Actually this is my draft and I welcome your input to make it even better. Please send me your suggestions!
I especially want to get the name of the group right. What we call this will help set our intention in people’s minds. I also want us to be sensitive to the perceptions of restaurant folks and those potentially receiving the surplus food.

Food Surplus & Salvage Working GroupMission and target dates

* Assess the universe of local, state & national laws, regulations, ordinances, health codes, and conditions that currently exist in the food waste/disposal mgmt/recovery/transportation ecosystem. (by Oct 2011 board meeting)
* Participate in meetings sponsored by the Universal Recycling Ordinance Meeting and relevant Solid Waste Advisory Commission meetings to help learn about and shape rules as they pertain to food waste/composting and identify salvage opportunities.(Through December 2011)
* Catalog and map the local businesses and services that relate to food donations, surplus food, farms that want scraps and what type, composting operations and their capacity.
* Identify working models, best practices, programs and regulations from other locations that facilitate the highest and best use of surplus food and food scraps. (by Oct 2011 board meeting)
* Make recommendations for national, state county, cIty and state policy changes that would facilitate more surplus food recovery. (Spring 2012)
* Develop communication tools (survey and educational information) for contacting all Austin area food businesses to assess their current practices as they relate to surplus/scrap/spoiled food and educate them about the alternatives. Find organization and/or interns and/or City or County staff to implement. (Summer 2012)
* Create a surplus food map that identifies businesses that are willing to release their surplus food and under what conditions. (Fall 2012)
* Support the funding of vehicles with temperature controlled chambers that can safely transport food in recovery and delivery efforts and find an entity to carry out such pick-ups. (Winter 2012)

Initial Members:
Brandi Clark Burton – Austin Eco Network – EcoBrandi@gmail.com
Marla Camp – Edible Austin – marla@edibleaustin.com
Melanie McAfee – Barr Mansion, SFPB – organicmel@gmail.com
Mark McKim -  markilous07@gmail.com
James Jolly Clark – citizen – jolly@austin.rr.com
Tod Wickersham – citizen -  todwickersham@yahoo.com
Laura Tankersley -  ltankersley0503@yahoo.com

Erin Hickok – Go Local – erinlynnhickok@gmail.com
Ruthie Redmond – RuthieRedmond@live.com
Stacy Guidry – TCE/CTZWA/Austin Zero Waste Alliance – stacy@texasenvironment.org
Debrah Dubay – Shades of Green – debrah@dubayco.com
Allen Schroeder – Food Recovery – allen.j.schroeder@gmail.com
Sayuri – Sayuri.Verde@gmail.com

Others? Someone from Capital Area Food Bank

Previous winners of this category include my friends Randi Shade, Kerri Qunell, Walter Moreau, David Shaw and Jim Walker (who handed over the title of “Austinite of the Year” on Friday to the fabulous Carolyn Schwarz from HAAM).

The recognition was sweet, as so much of my upbringing was about generosity and service. And don’t think I’m going to stop, or rest on my laurels.  I am so blessed to have so much, and have so many allies who support me in having a life I love and serving with me on behalf of causes we believe in – wow! It is my honor and privilege to share my most precious commodity with you all, and that is time. ALL of you give your precious time and energy to make the world a better place. I honor each of you for even taking the time to read these posts, and for passing the messages along, and using the info to plan your social and activist calendars. You care. Thank you, for all you do.

———————

Later this morning I’m giving a talk, at 11:30 am on the Sustainability Stage in the Austin Green Living and Home Products Expo at the Austin Convention Center (NW entrance)

Here’s the brief outline of my talk:  Living Your Life in Alignment with Your (Green) Values

1)   What you value, care about
2)   Things we have some control over, or choices
3)   Priorities and decision-making processes
4)   Making GREEN choices
5)   Responsibility
6)   Trusted sources of information for making informed decisions
7)   Living in alignment doesn’t feel like deprivation, it’s empowering. When you know your WHY, and it is compelling to you, then you feel good about your choices.

MANY of the speakers on all the different stages are Austin EcoNetwork list members and contributors (and will be featured Green Leaders on the upcoming website).

