Sustainable Libraries Initiative

Take the proper steps to live more sustainably. Learn how to reduce waste, use wind and solar energy to power your home, and grow your own food. Written by BBC personalities Dick and James Strawbridge, this manual for the modern age is complete guide to a simpler, greener, and cleaner lifestyle. With step-by-step guidance and techniques, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century combines traditional skills and crafts with modern technological advances to help you live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Perfect for both urban and rural readers, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century has detailed illustrations and authoritative advice for tried-and-tested projects, including foraging for wild plants, finding natural remedies, composting, using green cleaners, and conserving energy at home. Learn how to can vegetables, garden in urban spaces, and the basics of animal husbandry. Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century is the perfect book to show you just how easy and rewarding green living can be with simple changes that have a major impact.

Heard the buzz? Beekeeping is back! Neighborhoods across the country have embraced it as a source of sustainable food and environmental goodness. For those who want to join the "hive" of keepers, Ashley English has the lowdown on the key issues, from space and time considerations to local ordinances to the basics of acquiring, housing, maintaining, and caring for bees year round. Plus, get 10 tested honey-centric recipes!

Author Megean Weldon, aka The Zero Waste Nerd, gently guides you on an attainable, inspirational, mindful, and completely realistic journey to a sustainable living lifestyle with tips, strategies, recipes, and DIY projects for reducing waste—presented in one approachable, beautifully designed, and illustrated guide.

What is zero waste living? Although the practice has been around for generations out of necessity, it is making a comeback as concerns grow about the fate of our environment. To put it simply: it is attempting to send no waste to landfills. Although you may have read or heard about “zero waste,” “sustainable,” or “green” living, the concept can sometimes seem too complicated, the author’s tone a bit self-righteous, or riddled with advice geared for people with 5 acres of land in the country with dreams of raising livestock and homesteading. This is not that book.

Can a “regular” person do this? Absolutely! Zero waste isn’t necessarily about zero, but more about changing or altering the way we see the world around us, how we consume, and how we think about waste. It’s about making better choices when we can, and working to reduce our overall impact by reducing the amount of packaging and single-use plastics we bring into our life. 

Focusing on the positive, An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life presents simple ways to reduce waste in every aspect of your life:

• Cleaning: Recipes for natural cleaner and how to ditch paper towels for good.
• Meal plans: Weekly menus and recipes for zero-waste meals that use bulk pantry staples.
• Shopping: How to shop zero waste at big chain stores and ways to reduce food packaging.
• Bathroom: Sustainable beauty routine and zero-waste showering.
• Recycling: Ingenious ways to repurpose old clothing and how to recycle small metals, like bottle caps and razor blades.
• Gardening/Compost: Tips on finding heirloom seeds, seasonal produce, and the basics of composting.
• And much more!

An (Almost) Zero-Waste Life will change the way you see the world around you, how you consume, and how you think about waste for a healthier planet and happier you.

If you dream of growing, harvesting and eating your own produce, here's how to begin. Author Nicki Trench, who has created her own backyard farm from scratch, shares with you everything there is to know about growing crops, keeping bees, and rearing hens. Here's how to make compost, grow vegetables and fruit, collect honey, rear chickens for fresh eggs, and make preserves and chutneys, along with natural remedies and cleaning products for a natural life inside and outside your home. The benefits of creating your backyard farm are not just economic--the energy you once obsessively expended on the exercise bike can now be channelled more productively by digging your vegetable patch, turning your compost, or cleaning out the hen coop. Communitites are reappearing over backyard fences as neighbors share their harvest of zucchini, spinach, or eggs. Whatever you choose to grow or rear on your backyard farm, this book offers a taste of the good life that is easy, satisfying, and inexpensive to achieve.

Renovation that's eco-friendly...AND economically smart

From Country Living contributing editor Randy Florke (Your House, Your Home) comes a gorgeous guide to decorating sustainably and inexpensively. Providing inspiration as well as instruction, Florke shows how everyone can achieve a look that's both harmonious with the environment and beautiful.

