Hi - We're going to get passionate about the environment; so, grab a beverage, take your shoes off, sit down and get comfy. If global warming is an interest of yours - add your comments, subscribe to the feed and/or become a follower. Don't forget to check out the ads to the right side of the column. There is some very interesting material to be had there. Read, comment, enjoy!!!
Nearly 40 years ago, I worked with a very sensible, down-to-earth man who always maintained there was money in garbage. He said it didn`t matter what part of the garbage industry you were in, there was money there if you just cared to look. I have found many, many times over the next four decades that my co-worker was right. Garbage is a vastly under-rated commodity. So...here`s to Oslo and garbage.
Oslo, the capital of Norway, has a strange garbage problem. Too much? No, not enough. At first it might seem like any garbage is too much garbage, but Oslo (like many other cities in Scandinavia and Northern Europe) has built cogeneration plants that produce heat and electricity from garbage -- enough to heat about half of the city. But the locals don't produce enough garbage, partly because of their high recycling rate, so they have to import millions of tonnes of it from places like England and Sweden. They're even considering importing American garbage.
The regional garbage shortage seems like it's about to get worse too:
Yet the fastidious population of Northern Europe produces only about 150 million tons of waste a year, he said, far too little to supply incinerating plants that can handle more than 700 million tons. “And the Swedes continue to build” more plants, he said, a look of exasperation on his face, “as do Austria and Germany.”
Stockholm, to the east, has become such a competitor that it has even managed to persuade some Norwegian municipalities to deliver their waste there. By ship and by truck, countless tons of garbage make their way from regions that have an excess to others that have the capacity to burn it and produce energy.
“There’s a European waste market — it’s a commodity,” said Hege Rooth Olbergsveen, the senior adviser to Oslo’s waste recovery program. “It’s a growing market.” (Source: The New York Times)
The question is, will this create incentives to produce more garbage, or at least not reduce the amount produced as fast as it would be otherwise? What are the environmental issues with these incinerators? If done well with state-of-the-art equipment, incineration can be better than landfilling because it breaks down many toxins, but there can also be downsides. Norway does a good job of separating what can be recycled and what can be composted from the rest, but if they import garbage from other countries that don't do as good a job, are they burning resources that could be more useful in other ways? Can these cogeneration plants easily switch to more sustainable sources of fuel (waste biomass? but where to find enough?)?
At an age when most youngsters are just beginning to get acquainted with the world they've inherited, 10-year-old Vanis Buckholz was already thinking of ways he could help make it a better one for others -- and grown-ups have taken notice.
After learning about the importance of recycling on Earth Day at his elementary school a few years back, Vanis began to to notice how much reusable stuff people were throwing away every day, and decided to try to make a difference. So, at the ripe young age of 7, he became one of the nation's youngest eco-entrepreneurs, launching his very own recycling business to serve his hometown of Corona del Mar, California -- thus, "My ReCycler" was born.
"The idea for my business name came from 'cycling' and riding my scooter around town picking up trash on our beach, streets and parks then hauling it home to recycle," says Vanis. "My mom and dad taught me to never pollute so picking up trash was something we always did but now it's a part of the business."
After three years in business, My ReCycler has expanded with the help of his family, friends, and folks from throughout the region -- and a trailer attached to his bike to collect his customer's recyclables. In fact, nowadays his trips to the recycling center are by the truckload.
But if all that wasn't remarkable enough for such an ambitious youngster, Vanis then decided to donate a portion of the recycling profits Project Hope Alliance, an organization that provides outreach to homeless and underprivileged kids.
"It’s so easy to do nothing. But it’s really good to do something! I always tell my new customers that “every little bit matters”. Even ONE bottle helps. I love my job. I’m a very lucky kid but there’s a lot of kids who don’t have much luck."
"Project Hope Alliance is both amazed and humbled by the contributions and support given by Vanis to our organization," says Executive Director Jennifer Friend. "With his support we are educating and empowering homeless children in Orange County to end the cycle of poverty. Thank you Vanis for being a shining example of hope in action"
Vanis recently spoke before city council meeting, where he was lauded by Newport Beach Mayor Keith Curry: "Newport Beach is the home of some great entrepreneurs. The one tonight is particularly young, but I think is a very outstanding entrepreneur."
