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Earth as an Apple

What do we know about the thin outer layer of fertile soil on the earth?

For millions of years life on earth has been sustained by that thin layer of soil which is the foundation of almost all life on this planet. It is a complex system of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids and living organisms that together support life.

We are at a point now where our planet faces its biggest test: An estimated 52 percent of that thin layer of soil is already degraded. If soil degradation continues, this would be the end of life as we know it.

81 percent of all food waste in USA goes to landfills. If we all compost our food waste we can regenerate our soil and save our planet.

April 21, 2022 0 Comments by AZWC_C

A Zero Waste Culture

Two years at a Glance

Since our launch in 2019, and through education and persistence, we have managed to create a series of successful projects…

-We’ve seen a growth of climate-consciousness throughout the community in which 155 families are members of our compost program and 140 volunteers have lent us their helping hands.

-Our compost program is already diverting 14 tons of food waste from the community away from landfills*.

-We offer hands-on weekly workshops to middle and high school students on soil and our composting process.

-We encourage and empower our team of high school student volunteers to share their compost knowledge on our Saturday weekly workshops offered to local organizations.

-We’ve donated 6,754 reusable facemasks to people in low-income communities.

-We’ve sewn and printed locally from repurposed textiles 320 reusable shopping totes that have been donated to communities in need, spreading the importance to refuse single-use plastics and to reuse.

-We’ve repurposed over 500 pounds of textiles into all sorts of reusable products: shopping totes, vegetable and lunch bags, aprons, etc.

-We’ve repurposed 2,500 t-shirts into shopping t-totes and we make them available to the community and vendors for free at the KB weekly saturday’s market. We stress the importance of stepping away from single use plastic bags and invite people to take a stand against them.

-We’ve employed 8 women who were suffering from unemployment.

-We’ve offered free sewing workshop to mothers and teachers in Little Haiti.

-We’ve partnered with local NGO’s that are using our compost soil for their mangrove restoration projects.

-We’ve implemented a high school internship program where students are creating campaigns to raise awareness on food, plastic and textile waste.

-We’ve implemented community-engagement programs that asked children and young adults to assess what they valued about the Earth and pledge to protect it.

-We provide a space for neighbors to offer sustainable programs to the community: KB Book swap, Share-the-boo reusing Halloween costumes, reusing Amazon envelopes, etc.

-We offer drop-off collections of no longer used home textiles and T-shirts.

-We offered a drop-off collection of single-use plastic containers to be reused by local non-profits to feed the homeless.

-We offer local farm products and honey at our Saturday’s farmers market tent, enforcing the need to shop local.

-We create all our signage from political campaigns.

-We create our AZWC volunteer t-shirts from second hand ones.

•Waste in landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States (15.1% of these emissions in 2019). The methane emissions from landfills in 2019 were approximately equivalent to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from more than 21.6 million passenger vehicles driven for one year or the CO2emissions from nearly 12.0 million homes’ energy use for one year. At the same time, methane emissions from MSW landfills represent a lost opportunity to capture and use a significant energy resource (https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas)

November 14, 2021 0 Comments by Helena

In the Press

A Zero Waste Culture launches t-Tote to combat fabric waste

By Clara Alvarez-Alonso / Special to Islander News

Apr 21, 2021 Updated Apr 21, 2021

Chances are, if you’ve been around the Saturday’s Farmers Market, you’ve seen or heard about A Zero Waste Culture.

They are the local nonprofit that are responsible for the Key Biscayne Compost as well as multiple other efforts to reduce food, fabric and plastic waste and educate people on the importance of sustainability. This Earth Day weekend, they set out on an encouraging quest that asks for your participation.

What for? TheirTake a t-Tote, Take a Stand project. While trying to find ways to tackle fabric waste, they found that a prominent issue was fast fashion. People often throw out t-shirts because they might have a stain, they’ve shrunk or they’ve simply grown out of the graphics they display.

Schools hand out tees for field trips or events that are only intended to be worn once and companies gift tees as self-promotion. Oftentimes, these are left in the bottom drawer of our closets and if they make it out it’s usually when the decision has been made to get rid of them.

How to give these tees a second life? The t-Tote idea was born.

Their t-Totes are made by cutting the sleeves and a bit of the lower portion of tees and sewing the bottom together. This turns the tee into a much more sustainable version of a plastic or paper bag. Before they’re sewn, they manually screen print them with their slogan to make people more conscious about their message. The sewers are women that have lost their jobs and are paid per shirt.

