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In this land of abundant water, can we see it as a precious resource? I’d like to think so, but, at least in my city (Toronto) as lately as last summer l saw people out cleaning their sidewalks with a hose.

Perhaps a name change will help. It’s my understanding that the City of Toronto water services staff are working on changing the way they talk about the city’s most essential service. Instead of talking about “water” they’re trying to talk about “drinking water.” The city points out that what comes from our taps is better than what comes in some individual bottles (it’s more closely monitored). They’d like us to think of that pure, perfect, healthful water we see in advertising messages, and to curb the immense amount of energy (and money) used to process and deliver it, stop using municipal water where purity isn’t critical. Like in our toilets and on our gardens.

I did a little research and found out that rainwater is actually very clean in terms of pathogens, but the level of industrialization in your area likely affects its pH. For a helpful backgrounder on acid rain, click here. Acid rain may diminish the health of your plants, so I’m going to find out whether there’s anything homeowners using rain barrels can do to neutralize the pH of the water.

As I’m planning what I’d like to add to my garden this spring, I’m certainly looking for plants that don’t need drinking water – they have to be able survive from what my rain barrels can provide. For a terrific list of native plants that can handle less watering, have a look at the current issue of Homemakers magazine. “Grow a Greener Garden” by Deanna Dority offers beautiful ideas for drought-tolerant flowers, grasses and shrubs. She also describes moisture-savings ways to set up your garden’s soil and mulch.

How is water regarded in your home town? Do you think uses are shifting, or is water just so abundant we shouldn’t worry about it?

Talking to some people from the City of Toronto water department last weekend, I was impressed to hear them advocate for natural and certified cleaning products and personal care products. Because, of course, they head down the drain and into the waste system, go through some filtering and treatment, but many still head out into Lake Ontario.

According to this Environment Canada report on the preponderance of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in Alberta rivers, “In general, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and synthetic fragrances (musks) are detected most frequently and at the highest concentrations… Future efforts for AENV will include a focus on polybrominated diphenyl ethers (flame retardants) and perfluorinated compounds (surfactants) in major rivers, riverine sediments, and aquatic biota of the province.”

Studies can take time, but we all depend on our water supply. As I’ve heard many times lately, we all live downstream from someone.

What can we do? Well, the folks from Toronto’s water department suggest using benign cleaning agents such as baking soda and products that are EcoLogo certified. (I’ve tested many of these, and I haven’t come across a certified product that doesn’t perform well.) But it’s not just cleaning products that go down the drain: don’t forget about dish and dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, shampoo, body washes… and all the products you’re washing away, like fragrances and makeup.

Because what goes down comes around.

Have you made a green cleaner, or tried one, that really works for you?

Landfills are a thing of the past. Trouble is, they’re a thing of the present too. And future, whether we like it or not.

One of the seminars I attended at Saturday’s Toronto Stewardship Forum was about the new book HTO (Coach House Books, 2008, $24.95), a history of Toronto’s relationship with water. One of the book’s editors, Wayne Reeves, talked about how Toronto has used its waterways over the years, explaining that, today, the city is trying to resuscitate and reintegrate ecological features around waterways to better deal with rain water (and, of course, to create a healthier city).  But a key challenge for the city is its historical landfills.

Just like the landfills we’re creating today, dump sites of 50 and 100 years ago are in areas we consider acceptable (OK, maybe  tolerable is a better word) for that sort of use. It turns out that, even up to the 1950s, Toronto’s ravines were used for dumping garbage. And guess what? It’s still there, taking up space, interrupting local ecology, and it’s today’s problem and the city tries to mitigate chemical runoff from whatever people here threw out all those years ago.

So where should we dump our garbage? I’d say nowhere. I think, like Japan and many other places, we should see our garbage as fuel. Everything that’s left after recycling and claiming materials should be used to power modern, non-polluting incineration plants (even gasification), or processed in biodigesters, set up for small populations. That way we’ll reclaim power for use locally.

