Enough for the new year

When I’m travelling, I really enjoy how everything that makes it in the backpack really deserves to be there. (It fits, looks good, works, whatever.) I’m not going to reduce my belongings to a backpack, but I’d rather feel that way looking around my home.

The dirt on clean: avoiding antibacterials

With all the talk about swine flu and handwashing, I decided to take questions from parents to an expert in public health, Dr. Bonnie Henry with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. (CBC story here). Dr. Henry just published a

Talking trash with the Clean Bin Project

I spent yesterday morning with the people behind The Clean Bin Project, Jen and Grant. They haven’t taken out the garbage in seven (!) months. They’re buying almost nothing, except food, and even with edibles they’re following strict rules to reduce packaging and waste.

Could composting be the new recycling?

B.C. is the only province where composting rates have been declining since the 1990s.

Cleaning the peanut butter jar

Update: Thanks to @marklise, @nolanzak, @davejohnson, @ChrisParry and @eco_smart for their suggestions via Twitter! If you have a suggestion, let me know. I’ll admit it, I was a little resistant to taking on what are generally called “consumer stories” on