Monday Mailing
Year 20 • Issue 35 02 June 2014 1. At This Zero-Waste Grocery Store, Plastic and Packaging Aren't Allowed 2. Wetlands Wonders 3. Tips for Starting a Farm in Your City 4. LUBA Highlights Issue About Farm Rentals 5. Agora Highlight: Mainstreet Parklet 6. This Artist Is Filling In Chicago's Potholes With Mosaics 7. Food Justice Webinar: Churches & Camps~Food Growing and Greening Initiatives 8. 5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans 9. 2013 Oregon Main Street Annual Report 10. WhyHunger Launches New Online Resource 11. Funding Opportunities 1. At This Zero-Waste Grocery Store, Plastic and Packaging Aren't Allowed Although recycling and more efficient packaging-waste efforts have made a dent in the amount of garbage heading to landfills, every day the average American still produces a whopping three pounds of trash, much of it from our food. So what if we could eliminate food-packaging waste before it even gets into our shopping cart? That’s the idea behind Original Unverpackt, a new concept supermarket in Germany that takes things into zero-waste territory by encouraging consumers to tote reusable containers to the store.
Quote of the Week: “This activist loves Oregon more than he loves life.” -Tom McCall Oregon Fast Fact: Oregon grows 98 percent of the hazelnuts in the United States. There are more than 3,755,000 hazelnut trees in Oregon, worth $49.5 million, grown on 30,000 acres, mostly in western Oregon.
The grocery store doesn’t sell anything that comes in a disposable box, bag, jar, or other container. It ditches the traditional supermarket model of shelf after shelf of packaged convenience foods for one that gives shoppers grains in bulk bins, attractively displayed produce that’s not shrink-wrapped or stored in tetra packs, and beverage stations just waiting for refillable bottles. The store is the brainchild of Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski, two Germany-based social impact innovators. They write on the project’s site that they want consumers to have a choice about how much food they buy as well as how much waste it creates. To access the full story, click here. 2. Wetlands Wonders Before the 1990s, west Eugene’s wetlands were known as the “scablands,” said Steve Gordon, a retired land use planner with the Lane Council of Governments. Most of the area that’s now home to hundreds of plant, insect and animal species was unsightly industrial land, Gordon said.
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