photo by Nika (nika2 on Flickr Creative Commons)

When I lived in the US we separated our newspapers, cans and some plastic bottles and put them into a container to be collected by a truck once a week. In Sweden we divided glass (both dark and light), metal, plastic, paper, batteries and light bulbs in a special structure in front of my apartment building. In Ireland we just chucked everything into a big tip to be sorted through at a processing plant and then sold to the UK, which also has its own methods of recycling.

Below are two separate video reports by Al Jazeera English on two very different systems of recycling – though in some ways they are not so different from each other, it turns out. One in Cairo, Egypt and focuses on local waste, the other is in China, where a huge recycling industry imports trash and turns it into cash.

Cairo’s proficient recyclers

Cairo has one of the most efficient garbage recycling systems in the world, and that’s due to the community of garbage collectors known as the Zebbaleen.

China recycling world’s junk

It is the world’s biggest importer of waste, taking in plastics from the US, for example, before transforming them into new products to be shipped back to Western countries.

Graham Land

Image Source: Flickr.

Last week, I gave you a list of green home improvements you can do around your home for free. Many news articles will lead you to believe that you need to spend thousands of dollars on renewable energy devices, renovations, and new appliances that you may not really need (or can afford). So, I gave you a list of things you can do in the bathroom, kitchen, or while doing cleaning and laundry that wouldn’t cost a single penny and over time can do just as much good as an upgrade that may cost several thousand dollars (or more).

As promised, here is the second part to the list. Check it out!:

Home Office:

If you must leave the computer or printer/copier on, make sure it is set to sleep or stand-by mode.

When you make prints or copies, always make them double sided (rather than printing on one side of paper). This way, you’ll use half as much paper and save trees in the process.

If you have any used paper you don’t need any more (such as paper that has printed material on one side, but is blank on the other side), you can always use it as scrap paper or for taking notes.

If you have a choice between printing material or saving it to a disk or CD, always go with the disk/CD option!

Also, anything that can be sent via e-mail to co-workers, clients, employees, and so forth should be, if you are allowed to do so.

Always recycle office supplies when you can. This includes paper, printer cartridges, and other electronics. Staples is one office supply store that recycles some of these things. Check other stores in your area (such as Best Buy or Office Depot) to find out if they have any recycling programs available.

Lawn and Garden:

To clean debris off the sidewalks, patio, porch, or out of the garage, use a broom instead of a hose. This conserves water.

Check around the yard for standing (stagnant) water to eliminate mosquito breeding grounds. This can include pots, wheelbarrows, buckets, bird feeders, and other such items.

Before you water the lawn (or any other outdoor plants you might have), check the weather forecast. If there is rain heading your way, you can give the hose (or sprinklers) a break and conserve water.

Only water the lawn to the point of being soaked once a week. This will encourage a healthy lawn, even in hot conditions. If your lawn still appears dry, don’t water it more often! It will improve once cooler temperatures return.

Also, when it comes to watering your lawn or garden, only do it in the early morning or evening when it’s cooler outside. This way, there’s less chance of the water evaporating (unlike during the hotter times of the day).

Compost! Always compost your yard clippings when you can. If you don’t have enough space to compost, check if there’s a yard debris recycler in your area. Earth911.com may also have some suggestions on this.

General Home Improvements:

Place furniture, such as desks, tables, and chairs near windows. This way, you can take advantage of the natural sunlight during the day, rather than wasting electricity on a lamp.

Always turn off and unplug electronics or lights when they are not in use.

If you have light fixtures that hold more than one light bulb (such as some ceiling lights), don’t feel obligated to fill every socket. For example, some ceiling light fixtures will hold 4 light bulbs, but you can see just as well with only 1 or 2 bulbs in use.

Any appliance that produces heat (such as the oven or a washer) should only be run during the cooler times of day in the summer months. This will cut back on the heat in your home and the need to run cooling devices, such as fans or air conditioners.

On hot days, close all windows, curtains and blinds. This will reduce solar gain and prevent all that nasty hot air from coming into your house. At night time, open the windows to take advantage of the natural cool air, instead of running fans or air conditioners.

If you do use an air conditioner, you should clean the filters every month to keep the appliance running in good condition.

During the colder months, you should set your thermostat no higher than 68 degrees. Also, to keep warm, instead of turning the heat up, you can always throw on more layers of clothes, open all the curtains or blinds during the day (except on north-facing windows) to soak up the natural sun, and close all doors to rooms that are not being used so the heat doesn’t spread to unnecessary areas.

That’s all the tips for this week. Next week will be the third and final part of this particular segment, and will include information on transportation, recreation, and your pets!

