This and That

I think I can speak for the whole Food Group when I say that things have been/still are crazy busy at school!  We presented our Action Learning Project last Monday and I think it was a real success!  We had a handful of special guests from the Board of Education and the City of Regina attend; a big thank you to them for taking time out of their busy days to come down to the University and listen to us present.  I brought my worms to show and Cooking4two shared her garden-grown homemade salsa with the class.  It was a real celebration of all our hard work.

My partner and I also had our first blue bin pick up last week and I have run into an unforeseen challenge of sharing a recycling program.  I don't want to sound ungrateful for the support and interest I received when trying to recruit, but since we are sharing the bins and they are in my name, what my neighbour puts in the bin for recycling becomes a reflection of me.  Allow me to explain.  I made this endeavour as easy as possible by offering to take the bins down to the curb if they are left outside their door the evening before.  Since we only have two bins, one each, we need to merge our recyclables so they meet the sorting requirements.  When I went to take the bins down, my neighbour's bin wasn't out yet so I wasn't able to do this.  The next day I made my way back out to the curb to see if our stuff had been picked up, and I noticed my neighbour's bin was now outside their door.  When I discovered my bin had not been picked up yet, I proceeded to take their bin down and merge our items so it would all get taken away.  Unfortunately, the sorting guidelines were unclear and there was basically garbage in with their recyclables (i.e. styrofoam, plastic wrappers, paper towel, etc.).  I draw the line at digging through someone else's trash so I left it as is, but Crown Shred won't take bins if they notice stuff like that in there.  So now I am faced with the dilemma of sending them yet another letter to clarify what is and what is not recyclable.  I feel like a bit of a nag to say the least.

On the worm front, I think my bin got a little too damp last week and a few worms tried to escape again.  It makes me laugh when I open the bin and see them scaling the wall.  I left the lid ajar for part of the day to dry it out and added some eggshells to neutralize any acids and things seem to be back to normal.  They are pretty easy little guys to take care of!  I also had a classmate contact me to get information on where to get worms to start her own bin.  I contacted my worm supplier and set them up to arrange a pickup time.  I am very excited that someone else has decided to take on the adventure of vermicomposting.  Questions and comments are always welcome!

Yesterday I received one of my many email-subscription newsletter-thingies, and it contained a calendar for April on 30 Days to a Greener Lifestyle.  Each month I get one, usually health and wellness related, but this one was more eco-focused so I thought I would share.  Feel free to check it out to see what kind of easy changes you can make to reduce your eco-footprint!

-TheDirt