A Japanese Subway sandwich shop has started growing hydroponic lettuce right in the middle of the store ! Not only is this hyper-local lettuce healthy, it’s a great visual centerpiece for the space.
The Japanese are very inventive when it comes to being space efficient . This is an eco-idea that many hotels , restaurants, canteens , communities across the world can adopt. It is understandably impossible to grow all ingredients locally . But , every bit counts.
(via Inhabitat )
“A kitchen surrounded by fertile soil where vegetables and herbs thrive … Where daylight shines in from all sides and where the chefs are free to express their creativity daily using the best the season has to offer. It seems an obvious concept, but I spent twenty years surrounded by white tiles under fluorescent lighting before I came up with it.” – chef Gert Jan Hageman
Restaurant De Kas has its own greenhouse and garden near the restaurant, where they grow Mediterranean vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. They also have a large field about 10 kilometres from Amsterdam in the Purmer Polder, where they grow seasonal vegetables.
In the world teeming with McDonalds , Pizza Hut and other industrial food serving outlets it’s wonderful to see a restaurant that is built around fresh food grown and harvested by the restaurant team.
De Kas is more an exception because of the sheer space needed for such an initiative . Yet , that are restaurants with the luxury of space who choose to adopt the beaten bath. Increasingly hotels are beginning to grow some herbs / vegetables in their gardens (hotels tend to have more space than a restaurant ).
What’s striking about De Kas is the combination of eco friendliness and style that makes it so distinctive.
An Indonesian businessman contributes to environmental wellness on a bike connected to a generator inside the “100 percent green” Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen. The energy produced by pedaling guests is stocked in a battery before being injected into the hotel’s power supply.
The Crowne Plaza’s concrete and steel tower is covered in some 1,500 solar panels that produce 170,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is enough to power 55 households. In the basement of the 86-meter (232-feet) skyscraper there is a geothermal well which covers the hotel’s heating and air conditioning needs, slashing its energy bill by about 90 percent.
And in each of the 366 rooms, personal care accessories are biodegradable, taps are equipped with water-saving devices and all light bulbs are low-energy.
But that doesn’t mean the Intercontinental chain’s first “all-eco” hotel has clients roughing it.
“Everything was thought out with technologies respectful of the environment, without sacrificing quality, comfort, and the feeling of being at a four-star hotel,” spokeswoman Toemmergaard insists.
Wall coverings, carpeting, and even the feet on the design furniture are made from recycled materials and are guaranteed not to contain chemical products, while the computers have power-saving screens.
And the guests who redeem their electricity-production vouchers dine on organic food, and the high-tech kitchen grinds all its garbage and sends it to a local biogass central to be transformed into fuel.
Brilliant idea . It would taken the hotel meticulous effort to plan , create and source all the materials. The end result is an eco-hotel that’s an inspiring example to all businesses to think non-linearly and holistically about sustainability.
The eco-paradise wasn’t an easy sell to the slightly sceptical Intercontinental chain, Toemmergaard concedes.
“Often, when people think environmentally friendly, they think of smaller organic products that are less appealing than traditional offerings,” she says, adding that there had been a real fight “to convince the chain we had made the right choice.”
In the end, the franchises’s owners agreed to carry the project through because they believed Copenhagen needed a hotel that reflected its green ambitions, Toemmergaard says.
The bicycle-filled capital, which is “one of the world’s showcases for the environment and quality of life, which wants to become the first emission-free capital in 2025, should have a hotel that fits that image,” she says.
The carbon-dioxide neutral hotel cost some 125 million euros (156 million dollars) to build and is about five percent more expensive to run than a normal hotel, but the owners expect to make up the difference.
“In five or six years we will have a return on our investment that shows that it pays to make an effort for the environment,” Toemmergaard says.
( via physorg.com )
There’s a tight and surprising link between the ocean’s health and ours, says marine biologist Stephen Palumbi. He shows how toxins at the bottom of the ocean food chain find their way into our bodies, with a shocking story of toxic contamination from a Japanese fish market. His work points a way forward for saving the oceans’ health — and humanity’s.
It seems that since we human beings live on land we take the oceans lightly. Not that we have demonstrated exceptional care of the land and it’s inhabitants.
Pl view the video . Share with friends .It’s appalling that dolphins in some parts of the world lose their first born to an unnecessarily pre-mature death due to the toxins in the female dolphin’s milk courtesy pollution. Would we human beings be ok to have such a fate thrust upon us due to the thoughtless actions of another species ?
As Stephen aptly summarises..the ocean pyramid connects to our own pyramid of life. It’s an ocean planet, and we think of ourselves terrestrial species. But the pyramid of life in the ocean and our own lives on land are intricately connected. And it’s only through having the ocean being healthy that we can remain healthy ourselves..
Pl resolve to make a contribution towards a cleaner planet which nurtures life of all species.
Share your ideas and resolutions with us at Clean Planet World .
Visited a local supermarket today evening . I try to avoid going there on week ends . If I do it’s earlier in the day when the crowd is somewhat lesser.
- Use the basket instead of the cart . This alone will help to focus the purchases to essentials . Having a cart somehow seems to create the illusion that one is buying less (subconsciously comparing it with the volume of the cart ) + moving the cart is relatively effortless. Using a basket means that the space is limited + the basket getting heavier with every addition – is likely to limit wandering in aisles buying stuff that’s unnecessary
- Eat something before you go shopping . When hungry you are likely to buy more / snacky stuff
- Please carry a reusable bag for your purchases . It was despairing to see the volume of plastic floating around . The retailers are happy to give bags to customers . Hey , more bags means more purchases . The customers don’t seem to give plastic a second thought . Convenience rules . Sometimes I wonder where will the change come from . Retailers and (most) customers happily colluding for profit and convenience.
