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So-called biodegradable or compostable flatware come with their own problems, an L.A. Times article pointed out yesterday. Since most of these only biodegrade in industrial composting facilities that get things really hot -- and since few cities have such facilities, let alone city-wide collection programs for these newfangled disposables, most of the allegedly greener food containers and utensils go to landfills, just like non-recyclable goods.
But if you live in Santa Monica and have a green bin, you're in luck. The city of Santa Monica's green bins now accept compostable food containers and utensils, in addition to yard waste and food scraps. To make sure all the compostable containers break down properly, the collected waste's then taken up to an industrial composting facility in Sun Valley.
Although the city's already trucking all the green bin waste to Sun Valley, public outreach about the program hasn't yet begun -- which, according to Wes Thompson, solid waste supervisor for the city of Santa Monica, means the program hasn't officially launched. "Our fliers are at the graphic designers," Thompson says.
Santa Monica residents don't have to wait for the fliers to hit their mailboxes, however. Start putting their compostable containers and food scraps into your green bins now!
Of course, if you live in an apartment like I do, you don't yet have your own green container. "We're working on that," says Thompson, who says multifamily housing units in Santa Monica tend to be landscaped more -- and thus produce more yard waste -- than similar units in other cities. "If we're going to get to zero waste, [expanding the green bin program] will be the only way."
 Getting a city-wide green bin program in place for multifamily housing units, however, will likely take a couple years, says Thompson. In the meantime, Santa Monica will get a smaller program: Green bins where people can drop off their compostables will be placed in a couple spots around the city. Thompson doesn't have the spots picked out yet, but said the bins will definitely be in place by the end of the summer.
If you don't live in Santa Monica, this green bin program sadly does NOT apply to you. The city of L.A., for example, cannot handle compostable food containers in its green bins -- though vegan food scraps are allowed. You can try to push the city to go the Santa Monica route -- or just get into the habit of using your own, non-disposable utensils.
Top photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times; bottom photo courtesy of reusablebags.com
Picked up some home jamming skills, thanks to the Fallen Fruit collective? Then sign up now for Slow Food L.A.'s "Jams, Jellies, Preserves & Chutneys, oh my!" event:
When: Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 2 p.m.
Where: Private home in Simi Valley; RSVP to judibikel@aol.com for address
Cost: Free -- with RSVP and swappables (read on).
Twenty-five jammers and canners will gather over coffee and tea, each bringing to the table at least four 1-pint containers of canned or frozen jam, jelly, preserves or chutney -- along with a small tasting sample and a copy of the recipe to swap with other members. Serious jammers can take eight pints to the party, to leave with eight pints.
Of course, your jam and its recipe must have some connection to slow food -- whether it's made of local, organic ingredients or created from a family recipe. For eco-preserve-making inspiration, check out Jill Davis Doughtie of Eye Level Pasadena's photo-illustrated preserve-making process, starting out with Pasadena farmers market strawberries and apricots.
Both Slow Food L.A. members and nonmembers are invited -- but again, don't forget to RSVP to judibikel@aol.com or you might be wandering around Simi Valley for a very long time.
Photo by Jill Davis Doughtie
 Work in Hollywood? Take a break right now and head over to the new Hollywood Lemon Grove Farmers' Market, which opened 9 a.m. today at 4959 Lemon Grove Ave.
Get there before noon and enter a free raffle to win a basket of market-fresh produce. If you have kids, take them along; Network for a Healthy California is hosting a "Power Play" event for children at 11 a.m. The market will be open until 1 p.m.
Earlier: What $6 gets you at the farmers' market
Fast food's gone organic, with the opening of O! Burger in West Hollywood late last month. This cute burger joint uses only certified organic ingredients, bringing grass-fed beef, free-range turkey and spinach-and-corn veggie burgers to the masses.
Already, the small restaurant's doing a brisk business. A steady stream of customers dropped in for their burger fix when I stopped by mid-afternoon on Sunday; many stuck around to enjoy their meals in the small dining area or at the sunny sidewalk tables.
In addition to the burgers, customers can get organic hot dogs and fries -- and pick from drinks ranging from kombucha to organic sodas to an organic shake made with Aseel dates, bananas, chocolate and live-culture yogurt.
O! Burger's burgers are pricier than those at chain fast-food places -- my veggie burger (above) cost $7.99, for example -- but come with organic cucumbers and grilled onions -- as well as the health benefits of eating organic.
O!Burger 8593 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. (310) 854-0234.
Top photo courtesy of O!Burger; other photos by Siel
Wine drinkers: You can now up-cycle your corks! In addition to the juice pouches and cookie wrappers and other detritus from our grab-n-go culture, the eco-company TerraCycle's now accepting wine corks -- both natural and synthetic -- which the company will turn "into cool products that will be available nationally at major retailers."
It's unclear what exactly these products will be, but the illustration provided on TerraCycle's Web page looks like a doormat will be one of the goods produced.
Best part of this dealio: While other TerraCycle programs require you to sign up and are really geared towards groups and organizations, this wine cork program makes up-cycling easy for mere individuals. If you've got fewer than 100 corks, all you have to do is mail them in to TerraCycle, ATTN: Cork Brigade, 121 New York Ave., Trenton, NJ 08638.
Got more than 100 corks? Then go ahead and sign up with TerraCycle to get prepaid return shipping labels.
Image courtesy of TerraCycle
Mrs Winston's Green Grocery has what I believe is the greenest, tastiest salad bar in the greater L.A. area.
The huge salad bar at this unassuming Santa Monica spot boasts everything from vegan chili to organic produce to curried tofu to tuna salad to noodles to vegan Caesar salad dressing to all manner of sprouts. Mrs Winston's also has a sandwich bar and offers a number of quick, healthful snack bars and drinks -- including a couple brands of chilled kombucha -- as well as more decadent items like vegan and organic cookies.
Around noon today, a couple friends and I joined the growing but fast-moving lunch line, picked up compostable containers and filled them up with fresh, healthy yumminess. We then tried to guess the weight of our containers at the counter; on Fridays, if you guess the cost of your meal down to the cent, you get your food free (we failed). Then we took a seat in the sunny courtyard outside and enjoyed our meals.
