The Green Life

Foiled Again

Energy bars are convenient, sure, but what about the 800 million wrappers discarded each year? Now they and other selected junk can be sent to a company that's making big business out of household garbage. The plastic/foil composite wrappers, along with empty juice pouches, will be reincarnated as bags and backpacks on the shelves of Target. Next, old plastic yogurt containers will reappear at Home Depot as planter pots. The formula belongs to TerraCycle, which entices schools and others to collect castoffs in return for a charity donation, then refashions the items for sale in big-box stores. terracycle.net

The Perils of Pot(s)

Gardening seems as close to nature as you can get, but the 300 million pounds of plastic pots and trays used each year often clutter landfills.

Not in St. Louis, though, where volunteers with the Missouri Botanical Garden's decade-old recycling program have collected more than 300 tons of plastic from nurseries, landscapers, and growers for reprocessing into faux timbers. The garden plans to open new collection centers and year-round drop-off boxes and help set up similar programs around the country. For details, visit mobot.org/hort/activ/plasticpots.shtml.
--Greg Bailey

Fast Fact

Less than one-fifth of obsolete computers are reused or recycled. Find a responsible recycler for your old PC or Mac at www.computertakeback.com.

Advice for workers, actors, and shoppers

In the January/February 2008 issue of Sierra, Mr. Green opines on the best way for a touring actor to leave no trace, clears up concerns about cotton, and advises on workplace recycling.

Curious, concerned, or just generally confused about environmental issues of all stripes? Send your thoughts and questions directly to Mr. Green, or weigh in in the comments section.

Help for Holiday Stragglers

OK, people, it's officially the first full week of 2008, the 12 days of Christmas are over and done with, and you can't use your New Year's hangover as an excuse anymore: It's time to take down the holiday decorations. Fortunately, it seems there are many companies and groups eager to help you wrap up the season in a green way:

Lights out: This year, you finally swapped out your incandescent Christmas lights for energy-efficient LED ones. Now, what to do with those old, wasteful, tangled strands? Retailer HolidayLEDs.com is accepting incandescent holiday lights for recycling through the end of the month. Send 'em to:

HolidayLEDs.com
Attn: Recycling Program
120 W. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1403
Jackson, MI 49201

Back to nature: Cut Christmas trees can--and should!--be mulched to help create healthy new soil. Check with your local recycling and disposal company to see if they do curbside pickup or click on over to Earth911 to find a recycling location near you. The National Christmas Tree Association has stories about other cool ways that trees are being recycled around the country.

We greet again: Old holiday cards can provide cheer a second time around. Send them to CardsDirect, which will distribute those that can be reused to charitable organizations and recycle the rest:

CardsDirect 2007/2008 Card Recycling and Re-Use Program
200 Chisholm Place, Suite 220
Plano, TX 75075

Of course, you can also recycle old cards yourself, and/or turn the images into gift tags or new cards for next year.

The gift keeps giving: No need to hunt for receipts or wait in line at the store. Unwanted gifts can be swapped for what you really want online. Even gift cards can be sold back or exchanged.

The Sound of Salvage

A hush fell over the crowd. The conductor raised his arms and the orchestra began to play...not flutes and violins, but serving trays, garbage cans, pieces of pipe, and other materials gathered from the San Francisco dump. The composer of the eclectic, but engaging score, Nathaniel Stookey, had created the instruments (pictured) and written the three-movement piece during his stint at the Norcal Artist In Residence Program, which has given more than 50 artists over 17 years free reign over the city's discards as source material for amazing sculpture, clothing, and other artworks.

Stookey's "Junkestra" played to a large and enthusiastic audience Friday night at the storied Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, preceded by short films made by other resident artists and co-hosted by program coordinator Deborah Munk in a runway-worthy gown made from the plastic bags that newspapers get delivered in. (Seriously, it was gorgeous.) The wine served at intermission was from a local vineyard that participates in a Norcal program to turn food scraps from San Francisco restaurants into compost for growing grapes. Missed out? There's no more free wine, but photos and video of an earlier Junkestra performance are available online, along with audio tracks from a rehearsal.