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from video.

Sometimes people create amazing things from recyclable materials. These creations can range from artwork to the latest green gadget. This week, I am going to tell you about 3 awesome things made from recycled products.

Australia’s Printer Cartridge Bike Path
The problem with regular paved roads is they always seem to need maintenance. Every time you turn around, they’re doing work on the same stretch of road all over again. The same old methods don’t seem to be cutting it like they used to but finding something new that works can take a lot of time. Well, someone has come up with a rather unique way to bridge the gap between the old and the new (or renewed)—at least where bike paths are concerned—and it’s located in Australia’s West MacDonnell National Park. The path in question stretches from Alice Springs to Simpsons Gap and it includes a bridge made from recycled printer cartridges! The cartridges come from Replas Recycled Plastics, which are made by Repeat Plastics Australia. Apart from being made from a recycled product, it also ensures that more wildlife is saved and less maintenance will be required on the bridge than other portions of the path.

Egg Carton Lamps
This creation comes from the artistic mind of Victor Vetterlein. Dubbed the “Trash Me” lamps, every piece of these lamps is recycled or recyclable. It all starts with 4 paper egg cartons which are mixed with water. Then, the mixture is placed into a mold to give the lamp its unique shape. Once dried, everything is secured in place with aluminum screws. Finally, the electrical pieces of the lamp are also recyclable and it’s filled with birdseed to give it weight and balance. Yes, it does work and when it’s reached the end of its life, you can either recycle it or take it apart and create something of your own.

The Lego Printer
Yes, you read those 3 words correctly. Someone has built an open-source, working printer out of Legos, a felt-tip pen, and some garage electronics. The printer will print in the Helvetica font at 75 dots per inch, but that’s not the best part. The best part is the printer comes complete with little Lego men attached to the moving parts, so it looks like a mini Lego assembly line! How awesome is that? You can actually check out a video of the printer on YouTube and here’s a description from the creator himself:

“”Lego felt tip 110″ printer connected to an Apple Mac. This is not mindstorms, I designed/built/coded it all from scratch including analog motor electronics, sensors and printer driver, the USB interface uses a “wiring” board.”

You can find more information (including a list of FAQ) on the YouTube video page here.

That’s all the recycled bits for this week. If you’ve created something great from recycled products, tell us about it!

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Flickr. By: Topsy at Waygood.

Around the world, there are many people who follow (and perhaps sometimes even yell) the anti-plastic bag mantra: Ban the plastic bag! Well, it would seem that mantra is becoming a reality in California.

Recently, the state Assembly voted 41 to 27 to pass a bill that will ban single-use plastic grocery bags, making it the first of its kind in the US. The ban was also endorsed by the California Grocers Association and Governor Schwarzenegger also plans to sign the bill if it passes the Senate as expected.

You can check out information on the new bill here (search for AB 1998), though here are some key points to expect:

• In-store plastic bags recycling programs will be repealed.
• Grocery stores, convenience stores, and other specified stores will be prohibited from providing single-use plastic bags to customers.
• Stores will be required to provide reusable bags to customers or recycled paper bags for a reasonable cost no less than $0.05.

Some cities throughout California already have plastic bag bans at work, including San Francisco and Malibu. Environmentalists are also particularly happy about the ban, especially considering that Californians alone use 19 billion plastic bags per year and these plastic bags can (and have) posed a major threat to wildlife.

This latest bill comes after a long line of great green efforts in California, including mandatory recycling programs and stricter rules on appliances and electronics. I only wonder how long it will be before other states (or countries) take the initiative and start doing the same.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from Macro-Sea.com.

Do you love to live green? Do you have anger issues? Do you have pent up frustrations that you need to unleash on someone or something? If you’ve answered yes to all these questions, then check this out.

Macro-Sea has come up with an awesome new concept, dubbed Glassphemy! It’s a “visceral and psychological recycling center”. I’m sure that doesn’t make sense, so I’ll explain, or rather, I’ll let them explain:

“We have built a 20-foot high, 30-foot long steel tower specifically designed to allow you to hurl glass bottles at your friends, enemies, and loved ones while they are safely tucked away behind bulletproof glass.”

Seems crazy, right? Well, that is part of the point of it. Those at Macro-Sea wanted to do something a bit more creative and thrilling with the whole “recycling and green thing”, while allowing people to work through emotional issues.

How, exactly, does breaking glass bottles fit in with recycling or green living? Well, the bottles will be collected from bars in Brooklyn. Once broken via Glassphemy!, the pieces will be used to make lights or pulverized for use as environmental fill. They are also planning to hold a contest sponsored by Readymade magazine that will open the project up to people with other unique recycling ideas.