Gardening Stage
Green Building Stage
Sustainability & Renewables Stage

Kids Activity Area
Cooking Stage

Come check them out and check out the ever-growing collection of greener vendors that Curah Beard has so ably assembled.

Admission: Adults 17+ – $7.50;  Children 16 and under: Free

Peace, Brandi

Resolving to be more green, and resources to do so!

If one of your resolutions is be more green, live more lightly on the planet, or just save… money (while doing something good for the planet)…consider my list of 5 key areas for action you might take on:

You may not be ready to total convert your life to be instantly green but you can start by trying one or all of these practices once and increasing it from there.

My suggestions are packed full of links (in red) to other resources where you can dig deeper. Spend some time educating yourself on one of the topics and make at least one New Year’s resolution to adopt a green upgrade to your life.

1) Eat more local & organic food (or at least chemical-free)

Start with one meal a week and work up to one meal a day. Once you discover the joys of eating fresh food, in season, that didn’t travel far and wasn’t sprayed with lots of nasty chemicals, maybe even grown by someone you know, you may find you want every meal to be that way!  Plus when you shop at the local farmers’ markets you can enjoy live music, a social setting and the chance to meet the fine folks who grow your food. Try growing some of your own food, at home, at a neighbor’s, or in a community/school/church garden. I helped start a new program last year, called Citizen Gardener, to get more people started growing food inside the City. If growing is not your thing or you want to supplement what you harvest, check out the farm stands, farmers’ markets an/or consider a CSA or a delivery service like Greenling Organics. The City of Austin and Travis County jointly created a new Sustainable Food Policy Board, which I will be serving, at the pleasure of Councilmember Randi Shade. We will soon be putting together our vision of what we want to happen in Central Texas as it relates to sustainable food. 

2) Drive fewer miles

Please!!! Austin has one of the worst rankings for vehicle miles traveled (55th place and almost double what they drive in the NY tri-state area) . That means we spend a lot of time behind the wheel and are burning lots of fossil fuels into our local airshed rather than swimming in Barton Springs, relaxing or spending time with loved ones. Who wants to spend their life in traffic? There are many ways to tackle this… Combine trips. Walk, bike, carpool or use public transit (even once a week). Work from home. Arrange for a work week that is four 10-hour days. If you have the option to move closer to where you work or attend school the time and money you don’t spend driving can help you justify spending a little more on where you live.  And here’s another thought…what if you were to get rid of one vehicle from your household and fill in the gaps with biking, riding the bus/train, carpooling, or using a carsharing program and check our cars or trucks from a program like Austin CarShare.

3) Buy/Use less Stuff and send less stuff to the landfill 

First, if you have not yet watched The Story of Stuff, please budget 20 minutes sometime today to watch this fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. So if you have already asked yourself if you really need a particular product or service, and the answer is “YES,” first see if you can borrow it, rent it or barter for it. If you do have to go shopping, try to find a used version through a thrift or consignment store, garage sale or swap.. If you must buy new, shop locally, within walking distance if possible, and of course take your own bag. Then look to buy products with minimal packaging (this is called precycling). For the truly advanced, practice what I call Practice “X-ray shopping” –  Shop with eyes and a mind that can see beyond the surface to detect the story of how that product came to be (again, WATCH the Story of Stuff!).  Then there’s the mantra, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and I’ll add “Compost”. For the stuff that ends up in your home, Austin’s new single-stream recycling and Ecology Action’s expanded locations, it just got a lot easier to recycle a lot more items in Central Texas. We are no longer pained by having to throw out those pesky yogurt containers, hummus tubs and #5 and #6 bottles. [Note: Even with the current trek that Austin's recyclables are making to Garland, the fact that MORE material is picked up, every OTHER week, diversion rate is higher and the environmental footprint of this method still comes out ahead. (We will, of course be pushing for a comprehensive local zero waste plan and local handling of materials in the coming weeks and months. )] Take advantage of the lawn and leaf collection days, bulky trash pick ups and the household hazardous waste drop-off facility. Another strategy is to divert organic matter (lawn/yard waste and food scraps (especially fruit and veggie parts), egg shells, coffee grinds, paperboard, etc) to compost piles.  Organic material in landfills doesn’t compost, it is mummified and putrefies and creates methane gas and potential water table leakage when the liners eventually wear out. Composting is so awesome that just about everybody who can wrap their head around the NUMEROUS benefits of compost becomes a compost evangelist and soil worshipper! If a group of us who have been visioning a more sustainable future are successful, there will be neighborhood gardens and compost centers. If you have a yard there are many varieties of compost bins you can purchase or construct. In the meantime,  I believe ANYONE can compost, even if you have no yard.  I live in a condo and keep a bucket in my freezer that I walk over to a friend’s yard when it gets full. Dropping off my compost creates a fun excuse to be social and I occasionally get to share in the bounty of their garden. There are people who feed their food scraps to a bin of earthworms under their sink and love it!

