… Chloe Vichot of Ancolie in New York is tackling lunchtime waste: most all the food served in her restaurant comes in reusable glass jars, which guests can exchange for a dollar of store credit (she currently has a 30 percent return rate). She donates all her food scraps to a community garden, so that she knows exactly where her waste is ending up.
See full article here! https://www.foodandwine.com/news/christina-lecki-reynard
Do you find yourself blankly staring into your closet, thinking, “I have nothing to wear!!”
Do you continue to toss out clothes that you feel just “aren’t you”?
It may be time to break your fast fashion habit, and focus on clothing that is good for the planet, and more valuable to you in the long term.
Buying clothing that is more expensive (yet in your budget) will help you make better decisions about clothing you actually like, and will like in the long term. It should also be of higher quality, making it last longer, as well.
Fast Fashion is an industry that capitalizes on cheaper clothing, making it available at more frequent times throughout the year.
Fast Fashion contributes to textile waste, because we throw it out when it isn’t fashionable anymore.
It also contributes to toxic waste, water pollution due to the dyes used, and the use of polyester fabric. Polyester when washed, sends micro particles of plastic into our water system. This harms sea animals, and eventually the humans who consume those animals.
Cotton grown for clothing, is usually treated with pesticides, which harms the growers, and the planet.
So, what can we do?
Mother Earth, your budget, your closet and YOU, mind body and soul, will thank you!
We know the journey to zero waste is a hard one, but it is worth it!
To help you, we put together a list of ways you can stay sustainable while at home.
Living this way is fun, inspiring, and requires some inventiveness!
We’ve found the majority of waste comes from the bathroom and the kitchen.
The Bathroom
The Kitchen
How do you stay sustainable? Any tips to share with us? We would love to hear from you!
Photo by Juliet Taylor
Seven Steps to a Sustainable Summer
Always fill up and bring your reusable water bottle to stay hydrated!
Find one that you love to use, and you will always remember it!
Here is one of our favorites: https://www.swellbottle.com/
Turn off the Air Conditioning!
Two tons of carbon dioxide are omitted by every home with an A/C every year¹
Do your part to cut down on these omissions and use A/C consciously
Walk or bike to work, why take the subway?
It is a great form of exercise, too!
4. When you’re buying sunscreen…
Conventional sunscreen puts harmful chemicals in your body and in our oceans
We will spare you all the gorey details, but read on here plus find recommendations for awesome, eco-friendly sunscreen options http://eco-boost.co/zero-waste-sunscreen/
5. When you’re going grocery shopping…
Farmer’s Markets are a great way to find locally sourced produce!
Check out the nearest one and make an errand into a fun and sustainable activity and don’t forget your reusable bag!
6. When you’re going to the beach or park…
Pack snacks from the bulk section, or Ancolie, in reusable containers
So often we can go to plastic-packaged goods when we go to the beach or park but Ancolie, and others make it so easy not to
Ask us about our summer meals to carry with you to the airport, bus or train (with a small isotherm bag, one salad and one dessert in a jar)
7. When you’re going on vacation…
Little versions of conventional drugstore products can be cute.. but not when you think about the harm they do to our planet
Check out stores like https://www.lushusa.com/ and find metal containers from https://packagefreeshop.com/ for bar soaps of every kind that you can bring along on your trip
HAPPY SUMMER!
¹The Sustainability Cooperative https://thesustainabilitycooperative.net/2014/05/22/5-tips-for-sustainable-summer-fun/
Getting to zero waste is hard, but just getting to less waste can be complex, too.
So, we decided to break things down into simple concepts that can help change the way we all think about waste.
How can you contribute to a circular economy, you ask?
Here are five helpful tips adapted from Kathryn Kellogg
If you are offered something, an “extra” anything: a goody bag, or a water bottle, just say No!
These are things you do not need. This is just “stuff”
“The easiest way to prevent waste from leaving your home is to keep it from entering your home” – Kathryn Kellogg
Many of us are lucky enough to have more than we need, and even more than we want. Donating extra belongings will not only make your home feel better, more simplified and zen but it will give to people in need.
The KonMari method from Marie Kondo is an amazing way to de-clutter your life.
Start today. We promise it will change your life if you follow the instructions. (We just did it for the second time and have donated 4 bags filled with clothing)
Really helpful tips for getting started here
The best advice we got from Lauren Singer @trashisfortosser is to go step by step. You cannot switch all your disposable to reusable in one day. Wait until you run out of something and try to replace it with a reusable option. Try these two websites for great items: Life Without Plastic, or Package Free Shop or even better go to the physical Package Free store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!
Is it beautiful? Is it glass, wood or metal? Use it, then use it, then use it, and use it again.
No more tissues, water bottles, paper towels, anything plastic.
Use cloth napkins instead of tissues and paper towels. You might miss them for a day or two, and then you learn to use the alternatives with ease!
Use glass or metal water bottles instead of plastic (since we now know plastic seeps into the water itself)
Always checks to see if there is an item available secondhand instead of buying it new.