Walkin' the Talk

I don't think anyone likes to hear the phrase "do as I say, not as I do." But when you find yourself in the advice-giving business, as I now seem to be, it can be hard to have all of your own habits aligned with the practices you know are best for the planet. Take composting, for example. Although I live in an apartment with no yard, I knew that San Francisco offered a green-cart program for just such folks; that is, a bin to collect food scraps and yard trimmings that gets picked up along with your recycling one. The only problem? My building didn't have a green bin, and as a renter, I was a little bit reluctant to rock the boat. So I was totally gratified when I finally broached the subject with my landlord and he enthusiastically took it up with the homeowners' association. Now I've got a little green bin under my sink for food scraps--though truthfully, I don't cook much, so it's mostly full of coffee grounds--and a big one out back to empty it into. It was that easy.

Another little victory I had recently was figuring out what to do with the many promotional CDs and DVDs (not the fun kind with music or movies on them, which can usually find a new home) that often now accompany press releases. Green Citizen, a computer recycler just down the street from my office, happily took them--and some old floppy disks I'd been carting around for years--with a promise to demanufacture these items into their recyclable components without sending them overseas to developing countries with few environmental or safety standards. Got your own heap of obsolete electronic items lying around? Find a responsible recycler in your area through the Computer TakeBack Campaign. And let me know what new environmental accomplishments you're reveling in lately.

Trash Talk

Seattleites are serious about their garbage--about seriously reducing the amount they generate, that is. First, there was the woman who carried around all of her non-recyclable trash (making an understandable exception for her cat's poop) for two weeks to raise awareness about garbage. Now, a whole group of Emerald City waste-haters have declared this week, October 7-13, to be No Trash Week and have compiled a helpful list of tips for anyone who wants to join in.

While completely eliminating garbage from your life may be difficult, you can reduce it significantly with some pretty simple steps. I've really become militant about bringing my own reusable bag with me everywhere I go, in addition to toting my trusty travel mug. And I was so pleased to discover that my neighborhood grocery store now sells bottled milk from our friends at Straus Family Creamery--they actually take the bottles back and reuse them, just like in the old days.

What are your best tips for reducing the amount of trash you create?

Keen to be Green

Going green at work seems to be a popular topic, so if you haven't gotten your office on board the eco-train yet, you might be interested in some tips from the Big Green Switch for starting a workplace recycling program. Although it's a British site (which I read about this morning on ENN), most of the advice would be useful anywhere, and I like their convivial approach to finding, tracking, and sharing small lifestyle changes you can make at home or school, while traveling, even in pubs. (Not to mention the way they call a recycling plan a "scheme" without meaning anything bad by it.) So why not have a go at it?

Opportunity Knocks

It's easy to tire of kids hawking candy bars and magazines--even for a good cause. Fortunately, there are more-innovative, ecofriendly ways for schools to get their hands on much-needed cash. Students can collect used printer cartridges for recycling and sell fair-trade stationery, natural body-care products, or, in Wisconsin, locally made cheese. Mmm, cheese. Where's my wallet?

Illustration by Christoph Hitz

Quick Tip: Recycle Your Car Battery

Unlike some household batteries, the lead-acid batteries generally found in cars are easy to recycle: Most states require dealers to take them back. A nearby recycling location is just a click away at Earth 911 (search for "car batteries" in your zip code), where you can also find out what to do with used motor oil and oil filters.

Curious about the nickel metal hydride batteries in hybrid vehicles? Check out what Mr. Green has to say on the subject in his column and his mailbag.

Music to Our Ears

The makers of the Solio portable charger have a new trick up their sleeves: Now, in addition to powering up your iPod with the rays of the sun, you can protect it in an ecofriendly way too. This cool-looking TREAD iPod Nano case is made from discarded truck tires. (They make laptop cases the same way.) If you've tried one out, let me know how it works.

A Tip a Day...

...keeps global warming at bay. (And other environmental problems too!)

Want to start living a lower-impact, higher-quality lifestyle? Not sure where to begin? Sign up for our new Green Life newsletter and receive an easy tip every day about a small change that can make a big difference. Simple steps like replacing conventional lightbulbs with more efficient ones, keeping your car tires properly inflated, or adjusting your thermostat a degree or two can save you money, reduce waste, and help save the planet. Don't delay, sign up today!