4) Eat lower on the food chain, toward a plant-based diet

According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions (and thus contributes more to global warming) than all the cars and trucks on the planet. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.  Wow!  And that doesn’t even account for the massive energy, water and food inputs that it takes to produce animal protein from plant material. It takes the most energy and material inputs to produce a lamb, beef, eggs, pork, dairy and poultry. Fish are not this chart, but beware, fish farming is not so great from an environmental perspective, and many of the world’s fish have already been overfished and/or are in danger of not being able to regenerate their populations. I won’t go into any details but CAFOs (Confined Animal Feed Operations), where most of the meat eaten by Americans comes from, are worse that Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and anything else where torture and inhumane treatment are allowed. Many of them also lead to pollution of waterways, and lots of emissions. These places should be abolished and replaced by sustainable agriculture practices that give animals a good life while building soil, the basis of our life here on Earth. It’s possible to be very healthy and be vegetarian or vegan, but if you have determined that meat is an essential part of your diet, opt for smaller portions of the good stuff you can find at the farmers’ markets and select retail establishments, like People’s Pharmacy. Always seek out organic dairy products (just reading the details of the CAFO and conventional dairy are enough to turn my stomach)

5) Conserve Water & Conserve Energy

Sooooo much has been written about conserving energy and water (including a whole book written by my friend Susan Meredith Beyond Lightbulbs: Lighting the Way to Smarter Energy Management), that I’ll put in some links here and call this blog post done.

In case you didn’t know, the largest single user of electricity in the City of Austin is the Water utility. So, saving water not only saves a precious resource (we are in record drought) but saves energy and the associated pollution that goes along with extraction and burning of those fuels.  Solar and renewable energy are great but it’s a lot more efficient to cut demand first. See these sites for lots of resources, tips and rebates: 

* Austin Water Conservation  *  Austin Energy Efficiency  *   Austin Energy Green Building

More Tips

For further tips see the Austin Climate Protection Plan’s Green Tips lists, which are very good. For an amusing dose of green living tips, subscribe to Ideal Bite. I have also been impressed with the Sierra Club’s “The Green Life” daily green tips.

OK, there are at least 1000 more tips I could have written but for now, I’m happy to tell you that the coming year (hopefully before the next Solstice) there will be a fully functional green portal website built, the Austin EcoNetwork, and there will be primers and discussions on a myriad of environmental topics. If you feel like an issue expert or just a great researcher, you can apply to be a subject leader. Details forthcoming. If you know you are interested, send an email to Christa.is@gmail.com.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I am thrilled to be stepping into a new year that will have Obama as president, an energized population, and a lot on my plate to keep me productively engaged. I look forward to working with many of you to create effective dialogue about issues of sustainability that leads to ACTION and a healthy, thriving city with healthy, thriving people .

Wishing you a prosperous and peaceful new year.

Sincerely,

Brandi

Austin CarShare is kicking off the New Year with our first expansion vehicle since our November fundraiser. Very exciting! 

The site of our new Prius is Mellow Johnny‘s, at 400 Nueces, in downtown Austin (across the street from the 360 Condos). 

This site has the added benefit of bike lockers, shower and nearby access to buses, for those who are really making the effort to be multi-modal in their transportation choices.

Not a member of Austin CarShare yet? You can sign up online HERE!

Austin’s longstanding icon of holiday cheer was lit up again recently for the season; and when stopping by to show a friend the joys of spinning under the lights, the reality of how much energy is used hit me!

