USBCELL Not an Alkaline Battery

This is a rechargeable AA battery that charges via your computers USB port. The battery is sturdy, powerful, eliminates the need a separate charger and according to the manufacturer each cell saves 3kg of toxic waste.

Being the skeptic that I am, I researched that claim and discovered some interesting information. I contacted a national chain, Batteries Plus, and was told that recycling alkaline batteries is not necessary. However, rechargeable batteries should be recycled.

I then went to the Duracell Battery web site and found this statement:

“Alkaline batteries can be safely disposed of with normal household waste. Due to concerns about mercury in the municipal solid waste stream, Duracell has voluntarily eliminated all of the added mercury from its alkaline batteries since 1993 while maintaining the performance you demand. Our alkaline batteries are composed primarily of common metals - steel, zinc and manganese - and do not pose a health or environmental risk during normal use or disposal.”

The Energizer web site says: “Energizer recommends recycling rechargeable, but not alkaline batteries, even indicating that alkaline batteries can safely go to city incinerators.”

I even found a couple of sites that said that if you bring alkaline batteries to recycling centers or events, they are separated from the rechargeables and typically end up in the landfill or incinerator anyway.

The Consumer Electronics Association Question and Answer Website says: “Alkaline batteries are not recyclable. They’ll just be thrown out in a landfill, or at the most a hazardous waste landfill.”

Alkaline batteries bo longer contain mercury.

They do contain nickel, cobalt, zinc, manganese, and silver – which are not considered to be environmentally hazardous.

Rechargeable batteries contain mercury, cadmium, lead, and lithium – heavy metals which have a negative environmental impact.

Web sites I have reviewed that address how to properly dispose of household batteries use generalized terms such as ‘can contaminate the environment when batteries are improperly disposed of’ and ‘certain metals might be released into the air” and ‘have the potential to do harm’. Phrases such as these do nothing to ease the controversy over whether household batteries require special handling. Battery collection programs typically target button and nickel-cadmium batteries, but may collect all household batteries because of the consumers' difficulty in identifying battery types.

The bottom line is that all rechargeable batteries should be recycled due to the presence of mercury, cadmium and lead. Alkaline batteries do not require special handling according to their manufactures. If you feel better about recycling alkaline batteries then by all means do so, but what I have learned they end up in landfills and incinerators anyway.

How Much Does “Free” Recycling Truly Cost?

Mountains of electronic waste is still being sent from the U.S. to sweatshops and open burn pits in Africa and Asia. This has been reported for a very long time and yet still nothing is being done to stem the flow.

The cost of dumping our leftover poison on the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth is shameful and because it is preventable it is more shameful still.

“Recycling” electronics may be “free” for U.S. consumers but whole cities and regions are being turned into wastelands of toxic smoke and ash and mountains of debris.

How much longer can our collective conscience bear this terrible onslaught of damage to human health and the environment to third world countries? Can we truly afford to just throw our hands up and say “That’s just the way it is”?

Some will argue that our waste gives these people a source of income, and if that is true then aren’t we as the creators of this toxic material obligated to make the handling of it less deadly?

The incredible amount of e-waste we generate is due in part to our addiction to always ‘needing’ the ‘latest’ electronic gadgets, but a lion’s share of that blame falls on a corporate mindset that generates ‘new’ devices with ever shorter life spans in order to maintain a constant profit margin.

How can we reverse the trend of increasing e-waste?

Consumers need to be made aware when they are adding to the e-waste problem and take action to stop buying ‘new’ while ‘old’ is still useable.

Corporations need to make products that last longer even though it cuts into their profit margin and future sales. In short, they need to develop a conscience.

Below is a very short list of recent media documenting how much e-waste is dumped on third world countries. And this is only from the U.S. There is even more coming from Europe and Australia.

Boston Globe:  Old TVs spark environmental dispute

Business Management:  The global e-waste problem

Business Week:  E-waste:  The dirty secret of recycling electronics

CBC News:  E-waste mounting in developing countries

CNET:  E-waste piles up in Nigeria

CrunchGear:  Guiyu:  E-waste capital of China

Scienceblogs:  What we waste:  A view of e-trash

ShanghaiIST:  Bonfire of the e-salvageries

Booze it Up! Recycled Bottle Crafts & Projects

Next time you empty a bottle of one of your favorite beverages, thing about these great ideas and help the recycling effort as well.

Wine Bottle Table Lamp

Photo: recycled-bottles-wine-lamp.jpg

Caption: (images via: wit and whistle)

Turning any wine bottle into a table lamp is as simple as drilling a hole and inserting a strand of lights. The color of the bottle enhances the glow of the light, adding ambiance to a room. The only special tool needed is a glass drill bit.

Wine Bottle Candle Holder

image: design sponge

How simple and elegant are these DIY wine bottle candle holders? In shades of brown and green, they’re an earthy addition to a wooden table. This tutorial by Design Sponge uses a simple glass cutting kit and some sandpaper to snap the bottles in half.

Wine Bottle Shelves

image: renest

Would you ever have thought of using wine bottles and slabs of wood to create a shelving unit? DIY recycled furniture is rarely easier than this. Made by Zero Waste Design, the shelves are created by drilling holes into the wood for the necks of the bottles, with hook and eye strainers adding a bit of stability. The Glasgow-based furniture maker also offers a how-to on Instructables.

Bottle Trees

image: recyclart, metaefficient, examiner

Turn your holiday tree into an ode to beer (or perhaps just a sparkling green alternative to a living tree) using reclaimed empty bottles. This design uses circular platforms to support each tier of bottles, and as you can see, the result is as big as you want it to be, from a standard living room-sized tree to the monster 1,000-Heineken-bottle tree set up in Shanghai in 2009. Bottle trees are also popular year-round as garden art and easy to create.

Beer Bottle Drinking Glasses

image: bottlehood

Got half of a wine bottle left over from your candle holder project (above)? Use it as a drinking glass! This tutorial from Instructables explains how to cut and finish the edges of your favorite beer or wine bottles to create custom drinking glasses – or you could just buy a set from Etsy seller Bottlehood.

Tiki Lamps

images: design sponge

These DIY recycled wine bottle torches are modern and minimalist, but the best part is, they cost next to nothing. Design Sponge has the details on how to use $5 in hardware to create simple copper-colored tiki lamps that can be mounted to a wall or fence.

Beer Bottle Chandelier

image: coolmaterial.com

Unless you’re handy with welding tools, this project is not so DIY-friendly, but it’s still an amazing use of beer bottles. Maybe you could even come up with your own cheap and easy solution for creating a custom beer bottle chandelier.

Chalkboard Vases & Pantry Organization

images: ourbly, berm design

Chalkboard paint transforms any old bottle into a cool customizable vase – or just use a swipe of it as a label that can be erased and re-written again and again.

Wine Bottle Bell Charms

image: my vintage decor

These wine bottle bell chimes were made using a hemp string, a wooden ball and a piece of hammered copper, but you could improvise any number of materials to come up with a similar result on your own. Just use the glass cutting kit from the beer bottle drinking glasses tutorial to slice off the bottom of the bottle. A wood or metal ring inside the bottle neck holds the string in place.

