September 25, 2008
Fast Food Chains Like McDonald's Recycle-In Canada
I've been on a recycling rant here since our Trans-Canadian Roadtrip and I know-you're probably saying-can't she show us more pictures of crazed bighorn sheep and clearcut forests, enough pictures of recycle bins already!
I swear, this is my last one... for a while. After all, I just don't see enough recycling opportunities in the United States to take more pictures!
I always smile when I see a recycle bin in a new place-whether it's in a school or an airport or a national park or a highway rest stop.
It's pretty safe to say, I smiled all the way across Canada.
My husband is constantly having to listen to my "great green ideas". Like how we should require or provide adequate incentives to gas stations and big-box stores to provide recycling to their clients and visitors.
My personal feeling is that local communities, many of which have taken the step to require citizens to recycle should also mandate recycling in the business community. For example, why don't we have more local ordinances that make places of business over a certain square footage provide recycling bins (they are already often required to have trashcans)? This way, malls, airports, bus/train stations, and other places that often sell bottled drinks and paper stubs would be forced to recycle and keep this stuff out of landfills. It goes without saying that public and government buildings, like libraries and town halls, should do the same.
So imagine my surprise and delight this summer when I found that most of my great recycling ideas were already in action-IN CANADA.
Even fast food chains like McDonald's and hotel chains like Sheraton have recycling facilities in Canada.
When are we likely to see these same companies providing recycling in the US?
When local community governments, states and the federal government put laws in place to make them-just as they have for citizens.
Posted by sorsha at 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2008
Beds, Baths & Bottle Bins: When Will US Hotels Start Recycling?
In case you hadn't figured this out yet... we travel a lot. And regardless of whether we're backpacking or roadtripping or on safari, we try to live by the mantra: Pack Out Your Trash.
About two years ago, we spent two weeks on Maui, Hawaii. We were there for a wedding of a friend and we had been there before. We had a plan to keep costs down without messing with the relaxation aspects of our trip.
When we first arrived, we stopped at the grocery store and got some basic food supplies, including several boxes of bottled/canned drinks. We often travel this way, keeping the incidental costs down so we can splurge on others-for example, buy a pack of soda ($2.99 for six) instead of ordering one at the swim-up bar ($6 each). This allows us to spend our money on a really nice dinner instead, like going to Mama's Fish House.
So we arrived at our swanky hotel on the Kaanapali strip and hauled our stuff up to a beautiful room with an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean off Black Rock. The hotel complex, designed to suck your wallet dry every time you get hungry or thirsty, did not have recycling facilities anywhere onsite for guests.
We asked. Not even behind the scenes. We sent a letter to the hotel management suggesting they install recycle bins near the ice machines (unobtrusive but available, right next to the soda machines dispensing bottles and cans), but never received a reply.
So we enjoyed our time on Maui, hiking, snorkeling and going to a beautiful wedding on the beach...And we hoarded our recycling like chipmunks hoard nuts for the winter.
Because you're never far from the coast, it's very important to keep trash under control so it doesn't pollute the coastline-the lifeblood of the economy. The Hawaiian economy relies heavily on its environment. Tourism, fishing, and farming make up a substantial part how locals make a living. It rains all the time and runoff spills straight into the ocean.
A bunch of small islands, Hawaii has specialized waste management needs and instead of landfills, most towns have transfer stations. A lot of the waste is shipped back to the mainland.
Recycling is a big deal for locals. However, the importance is not reflected anywhere for the tourists. Hotels seem to think that part of the definition of luxury is excess, not troubling their guests with such trivialities as recycling.
Except that it was a concern to us NOT having recycling.
The hotels were not devoid of "green" features. A little card informing us about the shortage of fresh water on the Islands suggested we only have our towels and sheets washed when necessary. We were happy to oblige. But we wanted to keep our various and sundry granola bar boxes, paper, bottles and cans out of the trash.
On our last day, with a bag full of recycling, we were forced to take desperate measures. On the way to the airport, we stopped our rental car by the transfer station and asked to be allowed to recycle. We got a few funny looks, but they let us in without any fee or permit. The facility attendant thanked us for "doing the right thing".