I’m looking into the facts (via Austin Energy) to see if they match my intuition and figure out what the real energy usage is. I want to figure out what the savings might be if the incandescent bulbs were switched to LED lights.

It seems I’ve seen fewer lights on homes this year, and perhaps that is due to the awareness that the traditional strands burn lots of energy.  This is a tough one for me, because I’ve always loved the twinkly lights.  Maybe we should start a contest for who can create the most striking display with the fewest strands, or the best power conservation.

(Note: if you do have holiday lights, put them on a timer so they are only on for a few hours in the evening, while you area wake and when most people will drive by and see them!)

Want to help me green the tree?  Leave a comment!

The Austin EcoNetwork website development is in full swing.  Our developer, HCIDev, is peppering us with questions about colors and fonts and looks that we want. It all starts with the logo – the look and fonts, etc.

We’re currently holding a contest over at 99 Designs to get a purposeful logo and design ideas–you can weigh in on design options folks have submitted in less than a day here.

You could vote for/comment on the logo that Austinite Eric Cavanaugh generously created for us last year when we needed a logo for an event. 

We’ve been using it as a placeholder and like it, but before committing to the look that will be with us for a long time, we wanted to do one last look for ideas. 

You are also free to submit something that you think would work well as a logo and banner for the upcoming website.

Very exciting! Please tell us what you think. : )

The silent auction was amazing!  Chris Riley, our retiring vice chair, said it was the best he’d seen in ages.  Special thanks to our big auction donors Mellow Johnny’s, Bicycle Sport Shop (and also for their generous donation); Habitat Suites Hotel; and Tusa Fitness.

This party got us halfway to our fundraising goal:  we raised about $15,500 of the $30,000 we need to take possession of all six of our new Prius and get them insured, outfitted with onboard computers, logos, and into our reservation system.

We have donations pending from a few more sources, so I expect the tally will still rise. Anyone who wants to do so can make a donation online at www.austincarshare.org/additionaldonation.php.

We couldn’t have done it without all the wonderful help of Christine Tusa and Elizabeth Hannah, our party co-chairs; my fabulous assistant Christa French, our brilliant interns Morgan Whitney, Tracy Stewart, and Nita Durant; volunteer extraordinaire Douglas Finer; and of course our amazing CarShare Board.

In the process of asking for donations and preparing for the party, we identified a videographer and a donor willing to fund the production of a promotional video for Austin CarShare…more on that soon!

Hopefully this will lead to many more people reevaluating their relationship to their transportation and embracing multimodal transit–including Austin CarShare!

The weather was great, conversations were lively, and the event was more “waste free” than it ever has been.  For the first time ever, we arranged for on-site water filtration, freely available to event participants.  We sold over 200 reusable stainless steel water bottles, vendors sold reusable cups, and participants were encouraged to fill their containers at the station and make a donation to the Roundup instead of buying single-use plastic water bottles. Another exciting spin-off is that a school principal who saw the onsite water filtration setup has signed up to get that service for his school and stop selling bottled water! Yea!

Thanks to Ecology Action, recycling bins were placed next to all the trash cans, and occasional spot-checking showed that most Roundup participants were cooperative in helping us divert recyclable materials out of the waste stream.  I don’t know if the trash cans ever had to be emptied during the three-day event!

Another innovation this year was (a last minute) partnering with a new ride sharing company, TripVerde.  Participants were encouraged to sign up for carpools instead of driving single-occupancy vehicles.  Though the number of people who used the service was relatively small, TripVerde’s preliminary report states that, with 6 drivers and 13 riders, about 100 gallons of gasoline were saved–the equivalent of about 1988 pounds of CO2!

Audiences packed the tents for the three keynote talks.  Friday featured Mason Arnold of Greenling Organics, who talked about the impact of eating local and organic.  Saturday, all the way from California, Mat Stein talked about preparedness using renewable techniques, sustainable living practices, and green technologies.  The last part of Stein’s talk was more motivational, aimed at inspiring people to take action now, before crises occur.  Sunday featured (for the first time as a keynote) the always-popular Peter Pfeiffer, who gave a well-documented and clear explanation of why building green by design, not device is the smartest strategy.  His point was that there are many steps we can take to green a house that can and should be done before resorting to expensive installations like solar panels.

