Greening your office March 26, 2008

Apparently even those who are dedicated environmentalists at home tend to be slackers in the office.   Is it the lack of ownership of the situation that makes people less dedicated, or maybe the anonymity?  At the risk of appearing to be a vigilante, I’ve started to do the following:

• I try not to print.  This has two benefits.  Aside from saving paper, it helps keep my desk neater.  There are some times that I have to print. When making copy edits I still prefer to have a hard copy.  When I can, I print double-sided, or if it’s a PowerPoint presentation, I print 2 slides on a page if not too many numbers or graphs are included.  One important step, from Dan Costa’s article at PC Magazine, is to use Print Preview (in the File dropdown menu in Word, or via the icon with paper and a magnifying glass).  Make sure your document isn’t just one line too long (if so choose Shrink to Fit) or that your spreadsheet isn’t spilling over into unnecessary pages.
• I turn out lights when I leave a conference room, and have been known to duck into unused rooms to turn lights off.
• I bring home my discarded papers to recycle.  Even though we all have blue recycling bins, the paper goes into the same garbage as everything else, so I keep a pile of recycling under my desk and bring it home every so often.  This has also encouraged me to print less.
• I have a china cup and often make my own coffee or tea.  Aside from decreasing the amount of garbage I generate in a day, it also saves money.  I must admit, however, that I often go to the cafe to buy coffee in the morning with my colleagues because I don’t want to miss the social aspect.

This leads me to one of the things I think is most important for us all to remember.  We don’t have to be perfect.   Whether it’s recycling or budgeting or dieting, we can’t expect to live up to impossible standards.  The point is that if we all try a little, we can make a difference.

Turn worn-out Crocs into footwear for others March 18, 2008

SolesUnited^sm is the name of a program set up to collect used Crocs^tm so that they can be repurposed into footwear that can be donated to those in need around the world.

How it works:

1. Wear your Crocs until the tread is worn and you don’t want them anymore
2. Donate old Crocs at a participating location, or mail them to the SolesUnited program.
3. They will be sorted, ground up, made into new SolesUnited shoes, and then sent to approved non-profit locations around the world.
4. The shoes are then donated to those in need.

So far, SolesUnited has donated over 1 million pairs of shoes. The goal for 2008 is to send a total of 2 million pairs to Armenia, Cambodia, Chad, Darfur, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Philippines, Romania, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

“Plastic Loose Fill”, otherwise known as packing peanuts March 17, 2008

One of my favorite parts of writing this blog is using the tag surfer. By reading other blogs, not only have I been encouraged by the number of people taking an active role in promoting the care of our environment, but I’ve also learned so much about solutions that are addressing some of the issues that used to seem very troublesome. One of these issues is the problem of what to do with what we commonly call packing peanuts, or peanuts, but what the industry calls Plastic Loose Fill.

Believe it or not, there actually is a Plastic Loose Fill Council, whose mission is to develop, promote and implement the original use and subsequent recovery, reuse and recycling of polystyrene loose fill, or peanuts. The PLFC offers a Peanut Hotline on the website, where you can search for one of the 1500 peanut collection sites in the US.

Since I have been known to bring home boxes of peanuts from my office in order to save them from the landfill, this caught my eye. However, aside from the information about collection sites, something else on the site caught my eye. Keeping in mind that this site was created by major manufacturers of polystyrene loose fill, it was still interesting to read the following “facts”:

• Plastic loose fill can be reused.
• Over 30% of all EPS* loose fill is reused.
• The minimum recycled content in EPS loose fill is 25%.
• Post-consumer recycled-content EPS loose fill is sold throughout the United States.
• There are hundreds of collection sites for EPS loose fill in the US.
• Collection centers report that, on average, 50% of their loose fill needs are met with reusable loose fill donated by consumers.
• EPS loose fill is non-toxic, inert and made without chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
• EPS loose fill is less than 1/4 of 1% of landfill volume.
• EPS loose fill is over 99.6% air.
• It takes 40% to 50% less energy to make EPS loose fill than to make a comparable amount of paper packaging.
• Atmospheric emissions from the production of polystyrene are only 1/2 to 1/3 of those from the production of a comparable amount of paper.
• Waste water volume from polystyrene production is 1/3 of that resulting from producing a comparable amount of paper.

*EPS= expanded polystyrene

It’s been a long time since I took a science class, and this all sounds almost too good to be true. In any case, I’d still not rather put them in a landfill, so whatever I can’t use for my own packaging needs can go to one of the collection centers for reuse. The UPS Store is one of the main supporters of this recycling program.