To find out more, check out Macro-Sea’s Glassphemy! website here.

By Heidi Marshall

you see a dumpster, I see a pool; photo by Kevin H (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

How do disillusioned, arty Manhattanites recycle without getting bored out of their ultra-hip, urban skulls? They smash it up.

New York artist David Belt has created a project called ‘Glassphemy!’ where patrons can at once recycle and purge their violent impulses by spectacularly smashing glass bottles into a massive Plexiglas structure. The bottle throwers are lifted on a platform above the 30-foot (6 meter) clear rectangle, where they can aim and fire at people standing on the other side of the bulletproof glass. The impact of the bottles triggers flashing lights, adding to the spectacle. It reminds me a bit of a restaurant in the Philippines I read about a few years ago, where customers can get their aggressions out by chucking crockery at a wall. Primal, but such a waste.

Glassphemy, on the other hand, has a bit of an eco-theme. After the bottles are smashed, the broken glass gets recycled on site into material for other art projects, such as sculptures. It’s a fun opportunity to release all that pent up rage that so many high-strung New Yorkers must harbor, but without any green guilt. At the same time, the throwers get to participate in a cool art installation.

From an article in the New York Times:

The immediate and visible reuse also helps counter the widespread suspicion that recyclables are just thrown out anyway. Though for logistical reasons, “Glassphemy!” will not generally be open to the public — the lot where it sits is hidden from the street — people who send good recycling ideas to the Macro Sea Web site, macro-sea.com, may earn an invitation with the address, Mr. Belt said.

Before making the Glassphemy installation, David Belt received notoriety for turning dumpsters into swimming pools – yet another artsy way for affluent New Yorkers to safely live out their squalid urban fantasies.

Watch a New York Times video report on Glassphemy here.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

macro-sea.com

Green Diary – ‘Glassphemy!’ recycling installation lets people show their eco-aggression

Image Source: Screen capture from RecycleBank.

Recycling has become a fairly common daily routine and social practice.

You’ll see recycling bins at airports, amusement parks, shopping centers, and tourist destinations. You may have a recycling station at your place of work, or there might be one at your kids’ school. You do it, your neighbors do it, even celebrities and government officials do it. We may do it for the planet or the greater, greener good; or we may do it simply because it’s legally required in our town, state or country. However, there are still those who don’t do it—or perhaps they do, but they expect something in return for their efforts.

There was a time where you could turn in aluminum cans or even glass bottles for cash—usually a small amount, like 5 cents per can. Some areas may still hold this practice, but in most cases it’s probably outdated by now. Fortunately, there is another recycling program out there that will literally let you take your recycling efforts to the bank. Conveniently enough, the program is called: RecycleBank.

To describe the program in the simplest way: all you have to do is go to their site, register, and start recycling to earn points. However, there is a bit more to it than that. Currently, RecycleBank only operates in certain cities (you can search their site to find out if yours is included). However, you can also make a request to start their program in your own community.

You see, by joining their Home Recycling program, you will be using a recycling bin unique to the program. This bin has a tag that the trucks use to identify your home and RecycleBank account. Every time the recycling truck comes to pick up your recyclables, your RecycleBank bin is weighed. For every pound recycled in this bin, you will receive 2.5 reward points in your RecycleBank account (you can receive up to 450 points per month). These points can be redeemed through a number of well-known companies, including: Seventh Generation, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Gaiam, Kiss My Face, Kmart, Plant A Tree USA, Rite Aid, McDonald’s, Papa John’s Pizza, and thousands more!

Ah, but there is always the chance the RecycleBank Home Recycling program may not be available in your area (even upon request). You may be thinking there’s nothing else you can do with the program at that point—but you are wrong! On top of the Home Recycling program, Recycle Bank also has the following options available:

Electronics Recycling – Earn at least 10 points per electronic device you send in (and up to 10,000 points!). These devices will either be completed recycled and kept out of landfills or they may be re-used after all personal data is completely (and securely) removed from the device.

1-800-GOT-JUNK? – Do you have stuff lying around your home or business that you simply don’t know what to do with? You don’t have the room to store it, no one is willing to buy it and the garbage truck just won’t take it off your hands. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Will come to your home or work, and take away everything that you tell them to. Their work includes the loading, clean up and recycling—all you have to do is point out what you don’t want to keep around anymore (this does not include lazy spouses or teenagers). Rest assured that over 60% (if not all of) your stuff will either be completely recycled or donated to a good cause. Also, for every dollar you spend, you’ll receive 3 points, on top of an additional 500 point bonus for taking part in this program!

