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Whole Foods Markets will stop using disposable plastic grocery bags on Earth Day, April 22, 2008. Banning plastic bags is undoubtedly good for the environment–is it also a boon for Whole Foods?
According to the Whole Foods Market website, Americans toss out about 100 billion plastic bags annually (we recycle a pitiful 0.6% of our plastic bags), crowding landfills with an energy-consuming product (it takes 430,000,000 gallons of crude oil to make the 100 billion bags) that lasts for at least 1,000 years. Whole Foods estimates that their action will save 100 million plastic bags in 2008, alone.
By drawing attention to their company policies that are good for the earth, Whole Foods also gets some good press. Was this part of their plan?
This post is by Ramon Cruz, Senior Policy Analyst for Living Cities at Environmental Defense Fund.
It’s ironic. In many parts of the world, there is no clean drinking water. Here in the U.S., pure, drinkable water flows out of every tap, and yet Americans buy a staggering amount of bottled water. We pay big bucks for it, too - over $15 billion a year.
Worst of all, the bottles are overflowing our landfills, and contribute to global warming.
Take a look at this video from Doug James, and then check out these surprising facts.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/OZbTXDkrD1o" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
By Chad Crawford •
March 6, 2008
I was intrigued by this couple after they appeared on Oprah Wednesday, February 27. I know it’s been over a week. Did you really think I caught the episode on Oprah? I heard about this from a friend who never misses the show. Honestly! OK, I watch it sometimes.
Daniel Burt is an eye doctor and his wife Amanda is a civil engineer living in Nashville. Their hobbies include living a lifestyle that makes a statement against rampant overconsumption and wastefulness in America. In other words, they dive in dumpsters to redeem things that have been thrown away.
Daniel explains, “We try to live very simply, and we don’t spend a lot on ourselves. We are very happy with having a little. We like to make it a priority to share a lot of our money. A lot of that comes from our Christian values of sharing and generosity.”
By Sarah Lozanova •
February 7, 2008
One of the most viable solutions to our large-scale environmental challenges is to use “waste” instead of virgin materials. This is especially true for the transportation fuels industry. Unfortunately, with the current infrastructure in place, virgin resources can actually be more cost effective than “waste.” I became aware of this when I toured the Coskata ethanol laboratory in suburban Chicago. I discovered that there is a cheaper and more consistent supply of harvested trees to produce ethanol than trash.
Trees, agricultural waste, storm debris and trash are all viable fuel sources for ethanol, using the Coskata process. This highly flexible technology allows future manufacturing plants to cater to locally available materials, making ethanol viable in parts of the globe that would not use corn or sugar cane for fuel. Argonne National Laboratory tests show that greenhouse gas emissions are up to 84% lower for Coskta ethanol than conventional gasoline. It has a net energy balance of up to 7.7, compared to 1.3 for corn-based ethanol. These results were achieved with a production cost of $1 a gallon when timber was used as an ethanol fuel source.
On face of it, you would think that garbage would be the cheapest way to produce fuel, given the flexibility of the Coskata process. In fact, one of the most available and economically viable fuel sources is trees, with the low price tag of $50 a ton. There is a very efficient infrastructure for harvesting and transporting trees. They are available throughout the year, unlike some agricultural products. It is actually cheaper to use trees than sorted garbage and agricultural waste.
By Amy Stodghill •
February 19, 2007
Friends of the Earth EuropeThe European Parliament wants to crack down on garbage. They want current waste numbers to hold steady after 2012 and begin declining after 2020.
The legislation the EU is considering would require all member countries to create national waste prevention programs and increase recycling efforts.
The framework they're creating would employ a "hierarchy" of waste preference. "First prevention, then re-use, recycling, other recovery operations and, as
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By Michael dEstries •
February 3, 2007
I wrote recently about the issues surrounding landfills and the world's problems in grappling with the immense amount of garbage we create on a daily basis. One perfect solution would be to reduce consumption and waste, but if our habits will not follow our desires, then perhaps technology can help bridge the gap.
A promising invention that I found today is a mobile machine that takes any type of garbage and converts it into
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