Sustainablog

Earlier this week I posted A By-the-Numbers Look at Paper Recycling. I posed the question of whether or not individual efforts to recycle paper adds up to an amount that can actually save trees.

As I researched some numbers to identify how much paper comes from one tree, I inadvertently kept a singular focus on corporate environments and office paper. It wasn’t until I later caught a reminding glimpse of the stack of magazines sitting on the night table next to my bed that I realized where, perhaps, the true impact lies: periodicals.

The simplified look at how much office copy paper it takes for one person to save a tree in one year is 33 sheets of paper per day. I figure that’s unreachable, at least for me, because I am selective about how much I avoid printing things unnecessarily — emails and other documents.

But magazines and newspapers — there are dozens and hundreds of pages per issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I wrote about the paper waste associated with catalogs in Catalog Waste Part 1: NOW is the Time to Cancel Unwanted Catalogs and Stop Paper Waste. If you’re receiving catalogs that you don’t want, cancel them and seriously curb your paper consumption in one easy step.

But, what if you don’t want to cancel all of the catalogs you receive? Sometimes, there are catalogs that you actually do use and want to continue receiving. Do you have to be content with receiving many, many copies of the catalog when one a year or one a season would suffice? Do you have to be content with the catalog companies using 100% virgin paper?

No, you don’t. Here are some things you can do:

• Call the companies of the catalogs that you do wish to receive and tell them that you would only like to receive a certain number of mailings a year. Not all companies are set up to do this yet, but more and more companies are offering this option. If a company comes out with an “early fall catalog” and a “fall catalog” and a “late fall catalog” (this is common with clothing companies), most likely the items inside the catalog are the same, but the picture on the cover is different and the pages have been rearranged. You can request that you be sent one catalog a season. Or, if you just want a catalog to shop from for the holidays, request only one mailing a year at the beginning of holiday season.
• Read the rest of this entry »

How much good comes from one person’s hypervigilant paper recycling effort?

I’ve been asking myself variations of this question lately, mainly while at my day job as I see basically all colleagues around me tossing paper into the trash, rather than the recycle bin.

I know it’s tough to look in the mirror and think that you, just one individual on a planet of billions, can do much that makes a difference. So I’ve been pondering what the value is — or is not — to my vigilance in recycling.

Can I make a difference? Is my effort worth anything to the planet, especially in the face of so many non-believers who assume apathy is the only medicine?

I’ve looked for the numbers to apply some math-based logic to these questions. Read the rest of this entry »

Labor Day? Labor Day? Please. It ought to be called Lazy Day, as far as I can figure.

I mean, here I am on this wonderful day of freedom from toil, which is only darkened by the fact that it comes at the end of a long weekend, without a care in the world or much of an urge to toil my free time away. Nope, my bony little backside is rooted firmly to a comfy seat as a warm summer day keeps my disposition sunny. Yes, I am the proverbial cheeseburger–er, that is, veggie-burger–in paradise.

Who in the world would think of labor, of toil, of work on Labor Day?

This is a day of rest, right? We get a day off from work to become vegetables, to chill out until we are as cool as cucumbers, to plop ourselves in the hammock and get as snug as bugs in our rugs…right?

This is a leisure day, right? A day to sit out one running of the rat race, right?

Or is it? I mean, whilst I bask in my vegetative state and enjoy the duty-free day, I can hear mowers and blowers and power saws screaming with effort from neighbors’ yards in every direction. Yes, strange as it may sound, so many folks on this no-labor day are busier than bees as they labor away on their yards, their homes, their vehicles, their errand running, and their countless other “little projects” that just have to get done during this wonderful bit of (paid) “free” time.

And nature, too, seems to be busy toiling away despite the U.S. federal government’s decree that this is an official holiday. Sure, Jesus may have given his spiel about considering the lilies and how they toil not nor spin and all that…but those same lilies are in fact busy growing and reproducing and being pretty and what have you at every moment. Besides, Jesus is not the best authority on taking time off: he had no qualms about breaking the rule against working on the Sabbath! And the Buddha may have talked about having “few duties” and “living lightly,” but that poor fellow wandered around preaching and teaching–and for no pay–so he is not one to believe either!

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lester R. Brown

With water shortages emerging as a constraint on food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity during the last half of the twentieth century. Worldwide, average irrigation water productivity is now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain, it is not surprising that 70 percent of world water use is devoted to irrigation. Thus, raising irrigation efficiency is central to raising water productivity overall.

In surface water projects—that is, dams that deliver water to farmers through a network of canals—crop usage of irrigation water never reaches 100 percent simply because some irrigation water evaporates, some percolates downward, and some runs off. Water policy analysts Sandra Postel and Amy Vickers found that “surface water irrigation efficiency ranges between 25 and 40 percent in India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand; between 40 and 45 percent in Malaysia and Morocco; and between 50 and 60 percent in Israel, Japan, and Taiwan.” Irrigation water efficiency is affected not only by the type and condition of irrigation systems but also by soil type, temperature, and humidity. In hot arid regions, the evaporation of irrigation water is far higher than in cooler humid regions.

