Sustainability
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Athens Boutique Makes Fashion Sustainable, Transparent for Customers
COMMUNITY is a fashion boutique in Downtown Athens known for its innovative, handmade styles using all recycled materials. Sanni Baumgärtner, a native of Germany and owner of the boutique, expressed the store’s central values of being sustainable and transparent. Baumgärtner shared it was her main priority to have the sewing…
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UGA Students are Prioritizing Sustainable Fashion
University of Georgia student organizations Fair Fashion and Swap Shop are helping promote sustainable fashion practices to help reduce the amount of waste on campus. Through clothing swaps and informational meetings, both organizations put accessibility and education at the forefront of their mission. “I love to be able to show…
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Reusable Water Bottles: Are They an Answer to the Plastic Problem?
Plastic is all around us. It’s used as storage containers, phone cases and shampoo bottles. One of the most pervasive plastic-made items comes in the form of water bottles. These water bottles are created to be used once, and then discarded. Once a bottle is thrown in the trash, it…
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B-Corps and Beer: Creature Comforts Brewing Company Monitors Water Usage To Brew Green Beer
Georgia is home to 36 B-Corporations: for-profit businesses that are certified by B Lab for meeting measurements related to their social and environmental impact. Creature Comforts Brewing Company, a B-Corporation based in Athens, Georgia, is one of them. See how the B-Corporation monitors water usage to create a green beer…
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From Failed Assignment to Global Impact: How One Haitian Immigrant Transformed Paint Waste into Colorful Communities Worldwide
Growing up in rural Haiti, Rony Delgarde didn’t have a colorful wall in his home, school or any nearby buildings, yet one assignment changed his life forever. Delgarde’s teacher once asked his class to submit an essay describing their career and life goals. Struggling to read or write, he stared…
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Local Farmer Uses Community Garden to Fight Food Insecurity
Syndey Buffington, the community director of agriculture for Athens Land Trust, is not like most farmers. Now in her 11th year of farming, Buffington made the switch from commercial farming to community farming, hoping to reduce food insecurity in Athens-Clarke County. Food insecurity is defined as the limited or uncertain…
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UGA Campus Compost Program Gives Waste a New Purpose
Among the hustle and bustle of the University of Georgia, a bright orange tricycle transports dark green compost containers throughout campus. Emme McCumiskey, an intern at the UGA Campus Compost Program, arrives at various offices and residence halls on her electric-powered trike. Walking in empty-handed, she often leaves these buildings…
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Swap Shop at UGA: Turning Trash to Treasure
Picture a mountain of discarded material, towering as big as the University of Georgia’s 200,000-square-foot Miller Learning Center, destined for the landfill. That is the size of the 10 million pounds of materials UGA sends to the landfill each year. But through the doors of that same building is a…
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Tackling Food Waste With Farmers Markets
Grocery stores play a significant role in the staggering amount of food waste generated annually. With over 63,000 of them scattered across the United States, they contribute to the disposal of 16 billion pounds of food each year. Thirty percent of all food in these establishments ends up…
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How AWLN is Changing Atlanta Communities One Watershed at a Time
The Atlanta Watershed Learning Network is a program that promotes environmental change through the power of education. The program brings residents of Metro Atlanta together and helps them gain the knowledge and skills needed to advocate for equitable development. Through the use of training modules and a six-month course, students…