As a child, whenever I stayed with my grandparents in rural Maine we would collect our garbage—seltzer bottles, coffee grounds, and mounds of Grammy’s cigarette butts being the primary ingredients—and every couple of days, Grampy would have me ride along to drop off our collection at the dump. I was happy to go, always hopeful this trip would be the one when I would find the discarded wheels to complete my homemade car, but relentlessly disappointed to find only piles of unrecognizable junk and rot.

Until recently, this type of trek was familiar to folks who wished to recycle in Rogers Park, a neighborhood on the far North Side of Chicago. For the majority of residents here, the best option to responsibly discard newspapers, bottles, cans, etcetera, was to trek to one of the neighborhood Department of Streets and Sanitation drop-off sites, either behind the police station or all the way across Ridge Avenue at Warren Park. The people who collected their recyclables and hauled them to recycle were the few and the dedicated.

Before the advent of these schmancy new blue carts in 2007, Chicagoans differentiated their trash from recycling by using blue garbage bags.

The majority of Rogers Park residents dealt with their recyclables in other various ways—sneaking beer bottles into a neighbor’s dumpster or the few blue carts in the park, hoarding cardboard and praying for a better option, having a private hauler come for recycling, or getting frustrated and just throwing it all away. Despite these other outlets, the drop-off sites were always filled past capacity.

Following decades of discussion, letter-writing, petitioning, and making due, our environmentally-conscious neighborhood at long last has residential recycling: Beginning this past March, the City of Chicago’s Blue Cart Recycling program officially rolled out in the neighborhood. Though the program was launched in 2007, it had only been implemented in two thirds of the city’s wards until this year. The good news is, according to Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s office, the Blue Cart program will be in all 50 aldermanic wards by the end of 2013.

This curbside pickup service, which many towns and villages began offering as far back as the 1980s, has in a short time shifted the paradigm from only serving those dedicated enough to collect and bring cans, papers, and bottles as far as a mile away from their homes, to people being able to leisurely toss items in a nearby cart so that every other week, Streets and Sanitation can simply haul it all away. In Rogers Park, suddenly, the most basic environmental action has become far easier and more accessible to half the neighborhood’s 55,000 residents.

…I say half the neighborhood because, much like landfill pickup, Blue Cart Recycling is only available to single-family homes and buildings no larger than four units. Residents who live in larger buildings, a huge portion of this community, have private waste haulers. By City of Chicago ordinance, larger buildings are responsible for providing their own recycling services. Unfortunately, the ordinance is often ignored as it lacks real teeth to motivate landlords and building associations. This leaves many residents with the same old bad recycling options.

While a cynic may dismiss this as more of the same in a city where services have historically been dispensed unevenly, the roll out of the Blue Carts is so much more important than merely providing recycling for small buildings and homes. This single issue has been the focus of so much attention and energy over the years that many other environmental opportunities were missed. Instead of complaining about why we don’t have recycling, community members can now focus on composting yard waste, making our streets better for pedestrians and cyclists, conserving rain water, and even organizing tenants to get recycling for all larger buildings.

Proving recycling is a hot topic in Rogers Park: this Green Corps Block Captain training inspired record attendance.

People are newly inspired. Since March, ward Alderman Joe Moore’s office and the 49th Ward Green Corps have recruited and trained more than 50 volunteers to serve as Recycling Block Captains. Not only have these folks been a huge help in building support for the new program, but they bring energy and solutions to environmental issues we’ve been talking about for years, and many that were never even discussed. At a recent Recycling Block Captain meeting, we discussed outreach efforts to help residents of larger buildings get recycling services from their private waste haulers as well as our annual neighborhood Trash to Treasure Swap in June. Our block captains are talking with neighbors, educating people on how to recycle, and gathering input from people who can’t always make a community meeting or don’t have the alderman’s phone number.

Blue Cart Recycling is the cork in the bottle. Now that it has been released, so have the issues, questions, and solutions that we couldn’t address so long as recycling was in the way.

This invasive wood boring beetle has killed tens of millions of ash trees in the U.S., and is already on its way to damaging millions more. Unfortunately, removing trees is one common strategy to get rid of the bugger and save the remaining ash forest. To learn more about the problem—and find out why experts say more action is needed—we asked a few expert scientists, arborists, and city foresters for the scoop.

