An article on the Environmental News Network recently pointed out that when you throw away that wilted, smelly broccoli or container of moldy, left over spaghetti you have sitting in the back of your fridge, you’re throwing away more than just food. You’re also tossing out water along with it. The article references a report by the Stockholm International Water Institute, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, and the International Water Management Institute. According to the report, the amount of food thrown away in the US alone is equivalent to turning on your faucet and dumping 40 trillion liters of water into your garbage can.

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When we throw something away, it doesn’t actually go "away." It doesn’t leave the planet or magically disappear into thin air, but instead ends up in a landfill. In California, we produce garbage to the tune of 46 million tons of trash each year.

According to Sustainable Works here in Santa Monica, landfills are filling at an alarming rate. Even more alarming is leachate – the liquid created by decomposing materials that can seep into our groundwater. Leachate is toxic, and though many newer landfills have systems to keep it out of the water supply, some do not. Plus, decomposing garbage produces both carbon dioxide and methane, neither of which is a friend to the environment.

Of course, I’m all about solutions, so here are the top three ways to reduce your waste:

1. Reduce your consumption and reuse whatever you can. This concept may sound foreign to many people, especially since we’re often urged to buy, buy, buy to keep our economy growing. But considering that Californians dump 5 million tons of food each year, just food, it should be easy to cut back a little. Eliminate "disposable" items, like paper plates, cups and plastic utensils. And really, how many one-use cleaning products do we need? I’m going retro with an old-fashioned rag bag. Besides, don’t you already have enough "stuff?"

2. Recycle. Everything. In the US, 40% of the solid waste generated is paper! If you’re not sure what can go in your curbside recycling, check with your city. If you have unwanted clothes, donate them to charity. Have a garage sale. Heck, organize a block-wide sale, put your unwanted junk on the lawn, and rake in the cash.

3. Close the loop. By buying things made out of recycled materials, like plastic, you keep the cycle of useful materials and resources going, instead of ending it in a landfill. I have a really cool doormat made out of old flip-flops, but there are plenty of more mundane examples, like paper with recycled content.

Since it takes Styrofoam 500 years to break down, and a cigarette butt 10 years to biodegrade, making better choices now will have long-lasting impacts. After all, when this planet is used up, we don’t have another one to move to.

Why avoid disposables? Try getting an Italian to enjoy his espresso from the ridged lip of a Styrofoam cup and he’ll tell you all about the importance of real cups and dishes for enjoying the experience of food and drink. And then, of course, there’s the environmental impact. Take the plastic spoon: sure, no one adores washing dishes, but is it really harder to wash a spoon than it is to locate and drill oil reservoirs, refine crude oil, extract the chemical feedstock used to make plastic, and mould plastic into thousands of tiny, single-use utensils that are then shipped to a landfill where they must then be managed for hundreds of years while they sit without decomposing?

Now there’s trash (like biodegradable paper food trays) and then there’s Trash (with a capital T, like plastic or Styrofoam containers). Opting for the better of the two is a good start.

Ditching the Capital T

Try wrapping your veggie-dog in a napkin or getting your Chinese delivery from restaurants that offer those handy little paper boxes instead of polystyrene (or Styrofoam) containers. Where there’s a will there’s a way and finding alternative containers is a fun way to express your eco-creativity. But that’s just the start.

Do one better by using your own containers for take-out or leftovers from your favorite restaurant. It’s like the restaurant equivalent of cloth shopping bags to the grocery store. Our local Mexican restaurant has come to know and love us for getting burritos to go in bread-baking tin. They get a giggle and we get great food without the waste. It’s a win-win situation, and the bread tin also makes a great conversation piece at the restaurant. Make sure to be friendly when you ask to use your own container; activism with a smile is always the most effective.

Want to go all the way in eliminating that capital T? Here’s the good news: increasingly, a number of large cities are passing legislation that bans the use of Styrofoam containers in restaurants. Many other cities are considering similar action. Legislation like this is important because Styrofoam is not recyclable in most places and does not quickly decompose so sits in landfills. The more Styrofoam we prevent, the fewer open spaces will need to be converted to landfills to hold this Trash (with a capital T). And not all of trash ends up at the dump: quite a lot finds its way into ocean ecosystems as well. Here’s a visual. Chemicals in styrene products are also harmful to human health because they attack the central nervous system.