When you don’t compost, food that could be returned to the earth goes into landfills 😦
Does your neighborhood support composting?
Here are food scrap collection locations in New York
https://www.grownyc.org/compost/locations
And another one, https://www.bkrot.org/
It’s the same as with compost, when we don’t recycle, those precious reusable materials go into our landfills.
Here is more information on residential recycling in New York http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1239/residential-recycling
Request a site visit for the city to review your recycling program
http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/contact/site-visit-request
Here’s to living “less waste”, guilt-free and happy!
What’s Happening Today
How we choose to live our lives has a direct impact on the CO2 levels in our atmosphere which contribute to climate change. This affects people across the world, from extreme weather, to their health, and access to food and water (globalchange.gov)
The Real Deal
We don’t mean to be alarmist but climate change is REAL and a BIG DEAL. Now, what are we doing about it? Ancolie has become a carbon neutral restaurant. Through sustainable practices in the restaurant, and by offsetting emissions, Ancolie has zero impact on CO2 levels in the atmosphere. That’s right, zero.
How We Became Carbon Neutral
CO2logic, an independent climate advisory organization calculated our Carbon Footprint to determine what it would take to become carbon neutral. Here are the facts:
Our ask of you: how can you leverage these tips and implement them into your home?
Our final hurdle was the emissions produced by the team’s commuting, business travel of one trip, and delivery transporation which represent the majority of Ancolie’s footprint, 7 metric tons.
CO2 neutrality was achieved by calculating, reducing and offsetting the remaining emissions. The offsetting was done by by funding 8 efficient cookstoves, helping several families in Uganda who would otherwise be using wood fires, leading to deforestation. This is unique project to CO2 logic and we are so proud to contribute to this cause.
“Climate change is not only a local but also a global problem, we reduce our CO2 emissions here and offset the remaining emissions in developing countries that cannot finance these improvements.” – CO2logic
We believe that the problem of climate change is the responsibility of both individuals and businesses. We are truly passionate and excited to continue this journey with you all!
Photos and Graphs by Mike Burton, NASA’s Global Climate Change Website and CO2 Logic, respectively
The Package Free shop is the first zero-waste lifestyle pop-up store of the US! It is the genius idea of Lauren Singer (Trash Is For Tossers) and the fashion designer Daniel Silverstein (a.k.a zero waste daniel). They opened a store where you can find everything that you need to live a zero-waste lifestyle, ranging from reusable stainless straws, compostable toothbrush to refillable dental floss. You can also find a range of daniel’s clothes, made of discarded textiles collected in US factories. Besides, our two founders will offer workshops to teach customers the necessary skills to live this incredible lifestyle, like sewing or soap-making.
It was an honor to be catering for their private launch party in Brooklyn last Saturday Earth Day! Thank you so much Lauren and Daniel for making the low-waste lifestyle simple, fun and sexy!
The store opens May, 1st at 137 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY!
#thinkoutsidethebox #giveashit
Bad news: New York is the most wasteful megacity in the world! It produces 3.8 million tons of residential trash plus 4 million tons of business trash per year which represent 21,000 tons A DAY! And apart from being ubiquitous on our sidewalks, it is also very very expensive: $2.3 billion paid to waste management companies in NYC.
Where does it end up? 76% of our trash is exported to landfills in the New York metropolitan area.
What composes our trash? 33% recycling, 37% garbage and 30% organic!
Let’s focus on organic waste, which is a major issue for restaurants like us. It pollutes by sitting and rotting in closed plastic bags on landfills. Lack of oxygen makes it breaks down into methane, which is very very harmful to the environment, trapping 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide.
At Ancolie, we take two steps to avoid this abomination. First, we try to use 100% of our ingredients: we make apple crisps with the skins of the apple we use in our compote, we make soup with sad looking vegetables, and bone broth with chicken leftovers. Second, we collect carefully our food scraps into buckets delivered twice a week by Common Ground Compost to a community garden nearby.
You too, you can make a difference! Step 1: keep all your food scraps either in a bucket on your kitchen counter, or freeze them (watch Lauren Singer’s to compost everywhere!). Step 2: set up your own compost in your backyard or find the closest drop off location here (if you like to shop at Union Square Market for example, they have a pick up there)
Stay positive! We are moving in the right direction! The city created OneNYC with the dream to send zero waste to landfills by 2030. One of their goals is to get organic bins for every household in the New York metropolitan area. In the meantime, we hope this post inspired you to take the extra step for your organic waste.
Go check this amazing Brothers Brussel’s video for more details !!!
GO COMPOST!
Good news, April is Earth Month, featuring the well-known earth day on April, 22nd. We couldn’t be more happy 😉
But for us, it’s earth month every month: we consistently work hard on our practices to reduce our impact on the environment and do the best for our community:
These are only a few exemples of what we do to be sustainable. We worked with the Green Restaurant Association that guided us through the process and gave us a 4 stars rating (the highest rating!) We are one of the three restaurants in New York to have the 4 stars YEEAAAHHH! Check our grade and more details here.
Happy Earth Month!
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