Green Planet

Neil Seldman - Why shop local?

2010-12-31T08:31:00.001-08:00

why shop local?

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

1. Be Some Place, Not Any Place

By choosing to support locally owned businesses, you help maintain Austin’s diversity and distinctive flavor. Big Box and chain stores are the same everywhere – let’s keep Austin “Austin” for those who live here and those still on their way here.

2. Feel Right in Your Neighborhood

Local businesses build strong neighborhoods in a grass roots fashion -by sustaining communities, linking neighbors, contributing more to local causes, hiring local residents for most if not all of its positions, and buying from other local sources and services.

3. Our Town when it comes to Local Decision Making

Local ownership means that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community, who feel the impacts of those decisions and who are ready to step up as community leaders.

4. What’s Spent Locally Stays Local

Your dollars spent in locally-owned businesses have three times the impact on your community as dollars spent at national chains. When shopping locally, you simultaneously create jobs, fund more city services through sales tax, invest in neighborhood improvement and promote community development.

5. Jobs and Wages

Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors, provide better wages and benefits than chains do with greater job security.

6. Entrepreneurship Happens on Main Street

Entrepreneurs fuel America’s economic innovation and prosperity. Entrepreneurship serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage paying jobs and into the middle class.

7. Shopping Locally Saves Local Tax Dollars

Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.

8. Sustainability Makes you Happy

Localism reduces sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss and water pollution. Independently owned businesses more often source local products such as farm produce and local services such as legal, accounting, advertising.

9. Competition Makes Cents

A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.

10. Make Mine Local for Product Diversity

A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

Adapted and Reprinted from The Institute for Local Self-Reliance

--
Neil Seldman
President
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
2001 S Street NW, Suite 570
Washington, DC 20009
202 898 1610 X 210
nseldman@ilsr.org

TerraCycle rocks, and wraps, and more

2010-12-30T11:44:00.001-08:00

TerraCycle adds Mission Foods to collection program

Mission Foods has partnered with Trenton, New Jersey-based upcycling firm TerraCycle to recover and reuse the steady stream of plastic foods bags and metal lids the tortilla giant produces. Mission packages its tortillas and tostadas in LDPE plastic, a material that typically don't make their way into recycling streams. Under TerraCycle Tortilla and Tostada Bag Brigade program, any individual or organization can collect and return Mission packaging, which will be upcycled by TerraCycle into new items like tortilla warmers, bags and accessories. The program is being conducted in concert with Mission's "Today's Mission for a Better Tomorrow" sustainability initiative, and consumers have the opportunity to donate two cents per unit of packaging they turn in to a charity of their choice.

green activity trivia

2010-12-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

today's green stuff, so far.....

1.wearing a second-hand fleece, and keeping cozy with bamboo socks

2. going to take down our second-hand artificial Xmas tree, and then re-donate it

3. tangerine peels are being composted

4. recycling cart additions, so far: empty cat food cans, mail, and newspaper

5. our 20 gallon trash can was picked up this morning, but it wasn't full

6. I think all of our Xmas lights are now LED

Miscellaneous after Christmas green activities

2010-12-26T20:52:00.000-08:00

Miranda's Animal Rescue Thrift Store had clothing on sale today for $.25. Mike found a denim shirt, and I found several items for potential resale.

We saw "True Grit" today at the Fortuna Theater. One of the pre-movie notices advertised that they're the only locally owned and operated movie theater. We supported a local business, located in a 1950s building.

After the popcorn, I had an overwhelming urge to keep my napkin, and then added them to the kitchen compost collector later.

a little green shopping on Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T19:13:00.000-08:00

My husband has been wearing socks with holes in them. I went down to the Green Living Center to do a little green Xmas shopping. I bought him a pair of bamboo socks, a pair of hemp socks (local company), and natural shaving soap (local company).

reducing food waste, via Eduardo

2010-12-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

Our cat Eduardo is very conscientious when it comes to food waste. After we dish out the canned cat food, he licks the cans clean so that no food is wasted, and ends up with cat food on his head. Additionally, after the other cats have finished eating the canned food off their plates, Eduardo comes along and licks 'em clean.