Color photographs show examples of rooms, all radiating country charm, created on a budget, and designed with the three "R"s in mind: restore, reuse, and repurpose. Florke clearly explains why going green is so important, how to use what's already there, find a focus for every space, and determine what makes something environmentally friendly.

Anyone hoping to transform a home from ordinary to extraordinary will find eco-friendly, thrifty, and stylish ideas.

With its emphasis on simplicity, thrift, and respect for historical integrity, Randy Florke calls his philosophy the "anti-keeping up with the Joneses." Comfort, style, and economy are the bellwether elements of his approach to decorating.

As food prices continue to rise, more and more people have discovered that they can create their own food supply, right on their own property, and at a fraction of the price of conventional farm food that's been shipped to their local grocery from locations unknown. By raising and harvesting their own fruits, vegetables, chickens, bees, milk-bearing animals, and more, people are growing locally, sustainably, and at a fraction of the cost. However, poor planning for needs, proper use of available space, and a lack of preparedness for preserving or selling the harvest can quickly lead to wasted time and sweat.

Backyard Farming on an Acre (More or Less) is written by people who have planned and run a successful small-scale backyard farm. The authors guide readers through the essentials of planning a small-scale farm from a 1/4 acre all the way up to an acre and beyond. Readers will learn how to decide how large (or small) their farm should be, what they should plant or raise based on their invidual wants and needs (and available space), and how they can prevent their efforts from being wasted. Proven, sustainabile techniques will be presented to readers so they can yield the maximum benefit of their harvest through proven best practices. Readers will also learn how to raise small animals such as chickens and goats for milk, eggs, and meat, and will learn the crticial practices for successfully parenting bees, growing fruit tress, and much more.

This introductory resource explains how to sustainably manage a wooded property, whether itÕs a few acres in the suburbs or a small commercial forest.Ê Readers will learn how to identify the type, health, and quality of their trees and woodland; how to plant, prune, and thin trees; how to improve their ecosystem by creating trails, adding water, and diversifying; how to improve wildlife habitat; and how to enjoy and use the land by harvesting timber, cutting firewood, building wildlife blinds, making maple sugar, growing Christmas trees, hunting, and more.

Now, more than ever, people across the country are turning toward simpler, greener, and quieter ways of living—whether they’re urbanites or country folk. Following in the footsteps of Back to Basics and Homesteading, this large, fully-illustrated book provides the entire family with the information they need to make the shift toward self-sufficient living.

Self-Sufficiency provides tips, advice, and detailed instructions on how to improve everyday life from an environmentally and organic perspective while keeping the focus on the family. Readers will learn how to plant a family garden and harvest the produce; can fruits and vegetables; bake bread and cookies; design interactive and engaging “green” projects; harness natural wind and solar energy to cook food and warm their homes; boil sap to make maple syrup; and build treehouses, furniture, and more. Also included are natural crafts readers can do with their kids, such as scrapbooking, making potato prints, dipping candles, and constructing seasonal decorations. Whether the goal is to live entirely off the grid or just to shrink their carbon footprints, families will find this book a thorough resource and a great inspiration.

Volume 1 introduces heirloom seeds, and the great need for them. You will find easy instructions on germinating seeds, nurturing seedlings, and then transferring them to your garden. It also features advice from the best heirloom seed experts in the world. It is packed with step-by-step instructions and full-color pictures that make it fun and easy to follow. Making Vegetables will teach you to build a hot box, cold box, greenhouse, and how to plant and care for an organic sustainable heirloom garden. With its simple and to-the-point perspective, Making Vegetables is an entertainingly instructive book. If you have ever wanted to grow a more delicious, nutritious, and all-around better vegetable, buy this book to discover how.