Hummingbird Feeders

image: deelux designs

Etsy shop Deelux Designs uses liquor bottles to make these backyard feeders, filled with colored food that looks disturbingly like the real thing – but you could also use wine or beer bottles in a simple wire holder, as illustrated at Crafting a Green World. The feeder tubes are sold on Amazon.com for less than a dollar each, so plan on making some to sell or give away as gifts.

Beer Bottle Solar Water Heater

image: neatorama

Chinese farmer Ma Yanjun came up with a novel, inexpensive way to provide hot water for members of his family: laying 66 bottles, connected by hose pipes, on a board covered with aluminum foil. Placed on a rooftop and pointed north to collect the maximum amount of sunlight, this incredible DIY solution really does work. Instructions don’t seem to be available, but anyone good with DIY projects could probably come up with design based on Ma’s prototype.

From WebEcoist

Yellow Pages Suing To Keep Laying Trees to Waste

David at The Good Human reports that Seattle, Washington recently passed an ordinance that allowed residents to “opt-out” of receiving the Yellow Pages at their homes, something that neds to happen in every city and state in the country. Dex Media West, SuperMedia LLC and the Yellow Pages Association say that the ruling violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and it will hurt them where it counts – their wallet. The ordinance went into affect in October, but with this lawsuit pending it looks like it’s going to be a while before it can be enforced.


Each year, phone books require the destruction of about 19 million trees a year, 7.2 million barrels of oil, 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and the generation of 268,000 cubic yards of solid waste that ends up in landfills — not including the waste of the unwanted books themselves.

I agree with David, “there is absolutely no reason that paper phone books should be automatically delivered to every household in America when I would venture that the majority of us just walk them straight back to the recycling bin.” If you want a phone book just ask for it.

America Recycles Day – November 15, 2010

Held every year on November 15, America Recycles Day is a national campaign to raise awareness about the benefits of recycling and buying products made with recycled materials. Buying recycled is the step that "closes the recycling loop." Let’s see what each of us can do to help spread the message.

10 great ways to celebrate America Recycles Day:
1 - Commit to recycle and buy recycled products both at home and at work or school.

2 - Learn what materials you can recycle in your community and do your best to recycle all you can.

3 - When shopping, purchase products that are packaged in materials you can recycle locally.

4 - Visit a recycling center in your area. See how your recycled paper and containers are sorted and prepared for manufacturing into new products.

5 - Read product labels. At your local grocery, department store or home improvement center, look for products with recycled content, and buy some. Look for “safe bets” that always have recycled content: steel, aluminum, glass or molded paper pulp containers (like egg cartons).

6 - Ask your local retailer to stock more products with recycled content, or write the manufacturer of your favorite products asking them to use recycled materials.

7 - Organize an event such as a display of recycled content products at your school, office, store or church, or a tour of a facility that manufactures recycled-content products.

8 - Learn more about how recycling helps preserve resources, protects the environment and benefits the economy, then teach some kids about the importance of recycling and buying recycled.

9 - Don’t forget waste reduction is important too. Look for ways to avoid making garbage — try composting.

10 - Visit the great outdoors and enjoy the clear air, clean water and litter-free landscapes that recycling helps make possible.

You can also get involved through social media to support America Recycles Day. Join the conversation using the #americarecycles hashtag on Twitter.


More Info at:
Treehugger.com

Recyclespot.org

Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District

Earth911.com

Repurposing Items

I am a huge believer and practitioner of repurposing any item I can. I believe that every products container has more uses than the one it was designed for. It is our duty as consumers to learn other ways in which containers can be used.

For instance, as I go through my local grocery store I constantly look at how a product is packaged keeping my eye on how that container can be used after the product itself is long gone.

The most common products that come to mind are butter (margarine or near butter) containers. These are great for storing leftovers in the fridge. Just as larger sized Yogurt containers and even whipped topping containers. These plastic tubs of various sizes just scream out “don’t throw me away, re-use me”. Who needs Tupperware or Rubbermaid as long as these little plastic beauties are available?

The small glass jars of artichoke hearts, or yeast, or specialty jellies and jams are just right for making candles in. You can buy a bag of wax at any craft store and pour into your jar of choice in a pan of boiling water and within a few minutes you have a candle for the next time the power to your house goes out. There are a multitude of websites devoted to showing you what you need. Honestly, the double boiler thing is not really necessary.

You can paint these jars afterwards, you can wrap them in jute with a little watered down glue, you can even put contact paper on them to dress them up or leave the label on them if you want.

These jars can be used for keeping loose screws etc in them inside your junk drawer. Out in the workshop they can be used to hold small items. In the kitchen you can store leftover liquids in them. Your imagination is your only limit.

I use small one-cup sized jars to store hummingbird food in the fridge.

I cut milk jugs, vinegar bottles, bleach bottles in half and use the tops as funnels and the bottoms to store kitchen scraps to carry out to the compost pile.

I also use gallon milk jugs to water my house plants with and to carry water out to my bird baths every day.

The lids on some food jars have the little button in the center to be used to check for freshness, these jars are great for putting homemade jelly or other foods in. just put the food in when it is hot, close the lid and wait for the button to ‘pop’ inwards showing it is sealed.

The foil bags that coffee comes in, we use these empty bags to store homemade snacks in when we go hiking.

The tin cans that some foods come in, they are used to store craft items, same as with the small jars mentioned earlier.

Recycling, reusing, repurposing, whatever you want to call it can go a long way towards keeping items out of our landfills as long as possible. Let’s all chip in and help in any way we can.

What clever ways have you come up with to repurpose items? I'd love to hear about them.

Environmental Scorecard

My first post of the year, is it really the 15th already, is going to help me shed some light on how my family does the green thing.

A lot of big talk and good intentions are in the air about the need to save the planet from, well, us basically, so I figured I would throw out a few of the ways in which my family is helping to do our part.

Being environmentally responsible is a lot more than just recycling. It touches almost every aspect of our daily lives, from what we choose to eat, how the products we buy are packaged, how we clean our homes and how we get from point A to point B.

I grow some of the food we eat and put some of that up for the winter via the miracle of canning. I must admit that we could can more but we give a lot of it away to neighbors and family while it is still fresh.

We shred all of our junk mail, except the slick glossy stuff, who knows what goes into the inks on these things. I even shred my bills! Ha! In my dreams. I do pay most of them online but elect to receive the paper bill just in case I lose the use of the computer for whatever reason, like a seriously bad economic down turn. It is terribly satisfying to shred a credit card bill though.

The shredded paper, along with our newspapers get added to the compost pile.

Whatever bit of cardboard that does not find its way into a new planting bed goes into the recycle bin along with cans. But mostly I rip it up and place it on the compost as well.

Our neighborhood stopped collecting glass stating it was becoming too expensive to process it and even without that load our recycling bin is nearly over-flowing when they pick it up every two weeks.

I have canceled magazine subscriptions for insisting on stuffing way too many subscription forms in them as well as all manner of loose leaf ads. The really bad ones put the magazine in a plastic bag so they can throw more ads at us. I have written to these offending companies and told them how unhappy I am with the amount of landfill material they send out with each magazine. If I get a response at all it is nothing more than thanking me for writing. So I just cancel the subscription.