If only doing the "right" thing was more convenient, a lot more people would participate. People come to Hawaii to swim in the warm waters and they won't do so if it's polluted. Instead of cleaning up after tourists, why not allow them the ability to keep their own impact minimal for future visitors and the locals who live there.
Leave no trace applies not just to hikers and backpackers. It always applies!
This past summer, we drove across Canada on a roadtrip. We stayed in the same hotel chain and low and behold: every single hotel room we stayed at in Canada had a recycle bin. As we were roadtripping in a tiny convertible, we were ecstatic to have readily available recycling-at rest stops and at hotels, where we knew for sure that our recyclable waste was not going straight to a landfill.
My friend, fresh back from Hawaii, with a killer tan reports: Still no readily available recycling in the Islands.
Posted by sorsha at 8:26 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 11, 2008
Granite State Greenery: AMC Huts Showcase Green Tech
Hello, all!
Just back from a hike through some of the AMC huts along the Appalachian Trail. We headed up the Bridal Path Trail up to Greenleaf hut and then on up a total of 3600 feet to Mount Lafayette (5,260ft) and across the Garfield Ridge Trail to Galehead hut, passing the summit of Mt. Garfield (4,500 ft) along the way.
Had a great time, some serious weather though, like fog, hurricane force winds (80+mph), torrential rain, thunder, lightning and a snow advisory.
The Garfield Ridge Trail was substantially more difficult than I remembered, especially around Mt. Garfield, where it turns from a trail to a rock climbing expedition. It made Agony Ridge below Greenleaf feel like a cakewalk.The weather thankfully cleared for a bit along the way and we had some fantastic views.
We made it to Galehead a bit after dark. The Galehead crew gave us a tour of all the green tech at the hut—composting toilets, kitchen compost, wind power, solar, on-demand hot water for the kitchen, etc.
You can find more pictures of our trip on FLICKR: Greenleaf to Galehead and I'm going to try to do a post with more details on how the huts of the White Mountains make little choices that make big differences to keep their impact on the environment low.
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February 29, 2008
From Sea To Savannah: Plastics Are Perilously Pervasive
When I drink soda from cans, I always cut up those plastic rings that come with them. I have seen too many pictures of shorebirds and sea turtles and baby seals strangled by little convenient plastic nooses.
When plastic bag naysayers give examples of how plastic messes with the ecosystem, it often give marine ecosystem examples, but land creatures are also very vulnerable to poison by plastic. Sure, the marine mammals have an added problem of often not being able to see the bags in the water, but really, nothing is safe, not even the largest predators on the African savannah - the lions.
My husband and I went to Kenya on our honeymoon, we did not go on a tour but planned it ourselves so we would have the freedom to do what we liked. We went during the season of the Great Wildebeest Migration, wanting to see this amazing sight of 2.5 million wildebeests trying to cross the Mara River on the Serengeti. Some of them would get munched by crocs, others would drown, and a vast majority would climb up the steep river bank on the other side and graze on the green grasses of the Mara. An awesome spectacle, to be sure. But a natural one.
Certainly we were upset to see that even here in one of the last wild places on earth, the insidious first world garbage known as the plastic bag has found its way into the wild.
We drove around in the vast Mara reserve with our local Maasai guide, watching wildlife and meeting very nice people. One morning, we were stalking a leopard. Now, in these game parks, it's quite common for an animal sighting to quickly become overrun with sightseers. The tour guides radio to each other, and everyone descends upon a good sighting, effectively ruining it and potentially upsetting the wildlife.
We found the leopard about the same time as one of the major TV networks Big Cats vehicle showed up. We decided to leave the hubub behind, but check out two nearby lions. They were a young male and a young female and as we watched, a plastic bag (likely from someone's lunch) blew in front of these two lions.
Now, all the other photographers around stopped taking pictures. The plastic bag had ruined their perfectly good wildlife portrait. Now, you cannot blame people for not trying to take the plastic bag away from these lions. They were wild, and not babies. And by the speed at which the lioness caught this bag was actually really astounding. These young lions had been acting like kids, playing until it blew by, distracting them and triggering their hunting instincts.
