Traditionally, the leaves of the banana tree are used most often as (quite dynamic and attractive) serving vessels for everyday meals in South Indian and Filipino cuisine. Hindus and Buddhists both use the leaves for religious ceremonies and offerings, and the fully biodegradable and bright green leaves are used as trays of sorts. But that’s not all!

Banana leaves are said to impart a special flavor to foods and can even be used to steam food, especially cha lua, a Vietnamese sausage. Banana leaf rice is a dish unto itself in South Indian cooking, and it’s usually served with a vegetarian curry.

Source: Inhabitat

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a way of purchasing food that helps build a sustainable local food system in the process. By sharing some of the risk, the work, and the commitment with the farmers, you are helping us take great steps forward in rebuilding that system here in the Charlotte region. Know Your Farms handles the marketing, administration, and delivery of the CSA shares so that the farmers can focus on growing the food.

7 Ways to Save Farmland
1. Buy local food
2. Know your neighbor farmers
3. Ask for local when shopping
4. Prepare local meals for friends
5. Speak out on local farming policy
6. Educate friends about buying local
7. Contact legislators

Local Food Club

• Browse what’s available each week from local farms on our online ordering system
• Place orders for what you want and how much you want that week
• Pick up the food at one of six drop locations
• Join any time and start ordering the next week

Choosing in-season fruits and vegetables, local produce, less meat and foods that are grown with fewer pesticides can make your impact on the Earth a bit lighter.

Keeping track of all the information you need to make the right choices can be a bit overwhelming, but these seven mobile apps store all you need to know in your pocket. Be sure to let us know in the comments which apps you found most helpful or what you plan to do start eating environmentally friendly.

1. Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch

Nobody wants to destroy ecosystems when they go out for sushi, but trying to factor in where each species of fish was caught, what region it comes from, or how it was farmed can seem like a full-time job when picking where to eat.

The people who do, in fact, dedicate themselves to full-time study of the planet’s water systems have mercifully created an iPhone app and mobile site to provide a guide for your seafood decisions. Search fish by name for the best choice (salmon, for instance, should be wild-caught in Alaska), good alternatives (wild-caught in Washington), and what to avoid (farmed, Atlantic-caught or wild-caught in California), and reference a best practice guide for your region.

On Tuesday, the aquarium also added a new “Project FishMap” component to the app that helps you share restaurants and markets you’ve found that sell sustainable seafood. Eventually, the crowdsourced map will be a resource for finding ocean-friendly seafood wherever you are.

2. Locavore

The modern-day grocery store has created a problem that would have been absurd to our ancestors. With produce being shipped from all over the world, it’s difficult to tell what is actually in season near you.

Locavore ($2.99) tells you what is currently in season in your region so that you can make purchasing decisions that reduce your carbon footprint. It also provides recipes that use all in-season ingredients and shows you nearby farmers markets where you can buy those ingredients.

If you connect the app to your Facebook account, you can share where you came across especially stellar local produce and read what other people near you have discovered.

3. True Food

The jury is still out on the health and environmental impact of genetically modified food like the “botox apple,” but genetically modified (GMO) foods still go unlabeled and are difficult to avoid.

The Center for Food Safety, which runs campaigns to halt the approval of GMO foods, has iPhone() and Android apps that help shoppers identify genetically modified food. The app gives the low-down on the approval statuses of GMO items in major food groups and highlights tips for avoiding GMO foods in general.
4. What’s on My Food?

As the title indicates, this app from the Pesticide Action Network helps you figure out what pesticides are on your food before you buy it. According to the app, an apple has a potential 42 residues, for instance.

The app comes with a helpful chart if you want to know which ones are neurotoxins, hormone disruptors, carcinogens, or developmental or reproductive toxins. Though by that point, you might already be standing in the organic section.

5. Seasons

Like the Locavore app, Seasons ($1.99) helps consumers buy products that are in-season in their region. In addition to fruits and vegetables, it also keeps track of herbs, nuts and mushrooms broken down by whether they’re in-season, at the start of their season, at the end of their season or produced year-round in your area. Each food includes a graph that shows both import and local seasons.

6. Label Lookup

Because many consumers prefer environmentally conscious options when available, companies are eager to label their products as such. In some cases, however, the labels are more indicative of greenwashing than of reduced environmental impact.

Shoppers can use Label Lookup to understand what 169 different green labels mean and how reliable they are. “GMO-Free,” for instance, is too vague to be reliable. “American Grassfed,” however, is thirdy-party verified and meets detailed standards.

7. VegOut

Whether or not you’re a vegetarian, reducing the amount of meat that you eat can reduce the impact your diet has on the environment. And it doesn’t need to be painful; you can easily find great vegan, vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly restaurants using mobile app VegOut ($2.99).

The app is powered by happycow.net, a vegetarian-friendly restaurant search engine with more than 13,000 listings around the world. It uses your location to show you the restaurants nearest you, but you can also search by zipcode if you’re planning to dine elsewhere.

Source: Mashable
By: Sarah Kessler

The DSIRE web site provides information about renewable energy and energy efficiency incentives and policies in effect in the United States. Relevant incentives and policies established by the federal government, state governments, local governments, utilities and non-profit organizations are included in DSIRE.

