Green Options

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With Fourth of July just a few days away, I bet that many of you are getting all geared up and stocked up for a celebration of some sort. Be it a barbeque, a trip, a fireworks display, or some other means of declaring your independence from work, the long weekend ahead will likely require gathering adequate provisions to keep the festivities lively and the revelers happy.

With this certain demand, our faithful suppliers are getting geared up and stocked up as well. So as you head down the aisle of your local grocery store or supercenter or what have you, you are sure to encounter lots of possible choices for what to spend your money on. And I can guarantee that most of them will be disposable. Plastic or paper plates, plastic cups, plastic utensils (including the beloved spork), paper napkins and tissues, plastic garbage and grocery bags, styrofoam or plastic coolers, etc., etc., etc. The list is endless…and this is only for party favors!

I do as much as I can to conserve resources and live sustainably. I remember at one family holiday smorgasbord, I believe it was Thanksgiving, I cunningly hid all of the plastic plates, cups, and utensils in a trunk in the closet in order to force my family to use the real, washable ones instead. No one was very happy with me, though I did convince one aunt to play along and stand up in my defense, but by using the normal stuff we reduced the amount of trash that day significantly compared to usual holidays. (And yes, for you cynics out there, I did indeed help out doing the dishes!)

Despite my ecological consciousness and consumer conscience, and despite my stratagems to thwart the forces of disposability, I cringe at the many disposable items that I still use in my own home. For example, disposable razors. These oh-so-convenient, many-to-a-pack, everything’s-a-dollar mainstays of male grooming seem rather benign at first glance (unless you nick yourself shaving, of course). Yet each one consists mostly of plastic, which is made from petroleum, and after a few shaves that plastic and the metal goes into the trash…and so on then to a landfill where it sits amidst all the other non-biodegradable garbage into perpetuity.

It’s one thing to be appalled by the monstrous accumulation of millions of square miles of plastic waste spinning slowly in the North Pacific gyre. It’s another thing entirely to build an ocean-going vessel out of plastic waste and set out across the sea to call attention to the environmental catastrophe.

That’s exactly what two men, one from California and one from Hawaii, are now doing. The two — Marcus Eriksen, a Ph.D., Gulf War vet and director of research and education for the Long Beach-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and Joel Paschal, a former businessman in Hawaii and a one-time employee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — are sailing across the Pacific in a homemade vessel, Kon Tiki-style, to “raise awareness about plastic fouling our oceans.”

CleanTech Biofuels is serious about turning garbage into fuel and sincerely hopes you’ll ignore the fact that your car’s fuel tank could be carrying what’s left of little Timmy’s soiled nappies.

The company has announced that it’s investigating suitable sites for commercial garbage-to-ethanol facilities — leading baby-owners everywhere to rejoice that they may never again have to feel guilty about throwing out enough diapers each day to put the elephant in this commercial to shame (and can I just be the first to say “WTF?” to that commercial).

Imagine getting up in the morning, collecting the garbage in your home, and taking it outside. After opening your door, you see a person watching you intently from the corner of your street. You walk a few steps, and place your trash bags where they will eventually be picked up. No sooner than you turn your back, that eager person from the corner is making their way over to your refuse. Within moments they are rummaging through the waste. Searching for bottles and other items of value, you might occasionally see them kicking toward hungry street dogs to protect their bounty and themselves from a painful bite. While this scenario might seem ridiculous to you, it happens every day in Peru. The circumstances for why people in Peru collect re-usable and recyclable items in the trash is complex, intriguing, troublesome, and potentially wonderful.

Early night, the tide rises out of the sea like an elongated tongue and lashes a part of the shores of Kho Phi Phi island, located in Southern Thailand, throwing up an assortment of garbage, including plastic, wood, cigarette boxes, water bottles, metal, glass, paper, rope, cardboard, etc.

A stone throw away from a part of the shore, hordes of tourists from different parts of the world lounge on a sandy beach under a starry night, guzzling away to an antics-filled fire show, unconcerned about the sea’s spew.

