Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Respect

[deja vu]

We have seen the signs, the bins for recycling, but how many really pay attention. The garbage dumps are on overload and the time is now to make the change. Only takes a minute to put the papers, glass, cans, cardboard in the proper bins. Its all over the news about how some cities are now banning the personal size water bottles you buy from a vending machine and some stores. Too many forget to recycle them and they end up in the dump forever. Problem is you can still buy personal size bottles of pop/juice from those same machines. Maybe if they made it mandatory across the board, many would not complain as loudly. I dont know why the elected officials think just removing the personal size bottles of water really solves this issue, when ignoring the other half of it. Does anyone recycle the clothes they are no longer wearing but are still in good shape?

Do you recycle at home, the office, school?

[CielOnTap]

DESIGN
At Art Center College of Design, sustainability meets form and function

Wally Skalij, Los Angeles Times
NEW LIFE: Spencer Nikosey made totes out of Army truck tarps and fire hoses.
The private college hopes to be a global leader in stylish designs that leave small carbon footprints and don't end up in landfills.
By Reed Johnson
March 15, 2009
Radhika Bhalla dreamed of empowering women in her native India by designing an attractive, multipurpose bicycle cart made of inexpensive, easily obtained local materials. At present, many rural Indian women must haul heavy loads of firewood and flour bags by hand, on foot.

Bhalla calculates that the new carts could save up to five hours of walking per day. That, in turn, could help win over husbands who traditionally don't like to see their womenfolk getting too mobile and independent.

"As long as there's monetary gain, men are interested," said Bhalla, a 25-year-old student at Art Center College of Design, the nearly 80-year-old Pasadena school that's one of the world's foremost hothouses of art and design innovation. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-ca-sustainable15-2009mar15,0,6645777.story

[CielOnTap]

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Japanese give Paris tidiness lesson
Expats police storied streets for discarded waste but residents prove mostly indifferent

By DHEEPTHI NAMASIVAYAM
The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) The volunteers, from school-age to middle age, gather outside the Musee d'Orsay. They don emerald-green vests and mustard-colored cleaning gloves, methodically disperse and get to work.

City of blight: A Greenbird member polices the sidewalk outside the Musee d'Orsay in Paris on Jan. 31. Cigarette butts, food scraps and dog droppings litter the city. AP PHOTO

No directive is given. The only noise comes from their metal pincers scraping the surface of every sullied crevice between the stone steps of the famous art museum.

These men and women belong to an army of environmentalists who have made it their job to rid Paris' legendary monuments and streets of cigarette butts, food scraps, dog droppings and a host of other indignities. But most of the volunteers are not in fact French — they're Japanese.

Greenbird Paris is the first overseas wing of a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization that has spread its antipollution message in Japanese neighborhoods since 2003. The Paris group debuted in March 2007 to clean up a city that has long been a favorite tourist destination for the Japanese. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090325f1.html

The French perception of being all together in the style department does not extend to the sidewalk. Pity.

[CielOnTap]

Eco-friendly labelling? It's a lot of 'greenwash'

TOM HANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS

THE SIX SINS OF GREENWASHING

1. Hidden trade-offs: A product that's eco-friendly in some ways, but not others, such as paper from sustainable forests that's bleached by methods that release dioxin.

2. No proof: A claim that can't be substantiated by easily available information or reliable certification, such as toilet paper claiming a certain percentage of recycled content, but without evidence.

3. Vagueness: A claim so poorly defined its meaning will likely be misunderstood. "All natural" isn't always non-toxic, for instance.

4. Irrelevance: A claim that may be truthful but not helpful – CFC-free is a frequent claim, but CFCs are banned by law.

5. Fibbing: False claims, such as products claiming to be Energy Star-certified that are not.

6. Lesser of two evils: A claim true within a product's category, but not for the category overall, such as a "fuel-efficient SUV."
98% of product claims fail 'sin-free' test, marketing experts say

Apr 17, 2009 04:30 AM
Catherine Porter
Environment Reporter

"All-natural" shampoo. "Planet-friendly" glass cleaner. "BPA-free" baby bottles.

The labels on 98 per cent of those good-for-the-earth-and-your-body items you fill your shopping basket with are lying, a new study shows.

Of the more than 2,000 self-described environmentally friendly products in North America examined by the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice, only 25 were found to be indisputably "sin free." The rest were greenwashing, a term environmentalists coined to refer to misleading environmental ads or claims. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/619936

Yes, you really have to know your products and the standards for "green products" before you pay for the labels. Nothing that some research can't help with!

