Earth Blog

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.

The United States restaurant and fast food industry in particular are juggernauts in today’s economy. The fast food industry employs millions of workers and most citizens will be employed by it in some aspect during their lives. Recent focus on the unhealthy aspects of fast food eateries hasn’t managed to bring them down but has forced them to adapt to the market to meet the demand for healthier options. As it is with every industry being sustainable isn’t only about the product sold to public. In response, businesses to help streamline and “green” operations have expanded.

Today BlackGold Biofuels and SLM Facility Solutions Nationwide announced their partnership to assist restaurants in the recycling of kitchen grease. It’s one of those dirty jobs, but someone has to do it.

For a website about a boat with a mission to clean the ocean we sure talk more about cars and the automotive industry here on the blog. That must be because people drive cars to work and to get their families around town more than they use boats. There is always a focus on what the auto manufacturers are doing to be green. How do their vehicles’ gas mileage and performance compare to each other? How are they streamlining their processes to conserve water and materials?  A car, regardless of whether or not it’s born a greener vehicle, has a life after the assembly line and that life should be green too.

Taking out the trash is a simple job at the residential level. You just separate the recyclables from the non-recyclables and then pull your cans to the curb to be picked up by a truck.  Living with such a convenience can certainly lull a citizen into a state of complacency. Have you ever had to haul your trash out of a campsite after a week-long trip? Or had to drive your trash to a site and then pay a fee for them to take it?  It really makes you stop and think about the amount of trash generated by a single person and if you could do a better job not making as much. This isn’t a post about recycling or composting though. This a post about the dangerous waste no one wants and the sheer volume of waste some people collect.

It’s easy to be green. A little too easy in some cases, if the crafty members of Etsy.com and their upcycled, earth-friendly wares are any example. Upcycling is the practice of taking useless or waste materials to make something that is useful and often better. For every beautiful, reconstructed vintage dress and kitschy tote bag made entirely of Kool-Aid packets there are items that are really just trash. The satirical, read-at-your-own risk website, regretsy.com, has a highlight reel of some of these items listed under the category of “garbage”.  There are some items highlighted that are solid attempts at upcycling. The crafter is clearly trying to utilize what they have on hand and was inspired by the world around them. After all, necessity is the mother of invention, right?