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Okanagan-Taste

Ways to sustainably celebrate Earth Day

Celebrating Earth Day

This coming Friday (April 22) we will mark another Earth Day, and with summer coming and last year’s heat dome still somewhat fresh in our memories, it’s a good time for a refresher on ways to cut back on your environmental impact.

If styrofoam collects in your home—takeout and delivery may subside a bit but the convenience of Friday night dinner dropped at the door likely won’t—your local recycling may be able to take it, including some bottle depots.

Be a good neighbour and ask if you can gather it from others, then take a large collection out.

Of course, we’re all good at recycling our glass bottles or giving them to local charities so they can collect the cash. Soda enthusiasts? Consider a SodaStream, at least as an adjunct to your canned bevvies.

It’s also becoming easier to find other “green” kitchen gadgets.

Cuisipro has a new sustainable collection of lovely items for cooking, storage, and entertaining.

Going on a long-awaited road rip this year? Get everyone their own personal cutlery set—eight pieces including the usual implements, plus a set of chopsticks and reusable straws. It comes in an attractive biodegradable case so you can forget plastic knives and forks for good. Add a fibre wood board for a picnic charcuterie display and you’re good to go.

As a bonus, Cuisipro is donating a percentage of its sales to water.org.

Shopping local is now a familiar mantra. Save the eco-impact of shipping by heading to your local winery, distillery, brewery or cidery to pick up your favourites or, if you’re having libations shipped, ask friends to go in with you to fill a case. Use growlers at breweries.

Looking for sustainable wines? Here are a few to consider if you’re sipping a glass this Friday.

Blue Grouse Estate Winery, 2020 Amphora Collection Bacchus: The winery uses Eco Glass, which uses 25 percent less glass than a typical wine bottle, and this wine contains grapes that have been grown at the winery’s estate vineyard. Plus, their glass is sourced from the Pacific Northwest instead of Europe.

Monte Creek Winery, Haskap Fruit Wine: Made from Haskap berries grown at the winery, planted so the resident honeybees can feed on the Haskap flowers, pollinate the plants, and provide honey. The winery also uses ‘chicken tractors’, which are actually coops with wheels that move through the vineyard. The chickens follow, and as they go through the vines the birds naturally replenish the fields with manure.

Okanagan Crush Pad, 2018 Free Form Rosé: All Free Form wines are made with organic grapes, native yeasts, and no additives. This rosé is made with certified organic Cabernet Franc grapes, and the label is made using eco-friendly stone paper.

Blasted Church, 2020 Unorthodox Chardonnay: The winery uses cover crops (plants grown between the vines), to achieve a natural balance and enrich the soil. All the grapes in this Chard came from the winery’s own vineyard, where the soil was replenished through the cover crop program.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



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About the Author

A creative thinker with more than two decades of experience in communications, Allison is an early adopter of social and digital media, bringing years of work in traditional media to the new frontier of digital engagement marketing through her company, All She Wrote.

She is the winner of the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association's 2011 and 2012 awards for Social Media Initiative, an International LERN award for marketing, and the 2014 Penticton Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award for Hospitality/Tourism.

Allison has amassed a following on multiple social networks of more than 30,000, frequently writes and about social media, food and libations as well as travel and events, and through her networks, she led a successful bid to bring the Wine Bloggers Conference to Penticton in June 2013, one of the largest social media wine events in the world, generating 31 million social media impressions, $1 million in earned media, and an estimated ongoing economic impact of $2 million.

In 2014, she held the first Canadian Wine Tourism Summit to spark conversation about the potential for wine tourism in Canada as a year-round economic driver.

Allison contributes epicurean content to several publications, has been a judge for several wine and food competitions, and has earned her advanced certificate from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust.

In her spare time, she has deep, meaningful conversations with her cats.

She can be reached at [email protected]



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The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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