Sustainability
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Direct Trade Coffee Is New ‘Farm-to-Table’ Business Model of Coffee Industry
For Ben Bowdoin, lead roaster and green buyer of 1000 Faces Coffee in Athens, coffee is just as much about the relationships between the buyers and the farmers as it is about the beans. He expresses this through their business model, a relatively new concept called direct trade. “The biggest…
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UGA ‘reCYCLE’ Program Gives Abandoned Bicycles Purpose
The University of Georgia reCYCLE program began in 2014 when student workers in transportation and parking services noticed a lot of abandoned bikes on campus bike racks. Now, it has grown into a stream-lined program that collects and refurbishes deserted bicycles to give to UGA students and faculty in need…
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UGA Green Roof Garden Coping with COVID-19 Harvest Loss
Due to the mandated University of Georgia campus closure in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Abbie Dillon, the Office of Sustainability’s Urban Agriculture intern working to maintain the Green Roof Garden, was barred from campus and forced to abandon numerous crops. As a result, the Green Roof Garden…
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How Conservation Collectives Are Tackling Growing Development in Athens
It’s easy to miss the entrance to the Orange Twin Conservation Community. About 15 minutes north of downtown Athens, Georgia, it takes a couple of country roads off the highway and a keen eye to spot the welcome sign, hidden behind a layer of overgrowth. Once a space thrumming with…
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Volunteers Take Out The Trash At 35th Annual Great Lake Allatoona Clean Up
More than 100 volunteers from all over the state come to Acworth, Georgia, for the annual Great Lake Allatoona Clean Up at Red Top Mountain State Park each year to remove solid waste by foot and by boat. Red Top Mountain State Park hosted their 35th annual Great Lake…
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Local Coffee Shop Responds to Automation Trends
ATHENS — As automation continues to become the new industry standard for larger corporations streamlining production, nearly one-third of small businesses are also embracing automation in their own markets. At 1000 Faces in Athens, Georgia, music plays quietly in the background as baristas grind coffee beans, steam milk and…
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Can You Recycle That? An AI Bot Can Let You Know
Greasy pizza boxes, single-use coffee cups and plastic bags are commonly used items, and people often wonder whether these types of items can be recycled. Now, an artificial intelligence bot on social media may be able to answer the question—“Can I recycle this?” Misplaced materials are common, and these incorrectly…
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Solar Panels, Sustainable Workplaces Bring New Energy to Athens
A growing trend in the world of work is the rise of sustainability – which means that businesses and governments are taking responsibility for their actions and resource use by incorporating renewable energy, waste management, and resourceful practices into their business models. The implementation of sustainability can look like Starbucks…
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How Local Trash Disposal Affects Climate Change
Approximately 300 tons of material is disposed of in the Athens-Clarke County Landfill daily. The average dump truck holds 12 to 14 tons of waste, so approximately 23 dump truck loads of garbage are dumped into the 289-acre landfill per day. Yet, not all of it should be garbage. “About…
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Athens Takes ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ To New Level
If you assume your trash today gets collected and sent off to one of the “dumps” you see in cartoons, you’re sadly mistaken. Dumps haven’t existed since the 1970s; rather, the increasing amount of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Americans create gets sent to landfills where local governments like Athens are…