The following photos made my want to brag about eduardo:

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/pets-animals/photos/meet-the-top-10-green-dogs-of-the-year/and-the-winner-is-kiko

our first artificial Christmas tree

2010-12-22T22:56:00.000-08:00

We've always bought a live Christmas tree, until this year. Now that I'm laid off, we've made budget cuts here and there. The $5 fake tree from a thrift shop was an attractive option in comparison to $20 or more for a live tree. On the other hand, now that we've put it up, we realized we just don't really like the artificial tree. Next year we'll get a real one from a local Xmas tree farm.

Ok, a little "greenness" of a live tree vs. an artificial tree, IMO:

A live tree offset CO2 before it was cut, contributed to the American economy, and can be composted next year.

Artificial trees have the usual pollution issues from production, some toxicity may exist in the tree's plastic, and it can't be recycled.

On the other hand, both options have environmental and economic issues to consider, and the right answer can vary based on your income and geographical location.

Eric Lombardi on the nexus between recycling & climate change

2008-07-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

What Mr. Lombardi says here is true and inspiring.

CURBSIDE COLLECTIONS IN BOULDER
By Eric Lombardi

I am often asked these days how an aspiring locality can become a ZeroWaste Community. My answer is unequivocal and to the point: The first step and immediate job at hand is to make the single mixed-waste trash can obsolete as quickly as possible. That can begin to happen when people in households and businesses sort their discards (i.e. trash)into three categories: recyclables, compostables and "whatever'sleft." In July, the Boulder City Council will consider the implementation of this three-bin system as other progressive and environmentally-concerned communities such as San Francisco, Toronto and Nova Scotia have done with great success. Like them, we need to understand that our "waste stream" is actually resource rich. Then we will reduce not only the amount of landfilling and associated methane gas, but also reclaim resources to benefit the earth.

How important is "community composting" to our overall environmental and economic goals? A new report called Stop Trashing the Climate presents data and information which shows that rotting food waste and other "biowaste" items in a landfill produce massive amounts of GreenHouse Gas methane (CH4) and that as a result, landfills are the largest source of anthropogenic methane in the world. Our best available technology can't capture even half of that gas at a landfill. According to Rafe Pomerance, the founder of the Climate Policy Center in D.C. (and yes, he is the brother of our esteemed local social analyst Steve Pomerance), "Methane will have an impact equal to carbon dioxide on global warming over the next 20 years."
The new report shows that a Zero Waste Society (where 90 percent of our discards are recovered by 2030 for recycling, reuse or composting) will reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to shutting down 21 percent of the coal-fired power plants in America! A recent study in California showed that there are markets for 83 percent of the resources currently being thrown into landfills. The bottom line, as stated in the Stop Trashing the Climate report, is that pursuing a less wasteful society is one of the fastest, cheapest and most effective strategies for protecting the climate.

We do a very good job as a community in our pursuit of Zero Waste. We do need to accomplish more. Curbside collections of organic resources is essential to decreasing the production of the greenhouse gas methane and to increasing the production of rich soil amendments. The creation of a local community composting industry could become a foundation cornerstone for reviving our local farm soils and moving away from chemical food production.

Once we view our waste as actually being resources, we can untangle ourselves from one aspect of living too large on our earth. We can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save resources (oil, gas, metals,trees, water, etc.) and produce new products from old that benefit us.It is another step to creating a more sustainable lifestyle.

Our community and our elected leaders care about our environment and lifestyle. We are fortunate to be committed trailblazers. Let's takethe next step--design new solutions to the concerns which have been identified, and move forward on community composting. We need a three-bin system that collects recyclables, compostables, and whatever's left. It is the right thing to do.