In the matter of those monthly bills that stuff fliers advertising their products and services, I stuff these back into the bill envelope with a note telling them to throw away their own trash.

We throw food scraps on the compost pile.

I collect compost from the city to use in the garden.

We adhere to shopping lists and go to the market once a week and then combine other destinations on the same trip so as not to waste gas.

I see to it that both of our cars are properly maintained in order to get the most fuel efficiency.

My wife works outside the home, I work at home and I have taken up cooking from recipes that use whole foods as opposed to processed foods.

One of the most difficult things to free ourselves of is plastic. We find it in a number of food packing, consumer packaging, even the bags we carry our consumer goods home in. We re-use almost all of the plastic food containers and plastic shopping bags. Anything that can be re-used is.

We take quick showers (baths are so wasteful) and do laundry only one day a week.

We have cut down a lot on eating beef. We mostly eat chicken.

We have installed compact fluorescent lights in every room and lamp in our house for energy efficiency and turn off lights when not in the room. My computer is on all day because that’s is my work tool.

Plastic milk jugs get re-used for a lot of purposes. I use them to start plants in until they are big enough to set out in the garden. I use them as cloches over the tender plants I set out until they are able to take nature on its own.

We feed our lawn and all garden plants (including houseplants) with organic material, i.e., the compost pile and supplement it with seaweed, fish emulsion, cottonseed meal, bone meal, blood meal, etc, instead of using synthetic fertilizer.

We turn the thermostat down to 64 at night and pile extra blankets on the bed. The thermostat itself has four time settings so that the house temperature can be customized for when we are in the house or away from home.

I do still use my gasoline powered lawn mower but use an electric edge trimmer. I prune everything else by hand.

I shovel snow with an actual snow shovel while many people around my neighborhood use a gas powered snow blower.

I am embarrassed to say that we still clean our home with chemical cleaners but I am trying to get my wife converted to using natural products such as vinegar, salt, lemon juice, baking soda, etc. It is a tough uphill battle.

One of the requirements to living a sustainable life is learning how others do it, because there always seems to be an easier or more ingenious way of doing something.

I find that the majority of the people I talk to about it say they would like to or actually do something with the environment in mind. But when I visit their houses I sometimes find recyclable items thrown in the trash can or see someway they do something that could be a little more earth friendly. I am mindful that I cannot be the self-appointed ‘environment police’ and just continually bark at everyone about the error of their ways, so I just have to realize that we are dealing with a lifestyle that cannot be easily unlearned.

I would be tickled pink if a grow-your-own-food/gardening revolution would take place that would knock food prices down, discontinue the use of chemical based fertilizers and pesticides, finally win the war against obesity, and lower our healthcare costs because we would all be eating healthier and visiting the doctor les often. What a slice of paradise that would be.

But the major change is going to have to happen at the corporate level. We are going to have to be forced to stop using plastic bags only when companies stop making them. We are going to have to be taken by the hand to drive vehicles that get 50 mpg or more when the automobile industry stops making cars that get less.

Mass transit is only going to work when we are taxed out of driving our personal vehicles into corporate/commercial zones to work and shop everyday.

Coal-powered power plants are gong to stop fouling our air and water only when alternative energy sources are proven to be more cost effective and these fossil-fuel sucking behemoths are finally put to rest.

We as individuals can only do so much. And as long as we are given the less expensive more environmentally-damaging alternative to live our lives we will sadly do it.

If maybe I can inspire someone through this blog to change a little something about their behavior to stop taking this planet for granted then I feel my time spent has been worthwhile.

‘Free Recycling’ Plan Falls Short of Environmental Responsibility

Oregon lawmakers passed legislation last year that allows desktop computers, monitors, laptops and televisions to be disposed of for free beginning January 1. 2009.

The plan calls for any company that makes computers and TVs sold in Oregon must register with the state and pay a fee, generating an anticipated $350,000 to $400,000 in revenue.

The program needs to go one step further by providing an incentive to reuse still-working equipment.

Recycling consumes 20 times as much energy as reuse.

In keeping with the 3R’s of environment awareness: Recycle-Reduce-Reuse, sorting out reusable still-working computers, cell phones, radios and other devices, and then refurbishing and reselling them could make a deep cut in our waste stream and create employment opportunites.

Much of what could be recycled is thoughtlessly tossed in the trash can and what is placed in our recycle bins just gets dumped into places other than the landfill. Most of these ‘other’ dump sites tend to be foreign countries where hazardous materials are not regulated as they are in the U.S. Another dump site is the ocean where massive ‘plastic islands’ are forming. Colorful bits of plastic are being ingested by sea life which choke them to death.

However, there is evidence that we are becoming more environmentally aware but we need to do more. The complete 3 R program (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) needs to be employed and meticulously followed in order for us to truly cut down on the amount of waste we generate. It is not a matter of running out of landfill space. That mindset is the wrong way to view the problem. We need to keep useable items out of the landfill by adopting a ‘reuse before recycle’ mindset.

Using items for other than their intended first use, for example plastic bags we bring our groceries home in could then be used as trash can liners.

There are websites where you can offer your items for free to others who can make use of them. One such service is Free Mesa. If you're in Australia, a great new service is E-Cycled.

Glass, cardboard and paper we are aware of but you don’t have to have a garden to compost. Compost is a great nutrient source for your lawn. You can actually cut down on the amount of chemicals you dump on your lawn to make it greener plus it works to control damaging insect populations.

Visit www.reduce.org to learn how simple it is to reduce waste in your daily routine.

Manufacturers are making a great impact on reducing packaging of the products we consumers buy, but the real driving force to get our waste under control is left to the consumer. We need to stop throwing away items that still have life in them. We need to shun the idea that we just have to have the latest gadget to replace the one we bought last year that still has a lot of useful life left.

Another couple of things that would go a long way to make us a truly environmentally aware society would be an incentive program to get companies to recycle and refurbish products and a reliable national directory of businesses that sells those products.

Further reading:
Book Mooch
Why Reuse Beats Recycling
Recycling Guide
Floating toxic plastic garbage island twice the size of Texas

Ever Wonder Where Your Discarded Computer Goes?

There are many websites dedicated to informing the public where to send their used computers, televisions, cell phones, iPods, etc. Sometimes the product manufacturer even allows you to send your product back to them when you are done with it. (See below). But where do these items go after they have left your possession?

There are no precise figures but activists estimate that 50-80% of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronic waste collected for recycling in the U.S. yearly ends up in Africa and Asia where labor and cost of recycling is lower. Though this is a profitable activity and there are several licensed companies that recycle computers and their components; there are also many other companies who are not authorized, and which subject their workers to very hazardous environments while recycling computer parts.

Workers in these countries use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract the precious metals and toxic chemicals, such as cadmium, lead, chromium, flame-retardants and mercury. Unsafe methods of disposing of computer components include landfills, burning to extract metals such as copper from printed circuit boards, or breaking and throwing components such as CRT monitors. In all these methods, toxins are released into the air, soil, and groundwater.

