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A Thriving Gift Economy in Vancouver

Vancouver is consistently rated near the top of many respectable lists for most desireable or highest quality of life cities in the world (ranked 5 th in 2014 by Mercer [1]). While its diverse culture is a standard offering in major Canadian cities, the awe inspiring nature at its doorstep is what sets it apart from the rest.
Meanwhile, Vancouver was also recently ranked the most expensive city to live in in Canada [2] and second in housing unaffordability in the world, after Hong Kong [3].

3 reasons to add some cricket crunch to your plate

On the menu tonight: toasts with cricket spread, spaghetti alla locust and mealworm brownie. Feeling a bit nauseous? You’d better get used to it, because eating bugs is the future. And by that I mean the near future. Why? Well, it’s good for you and the planet. And it’s tasty too!

When it comes to assessing (and reducing!) your impact, we encourage each environmentalist to look at all aspects of their life. Most of what we do consumes energy, and thus nearly everything we do can be put under the WYI microscope and this certainly includes eating. In fact, agriculture is a much more significant contributor to global emissions than you might think, and coupled with forestry it is a close second only to electricity and heat generation.1

How do you think of waste? As I understand it, waste is something that is no longer useful and, for one reason or another, needs to be discarded. However, isn’t it intrinsically wasteful to intend for anything to be eventually useless?
As I write this article, I can’t help but notice that eventually all of the materials in front of me will be classified obsolete. In a matter of time, they will all be thrown into the nearest receptacle for collection and, because of where I live, 50% of the material will be diverted for reprocessing, while the remaining 50% will be buried in a stockpile to never be seen again – or at least that’s what we hope.1
We’ve all heard the famous saying ‘you are what you eat’, but how about ‘you are what you use’?

Have you ever thought about making the switch to organic makeup? Well you should seriously consider making the switch because our skin absorbs the makeup we use and if you use makeup, which has alot of irritants you can suffer from the side effects. According to the article,” Why Switch to All Natural Cosmetics?” by Lori Stryker, it states, skin has the remarkable ability to absorb applied products, partially or completely, into the bloodstream. Up to 60% of the products we use on our skin are absorbed and deposited into the circulatory system. Cosmetics penetrate the skin to some degree. For instance, people who wear lipstick consume 1.5 to 4 tubes in a lifetime.

In 2013, domestic commercial flights accounted for 6.4% of US travel-related greenhouse gas emissions, making it the fourth-largest source of CO2 emissions in the transportation sector.1

This is a fairly typical response when first introduced to the idea of a menstrual cup. I’ll admit, it isn’t pretty. No one likes to imagine a reusable vaginal insert that collects the menstrual fluid. But let’s be real – vaginal bleeding isn’t (and never will be) pretty – so let’s start by dropping the shame around menstruation. And once we’ve gotten over that, we can address something that’s a lot less pretty: the amount of waste that half the population is producing in relation to their monthly cycle.

You rarely notice it, but plastic is everywhere. Inevitable, you say? Not really. That is what ‘zero waste stores’ all over the world are teaching us. One of them is Ohne in Ghent, Belgium.

One of the best parts of summer is grilling on the BBQ. But the question is, which BBQ technic is better for the environment? Charcoal or Propane?
Charcoal Facts
If you love to use charcoal for your cookout, read this and find out what charcoal does to the environment. When you have a cookout using charcoal it takes a lot of time to get a charcoal grill going. Charcoal is dirtier than gas but it comes from renewable resources.

Do you actually need two-three cars in your garage? Or your family might easily survive with one car as well? Those of you who currently have two or more than two cars, have you ever thought about sharing a car or downsizing to just one. Many of you who have more than two cars in your family, how much you drive all of your cars. I have seen people who hardly ever drive their second car. It’s usually just sit there for days or even weeks at a time without being used in their garage or parking lots.