Eric Lombardi is the Executive Director of Eco-Cycle, and a co-author of the study mentioned in this article.

A Battery of Recycling Options

2008-05-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

If you have alkaline batteries, DON'T throw them away! They can be recycled, and this keeps hazardous materials out of the waste stream.

Think about this factoid: for every ton of products manufactured, 70 tons of waste are typically generated. That's a huge carbon footprint, but it can be offset a little if you take steps to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Try getting charged up with rechargeable batteries. They're cheaper than they used to be, and they work!

Recent stats I heard at a battery workshop: rechargeables can last 52 weeks or longer, depending upon use, while alkalines might last two to four weeks. I bought three sets of rechargeables and a charger over a year ago, and they're still going strong. These batteries are used all the time, via rotation, in my digital camera and mouse at work.

At the battery workshop last week I also found out that Radio Shack takes back batteries, for free, any brand. At Costco recently I just happened to notice a poster about their battery take back program.

Another benefit to RECHARGEABLES is that they can be RECYCLED for FREE via the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation, www.rbrc.org.

You can reduce your battery dependency by using products which don't require them. My solar-powered lantern worked out great during a power outage, and my hand-squeezed flashlight is always ready to use, without batteries.

Anyway, www.earth911.org has good info about batteries also.

"There are many ways to properly dispose of batteries, most of which depends on the type of battery you have. You can also reduce waste with prevention. Starting with prevention creates less or no leftover waste to become potentially hazardous. There are a few easy ways to reduce household battery waste.

Check to see if you already have the batteries on hand before buying more

When suited to the task buy hand operated items that function without batteries

Look for the batteries that have less mercury and heavy metals

Consider rechargeable batteries for some needs, but remember that they also contain heavy metals such as nickel-cadmium.

Battery recycling and reuse, through rechargable batteries and long lasting batteries, can make a positive impact towards our reduction of battery waste and pollution. To get more info on Batteries and their role in keeping the earth clean, visit our Earth 911 Battery Resources page.

Earth Day tips you can use everyday

2008-05-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

10 EASY THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP THE EARTH THIS EARTH DAY, APRIL 22

1. Plant a tree in your yard or start a garden. Plants and trees help clean the air, are visual expressions of nature's beauty, and uplift us. Even something as simple as growing herbs in a garden can provide nourishment and delicious meals for the family.

2. Simply stop using pesticides on your lawn. Pesticides contribute to the pollution of the Earth and poison our water supply, endanger human health, and sicken wildlife. There are many effective, natural alternatives available, or even simpler, allow nature to take over the growing of your lawn, creating food for bees, birds and animals.

3. Support a local, organic farmer or CSA. Some farmers require your active participation, some deliver to urban areas. The food is nutritious and delicious, and uses less of our non-renewable resources.

4. Buy organic. Look for – and ask for - organic produce wherever you buy your groceries, or even better, shop at your local health food store which carries only organic produce. Buying organic reduces pesticide exposure to the land, farmers, harvesters, and your family.

5. Spend time in nature. Taking a walk, having a picnic, or simply sitting outdoors and watching the sky, deepens our connection to the natural world , thereby motivating us to be better stewards of the Earth.

6. Buy energy-saving, compact-fluorescent light bulbs and other energy efficient products. When your next bulb goes out, replace it with a compact fluorescent light bulb. They last 10 times as long, and over their lifetime, use 1/4 the energy of an incandescent bulb, saving you $30-$40 on your electric bill. When replacing major appliances purchase energy efficient ones - look for the government's EnergyStar label.

7. Recycle. The old adage “reduce, reuse, recycle” still works very well today. Many large waste disposal companies have an at-your-curb recycling program. Check your own local disposal company.

8. Shop Green. Be a consumer that uses your dollars to support companies and products that are better for the Earth. By simply clicking to EcoMall.com (http://www.ecomall.com) you will find a directory that features hundreds of companies that offer everything from organic and hemp clothing to non-toxic cleaners and solar energy products.

