Are you fond of gingerbread houses, but always found them a little, well, wasteful? Perhaps even (dare we say it?) too greenhouse-gas emitting?
Step up to the plate! Have your gingerbread and green it too! (Sorry. Couldn't help it.) It's the 2nd annual Bake for a Change challenge, wherein gingerbread houses compete for the title of most sustainable!
No, really, check it out. The rules are simple: it must be all edible, contain at least four sustainable design elements, and include a minimum of four walls, a floor, a door, two windows, and a roof. The hosts even helpfully include links to both sustainable design primers and ginderbread recipes. Enter by uploading pics to Flickr. And there's still time: deadline is Dec. 31.
The winner from last year was creative and super super nerdy (licorice shoelaces representing the "ground-source heat-pump external ground loop" anyone?).
I'm a little fonder of the approach of Janet Stemwedel over at Adventures in Ethics and Science, who, along with things like an orange-peel gutter leading to a rain barrel, also took the mandate more literally, using "recycled candy from a kindergarten graduation 4.5 years ago" and "ancient lollipops" and reducing the carbon footprint of making new gingerbread by using "reclaimed graham crackers." (Her family's house is pictured above.)
That may be stretching the "edible" rule a bit, but it's at least as much in the spirit as artificially-flavored-wafer-cookie solar panels, you know?
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