What do you think, can we eliminate garbage?

As I wandered around the Kingston, Ont., waterfront last weekend, I felt very peaceful looking across Lake Ontario. It seemed to me that the icy expanse held the best of old and new: an early 1800s Martello Tower in the foreground, wind turbines on Wolfe Island in the background. From my point of view, this is a community with a plan for the future.

A lot of people have raised concerns about disruptions created by wind turbines. Looking around online at some of the problems people are experiencing, particularly homeowners, I certainly sympathize with their situations.

I think it makes all kinds of sense to generate as much power as we can through wind and solar. They are clean sources of electricity, and we’ve barely begun to tap the sun’s capacity. But we do have to put them in the right location, and that’s not right next to someone’s home. When turbines need maintenance, they start making noise (particularly older models, I’m told). I’d heard about noise issues before, but I hadn’t thought about how turbines interact with the sun. If you have spinning blades between you and the sun, guess what? You’ll get a strobe effect of light-dark-light-dark, as shown here.

The new Ontario Green Energy Act calls for a 550 metre setback between wind turbines and homes. When I first heard about the setback, I thought that perhaps traditional energy was influencing our ability to make good use of renewable energy. But now I see that, to make good neighbours, turbines should be situated properly. Nobody wants an annoying neighbour.

How do you see renewable energy fitting in with your landscape?

I was over a some friends’ new loft the other day, admiring their new computer. Apparently the monitor, or “display” as people seem to be calling them, is made from solid aluminum, milled to shape. As my friends were talking about this, I was holding a can of pop in my hand. “Wouldn’t it be great,” I said, “If that monitor were made from recycled pop cans?”

This may seem like a big stretch. Like, Jess, you’re getting pretty flaky here – no way could companies use material from the garbage heap to make new things. But my thing is, it’s just got to be easier to reclaim material from our blue bins than it is to mine it. Even if we contaminate the material by mixing it with other stuff, surely it’s easier to purify that aluminum, or glass, or steel, or titanium, than mine it?!

I think computer companies are starting to see that not only are we creating an embarrassing amount of electronic waste these days, there’s valuable material in obsolete computers, monitors, cables, phones and other parts.

A year or so ago I had a chance to meet with the Director of the Office of Sustainability and Stewardship for Motorola USA, Bill Olson. In telling me about the Motorola Renew for a story in Homemakers, a phone made from recovered water bottles (the big ones used in office water coolers), Olson said that the key to using recycled material in new manufacturing is to find a really clean waste stream. Those big water bottles are ideal because there’s a collection system for them, and they’re all pretty much the same.

I’d love to see other manufacturers choose one item from the waste stream, something that would work well as part of their products. Companies could claim first rights to premium materials from blue box programs. What do you think, would it work?

I think Canadians have a flair for dressing well, even when it’s quite frosty outside. We’ve had a very mild fall here in Toronto, but perhaps in anticipation of the first snow storm, a lot of people have adopted down coats and wool pants as wardrobe basics. Sweater dresses with tights seem to be a favourite among the Homemakers staff!

Last week I tried a new kind of tights from Silks, made with 70% recycled nylon yarn. Made in Canada, these $16 “Eco-Chic” tights are manufactured from both post-consumer recycled material and recycled “pre-consumer” material (aka factory waste). True to their name, the tights are silky and comfortable to wear, and they held up well to machine washed and drying. Silks also makes recycled yarn knee highs and tights made with soybeans.

I’ve also seen tights from other companies made with bamboo. I’m trying to understand how good for the planet bamboo really is. It makes sense to me that bamboo could be a sustainable material, since it’s a fast-growing plant that, much like hemp, has strong fibres that make for durable goods. But apparently some are clearing land such that habitats are destroyed, and that to be made into the fibre rayon, bamboo has to go through an intensive chemical process. Not so good!

