Today, my $79 piece of gum has finally arrived! It is a fancy chew, imported from Switzerland and the second main ingredient to xylitol are actual flakes of 23 carat gold. It’s created by the same people who invented the $1,000 ice cream Sunday made with gold. You can pick up your jaws off the floor…
Category: Zero-Waste
Plastic is Scary: Green Halloween Costumes & Decorations
Single use plastic has found its way into every fiber of modern life (pun intended). Micro plastic can now be found in over 90% of birds, in virtually every fish and even in bacteria that lives in the darkest caves in the depths of the vast ocean. It can be found in our stores, homes,…
Don’t Scare the Planet on Halloween – Pumpkin Recycling & Other Uses
Carving pumpkins and consuming everything pumpkin-spiced are among my favorite October activities. I embrace the basic status and I don’t hold back. But I also take on the season with the environment in mind. This means that I bring my to-go cup for that PSL and I don’t let a single bit of pumpkin go…
Greener Grocery Shopping with Misfits Market
Ever since moving to America from China, my mission to lead a zero-waste lifestyle has become significantly more difficult. In China, it was my experience that people were less aware of the negative impacts of plastic. Despite this, there seemed to be more opportunities to affordably shop for most necessities in reusable containers. I now live in…
Don’t Trash those Pumpkins – Smash them into the Compost instead
Composting will make sure your pumpkin decomposes and the nutrients will benefit a tree, flower or someone’s crops. When food is thrown in to the regular trash, it can’t decompose properly and will release gasses that will poison the environment.
Easy to Identify Mushroom in NYC: Hen-of-the-Woods (Maitake)
I find these mushrooms the most rewarding to pick, because even a small one is enough as a side dish to any meal and the bigger ones can feed an entire family! Every time I’ve looked for hens, I found at least one and usually had 2-4 kilos (4-9 pounds) in just 30 minutes of searching. Of course, you can also find a single mushroom that weighs 13+ kilos (30+ pounds).
Five Things NEVER to Buy at the Grocery Store Again
These days it’s easy to get caught up in all the flashy products available at the supermarket. Everything has a fancy, complicated version of itself. Pick up a bottle of tomato sauce at a grocery store and count the ingredient. Now grab the tortillas and see if you can pronounce all the chemicals. Finally, look at the fancy $10 organic peanut butter, and you’ll see the point I’m trying to get to: salt and peanuts. That’s it…
Going Zero-Waste: 5 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW!
Recently our friends and readers have been asking us what steps they can take to “go zero-waste.” Maybe they’ve have read that America alone uses 100 billion plastic bags a year. Possibly they are worried about the impact we’re having on marine life, like the whales that are being found washed-up with their stomachs full…
Waste-Free Wednesdays: Intro to Zero-Waste Lifestyle
I have been on a journey towards a zero-waste lifestyle since the beginning of this year. What began as an item on my New Year’s Resolutions list sandwiched in between ‘lose weight’ and ‘leave China’ actually ended up changing the way I live and see the world. Living in rural area of Shanghai has really…
TheTravelBugBite 