Gardening for your Region

We've been doing a lot of gardening in our head lately. The cold weather just makes us plan the plants we will grow in the spring. This week we found a great website that can help you with your garden planning, BHG Gardening By Region.

This site is great, first you find out what region you're in, if you don't already know. Then you can find the best things to plant based on your region. They have numerous guides, all to help you plan that perfect garden!

We particularly liked their guide to the Top Roses for the Midwest. Which article was your favorite? Be sure to share in the comments. Don't forget- food waste makes a great soil amendment  and we can help your business to recycle your organics.

Featured Upcycling DIY

With Valentines closing it, now is rush time for gifts! If you want to make a homemade gift there isn't anything better than an upcycled gift. The one we picked to feature just requires a Vinyl Record and some cooking supplies, but the gift will definitely be one of a kind, a Vinyl Record Bowl!

Thrift shops are full of old vinyls, so stop by any and pick out a record with a significant title or, if you get lucky, with a song that is important to you. It's a great way to make a very personal gift without having to spend a ton of money. The finished project is a bowl that can be used for whatever the recipient wishes! Different sized records make different sized bowls, so take that into account when making yours!

Check out the DIY here! Happy gift making!

U.S. Composting Council Round-Up

Well, as we said in our last post, we spend last week in Orlando, Florida for the U.S. Composting Council Conference. We heard all sorts of interesting things from all areas of the industry and it was a great experience to learn more about everyone working with composting!

Maybe you didn't go to the conference, but there have been a lot of interesting articles that were published leading up to and following it, by complete coincidence. Have you read anything interesting about composting last week or this week? Share the link in the comments! We'd love to read what you thought was interesting!

We read this article about composting to provide fertilizer for rooftop gardens and we were definitely interested! Check it out: http://earth911.com/news/2013/02/04/nyc-rooftop-compost/

Reuse DIY

Today we're sharing a very helpful reuse DIYs that we found. This great article shares 50 new uses for old things. It's a great guide to finding brand new uses for thing that may be sitting around your house. Check it out here.

Our favorites from the article are:

Toilet Paper Hair Accessory holder

Matchbox as a mini sewing kit

Rubberbands to secure clothing on hangers

Old Mailing labels as return labels for books, movies, ect.

Old tissue boxes for plastic bags

There are a lot of other great ideas in there! Which are your favorites? Let us know in the comments.

Food Waste & Why Composting Helps

In America we waste 40% of our food. Food waste and other organics can be put to beneficial reuse through composting, but realizing the number is that huge is a wake up call. Check out this data:

Infographic from Sustainable America

Now, it's clear that as a nation we're over purchasing food, but a lot of this waste come from the industrial side of things, and often times their food is thrown out because of regulatory reasons. Going to the landfill means more methane emissions and that's bad news for our ozone layer!

Composting can help by taking these food scraps and other organics and helping the natural process of reuse- the products naturally break down and can be used to help soil to produce more food. This may seem like a simple idea and a natural route to take, but not everyone realizes it.

As a company that deals with organics from institutional settings, it's clear to us how large the impact is of just one hospital, school, university, grocery store, or restaurant switching and diverting their organics. It can equal to tons of material a year diverted from the landfill to beneficial reuse.

If you have questions or want to know more about what we do be sure to comment, but do you compost at home? Do you notice how much goes into the heap with just your family? Let us know!

GreenRU & Hy-Vee

We're not a big fan of bragging, so we'll let other people do it for us. We do some great work at two Hy-Vee locations, and that work was recently featured on the Iowa Grocery Industry Association newsletter!

Here's just a taste of the article:

"We started [diversion with GreenRU] because it was the right thing to do," says Max Dains, South Ottumwa Hy-Vee store director. "The departments have really gotten into it and are doing more than we asked of them. Everyone understands it's what should be done and what needs to be done."

Wow! Want to read more? You can! Check it out here.

So, what exactly does GreenRU do?

Our services are actually pretty easy to understand, however watching a video might be a little easier than reading an explanation. Check out the video below to understand how our process works!

Feel free to comment with any questions you may have! We're more than happy to help!

GreenRU: A short introduction

GreenRU is a "zero waste" recycler of organics and food scraps headquarted in Des Moines, Iowa and servicing the entire state. We offer complete recycling services and can provide cars and/or bins, training, signage, and a complete selection of compostable dinnerware, trash liners, and flatware. We're excited to be starting a blog to take about composting and everything related to it, whether it's tips for your garden or general sustainability information!