You can encourage your city to pass a similar ban on Styrofoam by contacting your city council. Also, talk to restaurants and stores that use plastic cutlery or bags about biodegradable plastics. If you already live in one of those forward-thinking cities with a ban on Styrofoam, you can help restaurants by letting them know how much you appreciate them following this eco-friendly policy. Supporting restaurants and companies that are doing things right flexes your power as a consumer to make a difference. You can also help the city by letting them know if you come across a restaurant using Styrofoam.

How is everyday activism effective?

Some of the most heroic deeds of activism come in the most commonplace shapes and sizes. Confronting the way we do things each day makes such a big difference because the changes we make are multiplied over time: just two fewer disposable items used each day turns into over 50,000 items during a lifetime. When we regularly make decisions that take into consideration the wellbeing of the environment and other people (such as walking or bicycling to the store or supporting local or Fair Trade farmers), our friends and family take notice. Leading by example is a sure way to inspire those around us to take action as well.

And congratulate yourself on the changes you make, no matter how small. When it comes to doing what’s right, there is no effort too small.

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7527513@N04/545957211/

While Jennifer discussed some ways of increasing the amount of recycling that individual households participate in, there are websites that are engaging with the ideas of finding new uses for materials that will otherwise end up as waste adding to the volume in our landfills.

Sources of material with a potential to be recycled are posted and discussed at Superuse. "Superuse is an online community of designers, architects and everybody else who is interested in inventive ways of recycling."

Some of the entries are simply documenting materials that are in need of recycling, such as tires, container ship cargo bags (huge nylon bags with a capacity of more than a ton that are used to load materials on board cargo ships rather than using the ubiquitous shipping container), and discarded wind turbine blades (which are unusable for their primary purpose due to cracks).

Sometimes, recycling ideas are documented, as with the "Trashforma 04" project which took 166 stainless steel sinks and created a cubic volume 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) on a side for a beachside installation. This installation is as much about art as it is about a practical form of shelter, but it engages with the idea of transforamtive use.

Superuse encourages designers who are looking for creative applications where existing materials, that would otherwise add to the waste stream, become the raw materials for other products that extend their usefulness.

At a more consumer level (but no less interesting), How Can I Recycle This? addresses questions about recycling consumer materials. Rather than dealing with industrial scale materials, the questions here tend to be more about ubiquitous household items and consumer goods. It's based in the UK, so some materials/uses may be a bit unfamiliar. The format is a very ordinary blog, with single issue entries addressing questions about how to recycle (or more often, to re-use) various unusual materials. Suggestions are found in the coments following each post.

The headline image for this article comes from a post with a question about reusing or recycling inflatable toys that have gone flat or gotten torn and are no longer workable toys. As a parent of two boys, I have already had a couple of inflatable pool toys that we have thrown away after they were punctured or torn. I'll watch this to see if someone comes up with a good suggestion on this one.

A more typical question asked "How can I reuse or recycle…an old wire waste paper bin?" and elicited suggestions including using it to collect recylable bottles, using it as a planter, using it as a sieve for rinsing root vegetables, as well as cleaning and repainting it.

Comments about these seem to come mostly from other users, rather than from designers, but the suggestions are no less creative or interesting.

Both sites are full of examples of the approaches people are taking to find more opportunities to re-use and recycle materials. Even packaging and"disposable" products can find new uses with some creativity. And these sites have plenty of creative solutions to offer and other opportunities awaiting discovery.

The easy to use site provides a breakdown of the resources a typical home in your area uses, as well as waste produced. Though the company is working on a personalized tool to calculate an individual home’s impacts, I found this generic version useful because the results are taken to the next level: how to reduce resource usage and waste production. Specific projects are recommended, including links to applicable products that you can buy directly through the site. Perhaps most useful though, are the resulting costs, impacts, and returns on your investment for each project.