9. Join or make a donation to any organization that supports the environment. There are numerous worthy organizations that work hard for the Earth and are in need of our support. If the aforementioned tasks seem to require too much effort or time, simply write a check to those who have integrity regarding the Earth and make a meaningful contribution to the Earth’s health.

10. Create good thoughts. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” By creating the awareness that we can heal the Earth - that it is not too late, we combat the paralysis that fear often produces. So if all you can do on this Earth Day is think one good thought about the Earth, you will have contributed to a changing of the fear-based mentality.

from www.EcoMall.com

Rain gardens help to reduce stormwater pollution

2008-05-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

How To Tuesday: Build a Rain Garden
Posted by Jason Pelletier, Low Impact Living

Every time it rains, water runs off of your house, yard and paving. That water will eventually end up in rivers, lakes or oceans, and on its journey it can pick up a variety of pollutants ranging from fertilizer-based nutrients to trash to animal waste. What starts as clean rainwater can end up a toxic soup that contaminates our waterways and harms both people and wildlife (you can read more on this topic here).

Rain gardens are a great and beautiful way to reduce this problem. What exactly is a rain garden, you might ask? Well, it’s pretty much the same as a regular garden, with several key differences:

- It is slightly depressed, so that it can fill up with water during a rain storm;
– It contains plants that can deal with being “soaked” every once in awhile;
– It is strategically located to intercept water coming from your property, and
– It is specially designed to drain any stored water over a several day period.

If designed correctly, a rain garden can beautify your yard AND nearly eliminate your contribution to polluted runoff. Here are some simple steps to trying one of your own:

Determine the size of the area from which you’ll intercept runoff. Determine the size of hard-surfaced area (roof, driveway, etc) that will drain to your rain garden. Remember that your roof drains through downspouts, so only count that portion of a roof where the gutters can be conducted to your garden.

Pick a location that is on the downhill side of your property where water is likely to flow into. Make sure it isn’t near foundations or on a hillside, as underground water can cause problems. And, watch out for utilities.

Determine your soil type. The three main categories you should look for are sandy soil, loam, or clayey soil. For more information on how to figure out your soil type, click on this link from HGTV.

Figure out the rain garden size. Any size rain garden will help, but ideally you will size it to hold all runoff from the area you measured above. To do this, simply multiply the area you measured by 20% if you have sandy soil, 30% if you have loam, or 50% if you have soils with lots of clay. Sandy soils will drain fast and thus need less surface area, while clayey soils drain very slowly and will need to store more water.

Create a design. Now the fun part begins! Put your latent landscape design skills to work and sketch out your garden. We find that using a piece of graph paper helps to get the measurements right. This link shows a number of rain garden designs - the plants are specific to the Mid-Atlantic region, but the designs can work anywhere.

Choose plants. Plants native to your region, and especially those that are intended for areas with wetter soils, are perfect for rain gardens. This is because they are already adapted to your climate conditions. We’ve organized some resources that list rain garden plants for different regions here.

Lay out garden. Using your design, stake out your garden and get ready to dig!

Dig the garden. At a minimum, dig your garden so that it is approximately 8” deep in the middle. Mix 2-3” of compost into the remaining soil. If you find that your soils are compacted (generally true if you’re having trouble digging them!), or if you have heavy clay soils, then dig another foot of soil out as well. Discard or move this soil and replace with sand (50%), topsoil (25%) and compost (25%), and put it back in the hole.

Plant. Lay out your plants according to your design, and then plant them.

Mulch. Mulch is the wonder material for any garden, and especially so for rain gardens. It keeps moisture in, weeds out, and your plants nice and cozy. Put 3-4” of mulch on top of your soil, making sure to leave a small circle bare around all of your plants.

Water. Your plants will need water to get established. If it doesn’t rain, water your plants at least twice a week for a month or so. Remember to water deeply so that your plants develop a healthy, deep root system.