A fresh take on modern homemaking, The Hands-On Home is your go-to manual for DIY homecare and living more sustainably
 
From cooking, canning, and preserving to making your own nontoxic home and personal care products, author Erica Strauss offers instruction and inspiration for tackling at-home projects on your own. In this book, you will learn how to:
 
• Organize and stock your kitchen for easy meal preparation, and then whip up simple but satisfying recipes the whole family will love (Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Granola, Forager Spring Greens Soup, and Simple Crispy Chicken with Roasted Lemon Pan Sauce).

• Use basic food preservation techniques such as water-bath canning, pressure canning, and lacto-fermentation along with a handy year-long food preservation calendar of what to put up when. Preserving recipes are organized seasonally and include Rhubarb Syrup, Pressure-Canned Chicken Broth, Korean-Spiced Turnips, and Cranberry-Pear-Walnut Conserve.

• Create your own home care and personal care products—from Fizzy Bath Bombs and Refreshing Peppermint Foot Scrub to Nontoxic Laundry softener.
 
With less focus on consumerism and more on saving time and money, The Hands-On Home will help you create a home you love with simple resources and easy-to-learn skills.

In the Intermountain West, private, nonindustrial forests--typically woodlots of 15 to 150 acres--comprise as much as one-third of the forestland. Yet the owners of these forests commonly do not have forest management plans or the assistance they need to create such plans. Wild Logging slices through the "airy idealism of environmentalists and the steel-toe practicality of loggers" to teach methods of sustainable forest stewardship tailored to the West. Wild Logging covers the rudiments of forest management: inventorying your forest and establishing management goals; developing appropriate timber-harvesting methods and hiring a logger to implement them; and managing your forest estate for the future. In engaging interviews, owners of western forestland share their practical experiences. Technical sections cover such basics as how to develop a management plan, protect your property from wildfire, and write a timber harvest contract.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" plan for so-called "green" homes; rather, there are universal principles of design that can be applied to individual tastes and needs. Architect Angela Dean offers a variety of ways to incorporate green building into your home, including using healthy building materials such as straw bales and natural flooring, taking advantage of local materials and resources, reusing gray water for landscaping, and incorporating passive solar design. Her goal is to teach people how to think about building sustainable homes. Green by Design provides a thorough analysis of what it means to build green and offers advice on what to consider when designing a sustainable home. Green by Design features full-color photographs and line drawings of floor plans show different examples of successful sustainable homes. It also includes in-depth case studies of more than a dozen homes so readers planning a green home can see what worked for others. By providing people with knowledge, inspiration, and the ability to ask the right questions (and understand the answers) Green by Design puts home builders and owners on a path to creating beautiful, environmentally responsible homes that they can be proud to live in. Angela Dean, AIA, is principal architect of AMD Architecture in Salt Lake City. She specializes in environmentally responsible designs to create healthy, comfortable buildings that are in harmony with the environment

Eco-Guides are trendy, stylish books that give school-age readers realistic and practical advice on how they can live an eco-conscious life, right now. And that action can be taken by themselves, with their family, or as part of a school or community group. In this book, readers learn how to grow things in even the smallest of spaces, source eco-friendly food, think about water, energy and packaging waste, and prepare delicious dishes.

Growing for 100 – the complete year-round guide for the small-scale market grower.

Want to know what you can do to address a food system in crisis? Get back into the kitchen, use what's there and gain a bit more kitchen literacy. It's time to rethink the role of the modern home kitchen as a place that can effect positive change, as well as produce delicious meals, even when we are busy with the rest of our lives.

Most cookbooks present inspiring recipe after inspiring recipe, sending you to the shops with an enormous list of ingredients, much of which get wasted. Use it All is a kitchen skills handbook for real people with really busy lives who want to do a bit of good. Packed with over 160 recipes that form a blueprint for seasonal eating, offering dozens of alternative flavour combinations to adapt according to what you have on hand. Putting these skills into practice means you'll eat creative meals, buy less, use less packaging and make so much more with what you've got.