The list of projects recommended can be overwhelming, so the site provides a filter to allow you to select the categories you’re most interested in improving: energy, water/water pollution, global warming, or waste/trash. You can also indicate how much you’re willing to spend to make improvements, how long you’re willing to wait to recoup your investment, and whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or would prefer to hire a contractor. Once you select from the resulting list, a link provides specific product information for that project.

According to the company, products are screened before their inclusion on the site: “We look for manufacturers and products that use natural and/or organic inputs; do not emit toxins or other unhealthy byproducts; practice sustainability in the sourcing of their inputs (e.g., use Forest Stewardship Council guidelines for procuring wood); are conscious about the environmental impacts of their packaging and distribution; and help you reduce your overall environmental impacts.” This information is reassuring, as the company surely draws revenue for the listing or sale of these products. A directory of contractors and service providers is also available.

For those who might like a little more hand-holding, LowImpactLiving also offers on-site environmental impact assessments within California. The company will send an environmental technician to your home to evaluate your impact and make specific recommendations for improvement.

Whichever method you choose, LowImpactLiving provides the information you need. The rest is up to you!

We're glad to find opportunities to increase efficiency in systems, as a method of waste reduction. Capturing energy is an easy way of improving efficiency and reducing waste. Co-generation systems get double use by generating both electricity and heat, the heat being a waste product of the electrical generation system.

A wide range of companies are pushing to reduce their waste, and "zero waste" is a concept that is being discussed in more and more boardrooms. A recent article in the Boston Globe discusses how this idea is spreading.

In this perfect system, each unit of energy consumed would be somehow offset. Every industrial byproduct would reassemble into something useful and benign. Every beam of sunlight, scrap of garbage, and flush of the toilet would be pressed into service. No exceptions. Humankind would make obsolete the very concept of "waste."

This is the environmental philosophy of "zero waste," a total vision of sustainability for our eco-panicked age. "Zero waste looks at what nature has given us as a model," says Larry Chalfan, executive director of the nonprofit Zero Waste Alliance in Portland, Ore. "Everything at the end of its life, whether it's a flower or a dead body, is recycled; there are no toxic substances or 'waste' built up anywhere to cause harm to future generations. Everything is a resource to be used again."

I've recently written a couple of articles elsewhere, and Patrick wrote here last week, about using what are thought of presently as waste streams and turning them into useful products. The most audacious one is a group of researchers looking at turning cow manure into a construction board like fiberboard.

This sort of thing already goes on more often than you may think. Fly ash, a waste byproduct from burning coal, turns out to be a good ingredient to use in concrete. Not only does it take up some of the volume of rock and sand in the concrete — meaning that less mining, processing, and hauling of those materials needs to take place — but it also behaves like cement so that less cement is needed. This is especially beneficial because cement is very energy intensive to produce. Many green builders have been taking advantage of this, and often LEED-rated buildings will have fly ash content specified for the concrete used in them. Despite these advantages, fly ash is still treated as a waste product in some localities.

Fly ash is a great example to cite, but not everything will be locked into such straightforward combinations. Zero waste means more than simply finding an alternate use for every byproduct of every process. What is waste from one process needs to be seen as an opportunity, but reducing the materials needed in those processes is also part of the program. After all, it is better to be able to eliminate the packaging material for a product altogether than it is to have the packaging become a raw material for some other process.

The process can take everything from household waste to toxic chemicals and “poof” turn them into nothing. Literally. The by-products are an obsidian like glass, and synthesis gas (or syngas) that can be converted into fuels like natural gas or highly sought after hydrogen.

Plasma gasefication is promising since municipal waste and overflowing landfills are becoming larger problems worldwide. Plus the process doesn’t produce air-polluting emissions like incinerators, a common but controversial landfill alternative.

Popular Science magazine featured a plasma conversion facility in Bristol, Connecticut, headed up by Joseph Longo. Longo is founder and CEO of Startech Environmental Corporation (one of about a dozen companies involved in furthering this technology) who has pioneered waste solutions such as the conventional trash compactor. Now he’s moved on to what could be the next generation of waste disposal.

