Green Options » zero waste

Cool Designs for the Bird Island Dream Green Retreat

Lucille Chi — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:30:41 +0000

Shown here is a winning green building design for Bird Island, a private and gated residential park in the center of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which peacefully shares the environment with many local and migratory birds. The Bird Island Green Homes Competition had a challenge for eight of the world’s top architects to try and create eco-friendly living spaces. Global firm Graft Lab submitted plans for Bird Island rendered above. Inhabitat mentions that Bird Island will also be constructed with a fabulous “grey water recycling system that channels water from sinks and showers back to the plumbing”. This eco-resort design is admirably aiming for zero-waste.

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The Best Organic Food in San Francisco is at the Cool and Casual Lettüs Cafe

Lucille Chi — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:16:50 +0000

Lettüs Organic Cafe in San Francisco is an organization committed to furthering sustainable practices and healthy living. Winner of several awards, and on the top of the foodie review lists, this cafe is truly the best of the bay area, in my humble opinion. The cafe features delicious freshly squeezed juices, smoothies, salads, yummy bowls, sandwiches and their famous mouth watering garden burgers, that even carnivores yearn for. In their own words:

“In many cases, food has been growing only a day or two before it is served to our customers. When it is not available locally, we search the globe in our quest for the best organic, natural or artisan quality ingredients as reflected in our coffees, teas, and spirits.”

While the organic ingredients for Lettüs’s dishes are practically all locally sourced, that is not so with the unique materials used for the interior…For example,

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GM is Going Green: Two Plants in Flint Already Landfill-Free

Wenona Napolitano — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:36:35 +0000

GM announced in September that the company is committed to making half of their global manufacturing plants landfill-free by 2010. Two plants in Flint, MI have already achieved this status: Flint Engine South and Flint Tool and Die.

So what does being landfill-free mean? It means that all of the plant’s production waste and garbage is recycled or reused.

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New Hot Events to Help the Environment in San Francisco, California

Lucille Chi — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:30:55 +0000

Event posters ordered above:

Treasure Island MUSIC Festival this weekend September 20 and 21st in the SF Bay Area. With the event running on biodiesel generators, zero-emission buses, recycling and composting goals, recyclable napkins, compostable cups, and more, it is clear they have some zero waste goals. There is even a carbon offset option for ticket buyers. With sexy musical acts like Goldfrapp, the acoustic guitars of Fleet Foxes, indie rockers like Tegan and Sara, and electronic Amon Tobin and Justice, this event
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Plan To Build The World’s First Zero-Waste, Zero-Carbon City Gets Financial Backing

Ariel Schwartz — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:04:50 +0000

General Electric and Mubadala Development have just announced a multi-billion dollar partnership that will give a huge financial boost to a plan to develop a clean-energy walled city in the United Arab Emirates. Masdar City, scheduled for completion in 2015, will get all of its energy from sustainable sources, and will create zero net greenhouse gas emissions. It will also be completely car-free.

As part of its partnership with Mubadala, GE will fund a giant research center in the heart of the city that will house a think tank of technologists working to develop sustainable energy and water technologies. The company will also commit up to $50 million to Masdar’s cleantech investment fund.

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Italian Beauty Looking for Urgent Solutions

Eva Pratesi — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:38:10 +0000

I’ve just seen Gomorra, the movie recently came out in Italy and based on the bestselling book Gomorrah: Italy’s Other Mafia, by Roberto Saviano.

Never before south of Italy has been so popular on media and newspapers like in this period and not for good news! Naples, a city long defined by both its loveliness and its squalor, is collapsing for a garbage emergency linked to the local mafia, the Camorra.

Where is the connection between rubbish and Naples’s crime system?

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Wal-Mart Admits “We Are Not Green”

Alex Goldschmidt — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:35:42 +0000

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott attended the ECO:nomics conference in California this week. Wal-Mart has been heralded as a forerunner of corporate environmentalism: in 2005, the company announced big plans to “green up” its act. But when Scott was asked when Wal-Mart expects to achieve the environmental goals it set forth in 2005, Scott answered bluntly: “I have no idea when that will be.”

It’s the first time anyone from Wal-Mart has admitted so candidly that the company has no foreseeable plans to implement the changes it has promised. The company has failed to provide tangible benchmarks up until now (its 2007 sustainability report was unsubstantial) and Scott’s statements today imply the company has no intention of providing quantifiable results in the years to come.