Arrange downspouts. Now, you have to make sure water gets from where it falls to your rain garden. Arrange your downspouts so that they flow to your rain garden. If it is far, or to deal with path or driveway runoff, you might want to dig a small trench and fill it with either gravel or a pipe to conduct water into your garden. With some creative landscaping, you can make this small trench appear to be the tiny riverbed that it is!

Enjoy! Your new rain garden should now give you years of beauty and peace of mind knowing that you’re helping your local waterways. With any luck, your garden will turn into a buzzing centerpiece that attracts animals and your neighbors alike!

Ways to Heal Your Home (from Co-Op America)

2008-05-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

from www.coopamerica.org/pubs/caq/articles/Spring2008/HealYourHome.cfm:

Click below to find Co-op America articles on nontoxic living, from finding least-toxic paints and stains to making your own green cleaners to detoxing your entire bedroom.

Bathroom
Bedroom
Home Exterior
Kitchen
Overall Healthy Home

Co-op America's Real Money articles for a healthy home:
The Allergen-Free Bedroom »
Greener Paths for Plastics »
Are Your Candles Toxic? »
Nontoxic Paints and Stains »
Eat Less Meat, Cool the Planet »
Safe, Sustainable Seafood »
Eco-Flooring Options »
Ten Steps to Clean Green »
The Facts About Water Filters »
Toxins in Toys »
Green Hands on Deck »
The Ugly Side of Cosmetics »

Working cats @ Urban Ore in Berkeley

2008-05-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

From: Dan Knapp
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 7:29 PM

I've been running a salvage yard (Urban Ore) with a large outdoor component in a major urban area for twenty six years, in that time growing it from $150,000 peryear gross income to $2.3 million. We've gone from three or four to 38 employees; our annual payroll is about $1.4 million counting benefits and employment taxes. We finance everything entirely from disposal service income and product sales. Our cost to government is zero; in fact they makea profit on us.

There's a lot of habitat around places like ours, so keeping rodents and other unwanted critters under control is truly essential. I have found that cats are by far the best control agent for small-sized varmints. Now I will grant you that with cats come cat feces, so will tell you quite frankly thatI've had lots of experience with their disposal. Both at home and at work, we compost cat feces. We think composting onsite is much better than sending them to landfill, and we've never seen ill effects from living in such close proximity to them. I've grown food crops in the homemade compost for years.

We're nowhere near self-reliant, but I really like the taste of our home-grown tomatoes and berries, and I like the work of gardening a lot.We usually produce a surplus, which we share with others. This year I've got brussell's sprouts growing. No health problems that I know of.

Right now I live with two cats at home and fourteen at work. The fourteen are all feral, which explains why Urban Ore still has so many left when three or four would be enough. All the nonferal ones we've had, maybe another fifteen, have found owners happy to adopt them. But people don't really seem to understand or appreciate the feral ones. I really enjoy feral cats.

A cat herd of fourteen becomes pretty stable, so they kind of keep other cats away. Besides, they're all neutered, so they are of little interest to the strays that are sexually active. They're safer than homeified cats because they don't want to rub up against you or cause you to trip and fall while carrying something heavy. They're healthy, athletic, and beautiful. They don't mind if you're on your feet a lot and never sit down to make a lap for their nap. But our gang of fourteen (11female) has done a great job of ridding the known world of rodents on our 3 acres. Zero rodents in eight years , so far as I can tell, except for a few mice in three offices that are off-limits to cats because they're too full of people with no way for the cats to get out.

Few raccoons either, although Berkeley has thousands that travel around in the storm sewers. The cat herd finds pigeons a bit challenging because the pigeon roosts have to be accessible by, what else?, a catwalk, and some are not. But if there is a catwalk like a building truss, even if it's thirty feet up, they will go there. They're funny, they're great climbers and chasers, they rarely fight, and when it is feeding time they follow me around like puppies when they think I'm finally ready to quit working and go home. But never touch; just look at you until you look at them, at which point they run away.

