Thoughts on One Year of Reduce our Waste Living
January 6, 2019Happy New Year! My family and I have survived our 52 week challenge of reduce our waste living, and no one was (really) hurt in the process. The following outlines some of my key observations and learnings this past year: I was actually able to resist shopping for a year. Despite the skeptics (including myself),…
A Sticky Situation: Making Strawberry Jam
July 26, 2018Nothing captures the essence of summer fruit like jam. When I was growing up, we had a large garden in our backyard and we grew strawberries. I have many happy memories of my mother making strawberry jam, however, I never seemed to have (or be able to find) the time to make it myself. As…
The Sad State of Glass Wine Bottle Recycling in Quebec
April 22, 2018I like, I mean love, wine. And like many people here in Quebec, I dutifully put my empty wine bottles in my blue recycling bin. I was recently horrified to learn that much, if not all, of the glass in the recycling bin ends up in trash. Why? Cross-contamination. When glass bottles break, the broken…
Reflections after 1 month of the Zero Waste-ish Lifestyle
February 3, 2018Today (well actually February 1st) is 1 month after the start of our 52 week experiment in reducing our waste. It has been challenging and interesting at the same time. Some of my observations: Not clothes shopping is easier than I expected. I have surprised myself. In particular, as a diehard shopaholic (it’s too early to…