The Healthiest Egg: Designing Chickens Into Your Urban Lifestyle
By Erin Gallagher
Filed Under eCo TV | 1 Comment
We found these British Blokes online who call themselves “Giving It A Go” and are bent on creating an edible backyard and putting permacultural principles into action. Some may say that this feat would be extremely difficult if not impossible to accomplish in an urban setting where temperatures can get extremely low and the sun makes only a few guest appearances, but these guys are proving that to be a myth and we think they deserve a massive “jolly good job well done” pat on the back.
In many permaculture designs, a domesticated bird species is used to speed up the process of making food scraps into soil nutrients. This portion of the video series illustrates how to build a chicken coop in a tiny backyard space. The first is a time-lapsed overview of the construction process and the second is a walk-through of the design.
Enjoy!
If you are really keen to know more about chickens in your backyard and how they can be an essential component in your sustainable home design
- eCo Times will be publishing an article on this in the next few weeks, so check back
- If you are wanting to know more about the permacultural design concept, start with our Permaculture 101 article
- Read an article on Urban Hens by the BBC
- Look at what “Urban Chickens” organizations is doing to promote chickens in your backyard
Posted on September 5, 2008 |
Top 5 Easiest Ways To Save The Planet
By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living | 3 Comments
1 CARPOOL by Wolf
Sharing a trip with one other person immediately cuts the emissions in half by taking a car off the road. On average a carpool saves 527.8 gallons of gasoline and 4.536 tons of CO2 each year. The average family purchases 1,143 gallons of gas per year.
2 EAT LESS MEAT by DAVEC
Raising meat for food (livestock) is an environmental disaster, contributing more to global warming than transportation, using up 30% of the Earth’s land (yes, that’s right, 30% of the entire land mass of the Earth is used directly or indirectly in livestock production), contributing to significant water pollution, using up tons of energy and water for raising and transporting livestock, etc. For example, it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce 1 lb of meat. The average American eats 185 lbs of meat per year, meaning 462,500 gallons of water can be saved by moving to a vegetarian diet!
3 TUNE YOUR CAR REGULARLY by Argam
Keep your engine tuned properly. Checking spark plugs, oxygen sensors, air filters, hoses and belts are a few examples of maintenance that can save a vehicle owner up to 165 gallons of gas per year, resulting in potential savings of over $600.
4 ELIMINATE JUNK MAIL by karlbach
- Junk mail destroys 100 million trees a year — the equivalent of deforesting all of Rocky Mountain National Park every four months.
- Largely due to deforestation, junk mail manufacturing creates as much greenhouse gas emissions annually as 3.7 million cars.
- Every year, Americans receive 848 pieces of junk mail per household — 44% of which ends up unopened in a landfill
Also, more than half of unsolicited mail is discarded unread or unopened; the response rate is less than 2%. And junk mail creates 4 million tons of unnecessary waste per year! Calculating the weight of the junk mail trash from EPA data, it works out to 13.4% of 1276 lbs per household! So that’s 170 pounds of trash per household per year.
5 DON’T WATER YOUR LAWN EVERY DAY by Ghengis
The amount of water used by a sprinkler in one hour is equal to the daily water needs of a family of four! The average sprinkler will use in excess of 240 gallons of water per hour. If the average person sprinkles every day for a half hour and reduced that to once a week, one could save 37,560 gallons a year!! This is huge!
These Top 5 Creative Solutions were chosen by the folks at CreativeCitizen.com, the freshly launched collaborative website for community-proposed eco tips.
Posted on June 12, 2008 |
Go Green, Slow Down, Save Money
By Pippa Sorley
Filed Under Green Living | 5 Comments
I admit it. As an adrenaline junkie I like to do things fast. I like to ski fast, bike fast, I even prefer running trails over hiking them. Lo and behold- I like to drive fast. That is, until I learned about all the crazy costs that come with putting my pedal to the metal.
With peak oil, the ever-rising price of gas (which is perhaps a blessing in disguise), and climate change swiftly sweeping across the planet, it’s time for all of us to pay heed to the collective effects of our driving habits. With the US consuming over 400 million gallons of petroleum per day, we in turn produce about 7.8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions…every day. Perhaps it’s come time for us to just slow down.
According to fueleconomy.gov, most engines don’t run efficiently past 60 miles per hour. For every 5 miles per hour you drive over 60, you are most likely wasting 20 cents’ worth of gasoline per gallon. And, this of course doesn’t take into account the environmental cost of driving too fast. Who knows how many CO2 emissions can be saved by chilling out a bit while driving? Continue reading Go Green, Slow Down, Save Money…
Posted on May 19, 2008 |
Zaproot: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Conscious Commerce, eCo TV | 1 Comment
Jessica Williamson of Zaproot gives you the lowdown on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Eastern Garbage Patch. This “plastic soup” in the one of the ocean’s gyres spans an area larger than the State of Texas and holds six times more plastic than plankton! A research vessel called The Algalita sailed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to assess the situation.
eCo Tip: To reduce the amount of plastic collecting in the ocean, replace “disposables” in your life with reusables.
- Use stainless steel water bottles, on-the-go utensil kits, reusable shopping totes, travel coffee mugs, and non-disposable razors.
- When you choose products, take the amount of packaging into consideration before you buy. Less is best.
- Learn more at Anna Cummins’ website, BringYourOwn.org.
- If you’re a kid or know one who’s into helping the planet, link up with the Roots and Shoots Reusable Bag Campaign.
Posted on April 30, 2008 |
Conscious Living TV: Eco Travel Au Canada
By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under eCo TV | Leave a Comment
Bianca and Michael, the lovely couple at Conscious Living TV, take you with them on their vacation to Quebec. Watching these two luxuriate at the eco-friendly Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, eat locally sourced French-Canadian cuisine, and visit Montreal’s Biodome, might be just enough to decide your next vacation.
eCo Tip: If you live in the Northeast US, one of the greenest ways to get to Montreal is by train. If you need to fly, offset the greenhouse gas emissions from your flight with Native Energy.
Posted on April 9, 2008 |
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