Here Come the Suspects

So, just what is this little bug stirring up all these big problems? The emerald ash borer (EAB), an exotic insect that’s native to China and eastern Asia, hopped a ride stateside in cheap wood packing material more than ten years ago. The adult beetles do little harm, aside from feeding on leaves. It’s the larva stage, however, when EAB chew through the trees and damage their vascular systems (hint: the tissue right under the tree bark that’s responsible for transporting water and nutrients from the roots to the top leaves and branches).

First detected in Michigan in 2002, EAB infestation is now a problem in 19 states, including most recently New Hampshire, where the state’s department of agriculture confirmed detection April 5. Scientists say its continued spread across the country is most likely due to the sale of firewood from quarantined areas across state lines.

Even worse: The stress of climate change, namely drought, makes the trees more vulnerable to EAB, plus North American ash trees have no natural resistance to this foreign guest. In 2012, more than half the continental U.S. suffered from drought so extreme it ranked the 10th largest severe drought since 1895. The recent drought has been particularly prolonged in the Midwest, severely stressing all trees, not just ash.

And the EAB problem is only expected to grow with such a large food source for the pests, arborists explain. Ash trees comprise 10-40 percent of local urban forests, according to one of the nation’s largest tree care companies, The Care of Trees. Many ash trees were planted along streetscapes during the recent housing boom—often together in single-species groups called monocultures that make them easy targets for EAB—and they are natural reproducers.

Lifting the Veil on Some Possible Solutions

So what to do? Initially, many communities responded with a wait and see approach, says Peter Gordon, forester for the City of Lake Forest, Illinois, where 19 percent of the tree inventory is ash. EAB came to attention during the recent economic downturn, Gordon notes, and budget-strained municipalities had few resources to divert to tree treatment.

“The strategy was to see how states, counties, and towns handled EAB where it was first discovered,” he adds. “But now we don’t have as many options.”

Indeed EAB is an epidemic and can’t be ignored, says Fredric Miller, a professor of horticulture at Joliet Junior College and a research associate with the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Ill. “If you choose not to do any treatment, you will be overrun,” Miller says. “What communities have to come to grips with is that either you are going to manage this on your schedule, or the insect will dictate the schedule.”

And that means, in part, cutting down lots of trees in our neighborhoods in an effort to stop or slow the spread of EAB.

The alternative for a badly infested tree—allowing it to die from EAB damage and then cutting it down—is worse, arborists explain, because it does nothing to prevent the beetle from paying a house visit to the neighboring tree. Plus, Miller points out, dead ash trees are a dangerous liability and must be removed: they’re structurally weak and can fall during wind or ice storms.

But some trees can, and should, be saved with proper insecticide treatment, explains David Horvath, an arborist in suburban Chicago with The Care of Trees. This typically involves injecting the affected tree directly with insecticide; other pesticide treatments involve drenching the soil around the tree with insecticide or lower trunk sprays targeting the bark.

This shimmery little guy’s appetite is causing big problems for ash trees. (David Cappaert, Michigan State University)

Horvath says that homeowners and municipalities are now charged with identifying “valuable” ash trees—generally larger (greater than 12 inches in diameter)—that provide environmental benefits such as shade to decrease energy demand, a deep root system that mitigates storm water damage, or simply beauty to the property. These are the trees that are considered worth trying to save.

Overall, an integrated approach—treatment, prevention, and some targeted tree removal—is the best way to put the brakes on EAB, and avoid destroying urban forest, say Horvath and the other scientists we consulted.

Prevention and treatment may make more sense economically, too. The estimated cost of treatment, removal, and replacement of EAB in all affected states from 2010 through to 2020 is $12.5 billion, according to a 2011 article in the Journal of Environmental Management. Prevention tactics (such as destroying egg-laying EAB and targeted tree removal) could slash those costs by up to $7.5 billion, the authors concluded.

To put that into perspective, consider the Chicago area, where municipalities spend up to $1,100 to remove and replace one tree, according to a 2012 survey conducted by Miller and his team.

