Over the past few months, since the start of quarantine, I have taken an interest in researching and slowly transitioning into a zero-waste lifestyle. The goal of this way of living is to put as little waste into landfill as possible. This is done through conscious consumer decisions as well as reusing, composting, or recycling when need be (it is important to track your recyclables through their lifecycle, however, as fewer than 10% of materials put into household recycling bins is actually recycled). I have been applying what I have been learning to my own life by making small changes like buying bar body wash and shampoo, which I was really excited to try out for the first time while on the farm. I have chosen to focus first on getting rid of excess plastic in my bathroom.
Plastic is often targeted as the main enemy of environmentalists, and rightfully so, especially in its single-use form that we so often see it in today. However, I feel the issue of plastics often overshadows another just as prevalent problem: food waste. It is estimated that food waste accounts for nearly a quarter of what is put into landfill (for more information on this, see the EPA’s website). However, it was super refreshing to see that, at the farm, this is not the case.
Susan and Jim use every bit of food that they have, whether grown themselves or otherwise.
They dry things, give extras to neighbors, and plant unused bulbs; however, the main way they limit food waste is through canning. If food is going off, they “put it up” (aka can it - there are so many southern phrases that half the time I don't know what people are saying). Together, Susan and I have made blackberry jam, pear butter, and canned tomatoes. We clean her reused mason jars, ladle in the food, and pray to God that we don’t get blown up as the cans vacuum seal inside the old-fashioned pressure cooker. Susan and Jim eat their canned goods throughout the year, allowing them to enjoy their garden-grown fruit and veg year-round while saving pounds of food from landfill.
Anything that isn’t canned, such as pear cores and tomato peels is fed to the chickens and other critters. And if the chickens can’t eat it? Into the compost it goes to be used as a soil additive in the future.
It really hit me that, at Four O’Clock Farm, composting is generally
a last resort, whereas, for me, it often is my first. Not to say that composting is bad, but so much time and so many resources go into growing our food that it should be first priority to feed it to ourselves or others. Seeing the relationship Susan and Jim have with the food that they grow and eat has given me a new outlook on my newfound zero-waste journey, and has inspired to me be more conscious about the food that I buy and how I choose to use it.
But if I do take up canning at home, I will NOT be using an old-fashioned pressure cooker like Susan; she likes to live on the edge a bit more than I do…
