Guess who does urban agriculture?

Hint: it's not poor people! Urban agriculture requires a lot of time and energy for a relatively small product. Not saying it's a bad idea, just that it's important to be realistic about where our food can and should come from. Urban agriculture just isn't an option for most.

Recycling plastics is basically a lie

 Make plastic is very cheap and easy, and consumers love it. Unfortunately it is very costly to sort plastics and the recycling process degrades the material, so at best it can survive reprocessing only once or twice. Much of the "recycling" that you see in your community ends up in a landfill.

But the beat goes on: it's cheaper than ever to produce and plastics are more convenient than ever. Can we break our addiction? I'm not counting on that happening soon!

NPR story

Pears from Argentina packed in Thailand and consumed in the US

This post by Prof. Matthew Hayek, part of a mini tweet-storm of 6=7, reminds us that while moving fruit around the globe sounds pretty crazy, in fact it's not that bad. Producing pears domestically is expensive in inputs and the climate in Argentina is perfect for them, so it makes sense to package (particularly the ugly, blemished ones) and ship them off in lightweight containers. Growing pears in the US probably uses a lot of agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides which makes the ecological footprint much larger than producing pears in Argentina.

Why that would happen in Thailand as opposed to Honduras, where cheap labor is also abundant, is probably because it's safer: Honduras is a big shipper for a product with a significantly higher markup. So given global political realities it makes sense!