The City Nature Challenge is a fun competition with cities across the country to document the most species during April 27 – 30, 2018 and anyone can participate by joining an event or documenting the plants, animals, and fungi they see anywhere in the greater Boston area with the iNaturalist app. The iNaturalist app is a downloadable app that allows the general public to record and submit their observations that will contribute to scientific databases like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility  and help scientists find and use data.  Learn more at: Boston Area City Nature Challenge.

In that spirit, the Sustainability Committee at Pare is pleased to share our 7th Annual Earth Day Photo Contest.   The theme of the contest this year is “Biodiversity!”

Please enjoy the photos submitted by Pare’s staff below, and vote using the poll located at the bottom of this post. The winner of the 2018 Earth Day Photo Contest will receive a Gift Card to B-Good. Voting will close at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, April 27th and winner will be announced in our next blog post.

Photo 1: Flowering Tree

This photo of a flowering dogwood tree was taken in Krakow, Poland.

Photo 2: Biodiversity in a Bucket

Vernal pools host an incredible amount of biodiversity. These wetlands, which dry up every summer, provide a nursery of sorts for a wide variety of species from wood frogs to dragonfly nymphs. Species in this photo include yellow spotted salamander eggs, fairy shrimp, water mites, and caddisfly larvae.

Photo 3: Water

Water plays a significant role in any ecosystem.  Although Mother Nature tries to keep herself balanced, we humans don’t always help. We tap into the resource and, at times, take more than our fair share. During a water ban last summer, nature tried all it could to find the water it needed; it’s obvious Mother Nature is teaching her children to read.

Photo 4: Beehives

One hundred and fifty beehives pollinate flowers and provide raw honey to support both the ecosystem and the local farmers’ markets on Oahu, Hawaii.

Photo 5: Disney’s Animal Kingdom

It is inspiring to see a coexistence of nature – plants, species and beauty – all in an initially manmade environment: Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Additional fact, the park opened on Earth Day in 1998.)

Photo 6: Hyacinth Macaw

The hyacinth macaw exhibit near the center of the Brevard Zoo in one of many unique close encounters with the more than 550 animals at the zoo.  The zoo, whose mission is “Wildlife conservation through education and participation,” boasts diverse ecosystems across its 75 acres including tropical grasslands, tropical forest, tropical hardwood, grassy plains, savannahs, and estuarine lagoons, amongst others.

Photo 7: Townshend, VT

Taken in Townshend, VT this picture shows multiple ecosystems coexisting next to each other. In the foreground the Townshend lake (outside of the frame the Townshend dam) and in the background Stratton Mountain, part of the beautiful Green Mountain Finger Lakes National Park.

Photo 8 Guatapé, Colombia

When a hydroelectric complex was built in Guatapé, Colombia in the 1970’s the landscape changed radically from agricultural fields to a lakes region made up of hundreds of islands.  This photo shows how the people and ecosystem of Guatapé adapted to this man-made flooding.

Photo 9: Hypopitys Monotropa

Most plants make their own food, but those lacking chlorophyll steal from their neighbors! Pinesap (Hypopitys monotropa) absorbs its nutrients from fungi in the soil.

Photo 10: Rooftop Garden

Up on a rooftop in the city, a garden in a planter attracts local wildlife, becoming a part of the local ecosystem.

Photo 11: Hikin’ the banks of the Mighty Mo

This photo includes a boy reflecting on the wonders of nature – the Missouri River –  sustaining life for the fish, tadpoles, and snapping turtles within the muddy water, allowing wildflowers an opportunity to flourish along its banks in the shadows of a magnificent tree grove, and providing nourishment for millions and millions of acres of farmland just out of view.

Photo 12: Children Walking

An appreciation for nature and its biodiversity begins at a young age.  Curiosity and wonder about the world around us is natural for children and must be encouraged and fed.

Photo 13: Green Sea Turtle

This photograph of a green sea turtle was taken at a coral reef off the coast of Maui, Hawaii. Coral reefs are home to over 25% of marine life, making them one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet.

The polls are now closed–We will soon be announcing the winning entry that best represents our theme of “Biodiversity!” 

The post Celebrate Earth Day with Pare by Voting in the 7th Annual Earth Day Photo Contest appeared first on Pare Corporation.

Coffee has become a large contributor of waste. Every time you go to a coffee shop and grab a cup to go, your cup contributes to the waste footprint. Some companies use paper cups, which is an easy material to recycle. But do you recycle it? Other companies use Styrofoam for its insulating properties. It’s understandably difficult to turn down a cup option which keeps both your hand and the precious liquid a desirable temperature. And these environmentally unfriendly options are of low cost to the coffee shop and consequently to you.

