Earth Day: Build your Eco-Knowledge (Food & Garden)

Courtesy of www.earthday.ca

Build your eco-knowledge and share it with others. Use these fun and challenging questions as resources in your environmental activities and initiatives.

Food & Garden
Composting can reduce your household waste by:

A) 10%

B) 25%

C) 50%

D) 75%

Answer: C

Take Action: Separate your food waste from your regular garbage and recycling. Designate a small household container or bucket for your food scraps and then dump the contents into your backyard composter or green bin daily.

What plant has been used to monitor air pollution?

A) Lichen

B) Juniper

C) Clover

D) Strawberry

Answer: A – Lichen, usually found on trees and rocks, are very sensitive to air pollution. Their presence indicates good air quality.

On average, households waste _________ of their food purchases.

A) 5 percent

B) 10 percent

C) 14 percent

D) 19 percent

Answer: C – An average family of four people throws out about $590 per year in meat, fruit, vegetables and grain products.

Take Action: Buy only what you know you can consume and freeze items for use later.

One tree can remove ___ pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually.

A) 13

B) 20

C) 26

D) 32

Answer: C – This is equal to the amount of car emissions produced if a car was driven 17,600 kilometers.

The existence of many plant flowers depends on:

A) Birds

B) Bugs

C) Worms

D) Bees

Answer: D – If there were no bees, 100,000 plant species would cease to exist.

As much as ______ of the chemicals that are administered on our lawns, gardens, and crops to ward off insects and pests end up in our drinking water supply!

A) 70%

B) 60%

C) 50%

D) 80%

Answer: C – Pesticides and other chemicals leach into the ground water and contaminate our drinking supply. They can also negatively affect the health of people and animals nearby.

Take Action: Don’t use pesticides on your lawn. Be sure to look into environmentally sensitive alternatives that aren’t harmful to animals and people.

Which of the following should not go into your personal back yard composter?

A) Egg shells

B) Meat trimmings

C) Apple cores

D) Banana Peals

Answer: B - In a backyard composter, meat scraps should not be composted because they tend to have a high probability of causing odours in the compost pile that would be offensive to humans and attract pests. However, meat and many other products can be composed in your municipal green bin since the waste is sent to large-scale composting facilities.

What type of food production is the most wasteful in terms of resources used?

A) Raising livestock for meat production

B) Growing grain

C) Growing fruit

D) Growing vegetables

Answer: A – Large amounts of grain, requiring high amounts of water to grow, are required to feed livestock while vast areas of land are deforested for pasture areas.

Take Action: Try to eat meat less often, perhaps one day less a week. There are plenty of meat alternatives available.

A plant or animal that is native to an area is called:

A) Nocturnal

B) Exotic

C) Indigenous

D) Perennial

Answer: C

Take Action: Plant indigenous species in your yard because they will require fewer resources to maintain since they tend to thrive in the natural climatic conditions.

Test your knowledge on Water and Energy