Published on April 14th, 2008
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Editor’s note: Most weeks, we feature product reviews from our friends at Life Goggles. In this week’s post, though, Joel takes a look at British retailer Marks & Spencer’s innovative approach to dealing with products at the end of their useful lives: clothing recycling. This post was originally published on Tuesday, April 8, 2008.
For 6 months (that started at the end of January), Marks & Spencer (M&S) have joined forces with Oxfam to set up a clothing exchange. Designed with the dual purpose of encouraging people to recycle clothes and raise money for Oxfam’s work, customers who donate M&S clothes to Oxfam will receive a voucher £5/€7, valid for one month, to use with their next purchase of £35/€50 or more. Although buying new clothes paid for with old clothes isn’t the best way of doing things in my opinion, it’s certainly not a bad way of encouraging people to recycle clothes if they are planning on buying more anyway. And perhaps they’ll find something they like in Oxfam!
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on March 26th, 2008
This post is by Ramon Cruz, Senior Policy Analyst for Living Cities at Environmental Defense Fund.
It’s ironic. In many parts of the world, there is no clean drinking water. Here in the U.S., pure, drinkable water flows out of every tap, and yet Americans buy a staggering amount of bottled water. We pay big bucks for it, too - over $15 billion a year.
Worst of all, the bottles are overflowing our landfills, and contribute to global warming.
Take a look at this video from Doug James, and then check out these surprising facts.
Published on January 30th, 2008
Chicago has made some big strides in recent years toward becoming a greener city. As I’ve talked about in previous posts, Mayor Richard M. Daley has used his lock on power in the Second City to push an aggressive agenda of environmental initiatives that he hopes will someday soon earn Chicago the title of Greenest City in the Nation.
Realistically, we’ve got a long way to go before such a claim can be made with a straight face, but progress is being made. Some of the bolder initiatives that City Hall has launched in recent years have worked to expand the use of green roofs, support sustainable architecture, and reduce waste from plastic water bottles. There are other examples, but suffice to say that the mayor is backing up his green rhetoric with some real political muscle in a bid to leave a legacy as an early 21st century environmental leader.
But one criticism that can be made about Daley’s approach so far to creating a more sustainable city is that it is very top-down. Municipal government can put in place programs to encourage better resource management, but it can’t mandate a local green economy into existence. Achieving that goal takes the vision, dedication, and hard work of countless green business entrepreneurs and environmentally conscious consumers. And let’s face it, most of us don’t really enjoy when the government tells us what to do. Even when City Hall tackles an issue we’re passionate about, most of us wonder to ourselves, “Why are they doing it that way? Wouldn’t it be more effective to do X with the money?”
If you’ve ever had such idea, imagine for a moment that you could get help from your local government agencies to help make it a reality. Wouldn’t it be great to have such ideas nurtured instead of being left to die on the vine?
Enter the Chicago Conservation Corps. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on January 8th, 2008
Three large electronics manufacturers are taking a proactive step in an industry screaming for action. Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba have established an electronic product recycling management company, Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company, LLC (MRM), to spearhead electronics recycling and collection in the United States. This dream team was formed to provide a recycling service to electronics manufacturers and others, including state and local governments, and to meet recent Minnesota requirements on recycling electronics.
“We believe that forming an independent company to manage collective electronic recycling programs is the best way to achieve the economies of scale and efficiencies to create a sustainable recycling system for used electronics products.” Said David Thompson, MRM president.
One very important thing the new company is striving for is to provide convenient recycling opportunities for consumers. There’s no question most people have an old TV or computer lying around that they would like to throw away but are too conscious to just toss in a landfill or dumpster. So with the work of MRM, that conundrum is solved. It already seems MRM is making some waves. According to Brad Moore, the commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency:
“In the first five months since Minnesota’s new electronic recycling law took effect, MRM collected approximately 750 tons of used products - a significant amount.” Read the rest of this entry »
Published on December 19th, 2007
Ten earth-friendly ideas to spark your imagination
Intangibles can deliver green good all year long (and reduce clutter)
1. Donate time or money to a charity in honor of the gift recipient (a gift to Environmental Defense is a good choice).
2. Buy carbon offsets in the recipient’s name. Along with cutting your own carbon emissions — and fuel bills — help your friends and family offset theirs.
3. Give a national parks pass or a membership to botanical gardens or aquariums. (For an extra-special gift, surprise with a cross-country train tour or an eco-vacation.)
Stocking stuffers can be “green”
4. Give energy-saving light bulbs. The technology in these earth-friendly bulbs has leapt ahead, and they now come in many shapes and sizes (See Environmental Defense’s bulb guide for specifics.)
5. Consider the DVD “An Inconvenient Truth“; in bookstores and video stores everywhere. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on December 10th, 2007
In my last post, Recycling Misconceptions part 1, I touched on the uncertainties of recycling, plastics in particular, that I think perplex many of us. Well last week I attended a Green Renter lecture here in NYC and found out some more interesting things about recycling that I didn’t know. The evening’s lecturer, Samantha MacBride of NYC bureau of waste prevention, reuse and recycling was able to put many things into perspective, the most interesting being the amount of paper we consume and the amount that ends up in our landfills.
She got me thinking. Since recycling has been on my radar lately, I have been more aware of my habits and the habits of the people around me. I noticed that I am much more diligent in getting my plastic and glass bottles in the correct place for recycling than I am with all my paper products. It wasn’t until I attended the lecture that I realized how much less of a guessing game paper recycling is, just how important it really is — more important than the resin code mystery in my last post — and how much I neglect the privilege. According to Samantha Macbride, if you want to make a difference, recycle more paper. She explained to us that paper is the most under recycled material. According to the EPA, 35% of total U.S. municipal solid waste generated in 2006 was paper and paperboard (graph source: EPA report). Read the rest of this entry »
