Boston GreenScene

Composting, Sustainability: Here’s the Dish

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

The Candy Man makes everything he bakes satisfying and delicious
Now you talk about your childhood wishes, you can even eat the dishes

Candy Man, Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, sung by Sammy Davis, Jr

Well, you can’t eat these dishes, but you can make them from leaves from the ground—attractive  dishes made from fallen palm leaves using just heat and water. You can bake in them, wash them, and re-use them. Proudly set a holiday dinner (particularly if you order them by this Tuesday for expedited delivery!). You can throw them away. No guilt.

Michael Dwork, while interning in India, noticed the locals making dishes from palm leaves gathered from the ground. The simple steam and heat manufacturing process piqued Dwork’s interest. He saw the possibilities. He viewed the dishes as not only a viable business opportunity, but as a very sustainable commodity.

VerTerra is now the realization of that vision. You can view their products online or buy them at select retailers. The company operates in South Asia and is committed to the locals they employ. VerTerra pays fair wages and provides access to healthcare.

Dwork designed a technique for replicating the dishes. He refined the process to make upscale disposable tableware that he felt would resonate with the American consumer.

Though built as a throwaway, the dishes can actually be used many times. The manufacturing process and lack of artificial sealing elements requires Verterra to sell the dishes as throwaways. But, as they report on their website, many of their customers attest to repeated uses.

Cat People, Green is for the Birds

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

’Questions regarding the value or inutility of the domestic cat, and problems connected with limiting its more or less unwelcome outdoor activities, are causing much dissension. The discussion has reached an acute stage. Medical men, game protectors and bird lovers call on legislators to enact restrictive laws. Then ardent cat lovers rouse themselves for combat. In the excitement of partisanship many loose and ill-considered statements are made.’


Those sentiments recorded in a 1916 report to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture by Edward Howe Forbush are echoed in today’s struggle with the very same issue. Cats kill birds and they kill them for the hell of it - a penchant they share with humans and few other species. Uncomfortable as that fact may be to those who like cats; the reality is that this issue requires frank assessment when the cat problem is raised. This problem affects various city ecosystems and is a part of a community’s carbon imprint in indirect ways.

Cats kill birds that nest in the city’s trees. That’s a plain fact and not in dispute. The killing lowers the numbers of birds and then increases the number of pest insects, which can have deleterious impact on the health of trees. Healthy trees contribute to clean air and lower the temperature around them. In general, lower temps and cleaner air diminishes the carbon imprint of a city.

This controversy places into conflict forces that seem to have come to their positions along similar paths. The folks who advocate for either cats or birds may have many similar emotional reasons to feel the way they do. Advocacy can often breed an intolerance of opposing views. In the extreme, and in a most peculiar manner, these factions can be seen to be at odds. The resolution of these matters or at least the attempts to come to some agreement has implications for other groups similarly conflicted.

Mad Men: Don’t Cry for Me

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

I have decided to leave you forever
I have decided to start things from here
Thunder and lightning won’t change
What I’m feeling
And the daffodils look lovely today

Delores O’Riordan (The Cranberries)

The AMC hit TV series, Mad Men, portrays the business and personal lives of advertising execs at the height of the Golden Age of American consumerism. The show is focused on the personalities and interactions of the ad execs and office staff. The great American consumer culture is the backdrop for the various story lines. Some of the personal habits of the era depicted are clearly seen today as unhealthy or outright wrong. Then those habits were in the full bloom of cultural normalcy.

In one scene, Don Draper, the main character, his wife, and children pull over the family sedan for a picnic on some roadside grassland. When they are done and preparing to leave, they simply shake the trash they've generated from the picnic blanket and leave it behind them on the ground.

