Meat
Am not going to go into the environmental effects of meat production (especially red meat), but rest assured it takes a lot more energy and causes more pollution to produce. For more info, you can start reading here or here.
Against what you may expect I am not going to advertise going all vegetarian. Why? Because I believe that everybody’s body works differently and that sustainable solutions mean that they have to be a free choice.
Take me for example, I consider myself 95% vegetarian (sorry if you are a 100% vegetarian and this offended you), but this is my sustainable approach (I don’t care if my food has touched meat (makes it way easier to be invited for dinner), I eat fish (whilst recently paying attention to MSC..) and I will have duck for Christmas!)
Somebody once told me rather than buying the cheapest meat to eat every day, he now buys quality meat to eat once a week and I thought that was a great approach. As a side effect he discovered his creativity in the kitchen (and his taste butts )

Fish
According to Greenpeace “More than 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are ‘fully exploited’, ‘over exploited’ or ‘significantly depleted’ (click here for more info), but there are still fish that can be consumed with a good conscience. The Marine Stewards Council is labelling them with their MSC logo, so keep your eye out for that! But even outside the labelled items there are better and worse choices, click here for a printable overview (which by the way fits conveniently into any wallet).

Vegetables
The less vegetables (or any food for that matter) travel to get onto our plate, the better – not just because of the transport costs, chances are they will be fresher (vitamins!) as well. Here two charts (pdf, html) for which vegetables are in season (paying attention to low prices in supermarkets and Belgian product logo gives you a pretty good idea as well ). You can even order a calendar for 2011 with this info at info@bruxellesenvironnement.be (pdf version here). Alternatively there are the deliveries of organic and seasonal fruit right to your doorstep.

Bon appetit,
Sylvia

Links:
Organic food deliveries in Brussels (of course there are more.. but I don’t know them :-S):
http://www.vevyweron.be
http://www.reason2.be

“It’s sad how we take nutrients from the earth and
rather than giving them back we waste precious drinking water (see toilets) or fill dump sites.”

Good point, I thought.

Shortly after that I got introduced to wormeries and decided that this was my chance of giving back (a little).. What is a wormery?

“A Wormery is a box system that contains composting worms .. [and] .. is an easy, convenient, environmentally-friendly and efficient way of turning your waste kitchen scraps into high quality super-rich compost all the year round.”

For a normal compost one would need a garden, but the good thing about a wormery is, that it can be done indoors as well, in fact the worms work best at temperatures between 14-25° Celcius. I don’t really need all that earth, but some friends already expressed an interest in it and I bet the trees on my street will be happy takers as well.

So how do you get started?

1. Get 2 opaque boxes and a lid (In my case I use another box as the lid). Of course you can also buy wormeries in stores, but they are rather expensive (over 100EUR I was told)
2. Punch holes into one of the boxes and the lid. The box with no holes will be at the bottom, this is where very nutritious water (leachate) released in the process will be collected. The lid needs to have holes, so the worms can breathe.
3. Fill the box with the holes with a mix of 2-3cm shredded newspaper and cardboard. (I just teared it into small pieces.)
4. Get some worms and place them on top of the shredded paper mix. (Worms come with the compost they currently live in and can be picked up here for free)
5. Add some organic waste, approximately the amount of the compost with the worms. (Do not use orange peels or anything cooked.)
6. Cover with a sheet of wet newspaper (this will keep flies from enjoying the waste)
7. Leave the compost to itself for 1-2weeks. The worms have to get used to their new environment.
8. Now you can start adding more organic waste. Remember to always cover it to keep out flies (If you don’t like the newspaper approach a cotton towel can be used as well.)

Questions? Check out this FAQ or comment on this post.

Cheers,
Sylvia

photo by Flickr user: fireflies604

A few days ago on my way back home from vacation I sat next to another home-coming guy, who had just left 30 degree warm Finland, where he had spent close to a month at a Rainbow Gathering. What’s that?

Wikipedia describes it as follows:

“Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities, typically held in outdoor settings, and espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media.”

Jean-Louis, the man from the bus, goes there every year. It’s back to a simple way of life for him and the place is full with good musicians. He told me that everybody finds a place in the community, be it entertaining or cooking or chilling or helping with other chores. Imagine a bunch of people preparing yummy food, being surounded by musicians and then when the meal is served a hat is passed around and you put in there what you like. Some will put 10Euros each meal others not a penny in four weeks. And it’s all good.

cheers, Sylvia

For more (detailed) info, here some links:
Finland Rainbow Gathering: http://eurogathering.rainbowinfo.net/
List of gatherings worldwide: http://www.roadjunky.com/article/2299/rainbow-gatherings-2010-in-europe-us-and-the-rest-of-the-world

Neither the inspiration for the header nor the picture came from me, but I just really liked it, so I hope WWF won’t mind me using it. And what else is there to say? The poster says it all – Are you going to turn the lights of with me and (at time of writing) 5647320 supporters worldwide tomorrow?

Want to know more about it? http://www.earthhour.org

Happy cosy darkness,

Sylvia

Eight years ago a British man had a great idea, he liked to read and did not like to throw books away, but he only had so much space in his appartment. This was when he started a book swap.

The principle is quite simple you bring your old and read books and you pick up some interesting other ones. Over time quite an amount of books was brought in by the readers of Brussels – mainly in English, but also French, German and other language books kept on popping up. The bookswaps mailing list grew to over 200.
Once a month, either on the first Monday or Tuesday, he and his friends would fill the pub’s tables with all those books. At the beginning the book-filled boxes had to be carried there each time, then they found a pub that allowed them to store the books, making the whole organisation of it much easier.

Now the pub has changed owners and David cannot store the books there anymore; and he thinks its time to move on. If you want the bookswap to continue and know of a location and/or would like to organize them, I can put you in touch with David. If no new organiser is found, the books will go to charity.

The last bookswap is happening on Tuesday March 9, no new books will be accepted. I am not putting the address here as I it would feel strange if 30 new people would show up to the last one, but if you are wondering about continuing it and meet David, that would be a date to keep in mind, but drop me a line and you should have all the necessary info ; – )

Happy swapping,
Sylvia