Those liquid soap dispenser pump bottles are great in the laundry room. If you aren't going to refill with some more hand soap, fill it with liquid laundry detergent instead. Keep it in the laundry area for spraying an extra bit of detergent on any stains you have. Just put one pump's worth on the stain, rub it in with your fingers; and, wash as usual.
Use an old toothbrush to pretreat those deep-down, stubborn grass stains or any other stubborn stain. Place a small amount of liquid detergent on the stain and work in with the toothbrush.
Toothbrushes make excellent scubbers for those hard-to-clean areas such as where the sink meets the counter.
Going away for awhile? Here's a great idea. Leave all your important information - where you'll be, emergency telephone numbers and the like - in that old picture frame you have kicking about. Hang it in a place the pet/house sitter can be sure to see it - above the telephone, for example.
Got an old plastic milk crate? Boy, are they great! They have so many uses. Here's just one. Keep the stuff you store in your car's trunk - motor oil, windshield wiper fluid, ice scrapers, whathaveyou - together, organized and easy to find.
A small dab of vodka or gin on an insect bite will stop the itch dead in its tracks.
It's not too uncommon to see paper recycled into things like jewelry, wallpaper or even furniture. But it's a bit surprising to see a seemingly flimsy material being used exclusively in a building that actually withstood hard rain and high winds, like this 2,045 square foot temporary workspace in Essen, Germany that's made with 550 bales of recycled paper.
With the aid of a $200,000 grant from Essen’s Zollverein School of Management and Design, Berlin-based architects Ben and Daniel Dratz of Dratz&Dratz Architekten were commissioned to design and construct a new building on an old mining locale (incidentally also a UNESCO World Heritage Site). The brothers experimented with large bales of compressed, recycled paper taken from neighbourhood grocery stores which were then stacked to create an unexpectedly well-insulated structure that dried quickly in the sun despite several days of rain.
The moment of initial inspiration came by chance, says Daniel on Inhabitat:
Rather unexpectedly, we passed by a recycling station and saw these bales of used paper. We were fascinated by the structural variety and by the fragments of compressed information – like traces of society. Later we discovered that these bales could be layered and stacked to form monolithic walls, and we recognized the potential for architectural projects.
Admittedly, it's not the most photogenic of structures, but these recycled paper bales can also apparently be stacked up to 100 feet high, which has led the brothers to conclude that with more research, there is plenty of potential for recycled paper bales to be used in more permanent and challenging applications in the future. More over at Dratz&Dratz Architekten (in German).
Have you ever wonder why Angry Birds are so angry? Maybe it’s because not enough of us are building them charming birdhouses like street artist Thomas “Dambo” Winther. Dambo’s Happy City Birds project is upcycling trash into birdhouses for natures little recyclers.
My Modern Met quotes the artist as saying, “Birds are actually great at recycling and we need to appreciate this. They eat old food, fruits, berries, and nuts lying about. In that way, they help to clean and distribute seeds around our cities, so new plants can grow.”
The project started off, like many, on MySpace where Dambo documented his manufacturing and installation of 250 Birdhouses in Denmark from discarded and donated materials--save for the money he spent on nails-- in 2008.
Since then he’s built and installed hundreds of birdhouses in various cities. Including, 150 colorful birdhouses in Beirut, and as the Happy City Birds project he now hosts workshops and events to teach others how to make birdhouses.
In the mini-documentary above about the Happy City Birds project, Dambo tells a story of two boys at a birdhouse building workshop who still wanted to build birdhouses even after they had ran out of materials. The two boys went home and salvaged speakers from an alley and brought them back to be upcycled into birdhouses.
The artist-turned-birder wants us to reexamine our views on trash and to question whether we are leaving space in urban cities for birds. He hopes that one day one of the young kids who attend his workshops grows up to build an entire house from trash.