DSIRE provides the following information and resources:

Incentives Available in U.S. States & Territories

The DSIRE home page features a U.S. map for easy access to incentives and policies available in each state. Clicking a state or territory provides a list of available incentives and policies in that state, organized into two categories: (1) Financial Incentives and (2) Rules, Regulations & Policies. (To find out what types of incentives and policies are included in each category, visit the DSIRE Glossary.)

The list of incentives and policies provides links to individual summaries with the following details:

• The incentive or policy type (e.g., tax credit, rebate program, net metering)
• The implementing sector (e.g., federal, state, utility)
• Eligible sectors (e.g., residential, commercial, government)
• Eligible technologies (e.g., solar water heating, wind energy, insulation)
• Links to authorizing statutes, regulations and relevant legal documents
• A summary of the incentive or policy
• A link to the incentive or policy web site
• Contact information

For more information visit DSIRE website at www.dsireusa.org

Shop Smarter
Seek out sustainable products by using the GoodGuide iPhone app and text message alert system. The app lets users scan products’ barcodes with a smart phone and gain access to detailed information on the item’s health, environmental and social responsibility attributes. GoodGuide currently holds stats on 65,000 products and adds thousands of goods to the database every month. Be sure to download the app to help you choose the greenest personal care products, household items, toys and food.

Organize Shopping Trips
Scads of shoppers hit up malls, outlets and grocery stores every day. And in many cases, those consumers make that trip alone. Save money and gas by organizing carpools to commute to shopping centers. If you don’t know anyone looking to go on a shopping spree, fear not: A bunch of user-friendly iPhone apps and Web-based services make it easy to arrange car-shares. Find other local, mall-bound shoppers by using sites like CarpoolConnect.com, NuRide.com, ERideShare.com, CommuterLink.com and ZimRide.com. Or, try iPhone apps like Avego and Carticipate, which also match drivers with folks looking to hitch a ride.

Paper-Free Coupons
Everyone loves a discount, but obtaining paper coupons results in quite a bit of tree death and chemical use. Instead, try using paperless, mobile coupons like those offered by Coupon Sherpa. The site provides exclusive and internet coupons for deals on jewelry, clothing, shoes, sporting goods and more. Download mobile coupons by using Coupon Sherpa’s iPhone app. The app allows users to display coupon barcodes right on their phones so cashiers don’t need to scan paper coupons. Coupon Sherpa offers new discounts daily to hundreds of stores.

What’s Old is New Again
A huge part of living a green lifestyle is trying to reduce waste. Instead of purchasing brand new products, try buying gently used goods. Sites like eBay and Craigslist both offer previously owned items for sale. The stuff will still be new to you, and buying from sites like these can often save customers money. For even bigger savings, try Freecycle.org. The site connects folks who have unwanted stuff to people who are looking to take in items. With more than seven million members utilizing the site, you can be sure to snag some sweet, free goods in a town near you.

Shop at Green Businesses
There are many stores throughout the nation who only offer green products and engage in environmentally friendly business practices. To find an eco merchant near you, try using the Find Green app from GenGreen Digital Media. The app works like a Yelp for green businesses, using GPS to list nearby sustainable stores and services. The database contains more than 60,000 businesses, from yoga studios to bike shops to eco-friendly restaurants.

Source: By Sarah Parsons, Inhabitat

On its list of sustainable materials, H&M has incorporated organic cotton, organic linen, recycled polyester and tencel, the renewable fiber that’s quickly making its way into eco-designers’ repertoires.
H&M isn’t new to sustainable design, and they’re well aware of conventional cotton’s impact on the environment. The company started using organic cotton back in 2004, and in the last three years, they’ve increased the amount of organic cotton they use from 30 to 3,000 tons.

As an international fashion company, H&M is a key player in the industry, and increasing demand for organic cotton in turn helps organic cotton farmers. The company is also committed to ensuring that more farmers switch to organic, by supporting transitional cotton growing; converting from conventional to organic cotton production is a process that usually takes three years and working with farmers that are in that process helps keep the industry growing.

The only problem…we need to get H&M to Charlotte.

At Healthy Bottoms Diaper Service , we not only care about your baby, we also care deeply about our planet. We use high efficiency commercial washers and dryers to help
conserve energy and water, and do not use any harmful chemicals in our process. We try to use reusable, recycled or biodegradable products in everything we do, from our business cards to the bags we use to deliver diapers. We are committed to helping our environment in any way we can.

The Corky mouse uses piezoelectric elements to generate energy every time you click or move it around on your desk – even rolling the scroll wheel will generate a few watts. We’ve seen many watches that harvest kinetic energy, so the technology is definitely available, and it makes a lot of sense in this application. Since computer mice function through movement, why not harness that expended energy?

Adele is also considering the device’s sustainability from a systems-based approach – something we love to see in industrial design. Plans are included for regional sourcing and assembly, product take-back and recycling, and disassembly data will be easily accessible for recycling centers. That last point is important, because a big issue with electronics recycling is that disassembly information is often considered proprietary and not disclosed, which makes the process of dismantling and recycling a device difficult if not impossible.

Source: Mike Chino Inhabitiat.com