- Take a few mins to fill out the feedback form in the store to ask the retailer to start offer biodegradable bags .
We should not need an ‘incentive’ to be eco friendly . The fact that we inhabit earth is reason enough. Pl choose to make a difference – to yourself and to the planet.
One reason why even fairly eco conscious folks buy / accept plastic bags is to be able to use them to stock vegetables in the refrigerator . The plastic bags are probably used for few days before being tossed out. Some stores stock nylon mesh bags . But those are :
- not easily available (in India )
- tend to make the vegetables dry
- not bio degradable
The eco alternative is to buy or make cloth bags from soft cotton fabric . In India most families would have old saris or dupattas made of soft cotton . Those can be stitched into cloth bags with a draw string . The bags can be used to store veggies . Having 10-12 bags ensures that you have enough bags to use . And a set to replace when you put one set to wash .
The benefits are :
- Our experience shows that the vegetables tend to stay fresh longer when stored in a cotton bag .
- Hygenic – the bags can be washed
Fringe benefit – the refrigerator looks a lot more colorful with cloth bags instead of insipid white /sheer plastic bags.
Make your kitchen eco friendlier by -
- Carrying a cloth bag when you go shopping
- Grow herbs , vegetables at home as much as possible
Brilliant , much needed book by Michael Pollan. While he has written this book based on food habits of Americans it is (sadly) true and relevant for urban inhabitants in many parts of the world.
Besides the food wisdom in the book I love the design and style of the content . Simple , easy and quick to read . The style of writing may ensure that the book is widely read and many of the ideas are adopted by readers.
Some of the food rules…
- “Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
- “Don’t eat anything* with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.” (* processed food)
- “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.”
-”Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself”
-”It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language (think Big Mac , Pringles..)”
It’s amazing to see the cocktail of ailments many folks bring upon themselves due to poor eating habits . There seems to be a generation of children who are being raised with irregular food habits and ‘industrial novelties’ aka processed foods. As my grandmom used to say ‘it’s better to pay money to the grocer than to the doctor’ (a point of view endorsed in the book as well).
Read the book . More importantly recreate your relationship with food .
Brilliant , thought provoking presentation by Rory Sutherland . Relevant for organizations / groups / individuals .
Seemingly small stuff makes a HUGE difference .
Use a cloth bag daily !
The search for industries which use huge amounts of plastic yields a few answers 35,000 feet above sea level . Airlines !
Airlines are notorious users of single-use plastic and paper – cups , food containers , cutlery , tissues . Practices established decades / years ago continue unquestioned . Some years ago a security scare caused airlines to switch from metal cutlery to plastic cutlery (which is frankly pointless . Metal cutlery posed no security risk ). Some airlines pack the blankets in plastic . To use the blanket the plastic has to be ripped apart . Needless to say this trashed piece of plastic will be immortalized somewhere on the planet.
The usage of plastic has reached new heights with an airline packing the in-flight catalogue and entertainment guide in a plastic cover that needs to be ripped apart to read the magazines. Entirely pointless and wasteful.
Here are somethings airlines can IMMEDIATELY do -
- switch to metal cutlery
- switch to ceramic or paper cups and dishes
- ditch packing the blankets , magazines in plastic
- encourage passengers to carry a reusable bottle in which the steward can fill water from a jug or at least hand out a bottle per passenger and keep refilling their bottles instead of getting a plastic glass every time someone asks for water.
- shift to bio degradable alternatives to plastic
- ask passengers for ideas on how to be more environ friendly , share information with passengers on their initiatives so far
The plastic generated chokes our planet . Food heated in plastic containers poses health risks . This gets multiplied for frequent travellers.
The next time you take a flight pl take a few mins to fill out the feedback form to the airline asking them to move to zero/minimal plastic (listing some solutions as mentioned above). Since airlines are not making the shift of their own accord we can and should use our voice as the customers to ask them to be eco friendly.
Your feedback counts . Pl choose to make a difference.
Japanese carry a lot of stuff . Most folks carry between 1-3 bags . Women on an average carry 1-2 bags (some 3 ) . Men carry at least 1 bag.
This is a country where bags are sold extensively . All kinds of bags – leather , cloth , nylon , polyester , faux leather . Yet , in my visits to retail stores I seldom see customers declining the retailer’s plastic bag and taking the product purchased in their own reusable bag . There must be folks who do so . I’ve not witnessed it yet whether in a dept store , convenience store , people buying lunch boxes from stalls or any retail format for that matter.
The Japanese are geniuses at making products that fold up into a compact size . The customers can easily carry a folding bag in one of their bags and use it to carry items purchased . Thereby reducing plastic ( Japan is a HUGE consumer of plastic . More on that in another post ).
Japan has a very high literacy rate + bags are easily available in retail . It’s puzzling why using a reusable bag for purchases is not a widespread if not default behavior .
Until few years ago Japanese men wore suits to work . No exceptions . I suspect that the Wachowski brothers got their inspiration to dress the agents of Matrix in suits after a few rides in the Tokyo metro . Until Cool Biz came along it was unthinkable that a Japanese corporate male employee could turn up at work in any other attire . Cool Biz was almost like legalizing wearing just a shirt and trousers to work. Possibly Japan needs an initiative similar to Cool Biz to make it acceptable / necessary / cool/eco friendly to take a reusable bag to stores and use it to carry products.
They can call it Eco Biz.