Professor David Tyler, a chemist at the University of Oregon, addressed Styrofoam’s “worst material” stereotype by conducting a life-cycle assessment. The results of his study demonstrated that Styrofoam cups are no worse than paper cups for the environment. The carbon footprint of a Styrofoam cup (i.e., its contribution to greenhouse gases) is less than a paper cup. However, it does take Styrofoam longer to degrade. The choice is up to you; do you care more about carbon footprint or garbage reduction?

Before we’re able to take a sip, we need to address another important coffee waste concern which is infamous in the New England region: the double cup. Found in both icy and sweltering temperatures, Dunkin Donuts and other coffee shops allow you to request your iced coffee in a cup within a cup. In the colder weather, your plastic drink cup is slid into a Styrofoam cup to keep the iced coffee from chilling your already chilled hands. In the warm weather, the Styrofoam second cup catches the condensation from your refreshingly cold drink. In both cases, the Styrofoam cup is being added as an insulator. And in both cases, you are contributing twice the amount of waste to the garbage.

And it’s not just cups that are filling our landfills.

In recent years, the single-serve coffee brewer has been at the forefront of home brewing. Keurig (now owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters) developed the K-Cup brewing system in the mid-1990s. As most of you know, it consists of a brewer and a K-Cup – a plastic container with a filter and 11 grams of ground coffee beans, vacuum sealed to prevent oxidation. The plastic container is made from a special plastic mix designed to withstand the heated brewing process. The brewer punctures a hole in the top and bottom of the K-Cup and passes hot water through the cup and into a mug. Once the K-Cup is brewed, it is disposed of, and it becomes a component of our waste footprint. While coffee grounds are compostable, K-Cup plastic containers are not. That isn’t to say they aren’t reusable though! Click the image below for ways to reuse your office’s K-Cups.

John Sylvan was the brains behind Keurig and what he calls the “single-serve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance.” He created Keurig in 1992 and sold off his share of the company in 1997 for a mere $50,000. Keurig is now generating $4.7 billion in revenue. Now that the K-Cup has received backlash from consumers, environmentalists, and more, John Sylvan states, “I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it.”

Coffee grounds are compostable, however the K-Cup plastic container is only recyclable in a few Canadian cities. The good news: Keurig Green Mountain has taken a pledge to create a fully recyclable K-Cup. The bad news: It won’t make its debut until 2020. Until then, we’ll have to be conscious about how we make our coffee!

Now that we’re finally ready to take a sip, cherish that taste of sweet…guilt! But perhaps there are ways we can lessen the guilt and lessen the environmental impact of drinking coffee. Coffee has always served as a treat, an energizer, and it is known for bringing people together. Consider bringing people together for an even greater benefit by encouraging environmentally responsible caffeinated practices in your office, whether it is supplying company-wide reusable coffee cups that all coffee shops are eager to fill, or by using a coffee-koozy to substitute the Styrofoam cup. Hey, there are some great opportunities for company branding here!

For more on the history of K-Cups and the environmental impact of coffee drinkers, check-out this article from The Atlantic.

The post How Much Does Your Caffeine Routine Contribute to the Waste Footprint? appeared first on Pare Corporation.

That is the first question Eben Bayer asked the audience in his 2010 TED talk, “Are mushrooms the new plastic?” My mind immediately jumped to the first scenes of the Disney Pixar movie, Wall-E. In the movie, the robot Wall-E has been placed on an abandoned Planet Earth with the futile task of cleaning-up an insurmountable mountain of trash and waste. While this concept is a bit extreme, the movie sends a clear message: We need to better manage our waste.

Eben Bayer also recognizes the need to find better solutions for our waste. While attending Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eben and his classmate Gavin McIntyre invented an alternative use of fungi that produces rigid materials. This material is based on mycelium, which is defined as “the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, threadlike hyphae.” It is a living, growing and self-assembling organism.

Pictured: Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre

Eben and Gavin’s product, MycoBond, is a mycelium “glue” that converts agriwaste into a foam-like material. This material provides an alternative solution for waste by fitting into nature’s recycling system. With the encouragement of their professor, the two men realized they were on to something and founded their company, Ecovative.

Ecovative initially focused its research on rigid boards for building insulation, and has since expanded into packaging. The manufacturing process for this company lies in the organism. Waste products are molded into a form and injected with the mycelium. Over the next few days, the fungi digests and assembles the waste into biocomposites. The biocomposites can be molded into any form and given various properties, such as being mold resistant, insulating, vapor resistant, etc.

Eben states that there are three key principles for the success of these new “Mushroom Materials.” The first principle is open feedstocks. This process does not depend on finite resources, such as petroleum, that we so heavily rely on to power our cars and heat our homes. This process relies on local agricultural byproduct, which is naturally occurring and treated as a waste product.

The second key principle of this material is the consumption of far less energy in creating the material. The beauty in the “manufacturing” of this material is that the fungi manufactures itself over time.