Perhaps the solution here is to support bamboo producers and processors who work in specific ways. I think we can all benefit from materials made with plants rather than petroleum, so hopefully we’ll see a sustainability certification standard for bamboo (and heck, other natural fibres) sometime soon.

I’m thrilled that we have new choices in legwear. Hopefully someday when I get a hole in my tights, I can just throw them in the compost.

What’s your favourite natural fibre?

Some may argue that large-scale farms offer efficient production, but I’m a big fan of local food. That’s because:
- I believe we have to have Canadians farming across Canada in order to have a safe and stable food supply, now and in the future. What if imported food becomes too expensive for most of us, or we begin to doubt its healthfulness? What if we lose the skills to farm?
- I think that many small farms are more stable than large ones, since the little guys can respond more flexibly to changing consumer needs.
- Farming can help support good use of rural land, and it can help keep land rural. (Stop right there, sprawl!)
- Farming goes hand-in-hand with artisanal food production. Who doesn’t love maple syrup, honey, jams, jellies, mustard, preserves, special cheeses?

It may be late November, but there’s still a lot of local food available at markets and grocers alike. Here are a few of my favourite Homemakers receipes featuring fall’s harvest vegetables:

- Maple Glazed Rutabaga and Parsnips
- Gorgonzola Parsnips (this is now a regular dish at the Ross family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners)
- Carrot Souffle with Parsley Sauce (the only problem with this recipe is it’s hard to get enough of it while sharing with your family!)
- Curried Sweet Potato and Millet Soup (sweet potatoes are so good for us too!)
- Swiss Rosti with Cheese (perfect if you have local potatoes on hand)

Look at this amazing shot of a Tesla electric roadster sitting atop four Wedgwood teacups at William Ashley in Toronto. It just goes to show how durable the teacups are — and how sexy the Tesla is! Learn more about it, and its cousin the Tesla S, in this earlier post.

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After posting about baiting and trapping slugs and snails, as well as fruit flies, now I’m trying to control yellow jackets, those pesky yellow and black wasps that just won’t leave you alone with your lunch. I’m starting to feel like I’m not so environmentally friendly, what with all this baiting and killing. What can I say – I feel that I’m bring an out of control population into balance.

I don’t mind yellow jackets hanging out around my house (and I welcome bees, of course). They can eat from the neighbour’s pear tree and sip pools of rainwater all they like. But after a long day inside at work, I just want to eat dinner outdoors. I tried putting some jam in a jar and setting it away from our eating area, but the wasps weren’t interested in it. When several yellow jackets come buzzing around, inspecting my food and pushing up my pulse, making it impossible to eat for fear of swallowing one, I feel I have to push back a little After all, unlike bees, wasps (including yellow jackets) don’t much pollinating. And so, rather than spraying their nest and every wasp I see with chemicals, I kill with kindness.

First, I went looking for a trap design. I tried making traps with tall bottles with a foil cone attached to the opening, baited with juice and a bit of soap to ruin the surface tension. While I caught some hapless flies, that was about it. Then I was in a home store the other day and noticed their yellow jacket traps. They’re just a plastic bottle fitted with a flower-like topper and a lid with four holes in it. It couldn’t get simpler, but for $4.50, I bought it. What can I say, I didn’t have the right shape of bottle at home to make one. I also love the look of glass wasp traps, pictured here. Has anyone had success with these?

Next I had to choose a terrific bait. A friend of mine brought over a bottle of cassis a couple of months ago, perfect for making kir royales. As I searched for something syrupy sweet to bait those yellowjackets with, my eyes caught the cassis in a eureka moment. No doubt the fruit component would deliver the sweetness, and the alcohol component would have an evaporative effect, spreading the scent around, and make ‘em drunk so the little stingers would be unable to escape the trap. But oh, what a glorious end to drown in cassis! To me, this is killing with kindness. And, compared to the aerosol bug sprays I remember from a decade ago, this is a kind way for the environment too. After all, I bet deceased yellow jackets in cassis make good fertilizer for my garden.

Have you tried to control any garden pests this summer?