Earth Blog

In Sweden they are putting plastic in the water to study ocean acidification and climate change. Meanwhile, next door over in Finland, researchers are thinking about making diapers out of cardboard. Has all of Northern Europe gone crazy?

Nope. Scientists might look like they are doing crazy things from our point of view but they have a master plan. That plan is to gain our trust by getting plausible results after doing or saying crazy things so we will keep listening to them and giving them funding.

Yesterday I went to our local H ampersand M in search of a pair of black ankle boots with metal toe caps I saw in a magazine. They resemble this pair from Zara.

The H&M had the boots but spending anything over $20 for a pair of shoes I would only sporadically wear was not practical. Furthermore after seeing them up close I discovered I wasn’t as enamored with them as I thought.

Now had I known that I could have brought in a bag of old clothes and received a discount on those boots I would probably be wearing them right now with my pajamas. I’m beginning to regret not snapping up those shoes. Don’t judge me.

Lately there hasn’t been a lot of happy news coming out of Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles if you follow Lakers basketball. Don’t lie and tell me you’re a Clippers fan the other basketball team that plays there. No one is a Clippers fan. But the good news is the next time Jack Nicholson gets up (Adam Sandler not available at all games) and walks out in disgust he can throw his trash away sustainably thanks to new recycling stations designed by GreenDrop!

“Partnering with GreenDrop allows Staples Center to incorporate a convenient waste-diversion system that patrons can easily utilize without increasing operational costs,” explained Lee Zeidman the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Staples Center. “We evaluated other containers, but GreenDrop was the best option for the arena’s recycling needs.”

The GreenDrop is the best option for sports arenas because the containers were designed in part by a sports arena. They were even designed to have advertising slapped on them. In Los Angeles this means ads for Smart Water, Pechanga Resort & Casino, and Carl’s Jr.

This little piggy built his house with bricks that were made of paper and ceramic but the bricks and the house aren’t quite ready to withstand a big bad wolf. However, the good news is that the piggy’s house is energy-efficient.

Researchers at the Upper Polytechnic School of Linares, University of Jaen (Spain) collected cellulous waste from a paper factory and the sludge from the purification of its waste water. Then they mixed the recycled waste materials with clay used in construction and forced the mixture through a pressure and extrusion machine to make bricks. The bricks come out “like sausages” and are then cut to resemble a building material and not food.

On this eve before Keep America Beautiful’s (KAB) 15th annual America Recycles Day I’d like to take a few moments to let you know we didn’t have a widely used curbside recycling program in our community until about three years ago.

When we moved to Ohio we basically stopped recycling. We had been on a curbside municipal run program since we were children and now we didn’t know what to do with the recyclables. Was there even a privately run recycling center nearby if we collected our soda cans? Throwing our trash away in Ohio was a completely different experience than what we had in California.

What is the difference- or is there a difference- between reusing and recycling?

A group of archaeologists were excavating in the Molí del Salt site 21 miles northwest of Tarragona, a city in Spain, and found burnt stone artefacts (variant spelling of artifact) that appeared to have been refashioned or recycled with fire to extend their use. Their owners might not have been making something completely different from the raw materials but they were upcycling.

Disposing of old cell phones keeps getting easier. You can mail your old phones to a non-profit like Cell Phones for Soldiers, an upcycler like TerraCycle, drop the obsolete devices off at a big box store, or skip all that hassle and use a kiosk.

San Diego based ecoATM has been improving the capabilities of their e-cycling kiosks after the National Science Foundation (NSF) gave the company their second Small Business Innovation Research grant- the first was awarded two years ago. Extra funding from interested parties like Coinstar (the kiosk you go to when you need pizza money) helped the company launch their first kiosks in 2011.

Don’t forget that the non-profit Ocean Conservancy’s 27th Annual International Coastal Cleanup is this Saturday. If you haven’t signed up with an organization there still may be time to get in on the cleaning action happening at a local beach or lake.

Volunteers have been cleaning coastlines since the beginning of summer as part of Landshark's Fin-Tastic Voyage. Landshark Lager is one of the national sponsors of this year’s cleanup.

The voyage, which had stops in Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia, also included stand-up paddle board contests and concerts. Landshark and the Ocean Conservancy asked attendees and volunteers to help keep the beaches trash free during these events and to participate in official cleanups this weekend.

“Trash jeopardizes the health of our ocean, our economy and people," said David Pittenger,  the director of Ocean Conservancy's Trash Free Seas program, "Sometimes there are uncontrollable events – like the Japan tsunami – that add to the larger problem of marine debris. That's why it's important to tackle what's preventable."

The Ocean Conservancy’s 27th annual International Coastal Cleanup is scheduled for September 15th. We may not yet be able to clean up the soupy muck that makes up the patch floating in the ocean but it’s true what Pittenger said: we can prevent further damage to the marine ecosystem by developing better habits.

The non-profit is asking for people to pledge to participate in a cleanup or reduce the amount of trash you create.

Fall is an especially busy time for Keep America Beautiful (KAB). The organization is sponsoring school recycling programs and kicking off an entirely new national campaign.

Saturday, September 8th will be the first KAB National Planting Day. There will be an emphasis on nurturing and landscaping with native plants to lessen a space’s need for water and protect the surrounding ecosystem.