[Plasma gasification] works a little like the big bang, only backward (you get nothing from something). Inside a sealed vessel made of stainless steel and filled with a stable gas—either pure nitrogen or, as in this case, ordinary air—a 650-volt current passing between two electrodes rips electrons from the air, converting the gas into plasma. Current flows continuously through this newly formed plasma, creating a field of extremely intense energy very much like lightning. The radiant energy of the plasma arc is so powerful, it disintegrates trash into its constituent elements by tearing apart molecular bonds. The system is capable of breaking down pretty much anything except nuclear waste, the isotopes of which are indestructible.

Perhaps the most amazing part of the process is that it’s self-sustaining. Just like your toaster, Startech’s Plasma Converter draws its power from the electrical grid to get started. The initialvoltage is about equal to the zap from a police stun gun. But once the cycle is under way, the 2,200˚F syngas is fed into a cooling system, generating steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. About two thirds of the power is siphoned off to run the converter; the rest can be used on-site for heating or electricity, or sold back to the utility grid. “Even a blackout would not stop the operation of the facility,” Longo says.

Plasma gasefication does sound like a dream come true. What could be better than eliminating massive amounts of waste from the world? The Popular Science article cites critics who point out that there are heavy metals in the obsidian-like glass byproduct, which breaks down easily in water and could contaminate soils and ground water if not disposed of properly. Others doubt the cleanliness of the syngas, which would serverely limit its use.

I wondered about some other unintended effects to this potential “solution” to our increasing garbage load. Even if plasma gasefication is the next step in dealing with the world’s waste, garbage would still need to be hauled to plasma converter sites. While the facilities would be considerably smaller than landfills, and much easier to place in close proximity to waste generating areas, it wouldn’t necessarily change the way waste is picked up (often with polluting diesel powered trucks) but simply where it is taken to.

Another issue that concerns me is that people might recycle less than they already do. One motivator to recycling is knowing that you’re eliminating waste in landfills and you’re promoting post-consumer content in products such as paper, and the reuse of metals such as aluminum. However, if plasma gasefication is implemented on a mass scale, and people stop worrying about the amount of waste generated since that waste will essentially disappear, recycled materials might decrease, prompting the increase of new materials or virgin products (ie. cutting of new trees rather than using recycled paper for new paper products.)

Additionally, the phasing out of landfills (if we get to that point) would also require businesses who have built up their operations using methane gas from landfill sites to find alternate means of generating this fuel source.

Overall, plasma gasefication is a very appealing solution for our increasing global waste problems, and we’ll be keeping an eye on its progress.

Via Popular Science Magazine

In the age of overconsumption, even the thriftiest among us find themselves with perfectly good items that we no longer need. Green folks want to keep that stuff out of landfills and give it a new home. Websites like Freecycle and Craigslist provide forums for people to advertise things they'd like to give away, but St Louis-based web developers Peter Schmalfeldt and John Kramlich wanted to provide a more user-friendly medium for those looking to connect their reusables with new owners. They’ve created Gigoit, which stands for "Garbage In, Garbage Out", a free web-based service that’s aiming to simplify reusing. Gigoit has only been live for less than a month, and strong communities have already sprouted in the St Louis and Memphis areas.

“Most people who could be using a service like this are really deciding between using something like Freecycle or just throwing [the item] in the trash,” says Schmalfeldt. “That is a huge decision. It has to be super easy to donate an item, and it needs to be fast…they should be able to get the item out of their hands as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

How does Gigoit differ from Freecycle? Simply put, it's easier. For one, users don’t have to go through a lengthy registration period just to access items up for grabs. Anyone can immediately see what's available near a given zip code. By eliminating the “mailing list” model, all information is centralized, and it’s much easier to find what’s relevant to the user, his or her area, and what her or she is looking for. Once an item has been picked up, it’s taken off the board by the giver, without having to post a message for everyone else on the site to filter through. Users only receive messages related to their own transactions, and RSS feeds allow users to quickly access the latest items in their area. Users also manage their own profiles, which can be as elaborate or as simple as they want, and users aren't limited to certain geographical areas–you can access items from all over the country on the same site.

In short: Schmalfeldt and Kramlich have done their homework. Despite its small start, the relative simplicity of using Gigoit will have it surpassing Freecycle and Craigslist in no time.