Yes, insecticides may sound nasty, but remember the alternative: cutting down the tree or letting it die anyhow, while giving that nasty beetle a free pass for its next meal. And, when used correctly and responsibly, experts say, insecticides targeting EAB are not likely to harm humans or the environment.

How else are government and science addressing the spread of EAB? Interstate regulation prohibits the sale of firewood from quarantined areas in the U.S. Also any wood packing material used for international trade must be fumigated or heat-treated, explains Kerry Britton, a national pathologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Arlington, Virginia who studies invasive forest pests.

Another strategy: Britton notes that researchers are trying to breed ash trees with natural resistance to EAB by crossing Asian ash trees that fight off the pest with vulnerable North American ash species. “By the time the beetle was detected, it could not be eradicated,” Britton says. “The goal now is to slow it down.”

EcoMyth Outcome: Myth Confirmed

Unfortunately, cutting down infected ash trees is one big part of slowing the spread of the emerald ash borer. The flip side is, those that must fall will help us protect future generations of these beautiful trees.

One Green Thing You Can Do

Follow local rules regarding moving firewood—even pieces of affected bark as small as a credit card can help the buggers spread.

Other ways to help:

• Keep an eye out for EAB, whether in your yard or your neighborhood. Here’s a helpful guide to identifying ash trees and distinguishing between EAB and other problems.
• If you see early evidence of EAB damage in the treetops, your best bet is to call an accredited tree care company. Treating trees by mid-May minimizes the damage by adult beetles, which emerge in the spring. If detected early, trees can be treated with insecticide rather than being cut down.
• Think you spotted one? Report it to your state’s agriculture department office or the call USDA’s EAB toll-free hotline at 1-866-322-4512.

So with this much control over biodiversity, it’s hard to believe that a plant as important to our everyday lives as (gasp!) coffee might actually be in danger of extinction. (And don’t worry if the word biodiversity sounds complicated—it can be. Read on to see how the case in point helps make it a little easier to understand.)

A recent study by researchers at England’s Royal Botanic Gardens analyzed projected climate models for the native range of Arabica coffee in western Ethiopia. They found that in as little as 65 years, a warming planet could make the vast majority (read: 99.7 percent) of wild Arabica coffee’s native habitat, well, uninhabitable—at least for the coffee plant.

Surely there are other species that can keep our French presses flowing, though, right? Think again. Arabica makes up 70 percent of the global coffee market, meaning that the Arabica plant was probably the source of the cup of java you enjoyed this morning. It turns out that even with all our capacity for engineering plants (based on the knowledge we’ve gained from studying, well, biodiversity), the effects of climate change could hit our coffee tables sooner than we thought.

And coffee is just a drip in the biodiversity bucket. To learn more about why we should care about conserving as much plant diversity as possible, we chatted with a few experts in the field: Nicole Cavender, PhD, vice president of science and conservation and Andrew Hipp, PhD, plant systematist, both from The Morton Arboretum; Andrea Kramer, PhD, conservation scientist at Chicago Botanic Garden and executive director of Botanic Gardens Conservation International US; and Abigail Derby Lewis, PhD, conservation ecologist at The Field Museum.

Oh, Oh It’s Magic: Human’s Influential Role in Crop Evolution 

First, let’s start with this long history we’ve had of creating the perfect plant species for our own uses. “The history of crop domestication is the history of winnowing down all the genetic diversity in a species to a few genotypes that are particularly useful to people,” says Hipp. Useful, yes, but creating these types of monocultures comes with certain risks, he adds.

Most of the crops we rely on for food or products come from a narrow genetic pool, explains Cavender. And if you look back at history—to monocultures of potatoes and bananas, for example—you’ll see that humans have been hugely affected by the vulnerability of these monocultures. “Focusing on monocultures that work really well in the climate we’re used to is not a good strategy for the future,” says Kramer.

Hipp cites the potato famine as one glaring example. “In Ireland the average person probably wasn’t thinking of the Andes, where domestic potatoes originated.” But the fact is that potatoes in the Andes retained a staggering amount of genetic diversity, with cultivars of every size, shape, and color. The potato that was by far the most commonly grown in Ireland represented a very small subset of this genetic diversity (notably, the “lumper”). Since genetic diversity brings with it the ability to respond to diverse threats, the genetically limited potato cultivars of Ireland were thus particularly vulnerable.