These peanuts are light as a feather, so there’s no excuse for not recycling them!

Salvage! March 17, 2008

When I started this blog I had planned to write about things I found discarded in my neighborhood. However, I’ve been surprised to find that many of the things I’ve found lying around have been at my own house.

my old door — and a toilet seen on the street

 

I’ve just learned that in some parts of the country, there are “thrift stores” for building and remodeling materials. One example is The Rebuilding Center, located in Portland, OR and in other locations in the US. They accept many types of reusable building or remodeling materials and will provide you with a receipt for a tax-deduction. Their website includes a list of items they will accept, or you can call them to ask about an item that’s not listed.

 

The items are sold to the public for prices that are from 50-90% below list. Some items are relatively modern and are just good deals, but others might be vintage materials or cast-offs from old houses being updated.

 

The non-profit Rebuilding Center diverts 4.5 million pounds of reusable building materials from landfills each year. There are currently over 500 successful centers repurposing building materials throughout the US and Canada. Unfortunately, the list doesn’t include any in New York. Sounds like a great opportunity for someone with a bit of building experience!

Pots, pots, pots March 16, 2008

According to the Missouri Botanical Garden, in the horticultural industry alone, about 350 million pounds of plastic is produced each year. Above is a small example of my own contribution to the problem. It seems ironic that gardeners, who are connected to the earth and who are trying to make a positive impact by improving its appearance, are inadvertent accomplices to the landfill debacle. Happily though, the tide is now turning, and there are some good options becoming available.

If you live near the Missouri Botanical Garden, you’re in luck. If not, there’s still a chance that a similar program will come to a town near you when town officials learn that since 1998, the Garden’s Plastic Pot Recycling Program has saved over 300 tons of plastic from ending up in a landfill. It’s the largest program of its kind, recycling both plastic pots and polystyrene cell packs and trays. The program has garnered great support from the gardeners in the St. Louis area.

The initiative has been so successful that the Garden eventually purchased three recycling trailers, which were placed at area garden centers where they were filled by customers on a weekly basis.

For 2008, the fleet of trailers will be expanded, and additional collection sites around the city will be established.

The garden pots and trays are recycled into landscape timbers, useful for building retaining walls and landscape borders. Timbers can be cut with a circular saw and drilled similar to wood.

Even better than a recycling program, Ball Horticultural Company has introduced Circle of Life™ Biodegradable Pots in partnership with Summit Plastics Company. The pots, available in several sizes, are made from rice hulls and when empty can just be crushed and added to a compost pile, where they will decompose in approximately six months. It may be some time before either of these options is readily available nationwide, but I’m happy to see that progress is being made in this area.

Single-stream recycling on the rise March 15, 2008

It seems that most people aren’t opposed to the idea of recycling. What makes them hesitate is the sorting. Depending on where you live, you might have to separate glass from cans, glossy paper from newsprint, and if you’re lucky enough to live in an area where there’s cardboard recycling, corrugated from plain cardboard. Then there are the plastic bags and deposit bottles to take back to the store.

Single-stream publicity for Philadelphia

In some communities, life has become simpler as a result of “single-stream recycling”. And best of all, it appears that in communities where single-stream recycling has been introduced, recycling rates have risen dramatically. From May 2005 when single-stream was introduced in Denver, to January 2006, one recycling company, Waste Management, found that the amount of unsorted recyclables they processed at their facility in northeast Denver increased from 2,000 tons to 8,000 tons per month. Denver Recycles, which manages the recycling program for the city of Denver, saw an 18 percent increase in recyclables collected overall during the same time period. Nationwide, from 2002 to 2006, the volume of material processed in Waste Management’s single-stream recycling facilities nearly tripled, from about 722,000 tons in 2002 to more than 2 million tons in 2006.

Single-stream recycling continues to be rolled out to more and more cities. One of the most recent, in January of this year, is Baltimore and surrounding cities such as Canton, Maryland. Instructions by their Department of Public Works take the “reduce” component of the 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) a step further by not even requiring residents to put their cast-offs in a plastic bin. They can use a cardboard box or any other container that is clearly marked as “Recycling”.

Does your community offer single-stream recycling? Has it encouraged you to recycle more? Or, if you don’t have it, do you think it would motivate you? Are there any drawbacks?

So far it sounds good. What I’d like to see now is consistency from town to town in what can be recycled!

Follow-up: hangars March 14, 2008

I was happy to see that there is a company addressing the issue of hangars. According to the Ditto Hangars web site, every year an estimated 8-10 billion unrecyclable plastic/wire hangers end up clogging our municipal landfills, requiring over 1,000 years to break down. That’s 4.6 Empire State Buildings full of plastic hangers–every year. An estimated 3.5 million wire hangers end up in landfills and can take over 100 years to decompose.

