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Tag : sustainability
January 28, 2021 by admin
A Southern Jewish Farmer?!
Questions that I’ve heard many times (mainly from other Jews, to be clear): Southern Jews? Jewish Farmers?? SOUTHERN JEWISH FARMERS?!? Hi, yes, nice to meet you, Chag Sameach. I am a southern Jewish farmer, and I started One Soil Farm, a Jewish community farm in rural North Carolina, 20 minutes (and 30 years) away from where I grew up as one of the only Jewish kids in our public school system (shout out to my li’l sis).
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January 26, 2021 by admin
A Seal of Sustainability
A program designed to support organizations and communities working to create a healthier, more equitable and more sustainable world for all, links Jewish values to substantive action toward sustainability and climate-centered goals. Receiving the Hazon Seal of Sustainability means that your organization or community has committed to and taken substantial action on two or three projects focusing on greening initiatives or sustainability projects over the last 12 months.
Apply at seal.hazon.org/about.
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May 6, 2020 by Yona Zeldis McDonough
Reducing Waste By Reusing Flowers
I’ve been hunting for, buying, and wearing second-hand schmattes for decades. So when I learned about ReVased, a new company that devised a way to re-use flowers, I had to know more. I tracked down the founders, Aviva and Arielle Vogelstein, and we chatted about their ingenious plan to reduce waste while creating and spreading joy.
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January 16, 2020 by admin
She Rescues and Recycles Trash
Walking on the Upper East Side with friends one night, we found bags of CVS’s trash filled with edamame snacks that didn’t expire for eight months. I checked to see if there was a product recall or evidence of mice, both legitimate reasons to toss food, but there wasn’t.
After gathering more evidence of CVS’s unnecessary wastefulness, I emailed the CEO, Larry Merlo (his email was surprisingly easy to find on Google). My years at the investment bank taught me to go straight to the decision maker.
The next day one of the regional managers in NYC called and confirmed that my email had reached Larry Merlo, that CVS employees were not allowed to take home any of these unwanted products, and that he received special permission from high up to form local donation partnerships (CVS already had a national partnership with Feeding America, but clearly it wasn’t fully working).
After several months of waiting for change but continuing to see trash bags filled with usable items, I realized that CVS wasn’t going to adjust its national operations in response to one random person’s complaint.
So I began a change.org campaign calling for CVS to #DonateDontDump. Now, instead of one person asking for this change, there are over 300,000 of us asking CVS to donate.
CVS is not the only corporation that intentionally discards usable items. Many do, including Party City, Walgreens, Staples, PetSmart, GameStop, Ulta, Michael’s, and Bath and Body Works.
But I think CVS is a good starting point, given its ubiquity (it’s the largest pharmacy in the U.S.), its do-good image (eliminating cigarettes, for example), and its product selection (items shelters really need, like tampons and granola bars).
ANNA SACKS, “Trash to Treasure” on the Lilith Blog.
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