The cutters and screen-printers are AZWC volunteers.

This coming Earth Day Weekend (Sunday April 25 from 3 to 7 p.m.) A Zero Waste Culture and the Key Biscayne Presbyterian School ask for your time and skills to join them in cutting and printing their t-Shirts.

In collaboration with Goodwill SFL, they have 1,000 lbs. of outdated tees they need to turn to totes.

Anyone over the age of 14 will be welcomed with open arms, a Smiling Underneath mask and a homemade hand sanitizer provided by A Zero Waste Culture.

They’re also asking for donations to allow them to keep their sewers employed and to purchase the printing ink and future second-hand tees. To donate, click here.

As a local nonprofit, AZWC recognizes that they are nothing without the support of their community and on a week where the planet is celebrated across the globe, you have a chance to be a helping hand for a greater purpose.

April 21, 2021 0 Comments by Clara Alvarez-Alonso

Voice of the Youth

Sew-A-Mask – Reusable Mask Project

Artist: Sofi Andrade

September 3, 2020 0 Comments by AZWC_C

In the Press

THE GUARDIANS, Celebrating the heroes who keep us safe in the battle over Coronavirus

The Guardians. Helena Iturralde

By Kym Klass and George White / Special to Islander News

Jun 23, 2020 Updated Jun 23, 2020

THE GUARDIANS, Celebrating the heroes who keep us safe in the battle over Coronavirus
When a crisis such as the Coronavirus pandemic strikes, a community’s strength of character is put to the test. As neighbors struggle, others step up to help. Compassionate. Diligent. Selfless.

When a crisis such as the Coronavirus pandemic strikes, a community’s strength of character is put to the test. As neighbors struggle, others step up to help. Compassionate. Diligent. Selfless.

For some — those designated as “essential” workers — it is their job, and they perform exceptionally. Others, however, willingly come out of the safety of self-quarantine and risk sickness to offer assistance to the community.

The response to the pandemic epitomizes what makes Key Biscayne so special. The village is composed of people who put the community before self. People from all walks of life with generous hearts who have genuine concern for their neighbors.

From making and distributing meals to the homebound, to being senior “buddies,” to volunteering at testing sites or serving in area hospitals, these folks work on our behalf – not just to keep us safe, but to keep hope alive for a brighter future.

In a Special Report, we honor just some of the community’s “guardians” for keeping us safe, fed and healthy. To them, and others who continue to step up, we say “Thank you!”

Since Monday, we have been introducing you to some of these 10-kind friends and neighbors who give of themselves to keep us safe & comfortable during this pandemic.

In 2019, Helena Iturralde founded A Zero Waste Culture to empower people to fight climate change through programs such as creating reusable grocery bags from donated fabric.
Being an alternative to single-use plastic bags is important as one means of reducing the Carbon footprint, Iturralds said. Since the Coronavirus crisis struck, however, the program shifted to creating cloth masks by the hundreds.

The masks are purchased from underemployed women who get paid $5 per mask. When the masks are sold for $15, the extra proceeds go to help sustain the program, including training women to sew. In addition, two other masks are donated to those needing them: residents of Little Haiti, incarcerated women, and the Navajo tribe in Arizona.

“We started by learning, making masks with a real simple design, but we changed it to a different model because we had to find a faster way to make as many as possible,” Iturralde said. “They are not medical masks, but … (it’s) better to be protected with these masks than not be protected at all.”

To date, several thousand masks have been sold or donated, she said, adding that many of the masks go to essential workers. “So many people have to go to work and really need to be protected.”

The group now has volunteers collecting elastic and bendable metal bars off disposable masks so they can be incorporated in the reusable design, she said.

Iturralde is pleased her organization and its workers have the flexibility to help with the virus-submission effort, but “I hope we will stop needing them.’’

August 4, 2020 0 Comments by AZWC_C

A Zero Waste Culture

Donate to A Zero Waste Culture thru Amazon Smile

What is AmazonSmile?

AmazonSmile is a simple way for you to support A Zero Waste Culture every time you shop, at no cost to you. It is available at smile.amazon.com and they will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases to us.

How to I shop at AmazonSmile?

To shop at AmazonSmile simply go to smile.amazon.com on your web browser or activate AmazonSmile on your Amazon Shopping app on your iOS or Android phone (found under settings on your app). You may also want to add a bookmark on your browser to make it even easier to return and start your shopping at AmazonSmile. When you’re using the app, always check for the “AmazonSmile” logo to ensure you’re activated for AmazonSmile.