Greenpeace said they tested the environment around dump sites in Ghana, West Africa, and discovered higher than normal levels of carcinogenic substances, as much as 100 times above levels found in uncontaminated soil. The two scrap yards that were tested are at Abogbloshie in the centre of Accra, the main centre for recycling computers in Ghana, and in the city of Koforidua in the country’s Eastern Region.
Photo: ever wonder where-recycled computers

The group also noted the presence in most of the samples of other chemicals such as phthalates, which interfere with reproduction, and in one of the samples of a high level of chlorinated dioxins, known to promote cancer. “The nature and extent of chemical contamination found at these sites in Ghana is similar to that previously exposed by Greenpeace for e-waste open-burning sites in China and India,” the group said.

The most troubling of all is that children are employed to retrieve metal parts, mostly made of either aluminum or copper.

Greenpeace said container-loads of old and often broken computers, monitors and TVs arrive in Ghana from Germany, Korea, Switzerland and the Netherlands “under the false label of ’second-hand goods’”.

Considering the fact that estimates show that manufacturing one PC requires about 240 kg fossil fuels, 1.8 tonnes of materials, 22 kg chemicals and about 1,500 liters of water, this production process is one of the most environmental-resource-intensive ventures we participate in. Many people are tempted to buy a replacement computer because a new one is on the market or they just get tired of the old one and replace it even though it is still useable.

Environmentalists are pressuring governments around the world to find safer ways to dispose of electronic waste that are creating “toxic stews” in places like China, India and Pakistan. But they can’t do it on their own.

We can help cut down on e-waste by using the device to its fullest potential life span or at least ensure it will go to someone or some organization that will use it until it dies for good. We may not be able to stop how the waste is handled once it goes overseas but we can cut down on the amount that goes there if we would only become more responsible and not buy new when there is still useable life left. Remember: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.


Further reading:
Computer disposal, donation, and recycle information

Step by Step Guide to Recycle a Computer Properly

E-waste Piles Up in U.S. and Abroad

When PCs Pollute

Recycling Resources:
Tech recycling for the Upgrade-Happy

Recycling E-Waste

Electronic Product Management Directory

Recycling E-Waste

Main Stream Media and the Real Story

Bloggers like to think we are presenting information that is useful to a large number of people. But even if that number is small the information we present should be accurate. In the pre-internet days when news dissemination fell under the purview of main stream media, editors decided what was to be printed or broadcast based on their perceptions of what the public wanted to hear. Today, with an increasing number of news outlets falling under the control of corporations, editors and journalist are forced to temper, slant, or choose their news stories in accordance with corporate agendas. Blogs and websites, not owned by corporate news outlets, are free to present information without regard to what the corporate world wants or does not want to see. We can ‘round out’ news items, fill in the blanks or present information that the main stream just does not touch upon. Granted individuals can and often do have their own agendas but overall we serve to present a balanced more pedestrian view of what is going on in our world.

The environment is a small subset of the ‘big picture’ and environmentalist have been historically regarded as alarmists or ‘nut jobs’ with derogatory nicknames such as ‘treehuggers’, ‘granola eating hippies’, ‘recycling nazis’, that don’t exactly foster respect. We like to point out how plastic is such a danger to wildlife due to its non-biodegradability or how the rush to embrace biofuels to free ourselves from the grasp of foreign oil is creating more problems or even how we are not recycling enough.

Today, I would like to turn our focus to something positive. In an attempt to counter the overwhelming negative reports we see in the news, let’s look at some of the positive results brought about by environmental regulations that has allowed steady and significant progress in reducing almost every form of pollution.

The quality of our drinking water has clearly improved through improved purification methods and the amount of attention we have placed on it to not pollute it in the first place. According to the Council on Environmental Quality, the percentage of water sources that were judged to be poor or severe fell from 30% in 1961 to 5% in the 1990s.

The treatment of industrial and municipal waste has greatly reduced the amount of bacteria that enters our streams, rivers, and lakes. Wastewater plants served only 40 million Americans in 1960, approximately 22%, compared with 190 million today, approximately 70%.

In 1972, only 36% of America’s rivers and streams were suitable for swimming and fishing. By 1994, that percentage was 86. Lakes that were pronounced environmentally “dead” in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Erie and Ontario, are now producing record fish catches.

In 1989 the Exxon Valdez crude oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William sound was a catastrophe of epic proportions that saw 41 million liters of crude oil coat once pristine coastlines and wildlife. Today, American households pour 1.3 billion liters of oil-based products down the drain each year contaminating lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater. There are safer alternative methods of handling households chemicals. The good news to take from this report is that the number of oil spills have been reduced since the 1970s.

Solid waste in the U.S. more than doubled from 1960 to 1990 but recycling rose by 96%. About 60% of the physical waste now generated by the United States is biodegradable.

We use energy much more efficiently today than ever before. According to calculations by the National Center for Policy Analysis, “the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of GNP has been steadily declining at a rate of 1% per year since 1929.

The loss of U.S. wetlands fell from 500,000 acres per year in the 1950s to about 50,000 acres per year in the mid 1990s. This rate is still too high, but it is improving.

These facts and figures gives us much reason for optimism for it indicates that we are headed in the right direction.

Even though these great strides in cleaning up our environment have been made public opinion polls indicate that the general public does not seem to be aware of it. Listed below are some amazing poll results that illustrate the extent of mis-information and inaccurate views of the state of the environment.

A Roper poll, taken in 2003, found that most Americans believe they know more than they actually do about the environment.

* 120 million Americans think spray cans still have CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in them. But CFCs were banned in 1978.

* 120 million think disposable diapers are the leading problem with landfills. They actually represent about 1% of the problem.

* 130 million believe that hydropower is America's top energy source. In fact, it accounts for just 10% of the total.

A 2001 Gallup poll asked “right now, do you think the quality of the environment in the country as a whole is getting better or getting worse?” Of the 1,060 adults who responded,

36% said it is getting better,
57% said it is getting worse,
5% said its about the same

A Newsweek magazine poll in 2000 asked: “Since the first Earth Day was held 30 years ago, how much progress do you think has been made toward solving environmental problems: major progress, minor progress, or no progress, or have environmental problems actually gotten worse?” Of the 752 adults polled,

18% said there had been major progress,

52% said there had been minor progress,

16% said the problems have gotten worse

7% had no opinion.

A Yale University poll in 2005 found that 52% of Americans believe the environment in the U.S. is getting worse. And only 15% thought it was getting better.

This article in the Calgary Herald states similar misinformation and negativity from Canadians.

These more recent polls show that Americans consider environmental issues to be of high importance.

Polls find global warming generating heat – July 2007

Conserving Energy Is Americans’ Top Environmental Action – March 2007

Environmental issues could swing election - 2007

Why is it that when so many people claim to place so much interest on the environment that such a disproportionate number of people doubt environmental success? Main Stream Media is a major reason. Americans are spoon fed by sources with little information, but alternative agendas. The Roper poll respondents were asked where they get their information, 60% cited mostly television and newspapers, 25% credited the government and 33% said radio or environmental groups. (More than one source could be chosen.)