[smitty]

Some places do not have the privilge. Like in my area or town we are charged for Blue Bags, to Black Bags, to Clear bags even if previously we could to an area to put in cradboard, tin cans, platic & such. Also the bags must be light, can only be put out every second week or so, but only the colour so demanded. Put out two different coloured ones & they pick up the one of such a colour that day. It is getting down to pick-ups are about every three weeks, yet we are charged weekly. Sometimes one has to wonder.

[CielOnTap]

Better inquire what your weekly charge is paying for. I would not be surprised if it covers the public works staff in charge of the contract/service complaints to outside contractor, which is the actual service provider for the municipality. Local pickup of blue boxes and garbage are both contracted to private companies operating in other cities--no more unionized city workers collecting the day's output for several years now.

I think the pain of having to pay for waste and recycling is also due to landfills not being popular to buy in other communities, so city councils are trying to extend the life/lives of the ones they have.

Now, in Ontario, some of the major food stores charge 5 cents per grocery bag: Fortinos/Loblaws, Food Basics/No Frills (for some years already), Sobeys (as of May 1). I have noticed one family member is paying the bag fee but we have a few tote bags at home. This cost will add up. I made a point to buy two small tote bags when Fortinos sold them at 50% off (49cents instead of the usual 99cents) during Earth Week last month. Unfortunately, the large totes sold out rather quickly.

Compost bin/green cart-bags can be purchased to line the small kitchen bin and also the big wheeled cart. I say read the local free papers and line the bin/cart with them later. The small bags are in bundles of 10 and sell for $4.99 before taxes. That cost adds up-less money for necessity buys. The big paper bags are in bundles of 3-have not bought any at all. The bin/carts come in one size each--at least in Toronto, residents were able to order a wheeled cart in one of three sizes. I have read that Toronto townhouse surveys have a space problem with the carts and blue boxes on the limited steps/yards that each household has available to them. It would make more sense to have apartment size recycling/compost bins in townhouse surveys, and that residents use smaller boxes for indoor use. But that would be thinking, right?

Garbage will be a one can or one bag per residence deal next year but the limit is applied this spring already. A second bag of garbage has to be in a clear bag. Unless you are savvy enough to fashion one out of a drying bag or have a large clear bag from a shopping trip, there is another bundle of bags to pay for. Blue transparent bags are fine for recyclables but you have to buy them too. When you have papers shredded, those blue bags fill up over time, so they might not run out as fast as the compost liner bags.

[guitarblues]

The business of where the garbage goes-really, the takeout food places will have to become non-takeout places for the garbage message to get through (out of space). Even for the toys with kids' meals-so much plastic gets shipped to North America so the youngsters can play while eating. Like the parents don't teach them table manners and what is fine to discuss over food and what can wait until the meal is over.

[CielOnTap]

Going to remember to rinse/wash out those grocery bags? I do launder my woven tote bags every so often, but if a spill happens, then the bag gets washed after emptying. Plastic bags-I will rinse them out if a spill happens. Considering what medium produce grows with, you might want to wash the plastic bags out before their next use. Read on:

Study commissioned by plastics industry says reusable grocery bags dangerous
Wed May 20, 5:31 PM
By Keith Leslie, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The growing popularity of reusable grocery bags could pose a health risk to Canadians by increasing their exposure to dangerous bacteria, says a study commissioned by the plastics industry released Wednesday.

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association hired two independent labs to conduct what it said was the first study of so-called eco-friendly grocery bags in North America, and found 64 per cent of them were contaminated with some level of bacteria. Bacteria

[CielOnTap]

Interview with Stockholm's chief executive officer mentions some of its public waste iniatives-burning waste for energy, biogas production, and garbage transportation.

[deja vu]

Britains having a tough week. First the politicians and their bad spending habits and now this:


A study on recycling suggests Britons are the worst in Europe when it comes to recycling electrical equipment.

Computer manufacturer Dell found that fewer than half of UK residents regularly recycled old hardware, compared with more than 80% of Germans. Within the UK, the Welsh are the worst when it comes to recycling technology; almost 20% have never done so.

It is thought the UK creates enough electrical waste each year to fill Wembley Stadium six times over. Environmental consultant Tony Juniper said that lack of awareness was a serious issue

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8063115.stm


Boy do they need to get their recycling act together.