"As the scarcity of water becomes a significant national issue, it's important that we focus on the planting of more ecologically appropriate, drought-tolerant native species," said Matt McKenna, KAB’s  president and CEO, "National Planting Day is a call to action designed to encourage people to plant natives at home, or to join a volunteer planting effort to beautify their community."

We are quite fond of recycling contests around here especially when they are spearheaded by elementary schools and youth organizations.

Over the weekend in California’s Central Valley the winner of their first Recycle. Goal recycling contest was announced by the contest’s sponsors, the Fresno Fuego, Keep California Beautiful, and the American Chemistry Council. Northern California’s contest is an offshoot that was inspired by southern California’s program now entering its third year.

The old saying goes: “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” In the business world this philosophy is known as “green reverse logistics”- the responsibility a company or a manufacturer has to dispose of their product in a safe manner.

One would think that artificial turf, the surface of elementary school playing fields to professional sports stadiums around the world, would last forever but like the surface it is replacing (grass) it has a threshold.  

US Greentech is in the artificial turf business and Turf Reclamation Services (TRS), their sister company, is responsible for recycling worn-out turf. Both companies are headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The EPA has compiled their top fifteen tips for an awesome and energy efficient summer. The entire list is available here but we have pulled the best tips from the list for your Sunday reading pleasure.

TerraCycle is a company a little like RecycleBank because they have incentivized recycling.  While the latter offers points redeemable for coupons and gift cards for actively participating in curbside recycling or taking green actions the former offers coupons in some instances but mostly ask the recycler to choose a charity to receive a donation.

TerraCycle’s specialty is collecting items that are typically not acceptable by curbside systems like cellphones.  Some of the items they collect are commonly accepted by the local pick-up but if you send them to TerraCycle they will be used to make snazzy upcycled products like backpacks made out of drink pouches. The funky items are sold exclusively at the DwellSmart online store.

They have spearheaded national programs called collection brigades in eleven countries and work closely with corporations to reduce waste.

A research team from UC Berkley and Stanford have published a new study that says Freecycle and similar online communities aren’t just a place to score free necessities but a place to become a better citizen. In contrast sites like Craigslist, where money is often exchanged for goods, don’t encourage philanthropy quite so much.

“What we found is that a site like Freecycle is uniquely good at generating pro-group sentiments like group identification and solidarity,” said Robb Willer, assistant professor of sociology and psychology at UC Berkeley and the study’s co-author. “The more people receive gifts through these systems, the more they come to identify as members of the group and view the group as cohesive and high in solidarity, more so than Craigslist members. These pro-group feelings in turn motivate members to give to the group.”

Sunday was Earth Day, yesterday was National Arbor Day, and today is Keep America Beautiful’s (KAB) first “National Day of Action” the perfect ending to a week of reflection and awareness.

KAB is best known for their Great American Cleanup events which will be held today as part of a larger movement to encourage people to become active in their communities through volunteer work. You might remember them from such blogs as: “Cigarettes are #1 Piece of Litter Found Nationwide” (their research provided the troubling cigarette butt statistic) and “Schools Compete with a Different Set of the Three R's” -KAB is one of the tournament’s sponsors.

On Friday when the winners of the 12th annual RecycleMania competition were announced: it came as no surprise that Ohio University’s main campus in Athens, Ohio, placed first in the Mid-American Conference. They took home one of the “Grand Champion” titles by placing 43rd with a recycling rate of 43.79 percent.

Ohio University is where the competition began back in January of 2001 when their campus recycling coordinator challenged Miami University’s to extend their rivalry beyond sports and see who could recycle the most. That year Miami University was the victor in the one-on-one match-up by collecting 41.2 pounds of recyclables per person, compared to Ohio’s 32.6 pounds per person collected during the ten week period.

Eco-rewards program RecycleBank, despite its known flaws, is a program that works for many people around the United States and in Britain.

Incentivizing home recycling on a municipal level with coupons for the mundane (buy one bottle of water, get one free) to fantastic (gift cards) would be icing on the cake for homes that consistently recycle. But not all homes do so and some towns haven't always had curbside recycling which means a commitment to one of the easiest ways to be earth-friendly isn’t present in every home. Therein lies one of the problems with RecycleBank.

Today’s championship game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots has something for everyone. “Manning Face” enthusiasts will be delighted to count the number of times the camera catches Eli Manning scrunching up his face and Tom Brady fans can analyze his most controversial feature- his hair. It’s all so exciting you may even forget there is a game being played! 

Lucas Oil Stadium (LOS) is the home of this year’s Super Bowl XLVI (46) and as a multi-purpose stadium it’s used year-round for sporting events and functions. It’s managed by the same company as the Indiana Convention Center which is connected to LOS. The stadium seats anywhere from 15,000 to 70,000 people depending on the requirements and size of the event. LOS' ability to house that many people is a great power and with that comes a great responsibility to sustainability.

Everyone has heard the saying: “If these walls could talk.”  Two researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow want to get walls, bridges, wind turbines, and other large structures talking with a coat of smart paint and nanotechnology. But this set of researchers aren’t interested in the secrets of humans - they want the surfaces of buildings to talk to prevent accidents.