Just like your friends, Dambo’s Happy City Birds project is now on Facebook. You can look over the photo gallery to get ideas if you too would like to build birdhouses. Birdhouse plans are available in Danish, German and English so you can make your own birdhouse.
Dr. Who's phone booth may function as a futuristic time machine, but such booths, in real life, tend to be relics of the past. What to do with this nostalgic bits of our pre-iPhone past? An artist collaborative known as Kingyobu has arrived at a novel solution by turning Osaka's old booths into giant goldfish aquariums.
According to The Atlantic, Kingyobu loosely translates to “goldfish club” in English. Rather than letting Osaka's old phone booths rust and decay -- or worse, get hauled off to the landfill or scrapyard -- the five members of this collective have taken the initiative to seal several of Osaka's phone booths, then fill them with water, bubblers, and yes, goldfish. (Exactly how these fish are fed isn't all that clear. With a ladder, perhaps?) Whimsically enough, the old pay phones within have been left intact, though we imagine they're no longer connected to any telephone lines.
Spoon & Tamago -- a blog covering Japanese art and culture -- points out that details on the project remain murky, but Kingyobu seems to have debuted their phone-booth-aquarium design at an art festival in late 2011, and have since gone on to install these aquariums in Osaka over the course of 2012. (If you're interested in exactly how such a thing is done, check out the Kingyobu collective's making-of images.)
Goldfish (or koi) are a common and widely recognized element in Japanese art and culture, appearing in everything from reflecting ponds to traditional sculptures and tattoos. Also, they're associated with everything from good luck and happiness to prosperity and abundance -- so it's not hard to imagine that, beyond the fun factor, these art installations are a welcome addition to the streets of Osaka.
Recycling Christmas trees has usually meant taking them to a central location to be chipped. The resulting mulch is then used in local parks, beautification projects, and the like. However, a new use for old Christmas trees has been found.
Around the country, Christmas trees are recycled for an unlikely purpose: they make for good fish habitat.
From southern California to South Carolina, fish and wildlife agencies have been collecting Christmas trees with plans to use them in lakes and waterways to create protective habitats for small fish.
In South Carolina, Christmas trees will be used in Lake Hartwell. “By recycling used Christmas trees in Hartwell Lake, we provide cover for fish and enhance nursery habitat for juvenile fish,” Jess Fleming, a park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the Anderson Independent Mail. “The trees are also beneficial to aquatic insects, which are essential food for most fish species.”
Kentucky Fish and Wildlife spokesman Jeff Ross said that lakes contain woody habitats that rot away with time, and Christmas trees can help replenish those habitats.
Similar programs exist in Georgia, Montana, and other locations all around the country.
If you live with a greenie, dramatic scenes can play out over the blue recycling bin. Styrofoam can be recycled, right? Hangers for sure. Why are you putting that pizza box in the trash? For the love of Al Gore, won’t anyone think of the cardboard? (And cue silent scream.)
As it turns out, throwing certain items into the recycling that you are utterly convinced can be recycled is actually worse for the environment. Oftentimes, bad items can taint an entire bin, resulting in the whole load going into a landfill. This largely depends on how well a city’s recycling facilities can sort. But it’s enough to throw a person into high anxiety with every trip to the waste bin.
Not to worry. Here’s a quick list of 10 surprising things on the “Do we or don’t we?” list. And always, if you’re in doubt about an item, check Earth911.com for a facility near you that may take your questionable trash bit.
Pizza Boxes: I know, I KNOW. It seems like these cardboard boxes are made for the recycling bins. But pizza boxes are often tainted with food and grease. Many items are recycled using a heat and water process, which is not problem for plastic and glass. But throw some cardboard soaked in oil into the process, and you’ve got a messy muck. Terry Gellenbeck is a solid waste administrative analyst for the City of Phoenix. As he told Earth911, “The oil causes great problems for the quality of the paper, especially the binding of the fibers. It puts in contaminants, so when they do squeeze the water out, it has spots and holes.”
