My focus for the Earth Month Challenge is Food and Water. I chose this area as The Good Food Revolution by Will Allen truly inspired me as well as my background with food animals and production. Food is often seen as biodegradable and easily replenished so it is not as commonly thought of with environmental sustainability. Water, however, is seen as more of an environmental issue as far as cleanliness and availability goes.
Ways to decrease impact on water quality:
- Use natural fertilizers, like compost, to reduce run-off contamination.
- Don’t overwater lawns and gardens. While we may not be in a drought, it’s still important not to use more water than what is available to us.
- Watch what you flush! If all products are not biodegradable they can damage sewer treatment systems.
- Pick up after your pets to prevent contaminating storm water drains and other water supplies.
- Correctly dispose of hazardous materials. Contact a local sanitation or EPA facility to find out what to do with certain materials.
- Give water more places to go, whether that be an irrigation system for times of drought or planting a garden in order to collect more water. This is especially helpful in places with excess storm water.
- Eat less meat. While it seems far fetched, massive production farms require an outrageous amount of water to keep the animals properly hydrated. Less demand, fewer farms
Ways to decrease impact on the environment through food:
- Reduce food waste by compacting or not making more food than what will be eaten (easier said than done).
- Buy local food that hasn’t been shipped over thousands of miles releasing noxious fumes into our air supply.
- Grow some of your own food with out the chemicals commonly used to treat massive amounts of crops.
- Be sure to recycle food products and packaging properly to reduce landfill volume.
- Buy food seasonally to reduce the need for foods produced in greenhouses.
- Reduce consumption of alcohol so fermentation is not affecting the Carbon emissions.
- Eat fresh foods or ones that have had significantly shorter processing period.
- In general for all environmental issues, become an educated activist! Help spread the message about the dos and don’ts of taking care of our only home.
Some programs already set in place in our area are like the Columbus Compost project that makes composting easy and has already diverted 68,692 pounds of food. Some of the benefits of composting have already been mentioned but this company takes the hassle out of it by doing the actual composting for you and returning the compost back to you for use. Another good resource is right on campus and is the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center where they are committed to creating sustainable food sources and maintaining the stewardship of our resources. Lastly, for water conservation, visiting the Ohio River Foundation who’s made it their job to keep the quality of Ohio’s water as good as possible by managing storm water and rain gardens, river ecosystems, and working with local governments to establish proper legislation for these issues.
For more information visit:
This site about “Eating Green”
This site about food and the effects on our environment
This site about water contamination
OR
This site about non-point pollution in general
All four of these sites further explain the information I listed and have even more steps on how you can help out our Earth!