Green Options

I waited to write this post until after I had the opportunity to speak with SIGG CEO Steve Wasik. I am still disappointed.

Over this last week we have learned that SIGG bottles manufactured before August 2008 (not 2009, as I mistakenly mentioned earlier) contained Bisphenol-A (BPA) in their liners. BPA is a chemical used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins and is part of a group of molecules known as endocrine disruptors.

Endocrine disruptors are defined by the National Institute of Health as

naturally occurring compounds or man-made chemicals that may interfere with the production or activity of hormones of the endocrine system leading to adverse health effects. Many of these chemicals have been linked with developmental, reproductive, neural, immune, and other problems in wildlife and laboratory animals. Some scientists think these chemicals also are adversely affecting human health in similar ways resulting in declined fertility and increased incidences or progression of some diseases including endometriosis and cancers.

When the headlines told us that the global warming debate was over, it seemed like we environmentalists could breathe a collective sigh of relief. The United States elected a cap-and-trade-sympathetic administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency says it is going to exert some of the “P” in its acronym after it formally labeled carbon dioxide a pollutant last month. So now that the debate is over, has the discussion ended?

Much of what I assumed to be climate consensus has been turned on its head since I moved to the Midwest from New York. Meaning, there a lot of people here in the Middle who care about environmental issues but are not convinced climate change is related to human activities and/or is as dire as predicted. I believe it is. . .and I also believe that in order to get buy-in from such diverse constituents, it’s imperative that we engage in dialog with those who hold differing opinions.

Editor’s note: We’ve done quite a bit of republishing lately here at sustainablog.  I’m grateful to all of those who have agreed to let us use their content, and wanted to add one more to the mix: Simran Sethi’s “post-Earth Day manifesto” from last week’s Huffington Post.

“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” Gwendolyn Brooks

Dave Lowenstein and Gwendolyn Brooks hooked me. Just over two years ago, I was contemplating my stay in Lawrence, Kansas and sorting out future plans. The circumstances that brought me there weren’t going to keep me there. All my work was in New York and Los Angeles. I had no compelling reason to stay. Then I walked by a mural.

The mural, replete with brilliant images of incredible African-American artists connected to Kansas, is the backdrop for Lawrence’s Saturday Farmers’ Market. But that particular Sunday was scorching hot and downtown was a ghost town. The one car parked in front of the colorful wall at 9th and New Hampshire featured a bumper sticker demanding a living wage for Lawrence. I got up close to the words. I took a photo of the bumper sticker. In that sticky, solitary, epiphanic moment, everything became clear. I wanted to stay in this small town in a flat state, because of our magnitude and bond.

Sarah Smarsh and Simran Sethi are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post Here’s a peek at pork.

It’s lunchtime, baby. Panda Garden. Porky goodness. Mooshu style.

The “other white meat” in your takeout container falls behind beef and chicken in American consumption, but we do pig out on pig—on average, each of us consumes 51 pounds of Wilbur annually. That translates to big impact on our water and air.

Due to the high variety of bacteria, worms and other undesirables in pig flesh, and because of the quick-spread disease potential of crowded pig farms, heavy doses of antibiotics are administered routinely. Those same drugs end up in your body via waste streaming into our water supply, and via that Mooshu pork to go. Other side dishes you might not have ordered include growth hormones to encourage meat-heavy livestock and vaccines injected to avoid profit-damaging disease.

Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things.They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s the low-down on how we’re quenching our thirst.

We’ve been seduced by the beverage industry into believing only they can quench our thirst with colored, caffeinated, vitaminized, electrolyted water. We have become so parched that we can’t walk down the street without toting a single-use plastic bottle touting the magical effects of its water source.

Apparently, Kabbalah Water will heal us and Bling Water will define us. At the Bling H20 website, Bling Water “creator” Kevin Boyd describes noticing on Hollywood studio lots that “you could tell a lot about a person by the bottled water they carried.” First of all, didn’t god create water? Secondly, the water is bottled in Dandridge, Tennessee - since when is Southern Tennessee a spring of L.A. status? Yes, Dandrige’s water ranks very highly on EPA’s water quality index, but why are we spending so much money ($40 for Bling’s “Go Green” 750ml bottle) on cross-continental water instead of cleaning up our local waterways? Tinseltown’s water is so polluted with run-off and industrial contamination that perhaps water by way of Tennessee does make sense.

