Last Saturday I had the pleasure of being invited to the GLAD® One Bag Tailgate held at USC and co-hosted by actress Ali Larter. I had never been to tailgate before and since this is my first one, I think I am pretty spoiled by it and will be hoping my next tailgate (should I ever go to another) is just as swankified.
Food was catered by Heirloom L.A. whose motto is “bring farm to plate” and the entire spread was utterly delicious. Everything was fresh and homegrown, at the same time beautifully presented. Yes, this was at a tailgate. Then you had the compostable plates made from fallen palm leaves and forks made of birch and everything was just so good for the environment.
Then I also had the privilege to get a bit chatty with the lovely Ali Larter. Despite appearing in movies and television, her most important role to her will always be mom to her almost one year old, whom she affectionately calls Teddy. In fact motherhood is what opened her eyes and made her more aware of the need to take care and give back to the environment. We both agreed that when you have a child, your heart just opens up like you have never felt before.
Some simple tips she said that can help us all waste less are using water filter system in your home or Brita pitchers. Her excitement to partner with GLAD® and USC in wasting less came easy because she grew up an avid sports fan thanks to her father. Therefore, an event where everyone usually comes with a lot of goods and leaves with a lot of trash, is the perfect event to get everyone to try to be more eco-conscious and realize what items could be recycled and composted. Also, to get people to make smart eco-friendly purchases based on that criteria of recycling and composting. She also spent some time Saturday afternoon speaking with some local youth about the importance of being eco-friendly and teaching them how to waste less.
And just like most moms out there, Ali even has her own favorite blog reads, which includes everyone’s favorite recipe go-to place, Smitten Kitchen. It is fun to know that even celebrities are blog readers!
The event was wonderfully put together and a great start at educating others how to waste less. There were containers where items could be put in and separated based on trash, recyclable, and compostable. Honestly, we do pretty well recycling in our own home, but we have never really thought about composting though Ben has wanted to make a compost bin for our garden. I think we will add that to our to do list because I can think of countless items we throw away that are compostable.
The entire event was thoughtfully put together and all geared towards nothing going to waste. To encourage less waste, GLAD® is also giving away ten $2,000 grants to high schools, so if you know a high school that might be interested, you can get more info here. You can peruse the GLAD® to Waste Less site and get all sorts of tips and information on how you can help the environment one bag at a time!
So tell me, do you have any good tips you do in your own home to help the environment?
how awesome!
i lalalaaavv you sisterrrr
really awesome! so glad it was educational and enjoyable!
What an awesome event!
I would highly recommend a compost bin or pile. Of our meals we usually can put 80% of the waste or more in the compost instead of garbage. We had one that sat in the back of our garden and got amazing soil for our growing plants. Plus, Glad makes compostable bags that you can use in a regular trash can and then throw the entire thing in the bin, so easy! I use them all the time since our apartment building gives us garbage, recycling and composting options. Got to love San Francisco. What a fun day you had!
Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave today [02 Nov 02:00am GMT]. Thanks, Maria
I thought I'd pass on a super easy way to compost in the desert without a bin. A woman from my church who is a super gardener has done this for years and it works great for me too in the not desert climate. On the side of my house tucked away in a corner, I dug a square hole about 2 feet x 2 feet x 1.5 feet deep. I put up a little wire border around the hole so the dog doesn't go looking for snacks but if you tucked it away someone you wouldn't necessarily have to. The hole is nice because you don't have an obvious pile of garbage in the yard!
I threw back in a little of the dirt, some horse manure and some fruit and veggie peelings. The horse manure contains enzymes that really help the decomposition process get started. If there are any stables around, they are usually really happy to get rid of manure.
Whenever I cook, I add my veggie and fruit waste and mix the new material into the compost by shoveling once or twice. When I notice that the pile looks dry, I water it with the hose. Every so often, I take the sharp tip of the shovel and hack away at chunks to speed up the decomposition. In the hot desert climate, the compost cooks down amazingly if you keep it moist. It doesn't smell either as long as you turn over the new material into the old material. It's important to start with enough starter dirt and manure that you aren't exposing a lot of veggies and fruit to the open air- if that's the case, you can get unpleasant bugs and smells.
My husband and I added material for over a year before the hole filled up. It was super amazing-sometimes I'd fill up the hole with scraps and a couple days later, it would have settled and decomposed down substantially! After about a year, we let it rest for a couple of months, watering it and turning it once in a while and now we have beautiful black dirt.
Good luck!
Good luck!
With have my six month old son in the house, we have cut back on using cleaning chemicals. To clean pretty much our whole bathroom we use baking soda and white vinegar. So much better! Less harsh on the environment and we're not breathing in harmful and yucky chemicals!
that is definitely the swankiest tailgate party i've ever seen! how fun!!
food looks yummy.