So I took these pictures of the two wild young lions - a lion and a lioness - playing with this deadly toy - a plastic bag. Perhaps you've played with a kitten before and you know how cute it can be to harass them with simple objects, but you always take the bag away so it won't suffucate or eat it, right? Not an option here.
There has been a lot of news this week about plastic bag bans, especially in Europe. I'm flattered to say that one of these pictures of the lions has made it into some of the major papers lately, and I'm proud to help improve the public's awareness on how hurtful plastic bag can be to the environment. You can read more about plastic bag bans around the world here.
Interested in doing your part? Consider switching to canvas totebags, like one of ours, or make your own!
Posted by sorsha at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 19, 2007
Focus On Flushing: World Toilet Day
You're going to tell me this is TMI (Too Much Information) but I am tickled by this little tidbit so I am going to share. Your average toilet is going to use several gallons of water each time you flush. Even the low-flow models of late still use about 2 gallons each time you pull the lever. Now for the TMI - I have a pregnant friend (who shall remain anonymous) who has been peeing so frequently of late, she has switched to flushing once every couple trips (in the private of her own home, when no one else is home) to save water. I think that's awesome.
Monday November 19 is World Toilet Day. And no, this is not a joke. Even National Geographic is covering the World Toilet Summit in New Delhi, India this year.
The number of people living in the world without basic sanitation is unbelievable. According to the WTO (not the World Trade Organization but the World Toilet Organization), only about 14% of the world's sewage is treated, the rest is discharged directly into the environment. According to a UN report from about a year ago, about about 40% of the world population lacks basic sanitation, putting them and everyone else at risk of disease, not to mention it has a profound impact on the environment - especially the need for clean, safe drinking water.
Perhaps these numbers don't surprise you. When you think about the Third World, you think of people living in slums, in huts? Well, much of the third world does live in primitive housing.When there are toilets, they are shared by many, many people and you're often safer going elsewhere. For example, I challenge you to find a usable public toilet anywhere outside of tourist facilities in Kenya - especially outside of the major cities. Frankly, much of the time, you may have to squat behind your vehicle while your mates watch for lions. Wouldn't want to be caught with your pants down.
Even here in the US, where we've got numerous toilets in the average household (I've got three), we've still got problems. The water we flush here in the US is generally filtered by sewage treatment facilities. We filter certain stuff out, but we do not filter out everything - treatment generally produces two results: filtered liquid and sludge.The filtration requirements change often and vary by location. Not everything can be filtered for but eventually the filtered liquod meets a set of standards for being disposed of back into nature. The filtered liquid often goes straight into our environment, pumped directly into our rivers and oceans, and what hasn't been filtered out now has the opportunity to affect our environment. In California, for example, California Sea Otters are dying due to a parasite found in flushable cat litter that is reaching the Monterey Bay. Elsewhere, fish populations are reacting to the hormones being flushed by women taking birth control pills.
Last week, the news - all the way up to NPR - was talking about the public interest story about the two young boys who invented "wedgie-proof" underwear, featured on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." This week at the World Toilet Expo, various sanitation-related technologies are being demo'd. I think we should take the toilet war to the people who will give it the thought it deserves: our toilet-humor loving kids. If every school had an invention convention for toilet tech, imagine what we'd come up with. So many ideas, like the paper toilet seat cover, are so simple but effective for improving sanitation.
Posted by sorsha at 1:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2007
Top Ten Ways A Pirate Is Greener Than Your Average Landlubber
Ahoy! Today, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, matey. So I thought I'd share with ye the Top Ten Ways A Pirate Is Greener Than Your Average Landlubber over a jug o' grog:
(10) Pirates used rain barrels on deck to collect drinking and washing water
(9) Pirates recycled and reused bottles for their rum, passing messages and as weapons in bar brawls. Then they went back for refills.
(8) Pirates spent as little time on land as possible, helping avoid spreading invasive species
(7) Pirates commuted less and bought local. While merchant vessels carried goods far and wide, pirates took what was nearby, supporting local towns and pubs.
