Category Archives: Materials management

Food Waste Prevention For the Holidays

We waste a lot of food.  To be exact, 2.2 pounds per person per week in Oregon But did you know that at the holidays, we waste almost 1 pound per person at a single holiday meal (estimated Thanksgiving food waste at ReFED 2022 – The Food Waste Solutions Summit)?  All that wasted food costsContinue reading “Food Waste Prevention For the Holidays”

Planting roots: Lessons from my parents in sustainable living

My parents were depression-era Oklahoma farm kids who came of age at a time and place that required men and women to have practical knowledge about a bit of everything. They were carpenters, hunters, farmers, seamstresses, veterinarians and mechanics. They grew or raised their own food and preserved it for lean times.

The three most important ways Oregon is fighting climate change

cent headlines warn that the window is quickly closing to protect our future and preserve a livable planet. In Oregon, we have seen the effects of the climate crisis first-hand:  hundreds of deaths from extreme heat waves; thousands of homes destroyed by wildfire; lakes and rivers drying up before our eyes; farmers without water to grow food; and the toxic algal blooms that shut down the city of Salem’s drinking water system for weeks in 2018.

Include old electronics in your next spring cleaning purge

No matter how hard we work at “spring cleaning.” there’s often one area that’s overlooked – our old, unused electronics. A recent survey found that most of us in Oregon have broken or obsolete TVs, computers, printers or other electronics hiding in plain sight at home. These electronics languish in closets or under sofas, in attics or storage and generally evade our spring cleaning efforts.

DEQ experts to share environmental knowledge and experience

More than a dozen experts with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality are preparing to participate in 13 of 32 sessions on environmental protection, compliance, new technologies, sustainable business practices and trending policy issues Dec. 8-9 during the Business and Environment Conference sponsored by DEQ, Washington Department of Ecology and the Northwest Environmental Business Council.Continue reading “DEQ experts to share environmental knowledge and experience”