They have designed 100% recyclable Ditto Paper Hangars, and 100% Pet Plastic Hangars made of 100% polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the easily recyclable plastic commonly used to produce water bottles.

This certainly is something worth keeping an eye on.

Seen near Cooper Square March 13, 2008

The piles of trash in NYC are huge. I recently passed the following two of many mounds of trash, much of it in black plastic bags, which are made from petroleum.

The good news is that in NYC, there are plenty of people who are interested in reusing things that they find in the street. As you see in the photo on the left, two men are already seeing what they can make use of in the pile of refuse on 9th Street. When I first passed the large pile of trash on the right, it seemed that no one was interested in what really looked like rubbish, including large pieces of broken glass. However, when I walked down the street after class, a man was trying with much determination to secure a couple of the long boards on his bicycle, although he had no rope or bungee cords.

There is no easy way that I know of in my town or in Manhattan to offer unused items to others. Here in Nassau County as in some other parts of the country, we do have freecycle.org, which is run like a newsgroup, where interested parties can post messages about things they want to give away. It’s not exactly difficult, but it does take some effort. There’s also craigslist, where you can list item that are free or post a Curb Alert (see an example). Apparently some regions have a free pile right at their recycling center, which makes a lot of sense. Carocoknits has a blog entry about her latest finds: Why are you frugal?

This morning was trash day in the next town and I was very happy to see someone with a pickup truck scrounging for useful or salable items. The bed of the truck was full. I was torn between being pleased that someone else had the opinion that we shouldn’t be throwing things that could be used into the trash, and yet on the other hand being a bit taken aback at the sight of someone going through garbage right on our suburban streets. It’s not something I’m used to seeing, and I almost wondered if some people might think it illegal or consider it a quality of life crime. I for one, wanted to pull over and talk to the person, find out why he’s doing it, and tell him to keep up the good work!

Update: CRT Monitor March 13, 2008

Bad news this week from The Cristina Foundation:

We regret to inform you that we have been unsuccessful in placing your donated equipment listed below.

Several notices were sent to partner organizations in your area however none were able to accept your equipment at this time.

To dispose of your equipment you can go to Dell Recycling and follow their instructions or to E-cycling Central for information in your state about groups who might be able to recycle your computer equipment.

Aside from the suggestions offered in the email above, there are a couple of other options to try:

• My local Sanitation Department’s electronics recycling day
• Craigslist -probably in the free section

Volunteers in Portland, Oregon, have found their own solution. Free Geek, a not-for-profit community organization, was founded eight years ago to recycle computer technology and provide low and no-cost computing to individuals and not-for-profit and social change organizations. So far Free Geek has recycled over 1,500 tons of electronic scrap and refurbished over 15,000 computer systems that are now in use by individuals and organizations in the community. The computers are loaded with GNU/Linux operationg systems and free software.

Most of the work is done by about 500 active volunteers, and anyone who puts in 24 hours of volunteer time can “adopt” a computer.

Free Geek is in the process of trademarking their name, and nine similar organizations in the US and Canada have been accepted as Free Geeks. If you think you’d like to start a similar program, you can apply.

As time goes on, more and more products will be designed with the end of their lifecycle planned as carefully as the initial use is. Until then, we just have to do the best we can.

Stirring It Up by Gary Hirshberg March 12, 2008

I’ve recently listened to Stirring It Up, by Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farms, on CD. It’s relatively short, but made quite an impression on me and actually made me look differently at my interest in recycling.

Hirshberg makes several interesting points:

• Nature and business are allies, not foes, and Saving the World is Profitable (USA Today)
• There is no such place as “away” as in “throw it away”
• Recycling should be a last resort. Our efforts should be focused on reduced packaging, and sustainable processes to reduce waste and our carbon footprint.
• Human beings have the intelligence and drive to find solutions for our environmental issues, and small efforts, gradually increasing over time, on both an individual and corporate level are worth making.

Hirshberg describes the evolution of green ways of doing business at several companies aside from Stonyfield Farms, including Timberland, Seventh Generation, Honest Tea and Newman’s Own, among others.

Not only is Hirshberg optimistic about the future of the planet, but also about the positive influence that conducting business in an environmentally friendly way will have on company profits, and the psyche of both customers and employees.

Although the estimated global warming gas emissions resulting from the production of the book were offset by an investment in a manure digester at a farm in Pennsylvania, I recommend that you save a tree and get the book or CD from your local library.