The emergence of potato blight (around 1845-1852, with origins in Mexico) thus wiped out an important crop that served as a staple for a large portion of the Irish population—and resulted in the reduction of the Irish population, either by emigration or death, by a full 25 percent. (For more on monocultures and the Irish Potato Famine, check this out.) The reality is that if there had been a wider variety of potatoes in Ireland at that time, the crop would likely have been more resilient, as it was in the rest of Europe.

It’s true that in the past wipeouts like these came at the hands of an insect or a disease (see also the current threat to banana monocultures). “But this is climate change, and it’s happening fast, perhaps faster than populations can adapt,” says Hipp. When there is more than one species of a particular type of crop or useful plant—what we call biodiversity—there is a greater likelihood that some species or populations of species will survive these attacks.

Keeping it Up Our Sleeves: Why Preserving Biodiversity is More Important Than Ever

“As you scale up the tree of life, at every level there’s genetic information that makes our lives richer. Biodiversity at all scales shapes the world we live in,” says Hipp. “That’s why you want to save as much of the gene pool as possible: You can’t predict what you’re going to need and when you’re going to need it. If you put all your eggs in one basket on any scale, you’re at risk.”

That goes for coffee, too. Hipp explains that coffee isn’t an atypical example of how a species might be wiped out because of habitat loss. “Lots of species are endemic to a small area,” says Hipp. “So as climate shifts, those populations are in danger of being snuffed out.”

“Climate change is so unpredictable,” adds Cavender. And if we narrow down the genetic profile of a crop to those we think are best, she says, a huge environmental change means the genetics we’ve created might not be the ones that can adapt. “We might have created, through breeding, a really fantastic crop. But by narrowing its gene pool, the genes may no longer be there to allow that crop to adapt to hotter summers or to change its flowering times to adapt to an earlier spring.”

And the truth is that we’ve been selectively breeding the coffee plant for centuries. “Waiting in line at Starbucks, people don’t realize that despite all the different flavors, the number of botanical varieties used to produce coffee is very small, with a narrow genetic base,” says Cavender. “Without preservation of the genetic diversity found in wild relatives, climate change may put the future of coffee in jeopardy.”

Dramatic, yes, but it serves as an important reminder that we are at the mercy of the climate.

Pay Attention to the Plants Behind the Curtain: Maintaining Plant Biodiversity for the Long Haul

It’s not just crop diversity that we should be worried about—the trees, grasses and shrubs in our local forest preserves are also a vital piece in the biodiversity puzzle. So just how are we ensuring that we’re doing everything we can to preserve biodiversity near and far? Through preserving land for conservation reserves, as well as through seed banks, strategic restoration work, and careful documentation of our current biodiversity.

“Right now there is such an urgent need to get things banked before we lose what we have,” says Andrea Kramer. Large seed banks such as the Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank (which lives inside the Chicago Botanic Garden) relies on botanists and volunteers to collect, prepare, and x-ray seeds of everything from food crops to flower to trees so they can be documented and stored for the next 200–300 years. (Kramer adds that many botanic gardens have smaller seed banks on site—check your local seed bank to see if volunteers are needed to collect and process seeds.) The seeds play a pivotal role in all types of research, and will be very important as we’re looking for different species that are well suited to different climates and habitats, says Kramer.

They’ll be especially vital to future restoration work, since habitat with the most biodiversity is also most resilient to changing conditions. Over the last century a lot of diverse habitat—even in the US—has been destroyed, threatening wild relatives of food crops as well as the birds and bees that rely on that biodiversity. Indeed, less than 1 percent of tallgrass prairie habitat (“Which is incredibly diverse!” says Kramer) remains in Illinois. To fix this, work is happening around the country to restore habitat that supports a lot of species. But this is harder than it seems, and climate change isn’t helping matters. “Having seeds gives us hope that we can learn about and ultimately restore species to places where they’ve been lost,” says Kramer.

The Field Museum is also carefully adding to its collection of biodiversity from around the world through the Rapid Biological Inventories (RBIs) carried out by Museum researchers (check out their Restoring Earth exhibition for an interactive way to learn more about this work).