Simply stated, bad news sells more copy and ad space than do success stories. Findings show that a small percentage of people actually follow the news no mater what it presents. But, as Roy Greenslade, professor of Journalism and media commentator for the Guardian points out, peoples’ interest in news is much more intense when there is a perceived threat to their way of life. They want to know what has gone wrong rather than what has gone right.

People just do not bother to inform themselves about what is being done by those who govern them in periods between the eruption of crises. This means that they are not aware of the complexities of problems until it is too late for them to take a coherent stance for or against policy decisions. This situation tends to favor political leaders.

I realize that this post will probably only be seen by those few who actually have a developed curiosity and are civic-minded enough to want to learn more about what goes on around them, but just maybe this post will reach someone who has come to the conclusion that there is more to the story than what the ‘big boys’ of media let on and is willing to subject themselves to a more complete story.

Boy, How we waste Paper!

How many of us actually ask the phone company to deliver all those phone books to us? How many times do we actually use them? This has become a revolving paper mill of waste on a colossal scale. And not just in paper, but also fuel. Cutting down the trees (or, just maybe, recycling the paper), delivering it to the printer, printing it, delivering to a distribution center, delivering to households everywhere, sitting unused near a telephone, and then when the next one arrives going into the recycle bin or worse the trash can.

This is one of the most wasteful uses of paper I have ever witnessed.

The phone company constantly hounds us to save paper by extolling the virtues of going ‘paperless’ by paying our bills online and yet they inundate us with useless phone books. Right now I have, collecting dust, a total of seven phone books in my home. I am sure there is duplicate information in these books somewhere if I would just take the time to look. :-) I have two from Trans Western Publishing (one business and residential white and blue pages and one business yellow pages). I have three from Dex that covers the exact same areas! Plus, for some reason I get two more delivered from the neighboring county! I live about two miles from the county line but someone has decided everyone in our community should get their books as well. I never asked for any of these books and can’t remember the last time I even used them.

I have not been able to get them to stop delivering the books. When I call the phone company they say they pay someone to delivery the books and I have never gotten a satisfactory answer or responsible person who can actually stop the delivery. A place of business I once worked for had 48 employees and yet every year we received a delivery of 100 phone books! I almost pulled my hair out trying to get future delivery numbers reduced and to take the extras back to give them to someone who needs them. My requests went ignored.

Just think, if the phone company did not print all these books, the money saved could be passed on to us. I was almost rolling on the floor laughing trying to type that sentence but I was finally able to do it. ;-) I am sure these books represent a huge revenue stream for the phone company through selling ads to businesses but it is unconscionable the amount of waste all parties are enabling.

Almost all of us get phone numbers from the internet so why do we need these 30 pounds of books delivered every year just so we can toss them into the recycle bin?

If we could get these advertisers to wake up and realize that their money is being wasted on advertising in the yellow pages then we might begin seeing less waste from the phone company. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Do you know how we can get the phone company to stop this madness? I would love to hear from you. How about an opt-in option? If enough people do not opt to get the books, perhaps that would send the signal that these monstrous tomes are outdated.

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Here’s another favorite rant of mine: grocery store ads, mail order catalogs, and junk mail.

The catalogs I would think represents some businesses’ lifeline and it would be difficult to cut off someone’s livelihood. But, we should have the option to not receive them if we want. You could just not order anything from them but they will still deliver at least six or eight of them before they get the message. And if the catalogs are their life blood, how can they afford to send them to people who don’t order from them?

Grocery store ads is another story. People are pretty loyal to their grocery stores and would be lost without the coupons. Besides, grocery stores advertise a lot on radio and television and when you walk into most grocery stores the ads for that week are right there next to the front door. So why waste the trees to print even more of them?

Just found a great blog that gives some addresses and websites where you can opt-out of receiving catalogs, credit card offers, insurance offers, sweepstakes offers, coupon mailers, etc. This site is called Green Talk. The post is dated November of last year (where have I been?) but the information is still good.

Can you think of any other area of gross wastefulness? As always, I would love to hear from you.

How green do we really want to be with recycling?

Do we really, truly care about conserving gasoline, water, electricity? How serious are we about recycling? Are we as green as we want to be? Are we as green as we think we are?

This is a continuing series into the exploration of just how concerned we are about caring for our environment when it comes to our personal comforts.

In the previous issue I explored how changing our driving habits could save fuel and force gas price decreases. This issue covers the recycling game and how we enable waste to maintain a clear conscience.

Our conscience is tested at the grocery store when asked "paper or plastic?", we trade our incandescent light bulbs for energy efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs, yet we buy our water in non-degradable plastic bottles by the caseload. We further ease our conscience by tossing a few token items in the recycle bin at home yet when we are away from home we absent-mindedly throw many other recyclables in the trash.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is the mantra of the environmentalist movement. Yet just how many of us apply these three words as a guideline in determining what we purchase, use or throw away?

Recycling touches almost every aspect of our everyday lives, from the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat, to the products we buy. Almost every product we use can be recycled or is in some part made from recycled materials, from toilet paper, to cars, to the roads we drive on, and even the caskets we are buried in.

Are We Participating?
We have non-profit recycling centers and municipal recycling programs around the country. Many communities have recycle bins issued to every resident and they ask us to separate our recyclables from our trash and then have separate recycling trucks come around on a regular basis to empty them. But do we fully participate in recycling or do we put up an appearance by setting a partially full recycle bin at the curb for pickup? Some of us want our neighbors to think we are doing our part, which is fine as long as they are doing it, but some people just don’t care. My community in Utah picks up recycling every other week, when I lived in California they picked it up every week. I always have a full recycling bin, but in both of these neighborhoods, I see recycle bins sitting next to the house on trash pickup day while trash cans at the curb are overflowing with recyclable objects.

Many products we throw onto the trash heap can be reused or recycled but we get our biggest participation only when there are direct and recognizable financial incentives. Why aren’t we conscientious enough to make it work as a matter of principal? I don’t aim to be overly harsh against those people trying to do their part, but we can all be a little more conscious of how our lifestyles affect our environment.

Recycling paper, plastic, electronics, even cars has become a big business. But is it really helping our environment? The Environmental Protection Agency has set a national goal to recycle 25 percent of out national waste. Only 25 percent!?! This seems to be an awfully low target to me. Not a very lofty goal at all.

Only a small percentage of what we intend to be recycled actually goes for that purpose. What actually happens to the items we think are being recycled? What becomes of the items we donate to charity to be recycled? We feel good about helping our favorite charity while at the same time doing some house cleaning, but sometimes the charities actually receive very little money in exchange for hosting what amounts to a neighborhood cleanup. The items collected are taken away by salvage operations that go through the items for useable products that are then sold for profit. The items that cannot be salvaged are often delivered to landfills, either here in America or to foreign countries where they are not as regulated which leads to ground contamination by toxic materials. Some of it ends up in the oceans! When I learned this it sickened me.

There is a vast expanse of plastic debris, referred to as the Pacific Garbage Patch, growing in the central Pacific Ocean that is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This ‘patch’ is the size of a continent. This drifting “soup” stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan. This plastic doesn't biodegrade, it photo-degrades, which means it is broken down by sunlight into smaller and smaller pieces, all of which are still plastic polymers, eventually becoming individual molecules of plastic, still too tough for anything to digest. Yet marine life is ingesting it. If you have the stomach for it, sorry about the pun, read about it here.