So I like ferals, and all of ours have been trapped and neutered, thank God. Yard cats get old, and our house is their old folk's home. Several have died here, often after a year or more of dependency on an in-house litterbox. I always use finished and screened compost for litter boxes. We do the same at Urban Ore. There is almost no smell from the litter boxes,and the cats seem to prefer the loose dirt to the asphalt floor of our warehouse or the tile floor of the kitchen. If the screened compost is slightly moist it absorbs lots of liquid, and it kills odors very effectively. "Flushing" a litter box consists of dumping a half inch to inch of finished compost on top of the poops or wet spots and presto! odorcontrol is accomplished, for the room at least. I keep a bucket with a lid so I can have a couple of week's compost on hand just to make everything more efficient. Dumping the litter boxes can be smelly, and I always rinse the box well before relining it with compost. The cat feces and finished compost get dumped into into center of the the compost pile along with all the other "do not compost" stuff I mentioned in my last email. I've found that cat feces on top of food compost is a powerful deterrent to varmints, too.

So there's my personal experience with cats, and cat feces. I spent sometime as a kid working on farms with big animals, and became used to being around manure. May you have good times with your composting. I hope you find it as enjoyable and deeply satisfying as I have.

Dan Knapp

styrofoam

2008-04-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

styrofoam is something you generally don't try to acquire, but it's so easy to accumulate this undesirable material.

Disadvantages of styrofoam, off the top of my head:
it's not recyclable where I live
if it ends up in the landfill, it'll probably lay around there for a million years
styrofoam litter breaks down into smaller pieces that lay around for years
it's a petroleum-based product and therefore unsustainable to manufacture

Styrofoam can easily be reused for shipping, but, storing the material can take up a lot of volume in the garage.

What's the answer? I try to avoid styrofoam whenever possible, but I'm not 100% successful. Anyway, the URL below leads to a good styrofoam overview.

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2008/04-08/foam-cups-polystyrene-cups-article.htm

Although styrofoam is accepted for recycling in some urban areas, it's not always feasible to do this in less populated communities. Ecocycle accepts polystyrene, and now sells alternatives to this material to use at special events: http://www.ecocycle.org/charm/index.cfm

There's an Alliance of Foam Packaging, but I'm a bit skeptical about the content of their site: http://www.epspackaging.org/info.html

The bottom line is, in my opinion, styrofoam creates waste. See more on this topic at: http://www.cawrecycles.org/issues/polystyrene_main

recycling snack packages

2008-04-20T09:42:00.001-07:00

sometimes - not always - I refrain from purchasing junk food because the packages don't appear to be recyclable. I came across the following recently........

Here are some answers to environmental questions consumers frequently ask us:

Q: Can Frito-Lay packages be recycled?

A: Yes. Flexible plastic bags may be recycled into other products such as a wood substitute, which may be used for park benches, landscape decking, boat docks, and the like. For example, Frito-Lay bags have been used to make plastic trays at KFC restaurants in the United States.For recycling to be successful, recyclable materials must be separated and collected. Cans, paper and glass bottles tend to be more popular recyclable items than plastic. However, as more cities require and provide for separation of trash, opportunities for the use of recycled plastic will grow. For more information about the feasibility of starting plastic recycling, we suggest contacting your local city sanitation department.

Q: Which Frito-Lay packages can be recycled?

A: Frito-Lay items that can be recycled include:
Dip cans - may be recycled in communities where aluminum is recycled
Outer lid of dip can - may be recycled with other plastics
Inner steel lid of dip can - may be recycled where steel items are recycled
Salsa and dip jars - may be recycled as clear glass
Salsa and dip jar lids - may be recycled where steel items are recycled
Lay's Stax can and lid - may be recycled

Green Planet & information sharing

2008-04-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

Green Planet's purpose - and my evil plan, ha ha - is to share information. Along the way, I want to learn more, and share links to fun stuff.