The third key principle is the ability to create materials that fit into nature’s recycling system. This product is made from a mixture of agricultural waste and fungi, two naturally occurring materials. At the end of the product use, it can be broken down and recycled into the next usable form without having to go to a recycling/processing facility.

Ever since the company started, its Mushroom Materials products have been rapidly expanding. Ecovative began using MycoBond to create packaging products for Fortune 500 companies. They have received the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Quality Award, among others. The material is Cradle-to-Cradle Certified Gold, and MycoBond is being used for a wide variety of applications, from building insulation to surfboards. Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre have created an innovative material that transforms the life cycle of a product. If Ecovative is able to replace more plastic products with their biodegradable and environmentally friendly alternative, perhaps Wall-E will have a sequel set on a green and flourishing Planet Earth where his main mission is to harvest more mushrooms.

The post Could Fungi Save Our Planet? appeared first on Pare Corporation.

The man with the vision

As a full-time undergraduate student who understands the cost of education, Jonathan VonReusner took it upon himself to reduce his living costs.  While attending a local private college and living at home, he was also interested in moving out to have his own space.  Needing the ability to get to and from classes while continuing his sustainably-centered upbringing, Jon took the logical route and turned to Craigslist.

The result was a $2500 used bookstore on wheels.  And what might one do with an old, secondhand bus, you might ask?  Why, turn it into an apartment, of course!

With no previous building experience, Jon spent the eight days of his spring break gutting and rebuilding his new space.  He installed new floors and did some woodworking to build shelving, a desk, and create storage compartments.  To maximize the ability of the bus to be self-sustaining, he mounted four solar panels to the roof that can generate 400 Watts.  For those cloudy days, Jon has two 125 Amp-hour batteries so that he won’t be completely off the grid.  Jon also has a propane tank and 10,000 Btu heater for when the temperature drops.

The total cost of the project was just under $5600.  Room and board costs for the upcoming school year at the college Jon attends in upstate New York, which includes a mandatory meal plan, are $13,772.  If you consider half that number ($6886) to be solely room costs for living in a college dorm (which isn’t typically more than a couple hundred square feet), Jon has made a solid investment. Jon also considers “with education costs so high, tuition dollars are already paying for a wealth of communal facilities- things from a gym (bathroom and shower) to public transportation via shuttle system if the campus has it.  So for a student, a project like this hardly has to be mobile or have plumbing for it to still save thousands.”

The results of this project have given Jon peace of mind; living at home in a spacious house that had a lot of “stuff,” he never felt like he had complete control over things.  Now that he’s living in 90 square feet, he has had to pare down his belongings to the bare necessities which he says ironically makes him feel like there is more room to breathe.

For more information about this project, you can watch a video put together by Elisa Caffrey and Kristen Dirksen here.

The post Tiny… Bus? appeared first on Pare Corporation.

“Upcycling” is a glorified term for reuse. How can we alter the function of an object that has already been used for its primary purpose? How can we take a common household item that is taking up space in the house, and prevent it from taking up space in the trash? Can this item surpass its original function? This blog begins a series of upcycling posts, because one of the most helpful contributors to upcycling is sharing ideas!

Herb Gardens

Herb gardening is an easy way to consistently add fresh greens to a meal. Better yet, an indoor herb garden can function as an air purifier! I brought a few seedlings home from the store in an attempt to start my garden, only to realize I had nothing to plant them in. Looking around my kitchen, I noticed a ton of mismatched glassware that I hadn’t used in years. Each was a different shape and size, all holding fond memories from different places, yet taking up space in my cabinet. Cue upcycling idea! I decided to plant my herb garden in my old glassware.

Items you will need:
1. Assorted Glassware
2. Proximity to window or ample sunlight
3. Potting soil
4. Herb seedlings of your choice (or seeds, if you’re feeling patient)
5. Enough flat pebbles/rock/slate to create a thin layer at bottom of glass
6. Newspaper (or any type of barrier used for easy clean-up after potting, especially indoors)

Step-by-Step:
1. Rinse Glassware
2. Add layer of flat pebbles to bottom of glass for drainage
3. Fill glass 3/4 full with potting soil
4. Plant seedlings or sprinkle seeds (check seed package for more detailed planting info)
5. Water (more thoroughly than often)
6. Take pride in your upcycling efforts, and enjoy extra flavorful meals!

Before

In order to finish the project, I did have to visit my local Savers (a store dedicated to reusing) and purchase two additional glasses for under $2.00. I also needed more potting soil than anticipated.

Final product

Overall, the final product came together just as I had hoped! In this case, upcycling was a benefit to my cooking, the environment, and don’t forget, my wallet!

The post The Upcycle Experience: Herb Gardens appeared first on Pare Corporation.