Of course there are some charitable organizations that can be trusted. The American Institute of Philanthropy is a nonprofit charity watchdog organization that helps donors male informed giving decisions.

Landfills
Landfills around the world, loaded with items that could be recycled, are increasing in size. Besides the increasing number and sizes of landfills being a problem they are rife with hazards ranging from fatal accidents (e.g., scavengers buried under waste piles), infrastructure damage (e.g., damage to access roads by heavy vehicles), pollution of the local environment (such as contamination of groundwater and/or aquifers by leakage and residual soil contamination after landfill closure), offgassing of methane generated by decaying organic wastes; harboring of disease vectors such as rats and flies, particularly from improperly operated landfills, which are common in Third-world countries, injuries to wildlife and simple nuisance problems (e.g., dust, odor, vermin, or noise pollution).

This list presents a very strong case for the elimination of landfills and incineration. Fortunately new strategies such as recycling, anaerobic digestion, composting, mechanical biological treatment, pyrolysis and gasification establishing themselves in the market, are allowing completed landfills to be reclaimed for parks, golf courses and other sports fields. Office buildings and industrial parks can make use of this land after extensive methane capture is carried out to minimize explosive hazard.

Of course, the simplest way to eliminate landfills would be to recycle everything we use. Wouldn’t it be great to have this ability?

An interesting fact: Paper plus cardboard combined make up 73% of the materials in landfills. Does this sound like we are doing all we can?

We have come a long way, but we cannot afford to backpedal. I believe most of us do care about our environment but are confused about what can be recycled.

What is Recyclable?
The most commonly recycled household items are paper and cardboard; metal, glass, and plastic containers and packaging; and yard waste. Recycling the recovered materials is simple for metals and glass; they can be melted down, reformed, and reused. Yard waste can be composted with little or no equipment, as a gardener I have the ability and joy to be able to use this precious natural gift. Paper, the most important recycled material, must be mixed with water, and sometimes de-inked, to form a pulp that can be used in papermaking. Plastics recycling requires an expensive process of separation of different resins.

Speaking of plastic, today’s plastics come in several grades. Do you know which ones are recyclable?

On just about every plastic container there is a raised number (1 through 7) in a triangle that tells you what type of plastic it is. Not all plastic is recyclable. Knowing which numbers can be recycled will help determine what to do with the container.

Some municipalities require you to sort your plastic according to these numbers, others will take everything tossed together and sort them themselves. You can call your county's Department of Public Works or recycling center to determine what type of plastic to recycle and where to take it. Also call 1-800-CLEANUP for state recycling information.

Type 1 (PETE) and type 2 (HDPE) containers include some plastic bags, detergent containers, and milk, soft drink, juice, cooking oil and water bottles. These can typically be tossed into recycling bins.

Type 3 - plastic food wrap and vegetable oil bottles, should be thrown in the trash. While some of these are recyclable, the plastics industry is still in the early stages of recycling and does not recycle these in most cities unless it is through a test program.

Type 4 (LDPE) are plastic grocery bags (sometimes type 2) and can be recycled at your grocery store or thrown in the recycle bin. Most people have a secondary use for these such as small trash can liners, carrying lunch to work, or picking up dog poo. Plus, you can take back to the store and use them again. Clean out bags before recycling, which means the dog poo thing is out of the question.

Type 5 - yogurt containers, syrup bottles, diapers, some bags, most bottle tops and some food wrap - should be thrown in the trash. While some of these are recyclable, the plastics industry is still in the early stages of recycling and does not recycle these in most cities unless it is through a test program. Take caps and pump spray tops off of plastic containers unless they are marked with a number. They are often made from a type of plastic that is different from the main part of the container and generally are not recyclable.

Type 6 (EPS-expanded polystyrene) is foam packaging and plastic utensils. Call the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, (410) 451-8340, or visit their Web site to find a local recycling center in your area. Plastic utensils will most likely need to be thrown out.
http://www.epspackaging.org/ Alliance..

Type 7 - layered or mixed plastic - should be thrown in the trash. While some of these are recyclable, the plastics industry is still in the early stages of recycling and does not recycle these in most cities unless it is through a test program.

We have the common misconception that when plastic gets recycled we will use it again in the form of another plastic container. This is not true. Some plastics are not recycled into other plastic containers, but are made into new secondary products such as textiles, parking lot bumpers, or plastic lumber which are all un-recyclable products. This does not reduce the use of virgin materials in plastic packaging. "Recycled" in this case merely means "collected," not reprocessed or converted into useful products.

Type 1 plastic (PETE) can be recycled into items like carpet, auto parts, paint brushes and industrial paints and type 2 plastic (HDPE) is recycled into products like detergent and engine oil bottles, trash cans and recycling bins.

Of course, there are many ingenious ways in which we can reuse plastic containers in our own homes. Gardeners use various sized plastic containers as everything from cloches, to seed starting, to watering our plants and even to catch water under potted plants. Pet owners use plastic containers to keep pet water bowls full.

For a very interesting article concerning the plastic recycling issue see Seven Misconceptions about Plastic and Plastic Recycling presented by the Plastics Task Force of Berkeley California.

The recent trend away from offering plastic shopping bags in many communities across the country is a way in which we have refined our dedication to protecting the environment. Or is it? We originally began using plastic bags as a way of saving our trees. The slogan was “save a tree-ask for plastic”. Everyone jumped on the band wagon and while were all busy saving trees by using plastic bags, marine life began dying from accidentally ingesting the non-recyclable, non-degrading plastic bags that were supposed to go into landfills. In the intervening years, paper recycling has matured and a lot of paper bags are now made from recycled paper. But this recycled paper only consists of between 10% and 100% recycled paper with the remainder coming from paper pulp which is made from about 43% of harvested wood. Plus, paper can only be recycled 4-6 times. So, we are still killing trees to make paper. As an option today, we have reusable canvas and cotton bags to carry our groceries. There are arguments that support the use of all of these alternatives but people will always go with the cheapest solution.

Sam Aola Ooko wrote an excellent post on eco worldly just one day after I published this post and it is so impassioned for the discontinuance of plastic shopping bags that I just had to include it here. Please check it out.

How can we do more to ensure recycling is working? Generally, we are at the mercy of anyone who claims to be a recycler. When you contact anyone for the purpose of recycling your cell phones, computers, printer ink cartridges, etc ask what they do with the items, make sure they are going to EPA approved disposal sites. We can also put ourselves in the mindset to reuse as much as possible. Buy products with as little packaging as possible. Learn what is recyclable and follow your conscience. Compost your kitchen and yard waste.

We really do need to work together and try to keep a clear picture of why Reducing, Reusing and Recycling are important. And spread the word.

This is part of a continuing series that explores just how dedicated we are to saving our planet and ourselves from our polluting and energy-wasting ways.

Come back for the next installment when I explore our wasteful water habits.

And, as always, please feel free to leave comments.

For further information
Cell Phone Donation
Who Buys Cell Phones
Cell For Cash
Aluminum Recycling Facts
Paper Recycling Facts
Recycling Facts

How green do we really want to be with gasoline?