Afterward, we composted our containers! While most places that offer compostable containers don't actually provide composting bins for post-meal disposal, Mrs. Winston's has green bins lined up -- with clear signs pointing out what goes where.
Mrs Winston's Green Grocery. 2450 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica. (310) 315-2777.
Photos by Siel
Love Korean BBQ? Missed the Great L.A. River Cleanup? Here's your second chance -- a big clean up of the Glendale narrows section of the L.A. River's happening this Saturday morning. You're invited to join in the cleaning fun -- then nosh on Korean BBQ afterwards.
When: Saturday, June 14, 8:45 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Where: Griffith Park Recreation Center, 3401 Riverside Dr., Los Angeles
Cost: Free. Just show up with a hat, sunscreen and drinking water.
In addition to cleaning up the river, the event's intended to bring together an ethnically and culturally diverse group of volunteers "for a day of hands-on environmental stewardship and cross-cultural connection," according to Heal the Bay's press release. The Glendale Narrows is a community hub, Heal the Bay says: "Only if all communities work together will we be able to restore and revitalize California’s natural settings."
The NAACP, Pacific American Volunteer Assn., and Anahuak Soccer Assn. have all signed on! More than 2,000 people are expected to participate -- including L.A. City Council president Eric Garcetti and leaders from the involved organizations.
Everyone -- of any experience level -- is invited. Rub elbows with your neighbors and maybe pick up a few words in another language (clean-up instructions will be provided in English, Spanish, and Korean) during the BBQ.
Photo of Glendale Narrows by Siel
One yummy benefit to procrastination: If you hit the farmers' market during the last hour or so, you can get some really, really great deals on organic fruit.
Yesterday, I got two 3-packs of strawberries -- for $6! Yes -- that means just a buck for each one of those little green baskets. The Bautista Family Organic Farm booth was trying to sell all its strawberries before the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers' Market closed, and I lucked out.
Regular prices got me great deals too though. I got six sweet organic nectarines for $6!
And five heirloom tomatoes plus three zucchini -- all organic from Tutti Frutti farms, all for $6.
Best way to make sure you get the most out of your organic, local strawberries: Wash and cut them as soon as you get home, and eat the really ripe ones during the process. This morning I had steel cut oats decorated with strawberries.
Photos by Siel
Last year, the Los Angeles Film Festival had a "Green Day," showcasing 50 short eco-films and lining a block in Westwood with a few green booths (photo above). This year, the festival has declared its plans to incorporate environmentalism into more aspects of its festivities, happening June 19-29.
Most impressively, the festival is supporting local food: "catering will use organically-grown produce purchased from local farms within a 150-mile radius of Los Angeles," announces the press release -- though exactly how much of the food will be local isn't specified. The festival will also use biodiesel-fueled generators.
Aside from those, the steps are rather unremarkable things to be sending out a press release about, in the vein of "We'll use recycled paper -- then recycle it! Also, we'll buy carbon offsets!"
Still, the greening's a step forward for the film and television industry, which is known as the second largest contributor of criteria air pollutants in the L.A. metro area. SoCal film festivals' efforts to go green is something I noted last year, when all of them started sending out press releases about how they plan to include an eco-themed film or two. Hopefully these efforts will get darker green each year.
Photo by Siel
Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, who write the blog Homegrown Evolution chronicling their adventures as urban gardeners and farmers, recently released their first book, "The Urban Homestead" from Process Media. Last Friday, Erik, who is also a board member of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, sat down in his garden with Streetsblog's Damien Newton to talk about the new book and sustainable transportation.
DN: So the book's called "The Urban Homestead." How did you come up with the name?
EK: It's a phrase that's been floating around since the '70s. That's the earliest I've seen a reference to an "Urban Homestead." The magazine Mother Earth News, a classic resource for back-to-the-land hippies, and still a wonderful resource, had a bunch of stories in the 1970s that used the expression "Urban Homestead."
There's also a classic example in Berkeley from the early 1970s that was an experiment in self-reliant living in the city called the Integral Urban House. It was a very ambitious project based in Berkeley aimed at setting up a self-reliant urban household. For instance, they had fish ponds with bee hives over the fish ponds. The dead bees would fall into the ponds, providing food for the fish. The goal was to apply principles of the back-to-the-land movement to living in the city.
I'm actually not all that happy with the phrase Urban Homestead because the word homestead suggests a sort of Little House on the Prairie, completely self-sufficient life. Our focus isn't on that kind of extreme living, but on small things that anyone can do. It's about integrating things like growing some of your own food into a normal urban or suburban life. It's not about becoming completely self-sufficient. Community is a good thing, after all, and we still need to work with each other, not focus on running off alone.
DN: Does your family have a history of farming?
EK: Half of my family moved from Germany to Missouri and they are farmers. Some of them are farmers today, but like most family farmers, can't make a living off of it so they have to do other jobs as well. Kelly's family does not have any farmers in it, at least in the last century. But all of us are descended from farmers. In 1900, a majority of people lived on farms. Today, less than 2% of the population feeds the other 98%.
DN: Is that the inspiration to do all this? You have the gardens in the front and back, the chicken coop... Was that all a master plan from earlier in your life, or was it something you came up with as you went along?
EK: It kind of evolved. Like a lot of people we're concerned about where our food comes from.
DN: So you've been at this house...
EK: ...ten years now.
DN: And what was it like when you got here?
EK: The reason we picked this house was because it had everything inside from when it was built in the 1920s. Unfortunately, that also meant it was incredibly dilapidated. But there were also a lot of charming details. This is a modest house, it's a small house. But we prefer a small, nicely detailed house rather than a large dry-wall pup tent.
DN: But when you got here there was no chicken coop.
EK: No chicken coop. We did some vegetable growing when we still lived in an apartment, but we didn't start doing all this stuff until maybe 2000 or 2001. Originally we were spending all our time on fixing the house.
DN: When you began to convert it from the traditional urban yards, full of green grass, to the style of garden we see now, what was the first step? Put another way, if my apartment in New Jersey ever sells and I buy a place out here and want to convert a grass yard into this type of garden, what should I do?