Visa’s Gconomy Card – Thinking about getting a credit card? Try this one out for size—it’s made from 55% recycled plastic. After your first purchase, you get 2,500 RecycleBank points. For every dollar spent at a RecycleBank Rewards Partner, you will receive 1.5 points. For every dollar spent anywhere Visa is accepted, you will receive 1 point. Oh, and with every purchase you make, RecycleBank makes a direct contribution to the Green Schools Program!

eBay’s Green Team – Are you addicted to eBay? Then check this program out. By joining eBay’s Green Team, you will receive 50 RecycleBank points.

Apart from all the programs and rewards available through RecycleBank, you can also discover some useful green living tips and also further information on the 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle).

Head over to RecycleBank now to get started!

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Flickr. By: Dtrimarchi.

Sharps Compliance has created PELLA-DRX—a type of building material made from recycled syringes and other medical waste. Now, don’t be alarmed, the Texas-based company assures that the product is safe to use. Here’s a snippet from their website to explain what, exactly, PELLA-DRX is made of:

“PELLA-DRX™ is made of shredded and sterilized (consistent with sterilized surgical instruments) sharps medical waste which has been quality-checked and compressed into clean, safe and compact PELLA-DRX™ pellets. The Waste Conversion Process renders the medical waste unidentifiable and, again, as sterile as sterile surgical instruments and ready for use in energy intensive industries for re-purposing.”

The product is specifically made to use in the cement industry; however, over time they believe it can also be used in other industries, including lime, power, and steel. For now, by using it in the cement industry, it becomes part of the cement itself and the process eliminates syringes and other medical waste items from ending up in the landfill (or other unwanted places).

Click here to find out more.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from IBM.com.

Last week, IBM announced a new requirement for all of its suppliers: they must install management systems that will track and report environmental data.

The new requirement includes 28,000 suppliers throughout more than 90 countries. It also includes the suppliers’ subcontractors—if the subcontractors’ products or services end up as a significant part of IBM’s supply chain. Environmental data that will need to be reported includes: energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling. IBM is also requiring their suppliers to set environmental goals and publicize their progress in reaching them.

IBM’s vice president for global supply and chief procurement officer, John Paterson, stated:

“We will be amongst the first, if not the first, with these broad-based markers on our supply base and we’re going to have to spend an appropriate amount of time and money to help our suppliers do what we’re asking them to do.”

Right now, IBM is not requiring that their suppliers meet any specific numerical goals; they are simply interested in their suppliers’ environmental performance. Paterson noted that the biggest challenge will be working with suppliers located in places where sustainability is not considered as important as it is in the US and Europe; but they are willing to work with suppliers to help them meet their goals.

There is a punishment (of sorts) for those who do not comply with the requirements (which is expected by early 2011). According to Paterson, “If a supplier cannot be compliant with requirements on the environment and sustainability, we’ll stop doing business with them”. That certainly seems like a fair bargain to me; especially considering it’s the world’s biggest technology company.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Combined screen captures from TerraCycle.net.

Believe it or not it can be done and TerraCycle is the place to go to for it. TerraCycle is an awesome site that creates a variety of products from recycled items and wrappers. They have bags and totes made from drink pouches, pencil cases made from cookie wrappers, and even flower pots made from e-waste. Best of all, their line of products are available both on their site and at a number of major retail stores, including Home Depot, Kmart, Target, and Wal-mart. I’ve used a bottle of their plant food (the bottle was made from a recycled soda bottle) and I must say it really improved the growth of my plants!

To participate in their program, simply join their site and sign up for as many of the available brigades as you want. Each brigade collects specific things, such as candy wrappers, drink pouches, writing utensils and cell phones. Once you have enough items collected (typically between 25 and 50 items minimum), you can send them into TerraCycle (using their free provided shipping labels). For each wrapper or other listed item you send in, money will be donated to the charity or school of your choice.

The program is absolutely free and anyone can participate, including individuals, businesses, schools, organizations, and more. To sign up for any of their brigades or simply find out more about TerraCycle in general, check out their website here.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from Gert.tv.

When it comes to plastic, many people are divided on the issue. Some absolutely refuse to buy or use any plastic products. Others have no problem with plastic, as long as it’s disposed of properly (reused or recycled). Given issues such as the Pacific Garbage Patch and the more recent Atlantic Garbage Patch, I don’t blame people for being upset about plastics.