Even though there are signs posted throughout the island encouraging visitors not to dump garbage, the sea’s vomit, so to speak, is evidence enough that only a few take heed of the message.

With the country seemingly abuzz with the word “green”, you know that industry cannot be far behind. Of course, consumer packaged goods companies are churning out green versions of their products, but what about the rest of the world’s companies? For them, does it pay to go green?

That’s the question that UCLA Extension looked to answer for about 150 attendees at their “The Business of Green: What’s the Payoff?” conference in Long [...]

William is Going Green, written by James Martin II and James Martin III, is the story of a garbage truck that loses his job, because he is too polluting. In search of a new job, William travels from town to town until he finds a green, clean city. He is told he could be hired as a recycling truck, if only he had a hybrid engine. Unfortunately, out-of-work William does not have the money for a new, cleaner engine, until he rescues a cat from a sewer. The cat Gage belongs to a mechanic, and William is given a hybrid engine and coat of green paint in reward for the rescue. The author explains, “My son James III and I created the William the Garbage Truck & Crew series to share what we learned about global warming and the benefits of conservation.”

My son, like many boys, adores trucks. He enjoyed William is Going Green when his sister read it to her, but there is one thing about the story I find a bit awkward. I do think that city garbage trucks should have hybrid motors, but as mentioned in the book, the cost to convert a truck is expensive and not readily available. William’s reward for rescuing a cat is not the solution for most city garbage trucks, and I think it is a little misleading to children who really want to see change. Perhaps there is another way William could have gotten a new hybrid motor from recycling proceeds, donations, gas taxes, etc. Maybe I am too much of a realist, but I like my green children’s fiction to address the realities of environmental change. This part of the story didn’t bother my children at all, and they really did like it.

“The plastic polymers commonly used in consumer products, even as single molecules of plastic, are indigestible by any known organism.”
-CHARLES MOORE / Natural History v.112, n.9, Nov03

Dwell on that quote for a minute. Dwell on it because we, as a society, are hopelessly, recklessly addicted to plastics. According to Charles Moore, every year, about 250 billion pounds of plastic pellets are produced for use in the manufacture of plastic products. After taking a tour around my house, [...]

In a move that had many residents bewildered, the Raleigh, North Carolina, city council voted to ban garbage disposals in all new construction and to prohibit residents from replacing broken garbage disposals. The ordinance, which took effect this week, has its roots in over 100 large sewage spillovers in the last three years within the city of Raleigh. The cost of such cleanups and the threatened fines from state agencies forced the council to implement the ban. What’s the connection between garbage disposals and sewage spillovers? Grease. The city’s sewage system builds up with grease until the pipes need to be cleaned out with a special truck - or a spillover occurs. Reduce the amount of food and grease going down kitchen sinks, so the Raleigh city council believes, and you reduce the costly cleanups.

Warning: so, as the video and Oprah’s darling du jour and guerrilla closet warrior Peter Walsh so clearly outlines, our pack-rat habits are making us chubby. They can also be a barrier to us going green. Not surprising, did you notice that your lean and toned friends also tend to have pretty darn spotless, sustainability-forward and organized homes, while your plumper friends tend to lavish in “chaotic creative” spaces. Hmmm…

The greenness of a building element isn’t always clearly defined. Garbage disposals are one example. Florida Green Building Coalition gives points in their new home plan for not installing one (See Section 2). Others say, in comparison to landfilling your banana peels, a bit of power and water is an efficient way to deal with non-meat food wastes. However, it seems that those ‘bits’ of power and water do add up:

“Hilton San Francisco, the largest hotel on the West Coast, removed all of its garbage disposal units in 2002, and Jo Licata, community projects manager, says it has made a big difference in mechanical and water expense.” (SF Chronicle)

So what are the alternatives? Can a single user without the ability to compost in the traditional pile way still do the ultimate recycling - turn food waste back into food?