Feather Forums

This discussion could span a broad set of categories. You can post about politics, scientific research, pop culture, habitat restoration, non-profit initiatives--basically any recent update about a development within the environment or in our interactions with it. Going forward, we can create more specific discussions to focus our conversation, but I thought that a general discussion would be a good starting point. As a small news update, one non-profit organization that I follow is "The Ocean Cleanup." They are developing a series of technological innovations to gather and clean plastic waste from our waters, with the ultimate goal of eliminating 90% of the ocean's plastic. This past month, they have made a YouTube video showing how they've transformed some of their gathered waste into a "plastic granulate," which they plan to recycle into new products. Here's the link to the post. (If you want to skip to watch the actual conversion process, you can start around the 4:00 mark.) The Ocean Cleanup Project: https://www.facebook.com/TheOceanCleanup/posts/3437883452911345 If you have any of your own news updates to post, whatever field it may come from, I'll look forward to seeing them!

We all have different ways of supporting the environment in our daily lives, whether through habits big or small, and it can often be helpful to see what others are doing to care for nature. To be clear, this isn't a place to shame others into changing their habits, but to offer ideas and support for those who need it. As a quick example of a tip for living in an eco-friendly way, composting can be a very helpful way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. From what I understand, the energy involved with excavating a dump and compressing garbage into it (including food scraps) creates emissions, and biodegradable food waste sent to a dump releases methane. Composting is a good way to avoid this. My family layers our kitchen scraps in a square of earth and leaves in our backyard, and it's been really cool to see how the compost has transformed the soil into a rich, living black, often with little green shoots popping out of it. For anyone interested in learning more about composting, here are a couple of good resources on how to do it, what things you should and shouldn't add, and some of composting's benefits: The EPA: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home The Spruce: https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-compost-easy-steps-1708698

One way of caring for the environment is through the way we eat, so whether you enjoy cooking with ingredients that are local, vegetarian, vegan, or eco-friendly in any other way, feel free to post your recipes in this discussion! To start us off, I'll share two recipes: stuffed cabbage rolls, and a vegetable and lentil soup. The cabbage rolls are a filling, warmly-spiced meal, and when boiled, rolled up, and cooked, the cabbage tastes a lot like pasta! Here's the link for it. The Mediterranean Dish: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/vegetarian-stuffed-cabbage-rolls/ The vegetable and lentil soup is from "The Minimalist Baker," a website with a lot of good vegan recipes. With carrots, potatoes, lentils, and chopped greens, this is a simple recipe in that once everything's chopped up, you just add the ingredients bit by bit to one pot. Here's the link. The Minimalist Baker: https://minimalistbaker.com/1-pot-everyday-lentil-soup/ If you have any recipes you would like to share, I'd be excited to see them!