Mayor Menino Raises the Green Roof on Runoff

Harvey the Hoverfly II

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

When I come home feelin' tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet (up on the roof)
I get away from the hustling crowd
And all that rat-race noise down in the street (up on the roof)
On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let's go up on the roof (up on the roof)

~ Goffin and King

Harvey the Hoverfly* is a little confused. He and his antecedents have hovered around the Hub for eons. Until quite recently things had been tough and growing tougher for the average hoverfly to do what hoverflies do. Pesky humans and their swatting -- unfortunately for the hoverflies, they look like wasps, only smaller, and folks like to whack them.

For the flies in this urban setting there are fewer places to land; there is smoke and bad air to contend with and that music! What’s the point? Why it’s enough to poke your eyes out, all 5 of them! That’s the question raised around the haunts of the hoverfly. But, now I’m into something good, hums Harvey. This is nice - freedom up in the air and plenty of Bailey’s Gold to land on and a surfeit of aphids to eat, say the flies. Hoverfly heaven. From Yarmouth Town to Brockton the buzz abounds. What could be causing all this Diptera fluttering and excitement? Why, it’s the green roofs popping up around Boston!

The Green Architecture: Style and Function

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

The city is built
To music, therefore never built at all,
And therefore built forever.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Labor Day, an American holiday birthed in the aftermath of the labor wars of the late 19th century, has become a day to reflect on our labors and the pride we take in them. Some who labor in disciplines that incorporate green and sustainability values may take an extra measure of pride. Increasingly, there has been much to be proud of—and this figures to help shape a better future. Architecture can be seen as a combination of style and function. Within the architectural style is the music of the culture. The spirit of the architect is expressed in the design for the assigned purpose. An overall shape takes place and thus is created the identity of a city or culture.  

The pride of a civilization is seen in its cities and in the building of these great centers.  The style of a city identifies the best qualities that the builders see inside themselves and in what they are charged to do. The élan of Paris, the steadfastness of London, the hustle and bustle of the great Eastern cities in the U.S., with Boston among them, and the spiritual ascension of the capitals of the Mayan people all can be seen in the city’s architecture.

Today an impressive skyline attests to the financial might of a culture. Cities are the population centers and they reflect the spirit of the citizens. Sustainability, conservation, and green are the buzzwords that shape much new architecture.  Many disciplines are incorporated and no part of the construction is too insignificant to be considered.  Like the care we are now giving to the appearance, as well as the cost and effectiveness of lighting in these structures, our cities will shine through to the people of the future. We are now starting to see a green style throughout this land.

Green Fantasy: Not to See a Panacea

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

Practitioners and scholars who fall into panacea traps falsely assume
that all problems of resource governance can be represented
by a small set of simple models,
because they falsely perceive that the preferences and
perceptions of most resource users are the same.
 Going Beyond Panaceas

 A panacea is a word that is defined as a universal remedy, a cure-all. The search for panaceas in various disciplines goes forward. As the opening quote suggests, there is an illusory effect to this yearning in that a single universal solution to any major issue simply cannot exist. There are too many variables in the realm of human behavior for such a magic bullet to exist. The Tower of Babel story epitomizes the fractious nature of human conduct. A pragmatic and methodical approach to addressing problems with a multi-level strategy seems to be the most effective way to go. As the search for solutions to environmental concerns continues, the word gets bruited about and the thought of an easy fix can be seductive.

Ethanol was looked upon in some corners as a panacea to the problem of American dependency of  foreign—especially Middle Eastern—oil. Advocates hailed its regenerative powers. The stuff grows right out of the ground and is easily sustainable—they trumpeted. The ensuing ethanol debate pitted region against region; understandably, corn growing states were firmly on board. 

Transforming corn into ethanol turns out to be very expensive, however. At first flush, the process seemed to be the next greatest thing and cheap to boot, but then voices weighed in that pointed out how government subsidies were actually hiding the high cost of the product. While that debate endures, ethanol can certainly be said to not be the panacea for the oil crisis. However, as an important part of an overall strategy to break oil dependency, ethanol must be factored into the debate.

