Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day first began in April of 1970. This now yearly holiday occurs every April 22nd as a day to put the environment first. Celebrations around the country focus on key environmental issues and ways to tackle them. Although a lot of change needs to occur at the policy level, there is a tremendous amount we can do as individuals!

Sourced from: www.involvement.mtu.edu

Show your support for local food and other local products by visiting a market. If you have children consider taking them to a local farm so they can see where their food comes from. Have a picnic in the park. Whatever you do, go outside and enjoy the beautiful earth we live on!

New Orleans celebrates Earth Day in a big way

This past Saturday Louis Armstrong Park hosted the 2014 New Orleans Earth Day Festival and Green Business Expo.

The festival brought together local food vendors (selling things like solar-powered drinks), sustainable clothing businesses (using bamboo, organic cotton, and natural dyes), alternative energy companies, environmental clean-up organizations, committees petitioning for more bike lanes, several demo booths, and of course live music. It was truly a celebration of environmental progress, and instilled a sense of empowerment.

Five ways to celebrate Earth Day everyday

1. Buy only what you need, from local and sustainable sources when possible.

2. Think before you throw away. STOP and think about how you can reuse it (or compost it, see our post on how to compost here: http://sankofacdc.blogspot.com/2014/03/composting-part-2-of-2-how-to-compost.html)

3. Recycle as much as you can. For a list of acceptable curbside recyclables in New Orleans visit: http://www.nola.gov/sanitation/recycling/sort/

4. Eat more plants. Meat production is a large contributor to global warming.

5. Waste less electricity and water by turning off lights when you leave a room, turning off appliances and electronics when not in use, taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth.

Composting Part 1 of 2: What is it and Why do it?

What is Compost?

Compost is simply the end result of the "composting" process. Food scraps, that otherwise would end up in the garbage, are set aside to decompose with the help of worms. Although there are other methods, vermicomposting (using worms) is the most common and very simple. The worms break down food scraps, creating a rich nutrient-packed garden soil called humus aka compost. 

With your resulting compost, you can spread it around plants in your backyard or garden. You're plants will thank you by growing stronger and healthier. 

Happily nourished kale growing in the Sankofa garden

Why is it important?

When you compost food scraps, you're making use and taking full advantage of purchased food. Instead of adding banana peels, apple cores, and used coffee grounds to an already overburdened landfill, you can return the nutrients they contain to the soil in your backyard.

Believe it or not the largest percentage of garbage is Food Waste!
It's not plastic, or paper, or glass, but our vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and banana peels. 

Chart from: www.epa.gov

According to the EPA. "in 2012 alone more than 36 million tons of food waste was generated, with only 5% diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting".

You may be thinking, "food will decompose in the landfill!". You're right but the process is different and takes much longer as food gets buried under plastic bags and other trash. In a landfill food rots instead of being decomposed by worms. This rotting becomes a major source of methane (ie. a contributor to global warming). Composting on the other hand returns nutrients from food to the soil to grow more food, such as the soon to be strawberries below.

Soon to be strawberries in one of Sankofa's gardens

Five ways soil benefits from compost

1. Less store-bought (potentially chemical-filled) fertilizer needed
2. Less run-off (compost acts as a mulch)
3. Added soil structure 
4. Increased drought resistance
5. Potential higher yield and cost savings

Tune in next week for part 2: how to compost