Abigail Derby Lewis, a member of the department responsible for the RBIs, explains how they work: A biological team and a social team go into a remote area where there is no baseline biodiversity information, say, in the jungles of Peru. A helicopter drops the biological team off in the middle of the jungle for three weeks. Each of the scientists collect inventories of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and plants, then reconnects with the social team, which has been assessing the strengths and aspirations of indigenous people in nearby villages.

They spend the three weeks finding the answers to questions about how the local communities interact with, depend on and help to maintain the natural resources in their surroundings. Together the two teams come up with recommendations for the local government about the best plan for preserving both natural resources and the livelihood of the local inhabitants. In 12 years of work in South America, the team’s efforts have led to the protection of 19 millions acres of wilderness in the Amazon headwaters.

Derby Lewis feels this model of documenting where biodiversity exists—along with humans’ cultural connections to nature—is more vital than ever in the face of climate change. The biological collections provide baseline information about where species have historically been found, essential data needed to understand how species are responding and whether they are shifting their ranges as the climate changes.

Species around the world face a laundry list of threats such as pollution, habitat fragmentation and degradation, invasive species, over harvesting, etc. And climate change amplifies these threats. “We may feel some of these threats in a more direct and personal way in the short-term (such as a shortage of our favorite cup of joe), but any species loss should be of great concern,” says Derby Lewis. “The biodiversity on this planet is a vast web of life that acts collectively to provide us with services we rely on, such as clean air, clean water, nutrient cycling and flood abatement.”

Climate change is making the difficult job of restoring and maintaining health in our ecosystem even harder, she adds. “The time to act is now if we want to ensure a quality of life for future generations.”

EcoMyth Outcome: Myth Busted

Even if it’s not in our backyard, species loss can seriously affect us. And with climate change producing new weather patterns and habitat changes that our food crops might not be able to adapt to, who knows what other ways our daily lives will be affected, risking even our daily cup of Arabica coffee.

One Green Thing You Can Do

Help preserve biodiversity in your community! Landscape with native plants and grasses and maximize green spaces in your backyard or neighborhood to foster local biodiversity. Resources and regional lists of native plants are provided below.

More ways to help:

• Support a conservation organization (like The Nature Conservancy, SaveNature.org, or the Rainforest Alliance) that purchases land and promotes the protection of biodiversity through wildlife management, sustainable use, and local training.
• Check out the volunteering page on Chicago Wilderness’ website for info about workdays for various local organizations, or ways to help track biodiversity in the region.

The EcoMyths Multiplier Effect

If we all landscaped our yards with native plants and grasses instead of conventional grass, we’d dramatically increase the population and diversity of birds, butterflies and other insects that feed in our backyards.

That’s part of what has prompted organizations like the Alliance for the Great Lakes and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) to call for further investigation into the impact of chemical contaminants in our water, and to advocate safe disposal of medicines through local drug take-back programs. We talked with Olga Lyandres, PhD, the Alliance’s research manager, and Debra Shore, MWRD commissioner to find out why they think participating in drug take-back programs are the best option.

Counting Dosages…in Our Waterways

Let’s take a little field trip over to good ol’ Lake Michigan, with Lyandres as our guide. As she points out, this aquatic gem provides drinking water for more than 40 million people—and recently tested positive for a whole slew of chemical contaminants, including several categories of pharmaceutical products.

Here’s a case in point: As Lyandres details in a recent Alliance investigation of contaminants of ecological concern, a popular cholesterol drug has been found in trace concentrations in Lake Michigan waters. Cholesterol drugs are now being commonly detected in waterways around the country, and experts like Lyandres worry that they could impact aquatic animals’ physiological systems, potentially altering the ecosystem.

“Fish and other creatures are exposed to trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in combinations that don’t exist in nature—hormones from birth control pills and Viagra, Prozac and other anti-depressants, and so on,” says Shore. That’s partly why the EPA, she points out, recommends against flushing unused or expired medicines down the toilet.

An important distinction: The low levels of pharmaceuticals in water are a threat to the aquatic organisms that are chronically exposed to them, rather than to tapwater-chugging humans, agree Lyandres and Shore.

