猫咪社区

Reader Danae sent me the above line after last week鈥檚 newsletter, in which I had rhapsodized at 1.5x speed about trying to get more stuff . Try to think in circles rather than straight lines. I love this sentence. It鈥檚 an ecopoetic spin on work smarter. And of course I love a circle. Also an ellipse. Who doesn鈥檛 love an ellipse?

Danae went on to elaborate on the idea of getting things done while getting things done. She writes:

if I’m weeding, I’m simultaneously gathering mulch for my fruit trees –

if I’m shredding paper, I’m creating mulch for my raspberries –

if I’m sweeping, I’m adding to the kitchen compost bin –

if I’m mowing orchard pathways, I’m gathering nitrogen for the compost tumbler –

if I’m changing water in bird baths, I’m watering mints planted at the base of bird baths.

I love the idea of a circle of actions, a thing that helps another thing. It鈥檚 circular economy without all the bureaucracy. It鈥檚 circular thinking without going in circles.

At a  I listened to yesterday, (yes, I am always listening to talks, but I love how there鈥檚 an interesting panel every 12 minutes these days) speaker Jo-Anne St. Godard, Executive Director of the Recycling Council of Ontario, stressed the heightened importance of circular economy given how broken recycling is these days, especially here in Canada. (Canada is big, so people dump a lot of stuff here.)

While the pandemic has caused our household to waste less food, our recycling is perpetually full of boxes. Where our farm share once delivered food in reusable bags,  inside a cardboard box inside a hazmat suit. Plastic bag bans have been lifted in many jurisdictions, and we鈥檙e obviously using PPE like it鈥檚 going out of style. All necessary, of course, but heaping new challenges for an already beleaguered recycling system. Maybe extended producer responsibility could extend to cardboard and Jeff Bezos can figure it all out. If you can鈥檛 tell, my circular eyeballs are rolling.

I鈥檝e been baking a ton and kneading to give away my bake goods. I drop them at friends and neighbors houses out of some weird desire to make sure everybody has cookies, and also because if I鈥檓 turning the oven on, I might as well really use that energy (!).

I love the idea of , and I picture new circles being created all over the city. Someone in our neighborhood offered to do a bulk order of St.-Viateur bagels from Montreal. Everyone got into it. Thousands of circular bagels all rolling into Toronto, and being distributed across our hood. It鈥檚 fun to picture.

Ultimately, our net zero or net positive future is about building a world of circles. Nothing is shot out into the world to be wasted or discarded. Almost everything is looped around, repurposed. We always circle back to the beginning. I find this metaphor both appealing and calming. We鈥檙e all here, closing loops together.

So random, but this appeared in my IG feed this week.

thinking about the fact that my jewish summer camp had us all collectively bamboozled into thinking that the circle game is a happy song… as if young jews need more existential dread

— strega nona (@kate__butch)

It鈥檚 true. I mean the song did make me melancholy in a way I couldn鈥檛 explain, but we were sitting around a campfire hugging our best friends, so we didn鈥檛 think about . Probably because there鈥檚 comfort in鈥�a circle. Hope you find comfort this week. As always, tell me about the loops you鈥檝e hooped.

LAST WEEK

Writes lovely Helen: I am amazed everyday on how what is waste for one person is truly a treasure for another.  We are coming into strawberry season here and they are packaged in a plastic single-use punnets.  Last year I had saved several punnets and decided to put them on the Spare Harvest marketplace to see if someone else would use them.  Well I moved all to another home.  One gentleman used them for growing his microgreens, another person used then as a small hothouse for their seeds, and a lady used them to package up her homegrown cherry tomatoes so she could share then with her family.  We don鈥檛 have to take on the burden of doing everything ourselves, as a community is easier and more rewarding.  I now save those punnets and use them to cover my ripening fruit so the birds don鈥檛 eat them.  I would never had thought to use them this way if it was not for the people I met and the conversation we shared when I first put them on our marketplace.

From inspiring Saara, who reminds me again of how amazing Finland is: Check out this . And then check out , that 鈥渦nites the worlds of art and science and offer hope to amid the climate crisis.鈥�

And in cute people dancing: This feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only January. I don鈥檛 know when we鈥檒l be able to circle dance together again, but here鈥檚 to keeping the jams alive.

Play

Thanks for reading. Hope you are healthy and happy,

Sarah

P.S. I鈥檓 always curious to know what you think. This is my newsletter for the week of May 14, 2020, published in partnership with 猫咪社区! Media You can sign up to get Minimum Viable Planet newsletter emailed directly to you at .