Waste Not

In Brazil, the government funds human milk banks. Nursing mothers who have too much milk express the excess and donate it to the bank. The bank pasteurizes the milk, packages it, and gives it to babies whose mothers have trouble lactating.

A friend just got back from Brazil with photographs of such a bank and its staff.


Biodynamic farming is apparently the next step up from organic farming. This was the subject I learned most about in India while chatting with marchers from Germany. The practice allows small farmers to treat farm land as a self-sustaining whole. Farmers do not use chemicals to control disease and encourage growth. They bury dead plants and animals so when decomposed, nutrients return to the earth. They practise crop rotation so the same minerals and nutrients are not sucked out of the soil by the same crop year after year. They use the calendar only as an approximate guide for planting and harvesting; they rely more on the "feel" of the weather for the precise time to plant and harvest.


The Turkish salwar is sewn using two leg-lengths of cloth without wasting a scrap. This is how they cut the pattern.




































That flap that comes out from the crotch is just the leftover fabric from the leg turned upside down.

I like the simplicity and non-waste of these practices.