JULY! Rotting garden scraps!

Wow! Welcome back, me! After a short hiatus (oops!) I'm back with monthly goals! This month: start and maintain a compost pile! What better way to stink up the kitchen! Just kidding- if you actually keep up with this, it makes your kitchen LESS stinky because you don't have old food scraps sitting and decomposing in your trash can. Also helps reduce household waste by about 30% AND might motivate you to start your own garden! For those of you who have been wanting to start a compost pile, now's your chance! If you're like me and you've composted old lunches in your locker and been doing science experiments with vegetables in your fridge, this will be easy! *Added bonus: not only will you be reducing landfill waste but your housemates/partner will be amazed that you now happily clean out the fridge!
What you need:
1- An area outside: can be a dirt area in your yard, a large tupperware bin or trash can too if you think you don't have the dirt space.
2- Some dirt
3-A container inside to temporarily hold compost items (I like to keep a tiny trash can under the sink)
I should say that I am NOT a composting expert, here's a link to help you get started: http://www.composting101.com/
Note: there is a LOT of information online which can be pretty scientific-don't be scared! I'm keeping mine simple. There are also many many different ways to compost-including worm bins. These are special plastic boxes full of worms that eat your food scraps and produce ultra rich compost. Supposedly these can be kept indoors, which is nice if you live in an extreme climate. However, the worms are picky. My friend Thais has one and she couldn't put our corn cobs in there because they had butter on them. Apparently they don't like onions either and will crawl out of their box if you put something in there that they don't like. BUT, they do produce some might fine compost and are fun to show off at parties.

If you already have a compost pile, think about re-examining your trash: are you 1st REDUCing your trash (buy in bulk, buy at local farmers markets, bring your own bags & containers), 2nd REUSing (reuse containers instead of buying tupperware, reusing ziploc bags, etc.) and RECYCLing? I know I do most things in the opposite order (reducing last) and should work on that...

Let me know how it goes for you! Thanks to my mom and Pete for building me a square foot bed to put my compost in and for motivating me to get started on this!

1st Day

Wow-I've had lots of great feedback from everyone (especially over email!). Today was my first day! I managed to grin and bear cleaning out my nasty travel mug in the bathroom at our local coffee shop. I also felt so guilty getting a to-go soup in a styrafoam container that I "borrowed" a real bowl from the hospital cafeteria. I give myself 5 stars today. And I'll give the bowl back. I think the hard part of this challenge for me is to actually clean out my reusables. I"m sure college roomies (esp. Erin!) can attest to the fact that I threw away many real bowls I never felt like cleaning..ohhh the guilt!!!
Kudos to everyone who already uses reusable water and coffee containers-keep up the good work!

APRIL: Reusable cups

APRIL: This month's goal will be to not use ANY disposable water bottles, juice bottles, coffee cups, etc! This means always having several of my traveler's mugs on hand (clean ones). I think this will be easy for coffee and water, but I'm a little nervous about bringing my big coffee cup to the smoothie place...
(Also a little nervous about actually having to keep my coffee mugs clean, as I enjoy letting the old dirty containers rot in my car).
Visit Sustainability Is Sexy for the facts on using reusable mugs for coffee.
Check out the impact bottled water has on our trash output.
Note: I think recycling is great, but how about not using the bottles at ALL considering the energy and petroleum that goes into making the bottles in the 1st place!
(2nd Note: I know this isn't exactly a groundbreaking idea and that alot of you do this already, but thought I would make a hard core committment to it this month. Try it and see what happens!)

Welcome to This One Month! I was inspired to start this blog after attending the "Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" symposium at For Goodness Sake here in Truckee, CA. I was also inspired by a very very brief news clip in The Week about high school students who chose to give something up each month in the interest of simplicity and environmentalism.

The three facets of the Awakening the Dreamer initiative include environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment. Each month I will choose one goal to focus on for the month that encompasses one of the above topics, and I'll update my progress (and failures I'm sure!) here. I encourage everyone else to participate and hope that this idea spreads! Please pass the idea along to friends & family members, and feel free to post your successes on this blog. Ideas for future monthly goals are welcome!