 EK: The first thing I tell people is to start small. The mistake that a lot of people make is trying to transform the entire house and yard all at once. There are all these examples of people doing these really heroic projects to try and maximize the space all at once. The easiest thing you can do if you have a yard is to build something like a small raised bed to grow a few vegetables in. The one we have is 4x8 feet made out of wood, but it could be made out of other stuff like broken concrete or whatever you have at hand. You make a box with no bottom, then you buy soil or make compost, and then start vegetable gardening because you know the soil is good.
Do you know the expression, "you don't grow plants, you grow the soil?" The first thing you really need is the right soil, and in most places the soil you'll start out with is really bad. Using a raised bed is a way to jump-start growing while you amend the existing soil, which can take years.
If you want to take over the lawn or do something more ambitious, the first step is to really grow the soil. Make compost, but most people won't be able to make enough to fertilize a whole yard so you might have to import compost. We get horse bedding material. Did you know L.A. has more horses per capita than any other large city in the country? There is tons of compost around here...
We don't believe in tilling the soil. We believe you should amend it from above. Soil has a symbiotic system of fungus and worms that work with the roots of plants. If you till it you're going to destroy that relationship. The way to build it is to add organic matter as mulch. You might have to gently break the soil up a little bit, with a tool called a broadfork, but do it gently. You definitely shouldn't till it. Tilling isn't just bad for the soil, it contributes to pollution because it releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
If you're just moving into a place, another thing to think about is the tree situation since it takes awhile for a fruit tree to mature. You may have to take out some existing trees and put in some new ones, making sure to plant them carefully so that they provide shade where you want it -- say to cool the house, while at the same time not shading out areas where you want to grow sun-loving vegetables.
Overall we're guided by permaculture, which can be a difficult thing to explain. Permaculture came out of Australia, from the work of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and mimics nature. Rather than industrial agriculture, which has a lot of artificial inputs such as fertilizer ... with permaculture the plants work with each other in a mutually beneficial relationship.
The best example of this is the "three sisters" that the Native Americans used to plant: corn, squash and beans. The idea being that beans are nitrogen-fixing plants, they pump nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the ground for the corn and the squash. The corn grows up as a trellis for the beans. The squash serves as a mulch for the other plants. And together these three plants provide an ideal diet for humans.
DN: I noticed out front you're growing clover to nitrogen-fix the soil a little.
 EK: This sort of gardening is the opposite of American agriculture. Too often they're putting in petro-chemicals temporarily into the soil to try and grow plants. With permaculture you use nature to do that and create a beneficial feedback cycle. It also simply requires less labor.
And that's an important part of gardening from home. I mean, you have a 9 to 5 job...
DN: Or you blog from your living room...
EK: (laughs) Right, or you blog. Or worse, you garden then you have to blog about the gardening, which takes twice as long.
Anyway, in permaculture you try to use plants that thrive in your region. If you think of gardening as a whole system, such as the "three sisters," you end up with what we see here. You see those artichokes there. The nearby fennel flowers attracts the kind of insects that deal with the bad insects on the things that we eat. You try to mix things in here such as Mexican sage, which attracts birds that also eat the insects we don't want.
One of the main goals of permaculture is to require as few human inputs as possible. There's a phrase local permaculture expert David Khan taught me that I really like, "work makes work..." If you plant a grass lawn you have to mow it every week, you have to fertilize it. I just don't have time for that kind of work. I don't want that kind of work. I also don't want to pay someone else to do it.
If you work with nature rather than against her, you don't have to do as much work. Nature doesn't need humans to make it go.
DN: So let's talk about apartments for a moment. What can the apartment dwellers do?
EK: If you happen to have a sunny balcony, what I would recommend most people do is make their own self-watering containers. There are really great directions for self-watering containers on the Internet by Josh Mandel. (Writer's note: here's a cool You Tube video from Homegrown Evolution.)
A self-watering container has a reservoir of water at the bottom, and really only requires watering about once a week. Vegetables need moist soil, not soggy, and self-watering containers do that perfectly.
You can also grow herbs. You don't need a self-watering container for herbs. Just grow them in a regular pot. If you don't have a balcony that's sunny, there are community gardens where you can rent space. There's not enough of them, and that's a real problem.
Or you can forage for food. Foraging is something for people that don't have land or access to a community garden. Especially in L.A. where there are a lot of wilderness areas close by you can go out and find plenty of plants you can eat. They're quite good. There are many cultures that still forage for food. Italians still forage regularly. Armenian people forage as well.
I can literally walk two blocks away in the spring and there are fields full of mustard seeds. Dandelions, you can eat the leaves or use the flowers to make dandelion wine. There's also a group -- Fallen Fruit --that makes maps of where the public fruit trees of Silver Lake are.
There's a whole world of mushrooms to forage if you know what you are doing, but you, of course, need to be very careful. Go to the free lectures the Los Angeles Mycological Society puts on.
The book is about a lot more than gardening and foraging. It's also a home economics book. Stuff our grandparents used to do that we forgot somehow. Lots of immigrants still do this stuff, but they don't have blogs so nobody knows about it, I guess (writer's note, he was either picking on me or being self-deprecating here). There's a whole world of fermentation you can do right in your kitchen. You can ferment stuff from the farmer's market, you can make your own beer...
...the reason to do your own fermentation is you can't buy this stuff. There's a type of fermentation called lacto-fermentation, and you may have heard of probiotics. It's a type of health food that has living organisms in it. Yogurt is the most obvious example -- yogurt with active cultures in them. These yogurts are important for our health.
Our environment is too clean for our own health because we're missing these organisms from our bodies. Lacto-fermentation method can replace some of those essential organisms. Kimchi is an example of this, but most pickles you buy in the supermarket are pickled in vinegar instead of the traditional lacto-fermentation method.
People in apartments can also make wild yeast (sourdough) bread. It's important to use wild yeast...
DN: What qualifies yeast as "wild"?
