Good Evening and Happy Thanksgiving if you are reading this in the States and Happy Thursday/Friday if you are elsewhere. I’ve got a few interesting pieces of news for the Green Gazette tonight if you can stay a short while. As for Thanksgiving, speaking as a foreign born person living in America I have to say it’s my favourite US Holiday. It’s a holiday where you’re not expected to rush to a toy shop, a card shop, a jeweler or elsewhere to purchase a gift (that the recipient may not even need) to show you are ‘celebrating’ the holiday. Instead it is the one time of the year where people seem to really slow down, choose to be with family and friends, and say thank you for what we have in our life instead of bemoaning what we don’t have. I’d argue that our overt sense of ‘entitlement’ here in the Western world is one of the biggest issues that has contributed to the eco-crisis we find ourselves in. The never ending quest for convenience and affordability has created wastefulness that is just impossible to excuse. I feel fortunate to have been born in a ‘first world’ nation and always lived in one – but it’s not my birthright to then waste as much as I can. We should be thankful for so many things we have that so many on the planet only dream of. Being more concerned with our environmental impact might be the best way of all to say thanks to the planet in general. Just a thought…

Here’s a creation that I never even considered to be possible, I’m not even sure what you’d call it. Its not recycling as there is no reusing of a previous incarnation, its not farming as this would happen in nature anyway. What am I talking about? Well, there is a company called VerTerra who have created dinnerware that is created from fallen leaves! They have taken one of the most natural things imaginable and created a legitimate usable item that replaces wasteful chemical treated white paper plates. They are proud of using only two ingredients – leaves and water and run the nifty tagline ‘Dinnerware from fallen leaves’.  They start by collecting fallen leaves from plantations—no trees are ever cut down to make the dinnerware. The leaves are then brought to our factory, where they are sprayed with high-pressure water, steamed and UV sterilized. Over 80% of the water used is recaptured and reused, and the entire manufacturing process uses just 10% of the energy used in recycling. The plates are 100% free of chemicals, lacquers, glues, bonding agents or anything toxic. This is one of the coolest things I’ve read about in a while and the used plates are completely compost ready.

Amazon.com have had their kindle product on the market for about a year now and now a lighter (in terms of functionality) product is one the market by Sony as an e-book reader. If you’re not familiar with either product they are both e-book readers. The book sized electronic device that allows you to download and read books without the eco-unfriendly aspect of a book being published and paper being consumed. The eco-reader is quite expensive ($200-$320) but can come with ‘classic’ books pre-installed and the memory capacity (512mb) allows you to download as many ebooks as your heart desires. I’ve seen these in use on a few flights and they look pretty handy and are very slim and lightweight. As with most technology it might be a few years until they enter the price range where they are considered a normal gadget to own, but until that time every e-book downloaded is saving paper wastage at a rate that would stagger you.  Check out the Sony e-book store to learn more or check out the readers here.

If you’re a regular visitor to our site and blog you probably already know how we feel about plastic bottles. It’s interesting to note that Coca-Cola are unveiling their new ‘plant bottle’ at the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Please check out this well written article by The Toronto Star. In my opinion it’s all a bit of a sham, the Coca-Cola company have one goal, so sell more Coke and other beverages – in plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Neither of which get recycled at anything approaching acceptable levels. At least they are trying but unless 100% of people recycle they are never going to be making much of a net positive contribution to the environment. Paying for bottled water in a plastic bottle from Coca-Cola is beyond understanding, we may as well pour petroleum down the drains. 16oz of water for $1.49 and not recycling the bottle is a clever spin from the soft drink giant but not a clever reality for our planet. Hopefully time will change this.