Last week we talked with Jesse Fox, urban planning expert and Treehugger veteran. This week’s Prophet in Focus is James Murray-White, a composting environmentalist with the eye of a filmmaker and the soul of a poet. James grew up in a green village outside Cambridge, UK, and has donned the roles of both actor and […]
Last month we wrote about City Tree, a green oasis in a historical building in central Tel Aviv. This urban environmental group focuses on restoring their 1920s apartment with ecological renovation methods (such as recycled paper construction and milk based paints), teaching urbanites how to compost, and cooperating with the Good Energy Initiative in order […]
Due to not having a yard and feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt every time I throw away my food scraps in a conventional garbage, I spent my first few months in Tel Aviv trying to figure out some plausible composting options in the city. This was harder than expected because so many Israelis have […]
You wouldn’t generally think of Tel Aviv as a green oasis. A nightlife oasis, yes. A beachy oasis, yes. A trendy oasis, yeah, you could call it that too. But when you’re walking on busy Allenby Street or Dizengoff – the natural environment is probably the furthest thing from your urban experience. But tucked away […]
Green Prophet’s Karin recently made us aware of a carbon offsetting scheme here in the Middle East, named Libra/Sekem, which converts cash paid for carbon offsets into compost. The project based in the Sharkia region of Egypt, turns coffee grinds, raw food scraps and more (read one of our super-enriched Green Prophet posts on composting […]
Late Friday afternoon at the Carmel Market in the center of Tel Aviv. Shabbat is approaching, and the “shook” is winding down for the weekend. Vendors are hawking the last of their merchandise, heavily discounted, to the few remaining stragglers. Straining to yell over cantorial Oriental music, the vendors ask each other what time Shabbat […]
Now the weather is warming up, it’s time to hit the road and escape the urban jungle. But instead of taking the bus to beach or driving to the hills for a hike, you might be pleasantly surprised to find a green oasis closer than you think. Last week I was lucky enough to stumble […]
Green Prophet was contacted this week by a green husband and wife team who are in the eco-business of making composters here in Israel (see left). Regular readers of GP will know that we are mad for composting: Mulch, Rot, Invigorate and A Half Empty Bin and Some Worms. Ilan Bar-Kat and Lisa Bloom live […]
You’ve already read about mulch, rot and the need to invigorate when composting, now that the snow has cleared, it’s time to give the garden and plants and trees some energy and care again. My compost bin is made from two old wooden pallets, found abandoned on the streets. There are three fixed sides, screwed […]
I love composting. It is pure satisfaction for anyone remotely interested in growing things, and watching how things can grow, sprout, shoot up, and also decay, die and rot. When you turn the soil, and see the half-eaten tomato, or ear of corn, or artichoke leaves from a recent dinner, and know that they are […]
We saw all the signs: the ararchist gatherings at Salon Mazal and the little old ladies picking through the Friday-afternoon veggies at the Carmel Market. Social activists in Israel have joined the international movement in protest of our consumer culture. They are dumpster-divers, and living off of just about everything and anything that you might […]