Brummet's Conscious Blog

World Soil Day  I can just hear the eyeballs rolling of our regular readers... "Here she goes" they must be thinking... because I have a huge passion for building healthy soil through composting organic matter. World Soil Day was set aside to help us raise awareness about soil pollution, remediation and composting of organics. Setting up a home-based and office-based compost system is fairly easy now-a-days. There are even condo and apartment units that plug in and dehydrate the organic matter into a dry powder that you can then spread on a lawn, around a tree, place in the plant pots on your deck, or give to a gardener. Buy Now Organics in the landfill are responsible for more toxic leachate, more air pollution than vehicles. They are also responsible for up to 60% of the content in a landfill, filling up these limited waste management sites far too quickly.  Use the small  "search"  box on the side bar of this blog and type in compost or soil to ...

 Kudos ! For our regular readers it is nothing new to hear (or read) the topic of compost on our various media outlets over the last 20 years – from books to guest blog posts and interviews to writing books, articles and social media posts, dozens of 1 hour segments on the subject on our old radio show and more. Just use the “search” the blog tool on the (right side tool bar of this blog) and you’ll find numerous discussions on the topic right here on this blog. Knowing that as much as 60% of the waste in landfill could be composted, and compostable items in the landfill are actually up to 22 times more damaging to the environment than CO2… it is a topic and hobby of mine that has become a dedicated passion. As such I always get a spark of excitement when I learn of major leaps in the industry. Way over on the other side of Canada (we are in BC) in Cape St. George, Newfoundland they’ve created a very successful food waste composting system. For this commun...

  -- Quote of the Day --   "I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts." ~ John Lock -- Positive News --  Here is an interesting unique way of approaching greening a business through a joint venture between Chiyoda Manufacturing Co ., the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology , and the Food Research Branch of the Kagawa Prefectural Industrial Technology Research Center.     This joint venture resulted in a new technology that recycles udon noodle waste (which is big business, particularly in Japan) into bioethanol using a three part system – a fermentation system with a distillation column, methane fermentation tank and a methane gas power generation system. This new technology, according to Japan For Sustainability ( http://JapanFS.org ) can produce 200 liters of bio-ethanol from 1,500 kilograms of udon noodle manufacturing waste....

-- Quote of the Day --    Fifth Group’s Steve Simon was speaking at a conference  about how implementing sustainability programs into businesses requires patience and determination, but the reward is great: “When you implement sustainability projects at your restaurant, understand from the outset that persistence is key... Start slowly and then build up your efforts to meet the goals you have set. At Fifth Group we started with waste diversion and instructed our staff on how to recycle, then source separate organics. Of course there were challenges, but we eventually were able to divert hundreds of thousands of pounds of former ‘waste’ from the landfill…in every location. It has cost us virtually nothing to implement and it’s the right thing to do.” -- Green Building --  I read recently about an interesting zero-energy house was created by The Shibaura Institute of Technology , winning them awards for ...

All Season Indoor Compost I was thrilled to hear from Kara Fillion of Uncommon Goods - an online retailer that endeavors to feature unique designs and handcrafted products to a broad audience , while raising funds for a variety of charities through the Better to Give   charitable program. This unique program allows their customers to choose a charity at checkout for the company to make a $1 donation to. In just 12 years UncommonGoods.com has raised over $300,000 for several charities including RAINN (an anti-sexual violence organization with programs to prevent violence and help survivors in the healing journey), American Forests (works to protect and restore forests across the globe), Women For Women Int . (offers tools and resources for survivors of war ravaged areas to overcome the challenges and reach for self-sufficiency) and City Harvest (a wonderful anti-hunger organization that reduces food waste and decreases hunger issues). I’ve had the hono...

-- Quote of the Day --  “My favorite definition of permaculture is that it is about building sustainable communities powered by the sun. …Converting that solar energy into something we can use and grow more. …Gardening is important because it is a place where we can make a difference in our own lives immediately – even if it is on an apartment terrace or balcony, you can grow your own food and create a habitat that supports other life. There is a lot we can do as gardeners to help issues of climate change, soil fertility. …Permaculture divides our land into 5 zones: Zone 0 would be our home and zone 1 would be the vegetable gardens, from there we have zone 2 such as sunflowers, grapes, and some dwarf shrubs like blueberries, zone 3 would be less managed pasture or flower sort of landscape with larger trees like nut trees, zone 4 would be a little more wild and zone 5 would be a wild area. …You can go to restaurants and get organic materials, you can go to...