Do we really, truly care about conserving gasoline, water, electricity? How serious are we about recycling? Are we as green as we want to be? Are we as green as we think we are?

This is a continuing series into the exploration of just how concerned we are about caring for our environment when it comes to our personal comforts.

We toss a few items into the recycle bin, our conscience is tested at the grocery store when asked “paper or plastic?”, we trade our incandescent light bulbs for energy efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs, yet we buy our water in non-degradable plastic bottles by the caseload. We fool ourselves into thinking we are environmentally friendly and that we take energy conservation seriously and then, daily, we participate in the most egregious, blatant, resource-wasting activity we know. We drive our cars and trucks in the same manner as we did before the words fuel and shortage were ever uttered in the same sentence.

This one area of our daily lives has the greatest potential for being a major turning point in the battle against global warming and yet we refuse to take that step.

Sure, automobile manufacturers and a handful of private citizens are devising ways to make cars more fuel efficient but that is only because the federal government and certain market conditions are forcing them to. We Americans, on the whole, are fighting it tooth and nail. We continue to purchase the latest ‘big and powerful’, whether it be a car or truck instead of going for small and fuel-efficient. We expect auto manufacturers to come up with ways to allow us to keep our ‘American Muscle’ so we can drive at top speed (and to get to top speed quicker than ever before) while simply giving the appearance of doing our part to help conserve our dwindling oil supply. And our federal government puts on a dog and pony show of pretending to be environmentally friendly, by passing legislation worded in such a way as to allow auto manufacturers to continue to produce the very same ‘big and powerful’ gas guzzling, heavy-weight vehicles they always have.

We hear a lot of talk about the rising cost of fuel and each time those prices increase we begin hearing speculation of how someday these higher fuel prices will affect our driving habits and force us to conserve. Well, from what I have witnessed so far on our nations roadways, very little has changed, with one exception, the oil companies are reaping record-breaking profits. I am not an economics major, but even I understand the law of supply and demand. Our demand is increasing, therefore, the prices increase. As though sheer numbers is not enough to increase demand, our selfish driving habits increase the demand.

The price of oil just recently broke the $100 a barrel barrier. Was that enough to change our driving habits? No. You may ask why does the price continue to go up? Is there a fuel shortage that forces these prices up? No. The oil companies see that we are not going to change our driving habits therefore nothing compels them to not raise prices. Truly everyone can understand that if we stopped driving altogether then the price of oil would take a drastic nosedive resulting in gasoline so cheap they couldn’t give it away. And yet we continue on our merry way speeding down the freeway, needlessly passing everything on the road, hurrying to where we are going, guzzling excessive amounts of fuel to have the latest biggest and most powerful vehicles, because it has become a habit.

It has also become a habit to complain about the higher prices, yet we refuse to do our part to keep prices low. We have the power to dictate lower prices at the pump. Don’t believe me? Then read the following list of habits that will illustrate our wastefulness and help explain my logic.

Excessive idling
Millions of Americans, every cold wintry morning, start their cars and leave them to idle for 5, 10, 20, up to 30 minutes in their driveway while they stay inside in the warmth of the house because we all want to ride in a comfortably warm car. We allow our vehicles to idle in fast food drive-thru lanes. We allow our vehicles to idle at the curbside while we run into the store ‘just for a minute’. We adopt the mindset that, oh, it is only costing me a few pennies, if we bother to think about it at all. Yet not a single thought is given to how much fuel it is taking away from the rest of us. We are oblivious to how much extra pollution we are putting into the air by letting that car unnecessarily idle, and we are obviously more concerned with our personal comfort than we are in the price of gasoline.

Hard acceleration
After idling your car in the driveway for your personal comfort, you drive off to your destination. Do you slowly get up to speed or do you hard-accelerate to get up to and over the speed limit as quickly as you can? Do you follow this same pattern of hard-acceleration from every stop sign, from every red light, around every car that is moving slower than you want to drive? I see all of these things taking place every day. I see my neighbor pull out of her driveway and take off like she is trying to set some land speed record to get to the next stop sign. Everyday! Clearly, this is nothing more than a habit. Why does she drive like this? I see guys do this too, so don’t think I am being sexist by singling her out. Do you know how much gas could be saved by gently accelerating to and driving at the posted 25 mph speed limit on our residential street? Multiply that savings by driving more conservatively on every street. How many people do you know actually drive the posted speed limit? If you know of any, I’ll bet you could count them on one hand. I drive the speed limit and I am constantly harassed by impatient drivers who don’t like having to slow down to the speed limit. And these drivers represent every age group and both sexes.

Excessive speed
Once you get on the road to wherever you are going, do you move along with the traffic flow or do you feel this blind, impassioned need to pass everyone as if they and you are in a race to get to the finish line first? They are not going to the same place that you are, so why do you have to pass them? I see drivers who seemingly feel they cannot stand to be behind anyone. Do they think everyone will be impressed with how fast their car can go? Zoom, zoom, zoom! Speed limits are widely viewed as suggestions. In every community I have ever driven in, people drive over the posted speed limit. By simply modifying our behavior to drive the speed limit, to obey this law that we have already paid people to determine what the safest speed should be, could save millions of gallons of fuel per year which would result in lower gas prices due to lesser demand and save more gas for all of us in the long run.

I see a car in my rearview mirror speeding up to me and I think where does this guy have to get to in such a hurry. He passes me, zooms on ahead and a few seconds later we are both sitting at the same traffic light. What did he gain by getting to that traffic light first? How much more, in fuel and money, did it cost him to get to that traffic light than it cost me? That little extra amount of gas that he burned up in getting to that traffic light ahead of me, compounded by the millions of drivers who do this everyday amounts to a lot of wasted gasoline. Gasoline that could, if saved for future use, allow all of the rest of us to drive a little bit further if we could only have it available to us. But for his personal, foolish pleasure, the rest of us won’t be able to drive that little bit further. Driving more conservatively in this instance would decrease gasoline demand and therefore decrease gasoline prices.

Combine trips
Driving to the grocery store several times a week compared to just once a week wastes a lot of gasoline too. We have all heard the urging to consolidate our trips yet how many people actually put this into practice? How many times have you made a ‘quick’ run to store just pick up a few items? Make lists, make meal plans, plan your trips more wisely. These little things all add up.

Mass transit and carpooling
Car pool lanes and mass transit were sold to us as means of easing traffic jams and saving fuel. Yet how many people actually use these properly? Very few. My community shares a commuter bus line with other neighboring communities to get residents from outlying areas to the main bus and train lines. At the end of this month that service is being cancelled due to lack of ridership. After more than one year of operation, each of the previous seven months has shown a total daily ridership of three. Does this show that mass transit is working? Certainly not in this city. This story is repeated across this country. People just do not want to give up their personal vehicles. They do not want to have to walk even two blocks to get to and from their place of employment or shopping. On the flip side, mass transit does not get most people close enough to their places of employment to make it a useable solution. Around the world, mass transit systems are in decline while operating costs continue to increase. Our tax dollars continue to be thrown at a broken system that not enough people want to use. Mass transits answer: ‘more modern, attractive public transit systems’. It’s good business for bus and train manufacturers, it keeps some people employed, but it does nothing to serve its original purpose.