In addition, Scott’s comments in this Wall Street Journal video lay bare the fact that Wal-Mart’s motivations lie with profitability, not environmentalism. While money is indeed a great motivator, the company’s dedication to eco-efforts is fickle at best. The company simply doesn’t have the stamina to achieve the long-term goals its set forth. Zero waste and 100% renewable energy are a looong ways off for this company.

Planning for Zero Waste…in Los Angeles?

Cassie Walker — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:26:53 +0000

Los Angeles has always been a place for those with big dreams. Need proof? I have two words for you: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, the city is tackling something that would be a dream come true: becoming a "zero waste" city.

Zero waste is a concept that has been growing in popularity lately, though it has been practiced by nature since the beginning of time. In nature, there is no waste. Everything that is produced becomes food for something else at the end of its life. For nature, there is no need for landfills or dumps, because nothing is thrown "away."

It’s hard to imagine that a city of 3.8 million people could accomplish this same thing, but that is exactly what Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council have in the works. The Solid Waste Integrated Resources Plan, or "SWIRP," will represent a 20-year master plan for the city’s solid waste and recycling programs. Its goals include:

eliminating the use of landfills,
developing alternative technologies for long term waste disposal,
increasing recycling and resource recovery, and
converting the entire Sanitation fleet to clean fuel Liquid Natural Gas vehicles.

In developing the plan, the city is seeking input from Angelenos from all walks of life, and is holding meetings for citizens to provide that input. Though several meetings have already been held, two more opportunities to get involved are coming up:

South LA: Saturday, August 25th at 10am at the Exposition Park Intergenerational Community Center (EPICC)
Harbor: Monday, August 27th at 6pm at Peck Park’s Community Meeting Room

Gathering this stakeholder input is just the first phase of the program. In Phase II, a document will be produced that outlines the city’s objectives for some important and far-reaching areas: sustainability, resource conservation, source reduction, recycling, renewable energy, maximum material recovery, public health and environmental protection. These areas affect absolutely everyone, from businesses to consumers. Everything will be impacted, from the manufacturing and packaging of products, through the use of those products, on to their disposal through recovery or recycling.

Implementation is scheduled to begin in 2009, which is just around the corner when government is concerned. Can we do it? You may say I’m a dreamer, but (thankfully) I’m not the only one…

Photo: Garbage at Los Angeles’ Recycling and Transfer Station

Green Film Review: The Next Industrial Revolution

Robin Schidlowski — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:30:06 +0000

William McDonough and Michael Braungart: Cradle to Cradle designers teach us that waste is a design flaw.

When we follow nature's rules, growth is good. The question before us is not growth versus no growth, It is: what would good growth look like? And this is a question of intent, of design. What if we grow health instead of sickness, home ownership instead of indigence, education instead of ignorance?"

In a one hour film narrated by Susan Sarandon about the designer duo William McDonough and Michael Braungart (MBDC), we get a refresher course on Cradle to Cradle design theory. We review waste=food, the role of biological and technical nutrients in production, and why being less bad is no good. The MBDC design tenets result in buildings with net energy returns and products so safe they are edible.

The film takes us up close and personal with five examples of MBDC's zero waste design. We venture on a tour of the Herman Miller factory, with its extensively daylighted building and workers that are so content they have perfect attendance, a Swiss textile factory whose industrial wastewater is cleaner than the incoming supply, and the O'Berlin College Student Center's indoor wetlands graywater system. These examples, along with Nike's new ultra safe sustainable rubber and Ford's twenty-year sustainability plan are used as case studies of Cradle to Cradle to design.

The delightful movie was hosted in San Francsico at the Roxie Film Center, as part of the Urban Alliance for Sustainability's Green Movie Night and Forum. Following the film, a discussion ensued that addressed questions such as: Can a non-toxic rubber be sustainable if trees are clearcut for its production? Can a shoe be sustainable if workers are not paid a fair wage? Can a car be sustainable if a car society is not?

The forum questions pushed the audience to think critically and to realize that the film was presented from a particular bias. In theory MBDC design is beautiful, hopeful, and inspirational, but it is not always perfect in practice. The audience picked up on that point. McDonough, himself, notes in the film that Ford is not sustainable yet, but that they might be the first to get there. The fact of the matter is that his vision for design and good growth are influencing our green future. This film is definitely worth a screening or two, to get everyone familiar with Cradle to Cradle design and to insist upon it.