Wet Paper: Paper fibers that have been soaked are shorter. This makes them less valuable to paper recyclers, who won’t collect and mill them.
Plastic Bottle Caps: Plastic bottle caps are considered less valuable on the market, so most recyclers won’t take them. Make sure you separate them from your plastic bottles. Also, you can check Earth911 to find a facility near you that does accept plastic bottle caps.
Juice Boxes: Check to see if your juice box is specially-processed for recycling. If it isn’t, you have to throw it in the trash. The plastic coating on much of the cardboard renders them unsuitable for recycling.
Plastic Bags: When recycling bins are sorted manually, workers cannot open plastic bags to see what is inside. It isn’t cost-effective and could be dangerous. So they get trashed. (Note: don’t put your plastic bottles and more in plastic bags.) You can often take your plastic bags back to the store for recycling “” and consult Earth 911 again for places that will take them.
Styrofoam: Another one that kills me, because how many times do we get handed Styrofoam containers we don’t want? But Styrofoam is a petroleum product and, more importantly, highly flammable. It’s considered a danger to most recycling centers. Again, Earth 911 may provide locations that will take it from you.
Wire Hangers: Most recycling centers are not set up to handle wire. However, experts agree that your local dry cleaner may take them. Often, they reuse them or send them to a scrap metal dealer. Sure, they get the cash, but you get the knowledge you’re not sending wire hangers into the great abyss.
Paper Napkins or Towels: Again, food contamination often takes these paper products out of the running. Try to use wash clothes or handkerchiefs instead.
Ceramics: You would think that your old coffee mug would find a home in your recycling bin. Alas, they are not accepted at most recycling centers. Consider giving them a second life with a houseplant or in your garden.
Heavily-Dyed Paper: When paper is recycled, it is heat-treated. So if something is heavily dyed, it has the same outcome as a blue sock or red t-shirt thrown in with your whites in the washing machine. Consequently, a lot of paper mills won’t take the results. (Pastels are okay.) Life can still be colorful, just a bit toned down!
How far would you go to reduce your eco-guilt? You know, that feeling that racks a person when he/she realises the amount of damage he/she has inflicted on environment? Anupam Majumdar, a successful apparel designer used to drive luxury cars; wore expensive, designer clothes; owned gadgets galore; and, enjoyed a life of extravagance and excess; but, gave it all up to reduce his carbon footprint. He is a man whose goals and aspirations have changed.
Majumdar sold his two gas-guzzling cars and purchased a fuel-efficient car,the Maruti 800; recycled his expensive clothes and switched to clothes that were discarded by others; gave away his cellphones and other gadgets - all to embrace a new lifestyle of austerity. He even quit his high-paying job to begin his own business of recycling fabrics - usually khadi. Khadi is a traditional home-spun material usually made from organic cotton made popular by Mahatma Ghandi.
The 42-year-old Majumdar became the opposite of the well-known American dream. Instead of going from rags to riches, he went from riches to rags - literally.
“I realised how my lifestyle was harming environment; so, I changed it completely. I no longer buy things I don’t need. I make the best out of what is available,” he says.
Majumdar used to enjoy wearing expensive clothes; but, today, he wears his brother-in-law’s hand-me-downs. He refuses to buy new shoes wearing only old, repaired pairs. “My brother-in-law, who lives in Mumbai, buys new clothes every three to four months. When I came to know about this, I asked him to send me all his old clothes,” he says.
Majumdar’s company, Genesis Designs makes outfits from discarded bits of fabric. Photo courtesy: Ahmedabad Mirror.
Majumdar feels that too many throw out clothing that is still totally acceptable for no apparent reason. “One just gets bored, so he/she discards them,” he theorizes. “I keep some of the garments my brother-in-law sends me and distribute the rest among my relatives in Vallabhipur, Bhavnagar. I have realised that what goes out of fashion in Mumbai is pretty much in style Vallabhipur.”
How did his wife accept this sudden change in lifestyle? It did not upset his wife, Rupal, in any way. In fact, she welcomed the change. “I was always against the ostentatious way of living. I am glad he gave it up,” she says.