In 2004, China’s Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng outlined for me plans to raise China’s irrigation efficiency from 43 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2010 and then to 55 percent in 2030. The steps he described included raising the price of water, providing incentives for adopting more irrigation-efficient technologies, and developing the local institutions to manage this process. Reaching these goals, he felt, would assure China’s future food security.

Read the rest of this entry »

Out once again for my daily constitutional and communion–another long morning walk–I blow slowly down this country road like the breeze in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, like so many other wisps of Earth’s breath from time immemorial, like a ghost haunting some sacred ground.

With my every organ of sensory input wide open and on full alert, it is pretty much impossible for my eyes to miss the decidedly unnatural clutter of colorlessness that, like the natural things surrounding and hiding it (as if with embarrassment, perhaps), glistens with early morning dew in the roadside ditch: a plastic bag.

And within and scattered around that bag, like a litter of critters not completely born quite yet, a plastic soda bottle, a few empty plastic food wrappers, a Styrofoam cup with plastic lid and straw, a plastic spork….

Did some mad biochemist create and sow seeds of plastic that have finally sprouted? Pondering this, my eyes sort of glaze over as my mind’s eye starts to ramble off and my body rambles on via autopilot. And I hear in my mind’s ear, drowning out the birdsong and the breeze, a voice intoning ominously that America (and so by default the world) is addicted to oil.

And suddenly, as the country road loses its hard, firm reality, a vast plain of plastic stretches out before me…like terra firma comprised of solidified oil instead of soil, rocks, and stones. And like Dante stepping on the faces of the submerged dead in Hell, I tread upon countless plastic items that go along with daily human existence. Not just plastic soda bottles and sporks. Not just plastic bags and Saran Wrap.

Read the rest of this entry »

By the numbers, here is where the United States stands in its recycling effort. Not the best, not the worst.

Just making a quick assessment based on these digits — maybe the U.S. has earned a C (with a curve applied, perhaps).

Good job, Austria. Pick up the pace, Greece. And let’s all keep plugging away. The numbers may be lower than some of us would like, but they register continuing increases. Americans are recycling more than ever before; we’re on an up-swing.

251 million – tons of trash in the United States

82 million – tons of materials recycled in the United States

53.4 – percentage of all paper products recycled in the United States

32.5 – percentage of total waste that is recycled in the United States

100 – approximate percentage of increase in total recycling in the United States during the past decade Read the rest of this entry »

What to do when colleagues in the workplace just won’t — will not, will not, will not — reach a little further to the left with that grip of paper they no longer want hanging around, instead opting for the trash can rather than the nearby recycling bin?

Not long ago, when I finally joined Big Cooperate America after resisting for more than a decade, it didn’t take long to realize I had cloaked myself in an environment that was not ‘green.’

The company, a rather major one, considers itself an environmentally aware corporation. And it is — to an extent.

But only to the extent of its masses, which are still more inclined to consider recycling paper and plastic bottles the cutting edge of the green game. Read the rest of this entry »

So, the knee has been bent, the question has been asked, the positive answer given. Now comes the (un)fun part: organizing the wedding. Along with choosing the band, the cake, the colour of your linens, some couples are beginning to ask how they can make their special day more sustainable? After the break, sustainablog will present some of our favourite ways of making a wedding into a green wedding. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I wrote about the Back to School Shopping Madness that leads families to spend an average of $527.08 on back to school things. While the average family may be spending over $500, the average college freshman spends $1285 getting ready to move into the dorm. Much of that is spent on items they already have at home and would be able to take the dorm. The new stuff is not necessary.

But there are some things that college students could be taking with them that will help them live a more sustainable life while in the dorms. If you must shop, think about picking up these items (unless you have them already of course - then resist the urge to buy new ones).

Power strips for your electrical devices - College students are going to have computers, printers, mobile phone chargers, and other electrical appliances that draw power even when they aren’t in use. Bringing enough power strips to handle all your devices will make it easy to turn them all off when not in use.

Travel coffee mugs with lids - If a college student hasn’t discovered coffee yet, chances are he or she will by finals time. A few durable travel mugs can save hundreds of paper/styrofoam cups over a semester. Don’t just use them for coffee taken from the dorm room. If you go to a coffee house, take it with you.

Reusable water bottles -Plastic bottles with lids, or better yet stainless steel bottles (such as SIGG or Kleen Canteens), are easy to carry around - most backpacks now have a place just for water bottles. Not only will it help save a lot of disposable water/beverage bottles, it will save the user a ton of money, too.

Read the rest of this entry »