(6) Pirates repaired things instead of buying new versions. They mended sails and damaged ships instead of upgrading immediately. When they did upgrade, they generally "bought" used.
(5) Pirates were kinder to animals (parrots, monkeys) than they were to people.
(4) Pirates kept it simple, from what they wore to how they navigated. No need to launch expensive satellites into space for GPS units to work when the stars are right above your head.
(3) Pirates went paperless. Their codes were generally not written down, because they might be incriminating. Most of their contracts were verbal.
(2) Pirates used wind power to sail the seas
(1) Pirates rarely bathed - that's water conservation for ye.
Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Posted by sorsha at 4:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 15, 2007
Planet News: Pesky Plastics Prove Problematic
She could've choked, but would you take it away from her?
When I first visited South Africa, my SA friends joked to me that the National Flower of South Africa was not the King Protea, but the plastic bag. There were so many plastic shopping bags on the side of the road that despite the huge class differences, the government decided to give the bags a value - you are charged at the register for any bag you need. The bag tax worked and now the roadsides are less cluttered with litter.
Other countries, especially within the European Union such as Ireland have had similar successes. Yet in the United States, such taxes are highly controversial and slow to become realized. So far, only San Francisco has acted, but as of next month, all of California's large supermarkets will be required to take back and recycle plastic bags, which is a good step forward.
Yet these seemingly simple steps toward progress all happen at maddeningly slow rates. On the other hand, I know people who cut the tops off of yogurt containers to grow their seedlings. While I applaud them for their dedication to the REUSE principle, it's not something I can see myself doing in the short term as I routinely knock over the orchid plant sitting on the window sill.
Still, I do not understand why consumer plastics nowadays aren't made up entirely of old plastics melted down and reused. It's not that hard to melt plastics, from what I understand. It's easier than dealing with metal, isn't it? GI Joe figures are maleable, so why aren't we seeing more recycled plastics, especially in packaging. What's the deal here?
I see some stuff, like composite decking, may be considerably greener than their all-wood alternatives.
The Water Bottle
I drink a lot of water, compared to the average person. I always have. By high school, I had Nalgene bottles as part of my daily wardrobe. I have a variety of colors and sizes and logos, sipping attachments and such. My father joked about how I should buy stock in the Nalgene water bottles, and I needed my own support group, something like alt.addiction.waterbottles. I think I've had to chuck one bottle since 1992, because I cracked it.
There's been a lot of talk recently about the single serving water bottle, those sinister translucent personal drinking vessels filling our landfills at a rate of 30 billion a year in the United States alone. And frankly, the rest of the world - especially the third world - often relies on bottled water for safely reasons, so we're certainly not the only one using them.
Recently, my father sent me a New York Times article on the water bottle, titled The Unintended Consequences of Hyperhydration.
Eleven states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont — give this valueless stuff a value, however. Typically we pay a nickel when purchasing a container and get the nickel back if we return the container for recycling. It’s a deposit, a contract binding us to our garbage. Though these days, that nickel may elicit only the faintest twinge of regret as we toss the empty into the trash and rejoin our busy lives.
...
Bottle bills are still surprisingly good at inspiring recycling and reducing litter. But, though they are idiosyncratic in every state, the vast majority of the laws share one colossal, unanticipated flaw: they place a deposit on beer and carbonated beverages only. The bottle bill’s scope, and to some extent the very vision of a more waste-conscious world that first motivated it, has been swiftly trivialized by the ubiquity of bottled water. This year, Americans will drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water. Oregonians will throw out about 170 million empty ones. Those same bottles, filled with something fizzy, would carry nickel deposits.
Reading this article strangely inspired me to poetry. Thankfully (for you and me), this doesn't happen very often. I decided to write a haiku poem about the water bottle, so here goes.
My Haiku To The Water Bottle:
Thirty-Some Billion
Annual Plastic Menace
Refill And Drink Up
Don't worry. I won't give up my day job, but you should consider how your family or company uses bottled water. If you have the drinking volume, switch to water coolers, and if not, for goodness sake, recycle those bottles anyway.