Our EcoNetworking crew provided volunteer staffing for the kids’ area and supported scores of children in learning about renewable energy.  Kids were able to build and race their own miniature solar cars and cook s’mores in their handcrafted solar ovens.  (Those who want to learn more about solar cooking here in Austin can attend Jenny Nazak’s course this weekend, Sunday October 5, at Green Gate Farms from 11 – 2.  Kids welcome.  Advanced registration required–call Jenny at 512-619-5363.)

It’s exciting to see the growing numbers and feel the growing energy around the themes that have been a part of Roundup for nine years:  green building, renewable energy, and organic agriculture. In these challenging economic times, its the green, sustainability-oriented economy that should actually keep growing.

Wednesday night, as a representative of Austin CarShare, I attended the 8th annual (my first) Greater Austin Business Awards. Austin CarShare was named as a finalist in a new category they had called ”Take On Traffic” (more on that later).

I was surprised to run into a bunch of my friends at the entrance to the Hilton Austin chanting, “W-M-I is not green!”  Turns out that one of the finalists in the category of environmental awards was Waste Management International.  Neighbors in NE Austin have been battling the proposed expansion of the MW landfill for years. I believe WMI is the only major waste hauler in Central Texas to not have an active diversion and recycling program. (I’ve got in inquiry in with them to confirm this one way or the other)

Inside, the event was, predictably, filled with well-dressed people representing Austin’s business community, as well as media and community organizations and a sprinkling of elected officials.  After the schmoozing reception was over and we took our seats in the Grand Ballroom for a feast of a meal (really quite impressive for hotel food), the parade of awards and awardee videos began.

In the first category of awards, the Time Warner Innovation Awards, I was excited that local green/clean tech businesses pulled awards in two of the four divisions. Thin film solar technology upstart HelioVolt and Active Power, a company providing energy-efficient power solutions, won the medium and large-sized business awards respectively.

This year’s event featured a new category called the ABC Services “Take On Traffic” Award.  Finalists in the Small/Medium category were Cambridge Systematics, Inc.; CP&Y, Inc.; and Green Mountain Energy.  Green Mountain Energy won, and I can tell you they have many innovative practices to incent their employees to not drive that others could learn from.  One thing they do is allow everyone who gets to work some way other than driving in a single-occupancy vehicle to enter their names each day for a weekly $100 drawing.

Large business finalists were Farmers Insurance, Advanced Micro Devices, and Spansion.  AMD won (ugh.  I know my friends are cringing at this one. They caught so much flack for locating over the Edward’s Aquifer that they had to incorporate lots of green building and do transportation studies in an effort to mitigate the damage of placing a major employer (that drives lots of secondary development) over the aquifer. They have implemented a bunch of responsible commuter practices….and, side bar… Austin CarShare got them so interested in carsharing that they decided they wanted to have carsharing at more than just their Austin campus and started looking into national solutions.

An even bigger disappointment of the night was the Nonprofit category, where Austin CarShare was in the running with the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) and the Capital Area Transportation Coalition.  The latter won the category, to the groans of my tablemates from other organizations (who mumbled something about “Road Warriors”).

For the Austin Energy Environmental Awards:

Finalists in the small businesss category were: Greenling Organics, the Habitat Suites Hotel, and Office Furniture NOW. Office Furniture NOW! won for their efforts to reuse and refurbishing office furniture and keep tons of material out of landfills. Certainly it’s nice to see some fresh entries into the green business category. I just wan tto acknowledge here that the other multiple award-winning finalists in this category are treasured local and national green businesses.

In the medium business category, finalists were Intertech Flooring, Balcones Recycling, and Green Mountain Energy; Balcones Recycling took the prize.

In the Large Business category, finalists were Wells Fargo, IBM, and Waste Management, with IBM taking the win.

The Nonprofit finalists were Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo???, Keep Austin Beautiful, and Goodwill Industries of Central Texas.  Our friends at Keep Austin Beautiful deservedly won the prize.

I certainly applaud the Austin Chamber for having a category for the environment and for taking on traffic.  Let’s hope that as we move forward we can build awareness, share practices, and provide inspiration for ALL Austin businesses to operate in ways that care for the planet as well as the bottom line.