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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Ideas for Earth Day


Start recycling food with a muck bucket
I was introduced to the muck bucket when Michael showed the neighbor my "science experiment" I was growing in the kitchen. The science experiment was a cute counter-top  container that I was throwing scraps of food into to later feed to the chickens. I would empty it every other day to keep it clean and fresh, when it went an entire week without being emptied, it turned into the "science experiment" YIKES! I ended up throwing the cute container away. The neighbor then told me about the muck bucket, and we have been doing this ever since.

Start with a plain old plastic milk container.
Give it a rinse and prepare to cut the top of it off, leaving the handle.

 Once the top is off, you are done. It is as easy as that!
The great thing about it is, if it gets nasty, throw it in the recycle bin and start with a fresh new one. 

If you don't have chickens, you can still recycle your food. We have a rule that nothing goes down the garbage disposal, and here is why. Leafy greens, carrot tops, apples and such go out to the rabbit, the rabbit then poops which makes a great fertilizer for the garden. The chickens eat all the meat, breads, egg shells, and any extra food that the rabbit doesn't eat. The chickens then poop which we can then add to the compost bin. If you don't have chickens or a rabbit, you can add almost all your food (except meat and dairy) to a compost bin to make your own beautiful black compost!


Simple Organic has started Make Week, where you turn off your TV and make life happen.

Go paperless on your bills. 
sorry, no image for this one.

Start a guerrilla gardening campaign 
image by cubeme.com

Ask your boss if you can permanently work from home to decrease your carbon footprint. 
image by crate and barrel

Ride your bike to work



Keep sending us your ideas, and we will continue to add to this post!!!

8 comments:

Becky said...

Brilliant!! I've been looking for an easy answer to the countertop compost bin (we lack farm animals) and those milk jugs will work great! Any suggestions on how to keep down fruit flies in the summer?

Unknown said...

Becky, this is an all natural bug spray that we use, it would be safe to use in the house.

http://backyardfarming.blogspot.com/2008/06/bug-spray.html

Aly said...

Thanks for the tip! I LOVE this blog by the way--such great and useful information. It makes me want to go get my own cow and chickens (already got the bunny).

MAYBELLINE said...

I cut my plastic bleach bottle to use as a scoop to clean out the wood ash from my bbq.

Unknown said...

I love composting and sharing scraps with the chickens. It just makes good sense!

I've been thinking of turning off our satellite service to end our TV viewing once and for all. But it's not the kids who are concerned - it's mom and dad! I'm not ready to give up watching the news and Glenn Beck! Soon though!

Becca's Dirt said...

Those are some great ideas. Have a good day.

-Sydney- said...

Amy--We didn't connect the cable when we moved to our new house and it's the best decision we ever made!

I use milk jugs as mini greenhouses when my tomato plants are small, but I bought a stainless steel compost bucket from Marshall's (TJ Maxx) for about $15 that has a lid and an odor filter. It's convenient and pretty :) And a bargain because it normally retails for about $45.

Karina said...

Thank you for the milk jug idea. I needed that.