Yes, tap water is safe to drink. As Shore says, municipalities that filter and supply drinking water test it to EPA standards multiple times a day. In other words, drink up, people. (Photo by Lloyd De Grane/Alliance for the Great Lakes)

Similar concerns surround other widely used pharmaceuticals. According to Lyandres, aquatic organisms’ chronic exposure to anti-depressants could potentially “mess with the way the brain regulates various signaling pathways and could have subtle but unforeseen impacts.” Antibiotics in large amounts in water could potentially cause resistant microbes to develop. Hormone drugs could have toxicological effects on the endocrine system, which governs functions like growth and development, metabolism, and reproduction. In fact, the USGS has conducted numerous studies of the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on fish, finding reproductive organ changes ranging from reduced size to cancerous cells to displays of both male and female characteristics. The MWRD is also championing research on this topic.

Another complicating factor: The retention time in Lake Michigan is around 100 years, adds Lyandres. That means that stuff that was discharged 50 years ago is still making its way around the lake—including legacy contaminants that have been banned for decades—and we don’t know what the impact of pharmaceutical contamination will be 20-30 years from now.

Lyandres and her colleagues think there’s sufficient reason to be concerned about pharmaceutical contaminants in the Great Lakes—and waterways of all other types, too. According to this USGS study, 80 percent of U.S. streams contain small amounts of human medicines. Steroids, OTC drugs, and bug repellents were the most commonly found chemical groups. But with upwards of 50,000 pharmaceuticals on the market today, there is just not enough info in the books to know the full story yet.

The good news is that lots of other smarties are working to fill in the gaps in our knowledge base. The U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office, together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and Environment Canada, have launched a program to monitor the presence of these chemicals in water, air, sediments, fish and birds, and identify effects these chemicals might have.

Prescribing Safe Medicine Disposal

So, what to do with those old meds in the meantime? Our experts say, bring ‘em to a local take-back program.

Most take-back programs employ an incineration process to destroy pharmaceutical waste. True, burning contaminants come with its own degree of environmental impact. But, as Shore points out, the EPA has approved several types of incinerators for safe disposal of pharmaceutical waste with minimal air pollution. With this method, potentially harmful chemicals are mostly removed from the environment, whereas flushing them merely transfers the chemicals into the water stream.

By the way, if you’re wondering if sending meds to the landfill is the answer, that’s also a no-go, as there’s still the risk of groundwater contamination.

EcoMyth Outcome: Myth Busted

Flushing is neither a safe nor eco-friendly way to dispose of unused drugs. Safe take-back programs help protect waterways—and the many living creatures that live in and around them.

One Green Thing You Can Do

Bring your unused meds to a safe take-back program.

For details, check out the following take-back programs, as recommended by Debra Shore:

• The Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Take-Back Initiative is held at local police departments several times a year
• Dispose My Meds lists local pharmacies that accept unused medicine
• Earth911 points out chain pharmacies that sell envelopes to mail unused medicine for proper disposal
• Take-Back Network compiles info on drug take-back efforts across the country

The EcoMyths Multiplier Effect

If 100,000 of us take a small bottle full of unused meds (say, a hundred 200mg tablets), to a safe take-back location, we’ll keep almost 4,500 pounds of questionable chems out of our waterways each year.

Each segment features our own Kate Sackman and Worldview host Jerome McDonnell grilling, er, chatting amiably with environmental experts on the topic. Check out the following podcasts we’ve produced together so far:

Is Cutting Down Trees the Solution to the Emerald Ash Borer?
The seemingly non-assuming invasive wood boring beetle has already killed tens of millions of ash trees in the U.S. What can we do to stop the madness? Check out the podcast to hear Peter Gordon, city forester for Lake Forest, and David Horvath from The Care of Trees—both ISA Certified Arborists—discuss the problem various solutions.

Could the Arabica Coffee Plant Be on the Way to Extinction?
Hold the front door! Scientists recently predicted that before the century’s end, global warming could force into extinction the plant source of most of the world’s coffee. Clearly we had to know more, so we hunted down the facts, radio-style, with Nicole Cavender, PhD, from the Morton Arboretum, and the Field Museum’s Abigail Derby Lewis, PhD.