Carpool lanes are abused as means of passing slower traffic. Additional revenue is raised by municipalities through charging for HOV passes that allow single occupant vehicles to drive in these lanes, because the original concept, of forcing people to ride-share to decrease the number of vehicles on the road, has not been realized. Again, because we don’t want to leave our personal vehicles sitting at home and because we don’t want to walk a few extra blocks. We shun public transportation because our own personal comfort outweighs the good it would do for our environment.

Tire pressure and routine maintenance
Other gas saving strategies that are overlooked is tire pressure and routine maintenance. How many people actually check their car’s tire pressure? Keeping all four tires properly pressurized can mean pennies in savings but they add up. Keeping your vehicle properly tuned and oil changed regularly really do add up to savings.

Driving the speed limit can mean pennies in savings. Gradually accelerating to the speed limit can save pennies. Consolidating trips can save pennies. All of these pennies can collectively add up to an unbelievable savings in the fuel supply and in the amount of money we pay at the gas pump. Have you ever tossed your loose change in a drawer or jar every time you come in the house and one day count it only to be surprised at how much you have collected? Think of changing your driving habits, saving pennies here and there, as a savings account. Only this savings affects everyone else on the road too.

It just seems to me that most people are mindlessly driving everywhere they go, which, basically, defines a habit. We need to be more conscious of how every aspect of our driving affects the amount of gas we use to get from point A to point B. Do we really have to beat everyone to the next traffic light? Do we really have to be out in front of everyone on the freeway? Do we really have to take our personal vehicle with us everywhere we go?

There is a whole field of psychology behind why people drive the way they do, and why they cherish their personal vehicles so much over the environment, and these issues are beyond the scope of the post, but come on people, what is the rush? Do we really have the right to complain of high gas prices while at the same time sustaining those high gas prices?

The bottom line is that extreme driving habits is taking fuel away from the rest of us. And it is keeping fuel prices up, for all of us!

So, are we really trying to be environmentally friendly and are we taking energy conservation seriously or are we too stubborn to give up old habits?

It seems personal comfort trumps the environment.

This is part of a continuing series that explores just how dedicated we are to saving our planet and ourselves from our polluting and energy-wasting ways.

Come back for the next installment when I explore the sham of recycling.

And, as always, please feel free to leave comments.

Resources:
Edmunds.com performed these tests and published their results here.

Daily Fuel Economy Tips
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Recycling cell phones

An article posted on MSNBC reminded me of the increasing danger we face with recycling our electronic ‘throw aways’.

According to the article, by Dawn Stover, U.S. “recycling” programs may end up exporting cell phones to developing countries that lack recycling facilities, well-designed landfills or environmental guidelines for the safe handling of hazardous materials, making it highly unlikely that the phones will be safely recycled or properly disposed of.

Transferring this electronic waste problem to other countries does not violate international restrictions on the shipment of hazardous waste, but this does not mean it is ethical.

Most of us who actually make an attempt to recycle are concerned with how recycled material is processed. Most people are just glad to get rid of their leftovers and jump at the convenience of a charity fundraiser thinking they are helping the environment and the given charity.

Charities often don’t make very much money from these fundraisers. Most of the money ends up in the hands of middlemen who resell the devices. More and more for-profit companies — including EcoPhones, Phoneraiser, FundingFactory, CollectiveGood, Think Recycle, ReCellular, Cellular Funds and Project KOPEG (Keep Our Planet Earth Green) — are sponsoring these fundraisers at the expense of similar nonprofits.

For a list of non profit recyclers go to freecycle.org. Freecycle is a network of more than 4,000 groups around the world. It is a grassroots nonprofit group of people dedicated to ‘keeping good stuff out of landfills’.

According to EPA statistics from 2005, fewer than 20 percent of cell phones were recycled. Many ended up in landfills, where they can release nasty acids and toxic metals.

Many cell phones collected by for-profit companies are sold to refurbishing companies, which restore the phones to working order and in turn sell them to retailers. About three-quarters of the refurbished phones end up in Latin America, where they are usually marketed as prepaid (“pay-as-you-go”) phones. No mention was made as to what happens to the other 25 percent that cannot be refurbished.

We need to be more vigilant about who we give or sell these items to.

The article gives some tips on how you can make sure your local group receives the most benefit from its fundraising programs.

Also, if you really want to make a difference, consider purchasing a refurbished phone yourself. Service providers such as AT&T and Verizon offer “just like new” phones online, as do many smaller companies. Re-use is a much more efficient way to curtail waste than recycling.

Just because recycling is done by a ‘charity’ fundraiser doesn’t mean the items will be disposed of properly.

As a side note, last year Adam Kalsey, a Cubmaster and blogger in Gold River, Calif., accused EcoPhones of “spamming” Boy Scout leaders whose e-mail addresses are listed on local packs’ Web sites. Spokesperson Jennifer Parra acknowledged that EcoPhones sends marketing messages to teachers, pastors and others affiliated with schools, churches and community groups, but she said the company gives all recipients a chance to opt out of its mailing list as required by the federal CAN-SPAM Act.

Future cityscapes?

Is this a sign of things to come?



It is a scary thought, but since this has already happened in Naples Italy, can the U.S. be far behind?

This, by the way, is not the result of striking garbage truck drivers, but simply, the result of the landfills being too full to accept any more. An estimated 5,000 tons has been building up since the closure on Dec 21, 2007, in Naples alone. The surrounding areas are filling up too.

We need to seriously curtail out wastefulness, and soon. Recycling has been talked about for several generations now and we are still far behind in our ability and willingness to actually participate.

According to a report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the United States recycled 32 percent of its waste in 2005 (I don’t know why stats seem to never be less than two years old).

Including composting, Americans recycled 79 million tons of waste in 2005, a 2 percent increase over 2004 and a big jump from the 16 percent of waste Americans recycled in 1990 and the 10 percent of waste Americans recycled in 1980.

About 42 million tons of paper were recycled—a 50 percent recycling rate. That means 50 percent goes to the landfill.

The number of U.S. landfills have been decreasing steadily—from 8,000 in 1988 to 1,654 in 2005—but the capacity has remained relatively constant because new landfills are much larger.

Container and packaging recycling increased to 40 percent. That means 60 percent goes to the landfill.

America is making headway in both creating more recyclable products and actually recycling those products, but there is still room for improvement.

I see recyclable products thrown in trash cans on a daily basis. Just walk down any public street with trash cans and you will find plastic and other recyclable products in with the other trash. Unfortunately, you can also see this trash on the side of the road. I have never understood the mentality of someone who turns our environment into their own personal trash can by throwing their trash out the window.

Walk into any shopping mall, office building, airport, etc and you will find recyclable objects thrown in with the trash. Sometimes there is even a recycling container nearby.

In my own neighborhood, where we have blue recycling bins assigned to every household, I see, on trash day, too many homes where that blue recycling bin sits up at the side of the house obviously empty while the recycling truck drives past.

We just are not fully committed to recycling in the U.S. yet. Is it going to take the visual sights and olfactory smells of rotting garbage in our streets before non-participants finally realize they should have done their part?