However, whether people approve of plastic or not, it’s still a major part of our lives. It can be found in toys, storage containers, luggage, medical equipment, construction supplies, vehicle parts, furniture, and even clothing. There have been advances in the plastic world, such as attempts in creating sugar-based plastics, but there is still a long way to go before this excessively used product will appease everyone.

There is some good news in the world of plastic, though. Lately, there has been a bit of a surge in the use of plastics in art and design. Dutch artist, Gert de Mulder, has taken the dreaded plastic bags and turned them into building blocks, dubbed Recy-Blocks. Another Dutch-based design firm, Whim Architects, has developed an interesting plan, called Recycled Island. The idea would involve collecting all the plastic from the Pacific Garbage Patch and turning it into a sustainable home for climate change refugees.

There was also another recent project constructed in Taiwan. Named the Fashion Pavilion EcoARK, the moveable three-story structure is made from 1.5 million interlocked, recycled, Polli-Brick PET bottles. All of these designs have used (or plan to use) plastics in a useful and creative way. Rather than viewing plastic as a problem, try to see how you can turn it into part of the solution.

Have you ever created any useful item or product from recycled plastics? Feel free to share your story, if you have.

By Heidi Marshall

Guest post by Ian Moise
If you are interested to guest post on our blog, click here to create an account or click here to contact us directly.

—

Am I blind because I do not see?

Image source: ReUseConnection.com

Africa. . . a land of enormous beauty, of warm people, of colorful traditions, of enormous diversity, and of devastating poverty.  But with poverty, comes wealth.  Africa is a land where everything has value, where someone’s trash is always another person’s resource, where throwing a plastic bottle out the window is recycling, because someone will come along and use that bottle.  It is a land of incredible potential. . .  and brilliant INNOVATION, IMAGINATION, and CREATIVITY.  In Africa, children make toy cars out of plastic bottle tops and soap boxes.  School teachers make school bells out of truck tire rims. People make bungee cords by cutting up and slicing bicycle inner tubes.  They make cook-stoves out of old metal roofing and even cars.   Everything has value.

America (USA). . . a land of enormous beauty, of amazing opportunity, of helpful people, of diverse neighborhoods, of incredible wealth, and of enormous waste.  It is a country that, as Annie Leonard states in The Story of Stuff, makes up 5% of the world’s population, consumes 30% of its resources and creates 30% of its waste.  It has built an economy on extraction, manufacturing, consumption, and disposal.  It is also a land of incredible potential and brilliant INNOVATION, IMAGINATION, and CREATIVITY.  It is a land where old clothes are used to make quilts, where magazines are made into trendy purses, and where Olsenhaus has made its 2010 collection of peep-toes (that’s right, women’s dress shoes!!!) from obsolete, analog TV screens.

I grew up in America . . . and I grew up again in Africa.  There, I learned a different pace of life, a different appreciation for people, and an admiration for my own country.  Most of all, I learned that we are all the same people, separated by our opportunities and experiences.  We all care about our children, and we all care about the environment, but we do not all see the same opportunities.  The child in America does not see the toy in the soap box.  He cannot imagine it. A fashion designer in Africa does not see the shoe in the TV.  She cannot imagine it. Are they blind?

The solutions are there.  It is just a matter of seeing them.

By Ian Moise

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Ian Moise (ReUseConnection.com)

Ian Moise is founder and CEO of ReUseConnection, a global website promoting the re-use of material goods by allowing people in different countries to share and discuss how they reuse various items.  He currently resides in Washington DC but has lived in, traveled to, or worked in over 40 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.  He works with his father, Samuel Moise, a computer programmer who lives in Meadow Vista, California.

You can connect with Ian on Twitter: @ianmoise
You can find ReUseConnection on Facebook

Image capture from Youtube video

I came across this video on DigInfo’s Youtube Channel. It’s shot during the 2009 Eco-Products exhibition. It’s about a quiet spectacular machine that is supposed to make toilet paper from recycled, shredded paper. The machine is called White Goat (!?) and has all it needs to recycle paper right within itself. You simply put shredded paper in it, then it dissolves it, turns it into pulp, thins it into future-to-be recycled toilet paper and dries it before wounding it into finished toilet paper.

Too bad it’s so big because I like the idea!

By Murielle Ungricht

Unpackaged carrots: Not really that weird, is it? – photo by ecomamanl (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

According to a CNN Eco Solutions report bioplastics are booming. Even the 215,000 square foot (20,000 sq meter) carpet that politicians, activists and scientists trounced upon at the Copenhagen climate summit was made from corn. Carpets are ‘reusable’ however. Disposable packaging – containers, shopping bags, bottles and plastic wrap – is not reusable and in many cases, unnecessary. When these products eventually end up in landfills, the middle of the ocean or even in recycling centers, they are a problem that needs to be dealt with.

