The Cedar Mountain Canteen is open and focused on being zero-waste

The Cedar Mountain Canteen is open!  Owners John and myself and Greg and Stephanie Thomas opened the day before Thanksgiving and it was everything we hoped it would be, awesome!  We are striving to operate at zero-waste and that will be closer to a reality when we get our commercial dish washing facility installed. We have also set up a prototype recycling station we will make permanent after testing it for a bit.  The response has been wonderful and we look forward to creating a model zero-waste operation. Our hours are Thursday thru Monday from 3 - 7 pm.  We are open for outside consumption only and we will be opening our carry-out can shop this Saturday.  We would love to see you there.

By |2020-12-07T11:20:34-05:00December 7th, 2020|Categories: Composting, Moving to Zero-waste|

Every Tray Counts (ETC) is seeking a new Executive Director. They work to move schools towards zero-waste

We took this ad from:  http://www.everytraycounts.org/jobs/ Thanks to Susan Sunflower for sharing this. ARE YOU AN ADVOCATE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND THE FUTURE? Every Tray Counts (ETC) is seeking a new Executive Director. The executive director will be responsible for coordinating and collaborating with local environmental advocates and school partners to help guide North Carolina school districts in their progress toward more sustainably managed schools. Every Tray Counts (ETC) is a small North Carolina non-profit that works with children, parents and communities to promote responsible purchasing and waste diversion practices in North Carolina schools. We do this by replacing lunchroom polystyrene trays with a sustainable alternative, and by diverting lunchroom compostable materials away from landfills. Even in these changing and challenging times, Every Tray Counts knows that North Carolina schools must keep their focus on improving the quality of education and sustainability goals. ETC stays current on environmental issues which affect schools regarding lunchroom practices, environmental education opportunities in the classroom, and overuse of single-use plastics. [...]

By |2020-10-19T07:50:55-04:00October 19th, 2020|Categories: Composting, Food, Moving to Zero-waste|

Why focus on zero-waste when there are so many more pressing issues?

At one of our potluck events (I sure do miss those), someone said to me, "Why so much focus on zero-waste?  There are more pressing issues."  I have thought of that a lot.  Of all the issues I can think of, they all are impacted by working to move to a zero-waste community. "Our goal is to eliminate the idea of waste from our mindset and to normalize a kinder existence without waste." John and I are moving to that mindset and it has impacted every part of our lives.  John and I have lived most of our life not thinking deeply about our waste.  Recycle, recycle, recycle and we were good citizens.  Items are disposable for a reason right? Well, right we have discovered.  What we discovered and what we continue to learn is that the thought of waste is privileged.  I visit the DrawDown Project website frequently, especially the solutions page.  Here is a paragraph from the page. Here, we present the individual solutions reviewed and [...]

Board of Commissioners Solid Waste Workshop

On September 2nd, Kenn Webb, Transylvania County's Solid Waste Director, gave a presentation to the county commissioners on the state of the landfill.  It was really informative.  Kenn has an amazing background and the depth of the presentation was amazing. The presentation was recorded and you can see it on the county's website here:  https://www.transylvaniacounty.org/meetings/commissioners-meeting-09022020-solid-waste-workshop

By |2020-09-12T11:38:09-04:00September 12th, 2020|Categories: Composting, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|

Eating Consciously Podcast: Shane Bellinger interviews Jacqui Edans of Rooster Head Farms

Welcome to our third podcast in the Eating Consciously series.  In this episode, Shane Bellinger, owner of Green Go Cleaning and member of the Eating Consciously team interviews Jacqui Edans of Rooster Head Farms in Brevard, NC.  Our last episode was focused on systemic racism which included a conversation on factory meat operations.  This episode shows another side of the meat industry on a different scale.  Eating Consciously focuses on the impact our food choices have on others.  This episode continues to educate towards that goal.  Thanks for being here.  We hope you enjoy the show.  Many thanks to Shane and Jacqui for sharing this conversation with us. Farmer Jacqui Shane with her family

We need more community food scrap drop-off sites. Interested? We will help

Growing food usually requires soil.  Nutrients in the soil get used up when we grow food and luckily for us, an easy way to rebuild the soil is through making compost.  We have taken on a new community project with a few other groups that involves giving plant starts to those who are in need of food.  We usually have enough pots, plant starts, and volunteers but we usually need more soil. We currently have 2 publicized community compost drop off places in our community and we could use a few more.  If you are interested in helping us build more soil please let us know. Do you currently compost at home but have no use for the soil?  Let us know!  We could sure use it. Would you collect your food scraps for use if someone would pick them up and take them to a drop-off location?  Let us know that too. Send an email to [email protected] and let's talk dirt :)

Should we send our garbage to another community or keep it here? The county commissioners will probably decide this in October. Ask candidates this Thursday at the forum!

This is a call to action! As you know, John and I create about 1 bag of trash a year.  This is our third year accomplishing that and it has changed our life.  It has changed the way we eat, the amount of stuff we buy, and made us rethink any purchase we do make.  A lot of this was possible because we learned how to divert our food scraps from the landfill.  It reduced about 40% of our trash and others have shared they have experienced the same impact on their waste stream. I recently received a campaign email from two county commission candidates and asked about the landfill decision.  This is what I was sent in response: There will be a county commissioners workshop at 4pm on September 2 to receive a comprehensive report on the question of opening a new cell at the Landfill. No action will be taken that day but commissioners will have to make a decision fairly soon, probably in October. I [...]

By |2020-08-24T11:36:33-04:00August 24th, 2020|Categories: Composting, Connecting with nature, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|

Davidson River School garden work day was inspiring

On Thursday, July 30th, a group of dedicated volunteers showed up to work after a downpour.  It didn't rain a drop after we got started.  Barbara Grimm, the principle of Davidson River School had a lot of projects ready for us to tackle. A new compost facility Thanks to a pallet donation from Sylvan Sport, we were able to create a compost facility at the school so students can turn their food scraps into dirt.  Gabriel Covington, a student from Brevard College, helped us put the facility together.  It is so great to spend time with Gabriel.  He is always anxious to be part of a community project and he brings the energy of his youth.  Thanks Gabriel for your help! Kathleen Hannigan, a local artist, helped us add a community art piece the facility, just as we did at Rise and Shine.  Kathleen set up a table and got busy sawing wood planks for use in the compost tree we [...]

Potting plants for the Hunger Coalition giveaway on August 23rd

This past spring, we worked with other community partners to prepare and give away plant starts at the Hunger Coalition's food distribution.  The project was a great success and patrons at the distribution have continued to ask for plants.  One person shared photos of her plants and they were stunning!  Thanks, Shane for passing these on.  Shane is on the Hunger Coalition's board and a member of our project, Eating Consciously. Because a large part of Moving to Conservers' work focuses on eliminating the thought that anything is disposable, we have updated our tag that goes with the plants asking for the return of pots and unused soil from the previous distribution.  Thanks to John Lawson for creating and updating the tag for us! Reuse helps in so many ways. One of our greatest needs for continuing the plant give-away is high-quality soil Composting creates soil and soil is one of the things we need the most in order to support this [...]

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