I remember when I was in Kenya, if you wanted to buy a Coke, you had several pricing choices for the same bottle, depending on whether you drank it there or took it with you. The price of the bottle itself is not insubstantial compared to the liquid itself. Also, consider where the water is coming from, and buy as local as possible. Water weighs a lot, and if your water is coming from across the country, or the world, then the environmental impact of shipping it to you is also not small.
Kitchen Products
One of the best things you can do here is start using cloth shopping bags. Not only will you reduce the number of plastic bags living in your pantry, but almost every shop these days gives a discount for bringing them in.
Disposable plastic cups and plates have no place in my home, and never have. My mother gave me some of her washable patioware when I went off to college - plastic plates that could be washed and reused for years. These inexpensive plates cost little more than a package or two of paper plates, so they pay for themselves quickly enough. If your mom gives them to you, then they're free.
If you have to use disposables, I've seen some recycled materials ones floating around in the market lately, like Preserve Plateware made from recycled plastic yogurt cups (also dishwasher safe so you can reuse them for a while).
Food Prep
My grandmother still washes out ziplock bags and reuses them, but frankly, I'm not that hardcore. I am going to try to put those old ziplocks to use though - in the form of putting yucky garbage waste in them so I can go longer without taking out the trash.
That said, I don't seem to chuck many ziplocks. Mostly we use them for permanent purposes, like our baggie of toiletries for airplane travel, and keeping the pieces of our boardgames in order. If I'm going to keep something in the fridge, I generally put it in a dishwasher-safe Rubbermaid container. The only time I seem to use plastic wrap is when I'm cooking things in advance for a party or something.
There are choices now for baggies, plastic wrap, recycled aluminum foil, and unbleached wax paper and parchment paper. Check out the kitchen section at Greenfeet for some other kitchen options.
Trash and Pet Waste
Garbage bags are an interesting topic though, as companies like Glad make their landfill-bound trash bags not biodegradable on purpose so the landfill "stays intact". I am not sure how this really works. If it biodegrades after 5 years or something, isn't that long enough for the landfill? I will need to look into this more. It certainly hasn't stopped companies like BioBag from coming out with biodegradable kitchen bags and food storage containers. They also make Biodegradable Doggie Doo Bags. Some cities like San Francisco are even using pet waste as fuel.
Other Health Products
Consider replacing disposable plastics with more permanent options, and if certain parts of a product need replacement - like razor blades, consider a product that only replaces that part instead of the whole unit.
Recycline's Preserve Product Line: Specializes in recycled plastic products including toothbrushes, razors, even flavored toothpicks. There are also items like toothbrushes made from other renewable materials, like the Source Toothbrush.
Posted by sorsha at 2:17 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 30, 2007
A Personal Problem With Paper
Let's start this out with a bad haiku about recycling paper products, shall we?
Flattened Tree Remains
Stacked Precariously High
Our Landfills Abound
Nowadays recycled paper products can be anything from specialty papers like elephant poop stationary to recycled material copy and printer paper that is virtually impossible to tell from the standard kind.
Recycled paper products don't just limit the number of trees felled for the care and feeding of your pet printer. Making paper from existing paper means less processing of the tree pulp is needed, and let me tell you, paper processing is a messy business. Also, few papers are 100% recycled materials, because virgin pulp is often needed to keep the paper fibers strong enough to bond.
Truthfully, the best thing you can do here is reduce the total amount of paper you use in the first place. When paper is required, here are some options. Also, I've made some I made ListMania! Lists on Amazon.com for Green Living household paper products, baby & nursery supplies and feminine products.
Kitchen Paper Products
When I looked at what paper products we used in our kitchen, I admit there is not much we can improve upon - but there is always something.
I'm lucky. Paper plates, cups and napkins and plastic utensils never featured in our home while I was growing up. For as long as I can remember, my mother has had washable patioware - plastic plates that could be washed and reused for years. These inexpensive plates cost little more than a package or two of paper plates, so they pay for themselves quickly.
Cloth napkins have always been the norm for us as well. We have many, many different patterns and use them for napkins, to clean up spills, and various other things. They only cost a dollar or two to make yourself, or you can buy them. I'm still surprised when people are afraid to get them dirty. Most are darker, brightly colored patterns and I have yet to have a stain that didn't disappear after a washing.
