Torontoist » sustainability

Mending Fashion’s Worn-out Image

Worn Fashion Journal‘s monthly mending night at Freedom Clothing Collective is not what you’d expect from a pairing of fashion magazine and design boutique. For one, there’s no champagne. And when one mender recounts her day’s diet, there’s no mention of grams or guilt—rather, she proudly details how delicious the Gandhi rotis she had for [...]

Burrito Bike Pedaling for Progress, and Pinto Beans

If bikers really are “swimming with the sharks,” good thing they’re not sharp-toothed burrito fans. Sari Lightman has spent years crafting her signature burritos. They come in vegan or vegetarian varieties, with pinto beans, rice, homemade salsa, and optional cheese or chipotle sour cream. She even has corn tortillas for those giving up gluten. They’re [...]

Forget Paving Paradise, Let’s Just Dig a Giant Hole in It

Farmers in Melanchton, Ontario, begin a long fight against a giant limestone quarry—the largest proposed for North America.

Editor’s note: Since we first published this story, the Highland Companies have filed their paperwork seeking permission from the province to open the quarry. The Ontario government responded by required a full environmental assessment of the proposal, which will take several years to complete. Farmers in Melancthon are meanwhile working to continue raising awareness of [...]

Economical Architecture

Thea Haines’s textile work. It’s not often you see a textile artist take part in an architectural exhibit. But Thea Haines’s installation fits perfectly at Building for the Economy, the latest in Harbourfront Centre’s series of untraditional and interdisciplinary architecture shows. Dispelling the notion that an economic downturn need only spell doom and gloom, her [...]

Farm and the City

Laura Reinsborough of Not Far From the Tree. Photo by Hamutal Dotan/Torontoist. The food we eat, and the sources thereof, have become the subjects of increasing attention over the past few years. In an attempt to bring farmers and the people they feed closer together, Slow Food Toronto hosted its second annual Farm-to-Home Fair at [...]

A Dim Idea

Photo of Toronto during Earth Hour 2008 by scienceduck from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. We are, just to be clear, very fond of Planet Earth. Big fans. Huge. We are, likewise, fond of initiatives which safeguard our environment, and also in favour of consciousness-raising efforts that promote such initiatives. Therefore, when we say that many [...]

Futurist: Toronto in 2030 and Beyond

Now that the dust from Toronto’s birthday parties has settled, it’s time to consider what happens next. Every day this week, Futurist offers a glimpse of the Toronto that is to come. Photo by archoneus from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It’s hard to know quite what Toronto will look like by 2030. Detailed plans become [...]

Raising the Bar(n)

Torontoist got a sneak peak at the newly redeveloped Wychwood Barns earlier this week and our verdict can be pithily summarized as “yippee!” A veritable playground for the ecologically and socially conscious, the newest Artscape endeavour lives up to the hype and anticipation. The Barns project represents a new and particularly hopeful kind of urban [...]

My Other City is a Farm

Photo by mama loo from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Cities can, should, and may need to start producing much of their own food. Four panellists—a farmer, an historian, an architect, and an activist—collectively presented a vision of cities as centres of agriculture at the From the Ground Up lecture, held Wednesday night at the Gardiner [...]