EK: I'm glad you asked that because it's very simple. To make sourdough bread all you have to do is mix flour and water together and every day throw out half the mixture (or make bread with it) and add more flour. The wild yeast is contained in the flour itself, and the air in smaller concentrations. It's there naturally. It's very easy to make good bread without commercial yeast.
Bread without commercial yeast lasts longer, tastes better and some say is better for you.
DN: Talking about energy, is there anything easy one can do to take better advantage of solar energy without buying solar panels?
 EK: There's lot of fun things you can do, if you like to tinker. That's the excitement I get from these kind of projects, that I can make them myself. For example, a solar cooker. You can make one out of cardboard, aluminum foil and a black pot.
DN: I saw a woman at the bike expo in Pasadena the other week pulling an oven baking cookies with solar power on her bike. I thought that was cool.
EK: That's nice. It's amazing how easy these things work. We cook our rice in a solar cooker now and it's easier than cooking on the stove. We just throw it in the solar cooker and two hours later you have perfectly cooked rice and you can't burn it. That's the kind of thing we show how to do in the book and the kind of thing that someone in an apartment or someone who can't afford solar panels can easily do.
There's also the solar dehydrator, which we showed you earlier. It's a little more involved, it's made out of wood, but it's a lot easier than installing solar panels. Nothing against solar panels, but it's not possible for everyone. Solar cooking is for everyone. Even if you don't have a balcony in your apartment you can always use your solar cooker for a picnic.
EK: I was talking about the tragedy of modern agriculture. You and I can see the impact of our failed transportation policies. I think more and more people are beginning to see the tragedy of our agriculture policy, which is equally appalling in this country. The power of industrial monocultural agriculture, i.e. growing tons and tons of corn for corn syrup and the resulting health crisis is something people are starting to be aware of.
In our supermarkets you can get all kinds of vegetables all year round but they taste out of season all year round. And so as we come to grow more things ourselves, and you can see that this garden isn't that ambitious, it's small and modest. This is not Versailles obviously. But, just growing a few flavorful unique varieties of vegetables and fruits opens a whole new world of flavor. Especially in the winter, because the winter here is the best time to grow food in Southern California. But, we grow all kinds of food, mostly Italian styles of vegetables and they are much more powerfully flavorful then anything you can get in the supermarket. Bitterness as part of our flavor palate alone is something that's been lost in North American cuisine.
The U.S. palate has tilted towards the sweet. And when we started growing these Italian varieties we were like, 'Wow, this is so powerfully bitter.' But we eventually realized that this is a different part of the palate of food that we're missing and it's really wonderful. These bitter foods also tend to be highly nutritious. That's the real motivation for us, to have flavorful, unique food that's in season.
When you're growing food it ties you to nature. No, you don't have oranges year-round, you have it at one time of the year. You have avocados another and artichokes another. It depends on where we are in the sun's course in the heavens through the seasons. Growing food ties you to the real world rather than the virtual world ... the blogging world where you and I are for a lot of our lives.
I don't want to come across as a technophobe either because I think technology is really important and can do wonderful things. I like having a computer and blogging and all that. I think that's really important. I'm not a Luddite at all. I don't like Luddites. I don't like that rejection of technology.
The important thing is to have a balance. To know how to grow your own food. To know how to take care of chickens and that sort of thing. To know how to make beer and bread. The important thing is balance.
The transportation portion of this interview appears at Streetsblog. "The Urban Homestead" is available through Homegrown Evolution.
Photos by Damien Newton
 You don't have to be vegan to love vegan food, as evidenced by the popularity of Real Food Daily. The Santa Monica branch of RFD's even taken over the space next door (I think it used to be a Chinese restaurant) and is in the process of putting in a new bakery.
Sadly, while I'd love to have someone prepare nice vegan meals for me daily, I can't afford to eat at RFD every day. Which is why I was excited to discover Vegin' Out, a local vegan food delivery service, at the Room 367 event last month. Vegin' Out was sampling out a very tasty vegan jambalaya.
How would you like healthful, local, organic food cooked and delivered to your doorstep? Vegin' Out does just that -- and pretty affordably too! For $100, you can sign up to get 9-10 fresh vegan meals delivered to you (free delivery in the L.A. area; $15 for DHL shipping elsewhere).
 Founded in 1999, Vegin' Out's co-owned by Tim Boissy, a nutritional chef, and his brother Dan Boissy. Vegin' Out gets much of its produce from the Santa Monica Farmers' Market; about 75% of the ingredients in Vegin' Out's trans fat-free meals are certified organic.
So last week, I tried out Vegin' Out's service. Monday morning, I received a few entrees, a few side dishes, soup, and most importantly, almond shortbread cookies!
My favorite dishes were the tofu cordon bleu over wild rice and the vegetarian chili, both of which I feel I could eat every day (at least for a few months). The side dishes -- like the carrots in creamy garlic sauce, cauliflower with braised tomatoes, and spring succotash -- were pretty tasty too.
There were a few duds too, however. The country garden spring soup was rather bland, for example -- though I did end up eating all of it. The main oddity about my delivery was the large number of carrots used in the dishes. In addition to the three servings of carrots in creamy garlic sauce, there were small pieces of carrots in the chili and soup, as well as larger pieces in the pepper steak mushroom stroganoff. I do like carrots, but a girl's got her limits! Brian L. Patton, Sales & Marketing Manager for Vegin' Out, did assure me this was an anomaly for the week.
Luckily, each week's delivery includes a preview menu for the next week -- and customers can specify if they'd like to omit one dish to double up on another. This option's one I could use to avoid too much of any one veggie as well as avoid veggies I don't want -- i.e. broccoli -- altogether.
 While I liked the food, I did have some qualms about Vegin' Out's packaging. All the food's delivered in plastic one-use packaging (recyclable, but still) -- encased in a plastic bag to boot. Patton says that the biodegradable packaging they've tried didn't work as well, and thus are sticking to the current plastic containers "until we find the ideal option." Switching out the bags, however, is at the top of our priority list," says Patton. "We're currently weighing out our options for that ... either reusable or biodegradable."
