Day: September 23, 2011

Nov 3-4: Beyond Sustainability Conference

Educators, researchers, administrators and community members are encouraged to attend the Beyond Sustainability Conference sponsored by Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, FL. The event will provide networking and learning opportunities through general and concurrent sessions designed to create an open dialogue and weave common ideas for creating an action plan for ecosystems, education and economic sustainability. Register here.

Trains and Handkerchiefs

Tina on train with zero waste bag

Luckily the guy behind me didn't have any complaints about my bag...

Since today is the last day of Mass Car-Free Week, my fellow commuter rail travelers got a special peek at my Zero-Waste Challenge trash. We have now sent out invitations to lots of students and employees at Tufts encouraging them to try their own challenge. My colleague, Ann Greaney-Williams (also the Environmental Studies coordinator) is going to do it with her five-year old and her husband. And two other staff from OOS will be starting their challenge week on Monday – so you can join them too.

I did notice another unintended consequence – the Zero-Waste Challenge keeps your dietary indiscretions in full view – no more pretending you didn’t eat that cookie or candy bar. I haven’t decided if this is a good thing yet…

On another note, the other day I was reminded that there was life before disposable tissues and Simple t-shirt tissuesit’s time to re-discover handkerchiefs! With so many awesome designs out there like these by Hank & Cheef, how can you resist buying one for every day of the week? If you don’t want to buy anything you can make your own perfect ones with a sewing machine and a scrap of fabric. Or, if like me, the sewing machine won’t be entering my life soon enough for my next bout of sniffles, check out this awesome blog on how to make simple, adorable, no-sew t-shirt tissues.

Maybe this is the solution to my cat’s insistence on pulling my non-eco-friendly tissues out of my trash bin and chewing them to bits on the floor… (speaking of which – does that count as trash for this week if I used them last week?)