
Do
Lower 9th Ward Rebirth Bike Tour – Lower 9th Ward
I wanted to see the Make It Right houses, eco-friendly, storm resilient homes built after Hurricane Katrina almost wiped the Lower 9th Ward off the map. But I wasn’t sure how to do that. I certainly didn’t want to take a bus tour. This bike tour offered a great alternative. Led by a native New Orleanian, we headed out from the Faubourg-Marigny on cruiser bicycles down to see the spot where a barge punched through the levee, pouring water into the neighborhood. From there, we biked up a small hill overlooking the river to survey the city and learn a short history, then down into the neighborhood to visit with the locals who are revitalizing the area like a small urban farm, learn about how canals contribute to the slow dying of the swampland, and see the Make It Right houses. In the winter sun, the quiet and half-empty neighborhood felt like a dreamy, dying seaside town. It was an odd feeling. I would put this unique experience at the top of your list of things to do.
Voodoo Walking Tour – French Quarter
This religion, an amalgamation of tribal African religion and Catholicism, is a crucial part of New Orleans history, and very much required reading if you want to understand the city. At first, I was confused by the fact that our tour was led by a white lady, until she explained that she’s close friends with many voodoo practitioners, has attended many voodoo events, and is also a practicing witch. Crucially, she was easily able to answer all of our questions. We learned about voodoo’s history, the most famous high priestess of voodoo, Marie Laveau, about how it’s currently practiced, and visited a voodoo shop at the end, where I picked up some potent and fragrant voodoo oils.
Backstreet Cultural Museum – Tremé
Located in an unassuming shotgun house, this tiny museum features the stunningly ornate Black Indian Mardi Gras costumes. This tradition is unique to New Orleans, so I wouldn’t miss it!
Pharmacy Museum – French Quarter
A quaint, historical pharmacy that recreates the medical experience around the turn of the century. You might be shocked by the history of pharmacy drugs – we were all but poisoned by arsenic, lead, and opioid mixtures back in the day. And then you realize, oh yeah, the opioid epidemic.
Take a ride on a streetcar – Grab a cocktail and hop on the St. Charles trolley line, which rumbles past a long line of beautiful old mansions. I recommend you bring a reusable opaque to-go coffee mug down with you to New Orleans for just this purpose. The bars in New Orleans will give you a plastic to-go cup, but with downtown New Orlean’s recycling being almost non-existent, you might feel guilty about that. So order a drink regular, and then dump it in your closed cup to go. Another benefit is that you can take it on the trolleys – they won’t let you on with an open plastic cup of alcohol.
A Cemetery – New Orleans cemeteries are famous for their elaborate mausoleums, built above ground because of the wet, swampy ground. You can visit any cemetery, sign up for a tour, or just wander around by yourself.
The Plantations – Outside of New Orleans
Reserve a whole day, and take a Lyft out to the plantation area to visit three different plantations for three very different experiences. First, visit the Whitney Plantation and Museum of Slavery, which has been called “America’s Auschwitz.” Instead of painting a flowery picture of plantation life in a grand mansion, it focuses on the horrors of slavery with moving memorials to the slaves that passed through New Orleans on their way to being sold. Nearby, visit the Laura Plantation, which can give you an accurate picture of both owner and slavery life, through the eyes of Laura Locoul Gore, who recorded 100 years of plantation life in her journal. And if you want to see a grand mansion, you can visit the Oak Alley plantation.
Read more about what to do & where to eat in New Orleans at EcoCult.
Have you been to New Orleans? What are your favorite spots?
Also by Alden: Glam Girls’ Trips to Nashville Is a Thing Now. Here’s How To Make It Ecofriendly
Here’s How to *Actually* Do Tulum, Mexico Like A Green Traveler
Related: Smurf Lattes & Other Eats That Prove Melbourne Vegan Scene Is Bananas
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Photo: Alden Wicker
Alden is the founder of EcoCult–a showcase for all local, sustainable, eco-friendly, handmade, beautiful and interesting things. When not writing for EcoCult, she is dancing until dawn to electronic music, cooking, practicing yoga, wandering the streets of NYC, traveling, refining my photography, and freelance writing for various sites from Refinery29, LearnVest, xoJane, and more.
the c2c certified tshirts from C&A are priced at $ 7 and $ 9. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE, everyone silently screams. #fashionforgood – 9 hours ago
Originally at :Peaceful Dumpling Written By : Alden Wicker
#Enchanting, #Orleans, #Sustainable, #Take, #Trip, #Wildly #Beauty
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