Stephanie Moram

Project Green Foot: Week 1

Project Green Foot

Project Green Foot Week 1Living in the province of Quebec makes it challenging to find local/organic/sustainable foods all year long. The summer months are the easiest, but for the other eight months it’s a struggle.

We have been living in the USA for the last two and half years, where it is quite easy to find the foods we enjoy locally or at least from the USA. We are back home for a total of four weeks; two down already.

After that, we are off to Dallas/Fort Worth for about six months. It will be much easier to find the foods we like while away in Texas. We strive to purchase locally grown and produced foods, no matter where we are.

This past summer, a roof top farm was created in downtown Montreal. It was a no-brainer to subscribe to a large basket weekly for the next four weeks while back home.

We are still in the process of determining how we will be calculating our running carbon foot print, but here are our stats for the week:

Food Purchased:

From Lufa Farms (roof top farm in Montreal)

  • 7 small cucumbers
  • 1 large cucumber
  • 4 yellow peppers
  • 1 tiny Red Pepper
  • 2 heads of boston lettuce
  • 1 Eggplant
  • 8 regular tomatoes
  • 1 small basket of cherry tomatoes
  • 1 ednamme
  • 1 bunch of mint leaves
  • 1 bok Choy

Sub-total cost: 42.00

From La Moisson (health food store) and IGA (regular grocery store)

  • 1 bag (5 lbs) of organic potatoes (Quebec)
  • 1 bag (3 lbs) of organic apples (Quebec)
  • 6 bunches of organic fair trade bananas (Peru)
  • 1 loaf of bread (Quebec)
  • 2 glass bottles of sunflower oil (Quebec)
  • Peanut butter in glass jar (USA)
  • Canola oil in glass jar (USA)
  • Nacho chips in a brown bag (USA)

Sub-total: 86.00

Total cost for the week: 128.00

We were unable to weigh our compost this week; being back home and not really having a system set up yet has made it difficult. However, we filled our 19L (5 gal) bin plus we had 13 corn husks.

We had little recycling this week and virtually no trash. We wanted to mentioned that we will be creating some form of trash when it comes to receipts from buying foods and the occasion sticker on our organic produce. It is recommended to dispose of receipts made of thermal in the trash and the stupid stickers can’t be recycled. We are trying to avoid them, but it will be difficult.

J.P had 3 receipts in his trash this week. I had 2 receipts, 3 banana stickers, and 1 plastic cover and 1 tiny little package (for absorption of humidity/odor) both from my B12 vitamins.

J.P travelled 112 km (70 mi) to and from work 4 days this week, and filled his tank on Friday with 40.1 L (10.6 gal) of gas which cost 55.00$.

I travelled 327.9 km (198.69 mi) throughout the week and filled up my tank yesterday with 47 L (12.4 gal) of fuel which cost 67.00$.

It was an adjustment this week. We are going to come up with a better system to keep track of everything from our fuel to our trash. We should be on track this week.

So there you have it: our first attempt of a waste-free week! I think the planet would be proud of our efforts as of now; don't you think?

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Comments

  2. Mrs Green @ littlegreenblog.com says

    fantastic results; well done you. I find it so interesting to see what sort of food you can buy across the world too – and the variation in prices. Thanks for sharing; can’t wait for the next instalment! Over here, some teabags are NOT paper or cotton; they have plastic in them to strengthen them – grrr

  3. Mommy Bags says

    Love this. I grew up with a father who was doing the compost/organic thing for years. I hated the smell but the produce we got from his yard was amazing – tomatoes, basil, potatoes ect . He lives in a part of California with really good soil and sun. I never went to the grocery store I went to my dads house. I wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your site you have great info. that is why I want to award you with 2 bloggy awards when you have time come on over and collect your awards. :0)

  9. Small Footprints says

    Wow … you did a fantastic job! In terms of your actual carbon footprint, it’s hard to know exactly how to measure that. However, I think just keeping track of the things you are tracking will let you know if you are reducing your footprint or not. And I’d say that you definitely are! Brilliant!

    I wonder if those receipts can be composted? I’ve read that most paper, even if there’s ink on it, can be.

    Wonderful accomplishment … congratulations! I can’t wait to read your next installment!

    • Good Girl Gone Green says

      Paper is compostable but I am thinking if I put the BPA receipts in my compost, and if I use it for food and such, I am adding BPA to my food. I could be wrong but that is how I see it. I am going to check that out. Thanks so much for your support!