Toni Oplt

This has been such a wonderful experience. Very humbling and eye-opening. Even when you believe you are a pretty good steward of the Earth, you realize just how very far you have to go. However, tomorrow I will be with others at Environmental Lobby Day in Springfield, IL. I have never felt more prepared as a champion for the Earth. I have learned so much and feel confident I have much more to both learn and share.

So I'm on a community committee called Bring Your Own Glen-Ed. We are working to eliminate plastics--especially single-use bags--in our communities of Glen Carbon and Edwardsville, IL. Our meeting is tonight and I've spent much of the day creating a back/front tag that lists 6 major dangers of plastics on one side and 10 small consistent steps anyone can take to reduce or eliminate plastics in their lives. Many have contributed to this and I feel confident we will affect change.

I decided to do a bit more than log my waste yesterday--I created a recipe that used a lot of it up! You can view it at my blog Green Gal of the Midwest: www.greengalmidwest.com/the-compost-cracker/ I also mentioned Project Drawdown so people can check this out before the challenge ends next week. Today I made apple-honey syrup by using us my year's worth of frozen apple peels and cores, sweetening the syrup with organic honey and adding ginger and whole spices. Now to be fair, eventually the fruit becomes garbage because we keep sugar--even honey--out of the compost. But still, it was a great recycle/reuse. The syrup can be used in many ways--salad dressing ingredient, cocktail ingredient, in baked goods, etc. Any way a simple sugar syrup can be used. 

So I think my challenge is opening my eyes to not only what I am doing right but also pointing out how much more I need to do. I'm in the middle of two steps forward and one step backward. I have been very proud of the fact that this winter I was able to use almost 90 percent of my produce from my little freezer (a gift from my fiends for my 60 birthday). This means that 90 percent of my vegetables, fruits and nuts used this winter were from local, mostly organic farms, with about 10 percent coming from the grocery store. However, I am a committee member of Bring Your Own Glen-Ed, a local environmental activist committee dedicated to reducing plastics, especially single-use plastic bags. Long term, we are working toward an ordinance banning single-use plastic bags in the Edwardsville and Glen Carbon Illinois communities. So here's the problem: all that local produce in my freezer is contained in plastic freezer bags. Once I use the produce, I thoroughly wash and reuse the freezer bags, either storing stuff in my fridge or using later at the store instead of getting a new bag. But eventually, the plastic wears out and I have to throw it in the garbage. How can I totally eliminate the plastic freezer bags? I feel the good I'm doing by freezing my local produce outweighs the use of the plastic bags, but I'm not sure at all about this. Looking for suggestions......

The latest issue of The Nature Conservancy magazine is called "Fixing Food" full of stories about farming. New partnerships-some make me nervous, I'll admit--bringing back traditional methods of erosion reduction, etc. It's just an amazing publication and an amazing organization. 

Over the years we've discovered that buying post-consumer paper products is not easy. Stores care brands for a while and then discontinue. To help decrease our use of paper and move to reusable cloth products, we are in the process of making two changes. First, I have tried to remember a gym towel when I go to the gym and use it instead of reaching for a paper towel when I wash my hands in the restroom. That was pretty easy! Next on my list is to implement a rule of no paper in the dining room, meaning I'm scouring our Good Will store for cloth napkins and placemats to use instead of paper napkins and paper towels. We'll see how that goes.

While everything is not local today, it is organic and much purchased from our independent health food retailer.