The plastic packaging's really an issue for me, because it'd suddenly bring up my use of those clam shell things from maybe one a week to seven or so! Of course, for people who buy a lot of pre-packaged prepared foods anyway, switching to Vegin' Out deliveries might actually cut down on their plastic consumption.
I think I'll hold off from using Vegin' Out's services until they at least get rid of the plastic bags -- which are soon going to be banned in my town (Santa Monica) anyway. Hopefully that day will come soon; the vegan orange chocolate chip cookies on next week's menu sound really yummy.
Vegin' Out. (310) 574-9405
 Recycling odd, small items brings out two camps: The "Why're you wasting time with small meaningless things when we've got big problems" crowd, and the "Finally -- a solution for my mini quandary" crowd. This post's for the people in the latter granola group.
And I mean "granola group" literally, as in people who enjoy eating granola. Sign up for The Energy Bar Wrapper Brigade to get 2 cents per used granola bar wrapper and the peace of mind that those trashy things'll get upcycled into backpacks, purses, and other more permanent products.
That program's sponsored by CLIF bar, which has teamed up with the worm-poop eco-fertilizer company TerraCycle to create this upcycling project. CLIF isn't alone; companies ranging from the Stonyfield Farms yogurt company to the rather biz-as-usual Nabisco are also sponsoring TerraCycle projects. Got a Chips Ahoy or Oreo addiction? Pack your kids Capri Suns every day? Save the trash, earn money, and feel saintly green.
Of course, some die-hard environmentalists will argue that the real problem is not the disposal of the packaging but our addiction to single-serving convenience foods -- especially unhealthy, processed stuff like Oreos. I hear that, but still eat the occasional CLIF and Maya bar. I also get the local Redwood Hill Farm's yogurt sometimes, and once, I bought organic oreos.
The companies selling the food products are the ones paying for the projects, from the shipping costs of the materials to the 2-5 cent incentives. This allows TerraCycle to obtain zero-cost materials. "We don’t make a profit from the funds that [the sponsor companies] provide us with," says James Artis of TerraCycle. "We simply use those funds for operating expenses. Where we as a company look to turn a profit is the affordable eco-friendly products that we make from the garbage."
Unfortunately, unless you know of or have signed up an organization you're involved in with the upcycling program, disposing of all this packaging in an eco-manner still isn't easy. TerraCycle's website puts the recycling program info upfront, but the sponsoring companies' websites don't have anything about the programs in a place where consumers could easily find out about it. In addition, while many organizations have signed up with the program, those organizations aren't listed in any kind of public database that would let would-be upcyclers drop wrappers off at a nearby location.
My guess is that too much publicity -- like installing collection bins at every major supermarket -- might overwhelm TerraCycle's resources. Already, TerraCycle's taking a break from adding "brigades" for energy bar wrappers, yogurt containers or soda bottles.
Still, if your school or other group wants to participate, signing up is pretty easy -- and free. Plus the money collected could be used toward fundraisers. I'm wondering if my favorite grocery store, Co-opportunity, can be talked into getting a collection box.
 >> Priuses: Still popular. Toyota's announced a third plant in Japan to make batteries for hybrids.
>> The "Give your car the summer off" campaign. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels wants Seattleites to cut back on driving by 10%. "Local businesses and museums are dangling incentives to try to get people to take the bus, ride a bike or car pool to cut down on the number of miles they travel." (via Treehugger)
>> Redefining transportation. At Brayj Against the Machine, Josef El-Brayjerino lays out some bicycle transportation policy goals for L.A. -- which includes suggestions for tweaking the L.A. municipal code to include bicycling and walking in the legal definition of transportation. (via Streetsblog LA)
>> Cleaning up the Port. The Middle Harbor facility project for the Port of Long Beach just released its environmental impact review for public comment. "The 10-year, $750-million project would combine two terminals that are too old, inefficient and dirty to meet the port's goals for pollution reduction and greater productivity."
>> The "Future of Wine." Richard Selley of Imperial College London wrote a book about the future of British wines in the face of climate change. "Given reports that climate change is already raising the alcohol content of wines (warmer temperatures mean more sugar which is converted into alcohol) it looks like the taste of climate change is a boozy one."
>> Tuna calculator. Use Environmental Working Group's handy calculator to figure out how much Albacore or light tuna you can safely enjoy in a week. (via Green Daily)
>> Honey, I shrunk the frogs. "Human disruption to habitats not only causes populations to get smaller, it also seems to cause the individuals of some species to literally shrink."
Photo by Siel
 So factory farmed meat gets a lot of bad press -- but if you're not quite sure what the problem with the unnatural meat is, 'The Simpsons' can help you out. (via The Ethicurean)
In “Apocalypse Cow,” Bart gets to know a "scrappy little misfit" of a cow called Lou when he joins 4H. Unfortunately, Lou gets sent to a feedlot -- and more fortunately, the storyline educates viewers about growth hormones, slaughterhouses, and, um, Casablanca.
For more factory farming fun, watch The Meatrix, a cute short animation feature by Sustainable Table. My favorite character's Moofius.
Need a more realistic, less cartoonish video to get you concerned about factory farming? Check out the videos from the Humane Society that got Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in Chino, Calif., in trouble -- and precipitated the biggest beef recall in history.
>> L.A. lifeguards get into hybrids. Ford presented 10 Beach Patrol Escape Hybrids to the L.A. County Lifeguard Headquarters in Venice last week. "With four-wheel drive, it'll return 29 mpg in town (or on the beach), and 27 mpg on the highway." The fleet will grow to 45 vehicles. (via Treehugger)
 >> BBC correspondent discovers that -- gasp! -- L.A.'s subway "system" is still incomplete. But kudos for him for taking the train to the Kodak Theatre.
>> Suits made of recycled PET bottles are coming to Sears, which plans to sell them for about $200 a suit starting on Father's Day.
>> Sex toys sans phthalates. Get more eco- and health-friendly beads and rings from natch snatch. (thanks to Susannah for the tip.)
>> The rise -- and hopefully fall -- of high fructose corn syrup. Hansen’s Natural Soda is replacing HFCS with cane sugar, and to mark the occasion, Mark R. gives us a little HFCS history.