Are all products on AmazonSmile eligible for Charitable Donations?

You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages.

Can I use my existing Amazon.com account on AmazonSmile?

Yes, you use the same account on Amazon.com and AmazonSmile. Your shopping cart, Wish List, wedding or baby registry, and other account settings are also the same.

How do I select to support A Zero Waste Culture when shopping on AmazonSmile?

On your first visit to smile.amazon.com, you need to select A Zero Waste Culture and Amazon will remember your selection, and then every eligible purchase you make through AmazonSmile will result in a donation to our eligible 501(c)(3) public charity.

August 3, 2020 0 Comments by AZWC_C

Voice of the Youth

A Quarantined Letter to the Earth

Dear Earth,

It has been too long since I was able to melt into your grass, too long since I was able to talk to your trees who had become my friends. I miss watching the rainfall around me as I danced to the music of the raindrops against the leaves, beating like a drum or the feel of the ocean’s hugs which embraced me with wonder and ease. I crave the freedom of being able to travel any length to see another creation of your imagination. It has become clear to me though that in these short weeks I miss the parts of you which have been robbed, beaten, and hurt by others like me for years and years. Humans, a species considered a part of nature and yet we have turned against our own. Death may be natural but we have turned it into something else, we have been killing your family, your animals, plants, skies, and oceans, and many without a second of doubt or remorse. So I want to say sorry, for here I have been selfish missing your beauties while you have been watching them be torn from you for all this time.

On March 13, my school was shut down, quarantine began and life as we knew it changed. Coronavirus came in like a sweeping tide wearing a coat of invisibility as it began to wipe people out. It was devastating, every news channel repeated the word death till my mind became numb to the numbers. It was crazy seeing doctors struggling bruise marks on their faces from their masks trying to keep it together but such sorrow and brokenness beneath their eyes. But for a second I saw a sliver of hope for humanity, not regarding coming out of the virus but that humanity still had goodness within it. I saw singing off of balconies in Italy, in England a man walking laps in his backyard as he turned 100, raising money for health workers. In my community friends and family sewing masks and making hand sanitizers and delivering food to the elderly. Quarantine has sparked something within people, I saw hope for you, it demanded more love and made us realize how much we take for granted. The news also began to change, the taunt of deaths still there but China was slowly recovering and it seemed as though the earth was healing. Without humans tearing down your trees, working in factories, driving their cars, taking planes, polluting their communities, and developing land, new life was awakening.

Dolphins had returned to Venice, emissions in China massively declined along with a drop in coal and oil use. It seemed like you were being given a chance to heal, to recover. A part of me believes you were giving us a shock to our systems, scaring us with a final chance to change, to be better. I don’t belong to any religion, I like to believe that nature is my god, that there’s a sort of magic in you that runs through the roots of trees and plants, through the songs of the birds, into the depths of the ocean and flies through the skies. I believe it is your magic that has been begging us to change, and I hoped this was our chance, but we have turned this time into a limbo, emissions in China have spiked back up, people aren’t taking quarantine seriously and humans are turning against each other out of anger and resentment. The virus is impacting the good, the doctors, the homeless, the poor while the rich and powerful aren’t feeling the pain. I’m confused about Earth, was this invisible tide sent by you or are you a spectator like the rest of us?
I wonder what will come from this. There will always be a balance between evil and good, light, and dark; the yin and the yang as cliche as it may sound. There will always be people fighting for good and those who have been buried in hate for too long. In some way, we are fighting a war right now, an inner war, and the question is who will win. Will we come out of this with more love and need to protect you and each other or will we forget it, let it pass us by like every other tragedy.

I hope I can protect you, love you in the way you deserve. I hope I can do my part in being on the right side of history, the side of love. I cannot speak for the rest of the world, I can only speak for myself when I say I will protect you with every fiber of my being. I will love your family as I do mine. I will appreciate every tree for its strength, every leaf for its intricate beauty, every animal for its spirit, I will dance in the rain to put a smile on both our faces, I will believe in the magic of this world for as long as I shall live. I love you, Earth, I’m sorry for the ways we have wronged you but I won’t wallow in sadness or feel sorry for myself, I won’t let hate taint my soul. The only way to get out of this is to love more, to see more, to let my walls down and embrace you with all the love I can.

I expect no reply, I know you are busy with the world and I am only a single drop in your ocean. But I will make my drop count, I will give life wherever I can. Thank you for everything.

With Love,

Skye
MAST Academy
Miami

May 15, 2019 0 Comments by moftb