Packaging made from bioplastics shows promise in being a good alternative to traditional plastic materials: it is safer, made from renewable resources, is generally more energy efficient and often biodegradable. Recycling has also advanced considerably, becoming more efficient and widespread during the past decade, yet this advancement has coincided with a huge increase in waste production, especially in Western countries. So in fact, rather than reducing our impact on the environment in recent years, as far as packaging goes, recycling and bioplastics have only served to mitigate the growing amount of damage we do. This is obviously not the direct fault of recycling and bioplastics, but rather a symptom of irresponsible runaway profit motives. The fact is that that our rampant consumer-based society simply has not addressed the issue of needless waste.

But it would also seem logical that less waste = more money saved, right?

Pretty and convenient packaging may help to sell products, but so could an eco-friendly image. Lush cosmetics have been very successful in marketing their natural handmade products, which feature very little packaging. 70% of Lush products can be purchased ‘naked’ or with no packaging at all. We’ve all experienced the rage that accompanies trying to open over packaged electronic equipment, as exemplified by Larry David in this clip from ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’:

Larry David vs Plastic Package

London ethical grocer Unpackaged takes the idea of less packaging to its logical conclusion: no packaging. In other words, you bring your own vessels and they fill them with their goods. It may sound radical, daring, modern and brilliant, but it’s largely how things used to be before the advent and mass takeover of plastic, paper and cardboard packaging. It’s ironic – but good – that they’ve been getting so much attention for taking this simple, reasonable, yet completely traditional approach to selling their wares, but that just shows how conditioned we’ve become to over-packaged goods – and in such a short time. Perhaps the plastic packaging era will turn out to be but a small blip on vast millennia of civilization. Unfortunately – even in that best-case scenario – the remnants of that blip will remain in our soil and oceans for thousands of years to come.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Reuters video – Recycle! What about precycle?

Beyond recycling – ‘zero waste’

Scary plastic numbers from Discover magazine

Image Source: Flickr. By: LisaBatty

It would seem that the state of North Carolina has taken a great step in the world of recycling. Apparently, they are now banning plastic bottles from landfills.

The good news is 95% of North Carolina residents have access to recycling centers and all this mandatory recycling has provided over 14,000 people with jobs. There has also been a rise in the amount of recycled plastic bottles. Counts are now up to an average of 19,000 a month.

The bad news is there are some rural areas that do not have curbside recycling available to them. However, the president of Rural Garbage Services Inc. offered to pick them up for free, for residents of Forsyth County.

If you want to find out more about the ban, check out this site. It also lists statistics, links, information on venue recycling and case studies, and has a recycling tool kit available.

Oh, and if any of you are big (American) football fans, this little statistic may be of interest:

In the time it takes you to watch the Super Bowl (3.5 hours), North Carolinians send 978,092 plastic drink bottles to a landfill.

Let’s hope that number is a lot less this year.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from EcoHatchery.com

Across the internet, you’ll find a world of information on environmental news, how to live green, how to calculate your carbon footprint, tips on saving energy, and so forth. More sites, programs, widgets and applications come out every single day. Obviously, you can’t keep track of them all. How do you decide which ones are worth checking out? Are they legitimate programs or just another form of greenwashing?

Well, I’ve tried to save you some of the guesswork by creating this list. Here, you will find some green widgets or eco-friendly sites that are definitely worth checking out.

10. Trip Footprint
This is a good place to start if you like to travel a lot. Simple in design and extremely easy to use; all you have to do is enter your departure city, your arrival city, and click the number of total passengers there will be on the trip (including yourself). The Trip Footprint calculator will then show you which method would be the best to travel by: car, plane, or train. It will also calculate the amount of CO2 emissions that will be released for each option and will include potential nearby departure cities so you can compare which will be the better option. It may be a very basic website, but it is a big help if you want to calculate how to offset your traveling carbon footprint.

9. Eco Broker
If you have a construction project in mind, whether it’s for the home or business, this would be the place to come to. This site offers information on every green building thing you can think of, from materials to appliances, architects to designers, energy efficient mortgages, and a whole lot more. It’s definitely worth a look if you want to make your home or business more green, sustainable or eco-friendly.

8. EcoHatchery
This site I decided to put at number 8 because even though there are parts of the site still incomplete, it does have a lot of potential. This site contains a variety of options for people to start living a more eco-friendly lifestyle. You can calculate your carbon footprint, shop for a variety of eco-friendly products, and even purchase Eco Kits to help you get started down the green path. The kits include a variety of items, from energy monitors to outlet and light switch sealers, to reusable totes and bottles.