Photo by Cathy Cole via Flickr
 >> Exxon's really, really good at squeezing money out of its gas stations. "Major integrated U.S. oil companies, which produce crude oil, own refineries and sell gasoline, have been reaping billions of dollars in profit over the last two years, but they are still working to extract every penny they can from the marketing end of the business."
>> ExxonMobil really, really doesn't want to take action on climate change. According to Co-op America, ExxonMobil "sent its investment relations people to major investors nationwide to convince them to vote against resolutions urging Exxon to take action on climate change." ExxonMobil's annual shareholders' meeting happens May 28.
>> You're probably familiar with the EnergyStar logo, but what about the WaterSense label? This partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency makes it easier to identify water-efficient products. "The EPA has claimed that if every home in the US switched to WaterSense labeled fixtures, we would save 60 billion gallons of water a year," says Joel Bittle in Low Impact Living.
>> Eco-kitchen remodeling must be the in thing right now. In addition to the recent Wall Street Journal how-to guide of sorts, here's Chow's guide to building the ultimate green kitchen.
>> Today's the last day of World Vegetarian Week! Eat a PB&J sandwich in celebration -- or get some veggie burgers for the BBQs tomorrow.
Photo by Jeremy Stanley via Flickr
 I was going to write about Wired's over-the-top "everything you know about environmentalism is wrong" cover message -- then found a bunch of bloggers had done so already. That didn't, however, stop me from my impulse to still add my two cents! So here are the three main quibbles I have about Wired's wannabe contrarian feature:
Overblown headlines. For example, the "Keep your SUV" article doesn't actually encourage you to keep your SUV. It simply points out that if you own a relatively fuel-efficient car already, keeping that old car may be more eco than buying a new hybrid. "Crank the A/C" is another big headline -- as if turning your house into an icebox will save the environment -- when all the article really shows is that heating takes more energy than cooling.
 Out-of-date mantras. "Live in cities," Wired announces as some brand new idea -- never mind that new urbanism advocates have been pushing for walkable, close-knit neighborhoods that don't require lots of driving for decades now. Even Villaraigosa's been on board with this for years now. It's a little odd for Wired to say "The war on greenhouse gases is too important to be left to the environmentalists" -- before going on to advise we do exactly what environmentalists have been recommending for a long, long while.
 Oversimplification of complex issues. "Screw organic," says Wired, arguing that organic farming requires more land per unit of food -- without taking into effect the many environmental disasters (i.e. pesticide runoff) created by conventional factory farms that also increase their carbon footprints. Wired takes a myopic one-solution-cures-all approach and disses organic to champion local. In contrast, environmentalists in general caution against a silver bullet theory, and instead encourage a general move toward a less meat-centric diet favoring locally and sustainably grown organic foods.
For more Wired dissing, check out the rebuttal piece by Worldchanging's Alex Steffen also published in this Wired issue. In addition, Hank Green of EcoGeek provides a point-by-point analysis of each Wired topic, and David Roberts of Grist has a more sarcastic tirade of sorts about the tiredness of Wired ("This techno-futurist, hipster-libertarian, self-consciously contrarian shtick was fresh and interesting ... back in 1996, when Wired was founded").
 Have your organic locally-grown carrot cake and eat it too! The Hollywood Farmers' Market is turning 17, and the celebrations kick off with a carrot cake cutting ceremony at 8 a.m. -- Get there early and enjoy a free piece!
When: Sunday, May 25, 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Where: Hollywood Farmers' Market, at Ivar and Selma avenues between Hollywood and Sunset, Los Angeles
Cost: Free!
There'll be face painting and an arts and crafts workshop for kids starting at 9. For the cooks, a chef demonstration with Pace's Sandy Gendel -- a twice-weekly farmers' market shopper -- begins at 10 a.m.
Shop local, eat good cake -- and don't forget to take your own bag!
 Bike to Work Week's officially over, but the bicycle love just keeps coming -- into my mailbox and e-mail inbox. The latest fun bike love comes in the form of a cute 120-page booklet, "Seven Wonders for a Cool Planet," written by Eric Sorensen and others at the nonprofit think tank Sightline Institute and published by the Sierra Club.
The first wonder, as you may've guessed, is the bicycle. Why? It's the most energy-efficient vehicle ever made, and it's available widely NOW. In fact, all seven "wonders" covered in this book -- from the condom to the clothesline -- are ALL uber-efficient objects that are both affordable and readily available.
While all seven of these items are eco-friendly, efficient inventions in and of themselves, each also serves as a synecdoche for larger environmental issues. Yes, every bike ride that replaces a car trip reduces CO2 emissions -- but considering the bicycle also forces us to confront larger issues about our transportation habits, our city layout and planning, our car culture, and the like.
Those of you reading this blog'll be happy to know that the microchip also makes the list, as a synecdoche for the information economy. After all, the computer's made telecommuting -- and the attendant reduction in auto travel -- possible. Even though computer use still uses up a lot of energy, the computer's given us a way of sharing information cheaply and efficiently.
Of course, I did have quibbles with the book here and there, mainly because "Seven Wonders" often tends to oversimplify issues and statistics for dramatic impact. For example, "Seven Wonders" asserts that a book bought at a bookstore incurs 16 times the energy costs of a book bought at Amazon -- despite the fact that enviro experts have shown e-commerce only saves energy -- and not even that much -- if you live in rural areas.
In addition, "Seven Wonders" claims roughly 80% of humans can afford to buy a bicycle -- which I have a hard time believing, considering the fact that over half of the world's population lives on less than $2 per day according to the United Nations Development Programme.
Still, I liked the book's can-do attitude and the micro-macro perspective to the major enviro-issues confronting us today. Read some excerpts here, or buy the book -- printed on chlorine-free, 50% post-consumer recycled paper -- for $9.95.