Here’s what the less blingy among us do:

Sarah Smarsh and Simran Sethi are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s a sneak peek on sneakers.

With ye olde cobbler long dead (re-soling Jesus’s Birkenstocks in forgotten profession heaven) and cheap production methods shortening the lives of shoes, Americans have gotten into the habit of pitching worn out (or simply undesired) kicks and buying new ones. Shoe-shopping has become something of a fetish, a joke, an emblem of the spoiled housewife who fills her emotional void with Italian suede.

We could go into Manolos, but we’ll focus here on sporty treads, not just to stay on-topic but because they account for a third of the U.S. shoes market.

The production of athletic shoes is infamously shady, from a human rights perspective. Historically, manufacturing giants such as Nike have followed cheap labor, exploiting workers in developing countries so that they might enjoy enormous profit margins. (Nike has really turned itself around in recent years, however, and is now one of the greener players on the field.)

Sarah Smarsh and Simran Sethi are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post.

Who doesn’t feel better after a yoga class? Yoga is the union of the body, mind and spirit.It stabilizes the nervous system, decreases blood pressure, increases flexibility and endurance, and opens you up in ways that you may not have imagined.

Simran used to be a yoga teacher. She loves the practice even though she hasn’t spent much time on her mat lately. (“Yoga on the inside, baby!”) Sarah gets her yoga on every week and knows it does her body good.

But, as any student knows, the real practice starts when you walk out the door. That’s also where the rubber hits the road and your practice takes its toll on the environment.

Oh brother, that again? Yes, my dear yogin, that.

Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Want to know how to green your internet porn (or emailing or iTunes) habit? Check out these tips and a post-mortem of where your computers go to die.

Recently, the world computer population surpassed 1 billion. It’s a legion of artificial intelligence that will never die, at least not while humans are around to see it.
The computer species appears to have a high mortality rate (whether due to the rapid progress of technology or an industry conspiracy to ensure that products must be replaced regularly). They “crash” and “die” in droves, their human counterparts literally kicking them to the curb. But there is no heaven, no place in the clouds, for the cold, hard shell once warmed by electrical currents. Once it has left your desk, your computer doesn’t disappear. In a sense, it lives on.

Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the surprising journeys of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s a sneak peek at the desk you threw away.

How can a mahogany desk, made of slow-growing hard wood plundered from the Amazon, be eco-friendly?

When it’s re-used.

Often, the greenest consumer route is not buying new products made with Earth-friendly methods but rather scoring used products made with traditional, possibly heinous methods. Reduce, reuse, then recycle.

This rule of thumb certainly applies to office furniture. Unlike energy-consuming products such as appliances, furniture is somewhat innocuous to the environment during that period between factory and landfill known as “in use.” The impacts on indoor air quality, however, are like Britney: Not that innocent.

If you ask Simran about compact florescent light bulbs, she may crack one open and cut you. Not really, that would scatter mercury, but she is loca for the light bulbs. Check Monday’s Huffington Post for the full version of this post.

People give you this whole rap about how easy saving the planet is. Change a light bulb and save the world. Yes and no. How about we consider it a start rather than an end destination?

Lighting accounts for about 20% of our electric bills. Traditional bulbs burn heat rather than light, so are extremely inefficient. Compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs) are 80% more efficient and can last up to 10 times longer than a traditional bulb. Last December, Congress voted to phase out the inefficient incandescent. By 2012, the 100-watt bulb will be history.

In the interim, environmentally-minded folks of all ilks are heralding the bulb. The virtual Stop Global Warming march reminds us swapping out three incandescent bulbs for CFLs will save us 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $60 a year. The Coalition On the Environment and Jewish Life suggests installing CFLs for Hanukkah as a way to redefine “energy-stretching light” and reflect environmental stewardship. Students in Pennsylvania sell light bulbs instead of candy to raise money for their schools. (Simran prefers candy.)