7. Brighter Planet
Yet another simple site packed with a lot of information. Brighter Planet offers you a footprint calculator (as seems to be the norm with most green websites), conservation tips, carbon offset advice and information for everything from business to the home to travel and even weddings! They also have a Project Fund program, where they will donate to a chosen cause every time someone uses a Brighter Planet debit card, credit card, or buys offsets.

6. GreenPrinter’s Eco-Calculator
Do you run a business or work in an office of some kind? Do you have to make prints or copies of business cards, office papers, brochures, post cards, letterheads or presentation folders? If so, you will love this calculator. You select your print job—business cards, for example. Then you select the percentage of recycled paper you will be using. After that you simply input the quantity and the size of the copies. The Eco-Calculator will show you your eco-savings, which includes: trees, wastewater, solid waste, energy, and (of course) CO2.

5. Local Harvest
Buying locally instead of globally is important; so is organic food. This site combines both of those things. Here, you are able to search for organic farms, restaurants, grocery stores, farmer markets, and a variety of other places. This way, you can find ones close to you (that you may not already be aware of) and as such, buy locally, support farms in your area, and take a huge step in reducing your footprint and helping the environment.

4. The Green Guide for Kids
You see them all over the place: they scurry underfoot, track mud across your “just cleaned” floor, leave toys in the strangest of places and can be quite the handful. Kids want to help the environment, too, and this site is a good place for them to start. It offers up a huge list of environmental information, art and craft projects, tips on how to green their schools, game ideas, and a lot more. If you have kids of your own, or maybe a whole classroom of kids, this site is definitely worth checking out to encourage them to become more environmentally active.

3. Earth 911
Can I recycle #7 plastics sometimes or not at all? Do cereal boxes count as cardboard recyclables? How can I dispose of batteries or car parts in an eco-friendly way? Earth911.com can answer all of these questions and a lot more. This site is completely dedicated to recycling. You can search by location and they will give you a list of recycling places near you and what items they will accept for recycling. You can also search by item and they will tell you where those items can be recycled. They also provide a lot of articles, tips and even contests for recycling!

2. Earth Aid
I stumbled upon this site recently and it is truly awesome. EarthAid.net focuses on saving energy in the home and thus, also saving you money. The thing that sets them apart from other (similar) websites is they will reward you for living green! All you have to do is create an account and input your electric, gas, and water information (Provider Company and your account number). EarthAid keeps track of your energy saving progress and will award you points for every kilo-watt hour of electricity, 10 cubic feet of natural gas, and 20 gallons of water saved. These points can be redeemed for a variety of things, from organic food restaurants to holistic spa treatments and eco-friendly products. You can also volunteer to be a part of their carbon market and sell your credits to individuals, small businesses and even fortune 500 companies. Plus, they also provide tips on how you can cut back on energy usage and you can compare your progress to your town, friends and family (provided they also use the site).

1. Google Earth
Yes, Google Earth, without a doubt, makes the number one spot of this list. Why? First of all, it allows you to view every bit of this planet, including the sky and (even more recently) the ocean. You can see every structure, every ecosystem, and all the good or damage that has been done to them. Another thing you can do is track animals or check out the ongoing efforts of certain organizations, such as Greenpeace, WWF, and Jane Goodall’s Gombe Chimpanzee Blog. Plus, there are a huge number of apps you can add to Google Earth (or in some cases view freely on other websites). These apps will show you everything, from different types of carbon emissions to the effects of climate change. With all the ways you can view the world and our impact on it, it’s no wonder Google Earth made the number one spot.

There may be some things I have forgotten, most likely because they are no longer available, haven’t been updated in a long time (since summer of 2009 or earlier), or I simply was unaware of their existence. Regardless of that, the things on this list should definitely help you out, whether you want to green your home or business, buy organic food, teach your kids the joys of eco-friendly practices, or other methods of helping the environment.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Ooomy Design

Recycling can seem like a lot of work to some, especially if you’re a little kid. There’s cleaning, sorting and separating, hauling (sometimes rather heavy containers), and so forth.

Thankfully, the people at Ooomy Design came up with a solution for this: Recycly waste receptacles. These recycle bins encourage kids to recycle by making it a fun activity to do and they’re also shaped like garden robots.