 Buy a carton of cow's milk, and the ingredient list will often list just that: milk. Not so with soy milk. What is "carrageenan" and why's it in my soy milk? That's what I asked Twitter after getting home with my Silk organic soy milk, bought at Vons yesterday after much indecision. Within a few hours, I had a few tweets back:
- Curtis: "gelatinous extracts of the Chondrus crispus seaweed". Bon apetit ;)
- Zel: Silk is the Velveeta of soy milk. Or at least the Kraft American cheese. I like the Trader Joe's brand. I used to like the 365 brand until they switched to plastic containers. 8th Continent is also good and mostly natural. I could go on...
 I usually shop at Co-opportunity and Whole Foods, but it was a soy milk emergency (I wanted to make pancakes) and a Vons happened to be right there. Since big grocery stores have really been getting into the organic market, I figured finding organic soy milk would be a cinch.
Sure enough, I found not just one, but two organic soy milk brands to choose from. Unfortunately, both Silk and Vons' own O Organics soy milks had a lot of non-soy stuff in their ingredients. I finally settled on Silk because it had fewer ingredients I couldn't pronounce.
Here's Silk's ingredient list:
And here's Organic O's:
 Why are fewer ingredients better? Well for one thing, I don't want a whole lot of sugar and its empty calories unceremoniously poured into my soy milk. Unsweeted soy milk is nuttily sweet enough for me, thank you very much.
For another, who knows what all this stuff is? Organic O's "zinc gluconate" initially sounded scary to me, though I later discovered the stuff's commonly used in supplements and not actually dangerous. However, according to Wikipedia, "Zinc gluconate may interfere with the absorption of antibiotics, so combinations may be unsafe." Luckily, I'm not taking antibiotics, but for those who are, drinking this soy milk could cause problems, unbeknownst to the soy milk lover!
The soy milk I usually get: Westsoy Organic Unsweetened Soy Milk. Here's the ingredient list:
That's the way I like my soy milk: Free of cane sugar and carrageenan.
Silk and Organic O aren't even the real baddies when it comes to weird food ingredients. In case you missed it, Kraft even got sued for its “guacamole” which contains just 2% avocado. What’s the other 98%? Partially hydrogenated soybean and coconut oils, corn syrup, whey and food starch. Yummy.
But back to soy milk. For bargain hunters: I believe Trader Joe's brand of unsweetened soy milk is also nice and simple. Can someone with a carton in the fridge confirm that? My closest Trader Joe's is just far enough away that I only go once every month or two.
Photos by Siel
>> Rising fuel prices have Angelenos de-car-ing. "Interest in cycling is growing, gasoline consumption is down and bus and light-rail ridership is up."
>> Check out the four latest options for the subway to the sea. Which is your favorite? One last meeting for this round happens on Monday.
>> Plan to bike to Dodger Stadium? The sole bike rack's in Lot P -- though not even the parking attendants seem to know of its existence. Damien Newton offers photographic guidance -- and a lot of constructive criticism for the stadium -- in Streetsblog LA.
>> No, the 2007 farm bill still hasn't passed. But for those who tuned out, Tom Philpott of Grist as a primer on the current version -- and possible fates -- of the current bill. As the L.A. Times reports, the bill's still high on crop subsidies.
>> Organic farming mitigates climate change, says Timothy LaSalle of the Rodale Institute, a leading organic-farming research and advocacy organization. "Synthetic fertilizer and oil-based pesticides release carbon dioxide into the air. But the organic approach, which is truly regenerative agriculture, sequesters carbon: It takes carbon out of the air and puts it back in the soil."
>> The U.S. EPA needs to regulate carbon monoxide, rules a judge. The EPA was told it needs to regulate carbon dioxide too -- but the agency appears set on shirking that responsibility until the end of the Bush administration.
Photo by Liz O. Baylen, L.A. Times
 >> "Accidentally" take more car lanes out of service. Eric Richardson of blogdowntown notes that traffic gets around fine on 6th St., despite the fact that a lane has been taken up by a transformer for several weeks. "If the city's content to let the lane sit blocked for weeks at a time, one has to question whether it's really so necessary for traffic after all."
>> Ditch the bottled water habit already. Colin Beavin, No Impact Man, talks about Elizabeth Royte's "Bottlemania," a soon to be published book about our drinking water. Writes Royte: "I come away from my investigations with at least one certainty: not all tap water is perfect. But it is the devil we know, the devil we have standing to negotiate with and improve. Bottled water companies don't answer to the public, they answer to shareholders." Earlier: Bottle up.
>> Make an ambitious urban bicycle plan a reality. New York city plans to "make it possible for riders to traverse Manhattan via dedicated bike lanes and circumnavigate the island along the waterfront. Sheltered bicycle parking and thousands of new public bike racks are already in place." L.A.'s a little behind.
>> Try NOT eating corn -- corn-based additives, that is. In Whole Life Times, Katherine Pryor keeps a journal of her three days off corn, a diet "which pretty much excludes all the mysterious multisyllabic ingredients on the back of most processed foods. It also excludes all those “acids”: ascorbic, citric, lactic, malic or otherwise."
>> Grow and buy basil from the block. "More and more New Yorkers ... are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block." If urban farmers can make a go of it in that crowded city, we can surely do it here in L.A. (h/t to reader Mercy)
Photo by Eric Richardson, blogdowntown.com
 If you're like me, you use GMail, Google calender, Google maps, and just plain google.com on a daily basis. So perhaps eating like Google does was just the next step for me. Google employees get free healthful gourmet meals made for them every day -- a fact that fills me with jealousy whenever I ride my bike past Google's Santa Monica office on my way to the farmers market.
Well, now, I can eat like the Google people do, thanks to former Google chef Charlie Ayers. His new book, "Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef who Fed Google," is filled with his environmentally-conscious, locavore-friendly cooking tips -- with more than 100 yummy recipes accompanied by mouth-watering pictures.
Ayers was hired by Google when the company had just 40 mouths to feed. When he left Google in 2005, he was feeding 1,500 people a day! And in "Food 2.0," Ayers tells little anecdotal stories from his tenure at Google while dispensing healthful eating advice. "You're smart. So why don't you eat that way?" he asks.