If you have to use disposables, I've seen some recycled materials ones floating around in the market lately, like Preserve Plateware made from recycled plastic yogurt cups (also dishwasher safe so you can reuse them for a while), or Seventh Generation recycled-material paper plates.
The one paper product we do use in the kitchen is the paper towel and even those are only used as a last resort after the cloth kitchen towels. Usually I buy these paper towels at Costco, but they don't have unbleached paper towels. I just found out that Amazon grocery has Seventh Generation paper towels for substantially less than Costco's Bounty bulk packs. They also have specialty products for babies and women.
You should also remember to limit the cardboard packaging you go through. Buy in bulk and try to avoid single serving varieties of packaging, instead favoring the larger versions.
Bathroom Paper Products
Bathroom paper products are a (forgive the pun) touchy subject. As a person with allergies, I have tried the cheaper brands of facial tissue only to give myself a red nose. Other people swear by certain TP brands. The trick here, I think, is to experiment. Buy a single roll of a new, greener brand when you can, and give it a try. Just like any consumer product, you may need to shop around. Another idea is to use it only in a less frequently used space, like a guest room, where people are unlikely to complain from repetitive usage problems, if you know what I mean.
I am pretty brand loyal to Kleenex, despite the fact that they use only new fibers for "superior softness", but at least the boxes are made from recycled materials. I also hope to see them using fewer chemicals in their manufactoring process on some of their lines. I really don't care what color my tissues are, provided they work.
When we were kids, we had Dixie cups in the bathroom with our favorite cartoon characters. We went through at least a couple a day (2 kids, several drinks and brushings). That adds up fast! Swapping out your Mickey Mouse paper cups for a set of Mickey Mouse dishwasher safe plastic cups will save not only the paper used in the cups, but the packaging, and your time shopping. Just make sure they're dishwasher safe, so you can throw them in once in a while. This is another case of the cups paying for themselves quickly. If you want to have the cups around for guests and such, make sure your kids know to take one cup a day, and to use it throughout the day.
In addition to Seventh Generation, Whole Foods and other more mainstream brands are starting to carry bathroom paper products with at least some portion of recycled materials.
Other Health Products
It's pretty safe to say that anything made of paper or cotton is going to have a green alternative product choice nowadays. Anything fibrous and white is often bleached and treated. Products like cotton balls, swabs, diapers and feminine products all have green options. Organic Essentials is a personal care brand with a green mission.
Office Supplies
It's a sad fact that most office workers will waste more at work than they do at home because they're not paying for it. But in truth, we all pay for it, on a larger scale - landfills are community property, after all. Once it gets there, we all own it.
Firstly, one of the best things you can do in terms of office supplies is to make some corporate policies on consumption.
Some companies do this by giving people and departments codes to the copy machine and such. Others have multiple printers - a final draft one with slick marketing paper, and a draft printer which uses more eco-friendly paper products and inks for internal use that don't have to last forever, where the printers default to printing both sides. Putting a recycle bin near the printer also helps.
You can also provide methods for people to store and share digital documents instead of printing them to read them. In a personal office, signing up for online bill pay will reduce the paper statements you get in the mail, and you can store them on your hard drive instead.
Recycled paper mailing supplies and printing papers are pretty readily available these days, and seem to look and act just like their bleached newly-treed equivalents.
Also remember that your standard office also needs to consider kitchen and bath products, just like a household does. Nowadays there are even green cleaning agencies around.
Posted by sorsha at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2007
Green Gear & Recyclables Roundup
I am way behind in my postings and I'm going to apologize now and then try to catch up. I never seem to have enough time, and right now life and work are so busy, it's not even funny. I thought I'd start with a couple of blurbs about products and services I've been using lately.
Stinky Stationary
For my birthday, a friend gave me a recycled paper journal made entirely from elephant excrement, by the The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company. The first thing I did when I opened it up was sniffed it and no, it really doesn't smell. The paper itself is smooth enough for a ballpoint pen but a little rough, which is to be expected in an artsy handmade paper journal. I keep the journal in my purse for jotting down blog ideas I won't have time to write about.