Fueled by his desire to ease his carbon footprint, he has started his own company called Genesis Designs. His company designs and promotes garments made from recycled fabrics. He collects discarded bits of fabric, such as khadi, from the larger fabric companies using them to design capris, wraparounds and kurtis (tunic/tops) for the aam junta (the masses). This is a great way to prevent waste cloth material from ending up in a dump yard.
“Khadi has become too elitist. It’s time to take it to the common people,” states Majumdar. “The rich can afford to get their clothes styled by designers, who have best tailors at their service. I want to cater to the aam aadmi (common person).”
Majumdar manages to make use of even randomly cut pieces of cloth and rejected khadi bales. A khadi weaver will throw away a bale if he fails to get colour consistency. “If the weave is defective, we run perpendicular prominent bands through texturing or embroidery. This is done to ensure the finished outfit looks beautiful,” he says.
Majumdar believes in sharing his expertise to make a difference. Currently, he is working with the Madhya Pradesh government and is trying to come up with ways to make good use of waste generated by artisans.
“Some day, I will set up a store where everything, from a simple pair of tongs to the most complicated machine, will be repaired. I feel we need a campaign to discourage the practice of use and throw. It’s not part of the Indian culture. People must realise the benefits of recycling and reuse,” he says.
We produce a lot of waste. In 2008 alone, Americans generated 250 million tons of trash, and though about a third of that was recycled, a lot went into landfills or was incinerated. Our culture is centered around disposability, and only we have the power to change that.
Take stock of the disposable, overly-packaged, and single-use products that you use, and then look for reusable alternatives. Not sure where to start? Here are more than two dozen items that many people use . . . and can easily live without.
25 Wasteful Things You Can Live Without:
Tin foil — Use an oven-safe pot or dish with a lid. Plastic wrap — Instead, use a container with a lid. Disposable cleaning cloths, dusters, etc. — Use a microfiber cloth that can be washed. Paper towels — Use a tea towel, instead. Disposable pens — Buy a good pen that only needs the ink well or refill changed.
Plastic cutlery — Use the metal stuff. Paper plates — Washing dishes may be an effort, but it’s worth it. Paper or plastic single-use grocery bags — Get a few reusable bags. Packaged fruits and vegetables — Produce does not need to be packaged. Individually wrapped snacks — Snacks travel better anyway in a hard container.
Disposable razors — Invest in a razor that only needs the blades changed. Juice boxes — Put juice in a reusable container (not plastic). Electric pencil sharpeners — Use the hand-crank version of days gone by. Disposable diapers — Cloth diapers aren’t that much more difficult to use. Disposable cloths — Fabric cloths can be washed regularly to avoid bacterial or viral build-up.
Plastic cups — Stick to reusable cups. Bottled water — Install a water filter on your tap or pick up a water jug with a filter. Non-rechargeable batteries — Make the investment for rechargeable batteries and you’ll save money in the long run. Electric can openers — Use a little muscle. Single-serving pudding or yogurt cups — Buy a large container of yogurt or make your own pudding, and send it in a reusable container.
Antibacterial wipes — If you must, use a gel hand sanitizer. Disposable table cloths — Spills are a reality of life; just clean them up as they happen. Facial tissues — Unless you have a bad cold, a handkerchief will work just fine. Paper billing — Switch to e-billing for your bank statement, credit card bill, utility bill, etc. Plasticized sticky notes — Use the original paper sticky notes; they can be recycled when you’re done with them.
I'm fortunate to have several passions in my life. I am absolutely an eco-nut. I am always trying to find new ways to reduce, reuse, recycle. We, as a species, have done more harm to this planet in the short time we have been here, than any other catastrophe or happening ever has. It's up to us to fix it.
I care about the environment whether it is as small as a single cell or as large as the universe.
I adore creativity and think we can all do more with much less. This earth has enough resources for us all to live comfortably if we all learn to share. Wasn't that a lesson we were supposed to learn in kindergarten?
I also love the bizarre, unusual, the weird and the strange. Be prepared for the odd "different" blog.
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