There Comes a Day

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series 

“And we'll have fun fun fun now that daddy took the T-Bird away”
The Beach Boys

Out of sight, out of mind. For so many of us this simple phrase is a way out of a nettling situation. Rodents, holiday decorations, the runny-nosed urchin from up the street that asks all those-impossible-to-answer questions; all of these can be safely placed out of mind.

Some things put aside can come back to haunt. Take our current waste disposal system. The clean street evident after the trash has been whisked away is an illusion; a mask over the fact that the disposed material will have to be dealt with. With a sense of relief many feel that tomorrow will be the time to handle that problem. But there comes a day.

There comes a day. There comes a day when the mail and the phone calls you’ve ignored go away and the sheriff is at your door. There comes a day when that nagging little thing you didn’t look into has you staring at the bright white light from a hospital gurney. There comes a day when the fighting stops and your lover leaves a goodbye note on the kitchen table. And there will come a day if we are not mindful when that trash we have carefully tucked away in rural outposts will return to us in insidious and noxious ways.

Blackberry Pie: That’s How You Do It

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
~ Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

Do you know how to make the ache of an overworked back, the sting of scratched hands and arms, the sweaty unease from a day spent in the summer sun, and the bone weariness from hours of tedious labor disappear with one act? You bake a blackberry pie from the fruits of those efforts. You serve it warm in the cool, late evening, honeysuckle scented air with a glass of strong sweet homemade iced tea. That’s how you do it!

As far back as the Mesolithic era, humans have sought berries for their nutritional and medicinal value. Blackberries don’t grow in any orderly fashion. The plant clings to any fence, stump and bush that the vine can latch onto. They seem to flourish in hard to reach places. There is probably an explanation that involves survival and predators, but this author doesn’t know what that is. I know that the berries are very hard to get to. I learned that long ago in the summer of youth.

We were sent out with a motley assortment of pails, pots and pans to gather the berries. We would head out in the early morning and work until mid afternoon. We went with missionary zeal because we knew what would be coming later. If the work had been isolated from the tantalizing reward, I can’t imagine that we would have stayed on task for more than fifteen minutes. A quiet oft-heard life lesson—if you labor at something you love, you never work a day in your life. We were stretching, straining, fighting bees, worrying about snakes and getting scratched like tomcats—but we didn’t notice.

The Lesson in Rice: Wisdom in Planning

by Daniel E. Walsh

 “One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade.”
 ~ Chinese Proverb

First the rats and mice proliferated. They swarmed and multiplied until the food stocks left behind by the humans were depleted and they returned to a harder existence. The domesticated farm animals left untended foraged where they could until they fell to predators or died from starvation.

Now spurned by humans because of the radiation, the vast area abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear accident is prowled by wild dogs, feral pigs, and cats. Roads are dusty tracks and buildings decrepit hulks overgrown with vegetation.

This occurred in a mere generation; the incident took place in 1977. We are wards of nature and subject to its fickle whims. Careful maintenance of this gift of a planet and the goal of sustainability aren’t the sophomoric notions of an ephemeral political movement—they are necessary duties for our continued existence.

Pearl Diving: The Joy of Washing Dishes

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

Is necessity the mother of invention? Not always. In 1886 Josephine Cochrane became annoyed with her servants. Their offense: chipping her fine china when they washed the dishes. She, the granddaughter of John Fitch, the inventor of the steamboat, put the family talent to work and invented the automatic dishwasher. Her model operated on the same washing principles as today’s machines: spray the dishes with extra hot soapy water, agitate the water to remove soil, drain, rinse, and allow time for drying.  Josephine may have been happy with her unchipped china but her bulky energy wasting invention would take a few decades before it became the sleek under-the-counter kitchen appliance it is today.

Not that those servants had anything to worry about if they were concerned about losing their occupation. Washing by hand would endure. Surprisingly, almost half of American households still wash dishes in the sink with varying degrees of impact on the environment--mostly negative. The skill of the hand dishwasher comes into play as to the use of heat and water necessary to do the job.