Should You Flush Unused Meds Down the Drain?
Over the years, you may have heard that the recommended way to dispose of unused pharmaceuticals is to flush them down the toilet or pour them down the drain—not anymore, according to experts from the Alliance of the Great Lakes’ Olga Lyandres, PhD, and the MWRD’s Debra Shore, who joined us for the latest radio show.

Is Sustainable Food Overrated or Under-available?
Barbara Willard, PhD, of DePaul University came to the table with plenty of great answers to FAQs on sustainable, organic produce. From questions of availability in winter to the value of each local, organic, and in-season foods, she gives some clear tips on how you can green your produce routine.

How Much Energy Are We Losing to Vampire Power?
No, “Vampire Power!” is not a rallying cry created by Twi-hards. It’s not even a blood-red energy drink. But if you use electricity at home, vampire power is a phenomenon lurking in your household at this very minute. Catch Northwestern University energy expert Eric Masanet discuss the topic in this, um, electrifying segment.

Exploring the Importance of Bees, Our Pollinating VIPs
Bees don’t get a lot of human love—but they should. The University of Illinois’ Sydney Cameron, PhD, and Chicago Botanic Garden/Northwestern University PhD candidate Rebecca Tonietto discuss bee basics to help illuminate the many reasons why these important pollinators deserve our love.

Asian Carp’s Destructive Impact on the Ecosystem
Why care about a few pesky fish? Kim Rice of Friends of the Chicago River and Jared Teutsch of the Alliance for the Great Lakes explain why the threat Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes is so serious, from truly terrible ecosystem issues to giant financial consequences as well.

Catching and Using Rain Where It Falls
Record droughts remind us why it’s smart to make the most of the rainwater we do get—landscape designers Cliff Miller and Julie Siegel gave us the scoop on how rain barrels and rain gardens can help prevent flooding and protect water sources. Every drop counts, after all.

Why Eating Bugs Is Good for Your Health and the Environment
Yes, you read that right: Field Museum entomologist Margaret Thayer and Brookfield Zoo program manager Andre Copeland say it’s worth conquering your fears of eating bugs for a host of reasons. (Kate agrees, now that she’s actually crunched through a portion of Cajun-spiced crickets!)

Can Birds Navigate Around Buildings?
Birds regularly navigate their way through densely wooded areas, so it may seem like they should have no problem with urban areas. Field Museum ornithologist Doug Stotz and Annette Prince of Chicago Bird Collision Monitors explain why that’s so not the case. Bonus: you can help.

What’s a Native Plant and Why Does It Matter?
Ever wonder why there’s so much buzz around native plants in the region? Get the dirt as Kate and Jerome talk with DePaul University ecologist Liam Heneghan and Andrew Hipp, curator of the Morton Arboretum. This lively convo is all about how planting a variety of species makes for a beautiful, successful, and planet-friendly garden.

Stay tuned for more!

Sure, many of us want to eat planet-friendly food, but figuring out just what that means can be its own challenge. Compounding the dilemma is the notion that sustainable inevitably costs more. A recent NPR-Thomson Reuters poll revealed that the majority of Americans who prefer to eat organic over non-organic cite price as the main deterrent.

But does eating sustainable produce have to be hard and/or break the bank? Nope, says Barbara Willard, an environmental studies professor at Chicago’s DePaul University. Before we get to why she thinks that’s one of the biggest EcoMyths around, let’s talk about what makes a fruit or veggie sustainable in the first place.

The Big Three: Organic, Local, and Seasonal Fare

You’ve probably heard competing soundbites along the lines of: Organic is what counts! And Local is the only way to go! It’s easy to think that one of these factors can trump the other—but it’s not that simple.

Both food transportation and its production create polluting CO2 emissions, and one does not necessarily trump the other.

What’s the environmental impact of your produce picks? (Pic by Clean Metrics)

True, locally grown produce cuts down on carbon emissions associated with transport. But the carbon savings created by growing locally is sometimes negated by highly fossil fuel-intensive production. When you consider the energy needed to power heavy-duty industrial equipment or even simple grow lights, the energy required for growing produce locally can be as high or even higher than the energy required to transport the produce from far away.

That means an organic kiwi from New Zealand could be a more sustainable option than a local tomato. If the carbon intensiveness at the kiwi production site is low, flying it 2,500 miles could still be more sustainable than growing a tomato in an Indiana hothouse in the winter, explains Willard. Alternatively, an organic veggie shipped from afar could have a bigger environmental footprint than a local, non-organic one.