Urban Options: Fundamentalist Recycling and the Point of Sale Conscience

Robin Schidlowski — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:49:53 +0000

Art by Chris Jordan depicting the 2 million single use bottles used in the U.S. every five minutes. Though it's unusual for someone living in the US, as a general rule, I don't buy foods that come packaged. That includes drinks packaged in recyclable bottles. Even though bottles can be recycled, the thought of the excessive amounts of energy used in the process and the sheer numbers of single serving beverages consumed in our country, makes me turn away at the grocery store shelf.

Every now and then, however, I want an Adina Mojita drink, because it is delicious, organic, and refreshing and I know the glass bottle can be recycled. It's okay, right? In the hierarchy of choice, glass is better than plastic, so Adina drinks fit the environmental bill, right?

The answer is not so simple if you keep the heirarchy of three R's in mind: "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle".

Zero Waste expert Paul Palmer tells us "recycling is the lowest form of reuse you can find. This is because the most important thing to reuse is not the materials of which an item is made but the function that it serves." The highest function of a bottle, plastic or glass, is as a container and this function is destroyed in the recycling process. When we have the choice to consume or not, recycling is a way to clear our conscience of our throw-away habit. If we put the bottle in the blue bin, all is well, right?

Palmer says "No." He points out that most recyclables end up in landfills or worse, and that it's not okay to rely on recycling as a solution to the ills of consumption.

To reinforce the idea, I ran across an image depicting the fate of bottle caps and other post consumber debris and I share the thought with you:

Photo Credit: Charles Moore- Mindfully.org

I looked a little further and learned that one quarter of the world's surface is congested with post-consumer, mostly plastic, debris that will never degrade. According to Moore, plastics

…photodegrade, a process whereby sunlight breaks them into progressively smaller pieces, all of which are still plastic polymers. In fact, the degradation eventually yields individual molecules of plastic, but these are still too tough for most anything—even such indiscriminate consumers as bacteria—to digest.

Translucent zooplankton are found with pieces of colored plastic in their bellies. Fish eat the plankton and we eat the fish. From the bottom of the food chain up, we are ingesting plastic. Moore's study shows that there are 6 pounds of debris to every one pound of plankton even in the remotest parts of the oceans.

I learned that birds are feeding ocean debris to their babies and 2 out of 5 chicks are dying. How about a turtle washed up on a tropical island with 1000 pieces of non-degradable discards in its body? Still want a soda? All the little pieces of plastic and metal, the lids, the lighters, the odds and ends that don't get recycled are floating in the middle of our ocean. So are tires, oil drums, diapers, and condoms, and bottles that could have been recycled, among other artifacts of our culture.

We can trace the world's environmental degradation directly to our choices in the store. This information fuels what I call the Point of Sale (POS) conscience that says “don't buy that single use container; there is a better alternative." If we don't keep up on the issues, it is easy to disconnect from the ocean and marine life, nature, and other victims of the far-reaching effects of contemporary human lifestyle. But harrowing pictures, like the one above, sink deep into our consciousness and help us make our daily choices.

Kombucha : Kombucha: According to GT Dave this cultured tea drink has been used for hundreds of years throughout the world as a daily health tonic. Image- wikipediaWhen I am at my favorite family-owned grocery , I stand in front of the cooler and rationalize my desire for a single-use beverage: Even though the package can be recycled, is there a better alternative? Do I have a sparkly homemade beverage at home that will satisfy my need for a quick refresher without any packaging or tranport costs? Can I be satisfied without relying on my city to get rid of (recycle) a bottle and cap for me?

More often than not, I can answer “Yes." In part because of my POS conscience, I make Kombucha on a regular basis and keep my home stocked with alternatives to factory bottled beverages. For water, I reject plastic bottles and use a refillable container like Klean Kanteen . This practice helps balance the desire for instant gratification with the POS conscience, the mind that remembers the tragedy of consumption and doesn't want to participate. So I leave the bottle on the shelf and go home for a glass of homemade sparkling lemonade, root beer, or kombucha.

Look forward to a DIY post on home brewing soda and other non-alcoholic sparklers.