There are 3 Recycly bins in a full set and each bin will display a colored light show, depending on what recyclable item is put in them. Paper bins will light up blue, plastic bins will turn green, and bins for organic matter will show a yellow light display. Well, that is if they’re sorted properly. If you mix paper and plastic in the same bin, guess what? You won’t see a colorful light show. However, by sorting them into their proper bins, you will get your reward and by doing this, the kids will also learn the proper way to recycle.

Now, I’m not sure if these are on the market yet or only a design, but I would imagine they wouldn’t be easy to come by, either way. So, how do you get your kids to enjoy recycling without colorful, light-up robots? There are a number of ways you can make it fun and interesting for them.

One way would be to make it a contest (if you have more than one child in your care). Give them their own little recycle bins for things like soda cans, paper or plastic. Whoever has the most correctly sorted items may get a small reward of some kind. Another thing you can do is turn the recyclables into craft projects. Turn a couple of plastic bottles into bird feeders or tornado project. Use those aluminum cans to make decorations or sculptures. And you can use paper for a variety of crafts, from paper-mache to confetti and so forth. The use of these items is also a great way to encourage kids to use their imagination and come up with their own arts and crafts.

A third option (which works if you know a good deal about nature) is to take them on an adventure. Go for a hike in the woods, a walk along the beach, or a simple stroll through the local park. Bring bags, buckets or other containers with you so you can pick up any trash or recyclables you may find. While doing this, you can teach them about the environment and show them first hand why pollution is bad and recycling is good.

If you have any other tips on how to encourage children to recycle, or if you use other methods to make it fun and exciting for them, feel free to share your methods and advice in a comment below!

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Stock.Xchng

The holidays have come and gone, stores are already stocking shelves for Valentine’s Day, and many of you are probably wondering what on earth to do with that Christmas tree or all those decorations that may have lost their luster.

Luckily for you, some people have thought ahead on the matter. Earth911 offers suggestions on how to dispose of your Christmas tree (provided it’s a real tree), including turning it into firewood, mulch or simply throwing it into a body of water. If those options won’t really work for you, they also have a searchable database for places that specialize in Christmas tree recycling.

If you have any leftover bags, wrapping paper or boxes, don’t throw them away yet! Gift bags and boxes can be reused again and again for future presents or even postal packages, provided they are in decent enough condition. If gifts are not an option, you can always use them for personal storage or the bags can be cut up and used in craft projects. As for the wrapping paper, most of the time it can be recycled—just remember to remove any tape, ribbons, gift tags or other such items from it first. Larger pieces can also be cut up and reused to wrap smaller packages.

Now, for those of you wondering what you can possibly do with a string of broken lights or those electronic devices you simply had to replace with the latest techno gadget, have no fear—there are options for you, too! Electronic devices have the potential of being recycled more and more these days. Some stores such as Staples or Best Buy will accept a variety of electronics, ranging from computer parts to used cell phones. Oh, and yes, Earth911 also has a searchable directory for electronics as well; which includes places to recycle string lights. You can also send them in to Christmas-Light-Source or HolidayLEDs; both of which will recycle your string of old or broken lights for you.

That’s all the post-holiday tips for now. If you have other suggestions on how to dispose of these things or anything else, feel free to comment and let others know!

By Heidi Marshall

A car loaded with refuse in one of São Paulo's slums, photo by Milton Jung CBNSP (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Many of Brazil’s ultra-poor survive by recycling in the cities or farming in the Amazon in underground economies that both harm and help local and global ecology. A similar dichotomy is reflected in Brazil’s legitimate energy and farming markets.

‘If the desecration of the rainforest is Brazil’s carbon footprint, it is ethanol and hydro that ensure that 50% of the country’s energy usage rates as renewable.’

–John Snow, ITN

ITN’s John Snow reports from Brazil on the South American country’s contrasting urbanization and farming; illegal logging, rainforest preservation, deforestation and renewable energy production; waste and recycling; and rich and poor. There are great lessons to be learned – both good and bad – from this nation of massive ecological resources and ingenuity.

Brazil’s eco balance – CNN/ITN

By Graham Land

Image source: ecosalon.com

The harmful effect of continued use of plastic water bottles has alarmed many consumers. This controversy has led KOR to create a durable, fashionable, high quality and BPA-free water vessel as a safer alternative. Their limited edition ‘Thirst for Giving’ water bottles are reusable and environment friendly.

Part of the proceeds from the sale of each artfully designed Special Edition KOE bottle goes toward their Thirst for Giving program to benefit of the following non-profit organizations:  The Algalita Marine Foundation, Blue Planet Run, The Container Recycling Institute and The Wetlands Initiative. Read the full article here

By Maria Belgado