How to solve that conundrum?

Know Thy Farmer

The ticket is to learn about and support farms that boast a low carbon process from production to market. For example, master gardener Erik Dayrell, MS, explains that at Elawa Farms in Lake Forest, Illinois, farmers eschew energy-intensive machinery in favor of their own sweat to produce organic, seasonal crops—which they “transport” by walking down a short path to the market.

You might think this makes for a hefty price tag on the buyer’s end, but that’s not really the case, at least at Elawa. The longer the production-to-market chain, the higher the cost can go. Not only do people have to grow, tend, and harvest that potato, but someone must also package, transport, unload, shelve, and finally sell it. With almost no transport costs to absorb, Elawa can keep its prices in check—a win-win for you and the environment.

Beyond learning about the sustainable farmers in our community, there’s one more farmer worth getting to know. You.

Getting on the DIY Train

It’s no mystery that growing enough food to live on would be pretty impossible for most of us. But growing even a tiny fraction of what you eat can yield a major return on your investment in free organic, über-local food.

A fence, soil, and a sense of adventure is all it takes to start growing. (Pic by Barb Willard)

“You can grow produce anywhere—on the side of an exterior wall even,” says Willard. “A lot of people just aren’t used to doing it, so they don’t even think about doing it for themselves. People need to know, ‘I can take an old drink bottle, cut off the top, get some seeds and some soil—and put it on my back wall to get some sun.” In other words, a little soil and a single container really can go a long way.

Willard backs her point with some serious experience, having led the efforts at to build an urban garden on DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus, which features, among other techniques, an entire system of herbs and veggies growing out of Gatorade bottles.

Growing something edible can be a unique challenge for newbie gardeners. Still, it wasn’t so long ago that everyone had to grow some of their own food. In 1943, home-grown produce constituted 40 percent of vegetables consumed in the U.S., according to the USDA.

Scoring Local, In-Season Food All Year Round

It’s time to tackle the inevitable question. What happens in winter? While it’s a lot harder to enjoy locally grown produce once the ground freezes, it’s by no means impossible. You’re just going to need to get a little creative.

“How did frontier-people survive the winters here?” Willard asks. “Through canning, making jams and jellies, using root cellars, drying things—all that sort of preserving—that’s how.” And we can do it too.

A veritable cornucopia of info exists to help you on your way, from websites like PickYourOwn.org to community workshops on canning and preserving, which are often free. Even simpler, you can always just freeze an item now for winter-time use.

DePaul’s urban gardeners are growing spinach and kale this winter in their low-tunnel hoop house. (Pic by Barb Willard)

Beyond that, some local, sustainable produce really is growable all winter long. Farms like Elawa use hoop houses, which are simple tent-like structures that contain the sun’s heat, and underground root cellars, which make harvested goods last longer. On the home front, you can also grow some items sustainably in winter, like sprouts and herbs, depending on how much sunlight you get.

And if you’re up for a rewarding challenge, you might consider participating in a community garden, where neighbors cultivate their own small plots of land side by side. Community gardening has taken off in cities across the country, from the Twin Cities to Knoxville to Abilene—and pretty much everywhere in between. Participating in one will not only score you more space than your porch or garden allows, but also enables you to work together to build hoop houses and root cellars for your collective gardening pleasure.

One Green Thing You Can Do

Buy in-season foods from your local farmers market. There you can support the farmers who use organic and low-energy practices while scoring points for keeping it local, too.

More ways to help:

• Check out the Food Emissions Carbon Calculator to see the CO2 emission count from both production and transport for specific foodstuffs
• Can, preserve, or pickle something from the farmer’s market
• Plant an herb, tomato plant, or other edible delight in the spring
• Support local, sustainable farms. The more we do, the more accessible they—and their price points—will become.

The Multiplier Effect

If 20,000 of us buy one pound of local vs. non-local veggies transported over 1,500 miles—like lettuce in this case—we’ll avert the CO2 emissions equivalent to those produced by 224 gallons of gas. (For more like that, check out the EPA’s handy energy calculator.)