"Food 2.0" emphasizes that eating healthfully and ethically doesn't have to be time consuming. Many of the easy-to-make recipes are labeled "Grab & Go." Plus there's lots of time-saving tips, from cooking in bulk and freezing for later use, to instituting an effective labeling system for the meats in the freezer. Then there's the eco- and health-conscious advice, like "Stuff to avoid feeding to yourself or people you love" to "4 best herbs to grow at home."
Of course, not everything in "Food 2.0" is simple and easy -- especially to a cooking novice like me. For example, Ayers names his top favorite vinegars to use at home -- all 11 of them -- then gives instructions for making more! I don't even have space for that many vinegars... In addition, some recipes, like those for Lamb Korma or Goan Pork, seem both complicated and time-consuming. Good thing I don't cook meat.
But I drooled over most recipes. The first one I want to try: Smoked salmon-sun-dried cranberries-goat cheese wrap. Prep time: 6 mins. Cook time: 0. I just need to bike past Google tomorrow for the Wednesday farmers' market, where I plan to pick up some local goat cheese from the Redwood Hill Farm booth!
For a taste of "Food 2.0," try the recipes on Ayers' website, or the Lamb Burgers with Tzatziki Sauce recipe published on Amazon.
 >> Similar to the Brita + Nalgene's FilterForGood campaign, the filter company has teamed up with Cindy Crawford to launch Thirsty For Change. Cindy wants you to bring your own reusable bottle -- including a Sigg bottle of her own design, from which all proceeds will go toward Children’s Safe Drinking Water, a program that seeks to provide clean drinking water to impoverished children around the world.
>> Visiting the San Diego Zoo or Monterey Bay Aquarium? Both spots now have eco-friendly plush stuffed animals to take home as souvenirs. Get your panda or polar bear, with a soy exterior and kapok (a sustainable rain forest crop) stuffing.
>> Enviro-conscious pescatarians: Here's an interview with Taras Grescoe, author of "Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood." I'm happy to know my farmers' market mussels appear to've been a good choice.
>> Sugar-cane ethanol can harm rainforests and encourage unfair labor, say economics, environment, and fair labor experts in letters to the New York Times after the newspaper ran a column praising sugar-cane ethanol.
>> Room 367, an eco-biz networking event for twenty- and thirtysomethings, happens tomorrow night at the A&D Museum. RSVP now to socialize over drinks and appetizers with like-minded young environmentalists.
>> Public Metro meetings about the subway to the sea and other traffic-busting alternatives for the Westside begin today. Be there, or plan to be at one of the other three upcoming meetings.
For fresh, organic salads made with local, in-season ingredients, stop by Bloom Cafe on Pico. I think the fresh, minty Seared Salmon and Citrus Salad, made with organic baby greens and grapefruit, is the best salmon salad I've ever had -- and decently priced too, at $12.75.
In addition to fresh salads, this casual dining spot serves up homemade granola in organic milk, organic egg dishes, and even organic tofu scrambles, making it a perfect place for brunch, whether you're a vegan or omnivore.
Bloom Cafe's great for dinners as well, whether your pick is the vegan soup of the day or grass-fed top sirloin steak. I hear the pizzas are tasty too. Plus you can BYOB; There's no corkage fee!
Bloom Cafe's actually divided into two parts, with a busy bakery/takeout cafe on one side, and sit-down dining in the other. The dining area isn't large, but there's also patio seating in the back and sidewalk seating out front where dog owners can enjoy their eco-friendly meal while keeping an eye on their pets.
This healthful eatery was created by Jean-Louis Bartoli and Arnaud Palatan, formerly of Louis XIV and Pastis, respectively. Calendarlive.com's got more enthusiastic details about Bloom Cafe's pancakes and pizzas -- but I recommend checking it out yourself.
Bloom Cafe. 5544 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. (323) 934-6900.
Top photo by Siel; bottom photo by waltarrrrr via Flickr
Yes, I knew I could get local, sustainably harvested oysters and mussels at the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers' Market, thanks to Katie Ricketts' post. But yesterday, I found out I could get ready-to-eat steamed mussels in a white wine sauce!
So I got a pound of the stuff -- for just $8! There it is, above.
I got to the booth at a lucky time, when only a couple people were in front of me -- but by the time I was leaving with my bowl, about a dozen people were lined up! Many of the benches on Third Street Promenade were occupied by other mussel eaters, but I managed to snag a spot and devour my bounty in about 5 minutes. Afterward, I sopped up the garlicky wine sauce with the bread.
The seafood booth offered a couple other flavors of steamed mussels too, as well as chowder and raw oyster plates. Unfortunately, this booth comes to market only about once a month, according to the woman who was serving the dishes. But now I'm more determined than ever to never miss a farmers' market day.
Photo by Siel
That's Katie Ricketts, community/market organizer at Southland Farmers' Market Assn. and contributor to Emerald City, giving out bags of yummy, farm-fresh produce in front of the Santa Monica Main Public Library!
Stop by between 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. today and you can meet her in person -- and sign up for the Santa Monica Market Basket Program. Want in-season strawberries but don't want to fight the crowds at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market? If you join the Basket Program, all you'll have to do is choose a pick-up location -- either the SM Main Library or the parking lot at the SM City Hall -- and a pre-packed bag will be waiting for you between 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. every Wednesday.
Cost: $25 for a "classic" bag, which'll contain 8 to 10 pieces of produce. You can opt for a $30 "specialty" bag that includes a few items with higher price points or a $38 family bag. Yes, prices have gone up a tad because some of the summer produce costs more.
To sign up, just stop by either location during the pick-up time on a Wednesday -- or contact Katie at katie@sfma.net or (310) 740-7544. After prepaying (credit card, check or cash), you can start picking up your bag o' goodies every week! Eating local's never been easier.
I believe the Basket Program's still trying to implement a viable bag reuse program, but having a hard time making the process simple and feasible for produce buyers. Got suggestions?
Photo by Siel
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Getting a city-wide green bin program in place for multifamily housing units, however, will likely take a couple years, says Thompson. In the meantime, Santa Monica will get a smaller program: Green bins where people can drop off their compostables will be placed in a couple spots around the city. Thompson doesn't have the spots picked out yet, but said the bins will definitely be in place by the end of the summer. 