Toothsome Treats
A few weeks ago, my husband and I were going away for the weekend and I realized we had forgotten our toothbrush. As I was at Whole Foods buying the best chocolate bar on Earth (Vermont's Lake Champlain Hazelnut Five Star Bar), I decided to check out their personal care stuff. All of their toothbrushes are made with recycled handles and have replacable brush areas. I snagged Radius's Source Toothbrush with a handle made entirely of renewable plant fibers. Not only is it pretty, it has a very nice large brush surface with wide, radiating bristles. It comes with a replacement brush head. Also, the handle can be reversed for lefties.
Recyclable Disposables
All this running around has made caffeine more necessary. I happened to be in Starbucks the other day and was glad to see so many of their paper products, including their baked goods sleeves, using recycled paper. I've been becoming more and more frustrated with public places that are not providing recycling as an option for their customers.
Cleaner Air...ports
And speaking of recycling. I was very pleased to see that the San Jose International Airport in the Bay Area is now offering recycling bins with all their trash bins. Very few airports do this, but it makes a huge difference since most airports sell a lot of bottles, cans and newspapers. I think all public buildings, especially government ones, should have manditory recycle bins. I also think that counties should pass legislation requiring retail business locations of a certain size (think Wal-Mart, grocery stores, airports, amusement parks, rest stops and malls) to have recycling facilities available as part of their planning.
I had to buy a cross-country plane ticket the other day and I was shopping around for the best fares. I hit upon one that was half the price of all the rest and decided to purchase it through Expedia. When I was going through the checkout process, I was offered an opportunity to purchase a TerraPass, which basically funds clean energy projects enough to offset your flight's carbon emissions. As I was doing two cross country flights, I purchased two $16 passes, which funded 5,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. You also get cool green luggage tags, which just arrived in the mail.
Green Car Rentals
Lastly, when I went to rent a car, I found that a new class of vehicles is available - The Green Cars. In the areas I was visiting, these cars were generally just fuel efficient (28 MPG+) cars like the Ford Fusion, but I know that in places like California, there are more green rental car options. Still, it's a start.
Posted by sorsha at 2:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 5, 2006
Recycle Your Mobile Phone: The Gorillas Will Thank You
Here we have yet another example of how something so seemingly trivial as buying a new cell phone can have long-reaching effects on an endangered species. By perpetuating the demand for a certain metallic ore used in your phone, you are negatively impacting the dwindling gorilla populations of the DRC (Congo).
You might have noticed lately that lots of non-profit organizations are doing cell phone recycling drives. Working phones are often given to displaced families, people who live in shelters, and other good causes. But its just as important to recycle your non-functional phones.
Here's why:
Cell phones contain all sorts of hazardous materials like lead and arsenic - materials that should not be put into landfills or get into our ground water. Just like your used motor oil, cell phones require special recycling.
One important mineral used by mobile phones is called Columbite-tantalite (coltan). Coltan is found only in central Africa in streams that run where the endangered lowland gorilla lives. It is mined by hand, often illegally in the protected wildlife refuges.
Fueled by the worldwide cell phone boom, Congo's out-of-control coltan mining business has in recent years led to a dramatic reduction of animal habitat and the rampant slaughter of great apes for the illegal bush-meat trade.
"Most people don't know that there's a connection between this metal in their cell phones and the well-being of wildlife in the area where it's mined," said Karen Killmar, the associate curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo.
"Recycling old cell phones is a way for people to do something very simple that could reduce the need for additional coltan … and help protect the gorillas," she said.
...
The San Diego Zoo is among 46 zoos that have joined the recycling program.
More At: National Geographic: Phone Recycling Help African Gorillas?
The miners working along these streams do not just destroy the native habitat of the gorilla, they also may come in contact with the animals themselves. The bushmeat trade of the DRC is a very serious threat to the species. The temptation of poaching a gorilla for food or protit is often too great when ones family is starving and the punishment lax.
Find out more about San Diego Zoo's phone recycling program at their website.
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