What to Do When Your Energizer's on Empty

Batteries are one of those little things that really add up. With about 3 billion dumped each year, the lead, cadmium, mercury, and other heavy metals in household batteries can be a bummer for our soil and water quality. To take just one example, more cadmium in landfills comes from batteries than any other source. The solution? Recycling, of course. Here's how:

Rechargeable batteries (e.g. nickel-cadmium and lithium-ion) can get their juice rejuvenated hundreds of times, but eventually they too wear out. Click over to the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation or call their hotline at 1-800-8-BATTERY to find out where you can drop rechargeables off for recycling.

Standard household (e.g. alkaline and zinc-carbon) batteries are recyclable too, although they can be harder to find a home for. My local hardware store takes them, and yours may too. Check earth911.org or call 1-800-CLEANUP for a location near you. If you go through a lot of batteries, it might be worth enlisting a company like Battery Solutions or the Big Green Box that will recycle them for a fee.

The bottom line: Think carefully before buying new battery-powered gadgets (do you really need them?) and be sure to recycle all kinds of batteries. Solar chargers can be great alternatives for small accessories like cell phones and iPods--they even come in backpack or beach bag form.

Sea of Possibilities

When sculptor David Edgar started playing around with recycled plastic detergent and laundry bottles, their bright colors and curvy shapes reminded him of the tropical fish of his Florida childhood. With the vivid logos of his petroleum-based source material still visible on a spiny fin or oddly expressive face, Edgar's pop-art-influenced forms remind us of how much we casually discard--and what we might be throwing away. plastiquarium.com

(Photograph by David A. Edgar)

Apple Starts Polishing Its Image

After its dismal showing last month in Greenpeace's "Guide to Greener Electronics," Apple announced some sweet news: a phase-out of two particularly nasty types of chemicals, brominated fire retardants and polyvinyl chloride, in all of its products by 2008--a year before Dell and other competitors have planned to get BFRs and PVC out of their PCs. While heralding the move, Greenpeace plans to keep up its campaign until Apple gets even greener.

That's a Wrap

A centuries-old tradition may provide a stylish solution to the modern problem of waste created by single-use plastic and paper bags. Former Japanese environmental minister Yuriko Koike launched a campaign to revive the furoshiki, a type of square wrapping cloth. Originally used to hold clothes at public baths, furoshiki can be folded in many ways--depending on whether you're toting books, groceries, or a bottle of wine--and adorned with patterns as chic as any Prada bag.

Fast Fact

Americans throw away almost 100 billion plastic bags each year; only 1 to 3 percent are recycled.

Green Gifts for Your Grad

With the school year drawing to an end, high school and college seniors are getting ready to begin the next phase of their life. Celebrate your grad's achievement with a green gift that will ease (or at least honor) the transition:

• For the gadget-loving grad: A sleek and sturdy Solio solar charger, will juice up their ubiquitous cell phone, MP3 player, or portable game player on the go. Its fan-blade design collects a lot of energy, but folds up nice and compactly.
• For the grad on-the-go: A solar backpack or messenger bag from Reware, Voltaic Systems, or Clear Blue Hawaii will charge the same kinds of small accessories as the Solio, and hold lots of gear too. The fabric on some of the Reware bags is even made out of reclaimed soda bottles.
• For the cyclist grad: A CD rack or picture frame made from old bike parts.
• For the grad that likes to wear their passions on their sleeve: A special accessory. Tarma's recycled stainless-steel wristbands and pendants are great for sporty types (both male and female), while aspiring writers might cherish cufflinks or earrings made out of old typewriter keys.
• For the not-so-neat grad: A basket of green cleaning supplies.
• For the urban grad: A year’s membership in a local car-sharing service, or a green city guide (e.g. the Greenopia guide for San Francisco or Los Angeles, The Big Green Apple for New York).
• For the grad who’s moving far away: A train ticket for a visit home or some recycled stationery  so they’ll write more often (maybe).
• For the grad who might otherwise live at McDonald’s: A set of bamboo cookware (durable and easy to clean) and a good cookbook for cheap and healthy food.
• For the grad on a budget (and aren't they all): A green coupon book with discounts and free offers at environmentally friendly businesses in their new home (e.g. Green Zebra in SF, Chinook Book in the Pacific Northwest, Blue Sky Guide in the Twin Cities).

Carnival of Creativity

The tech-savvy and the thrifty, the crafty and the curious will descend on the San Mateo Fairgrounds in northern California this weekend for the Maker Faire, an annual event that organizers are calling "Woodstock for inventors and tinkerers."

A spin-off project of Make and Craft magazines, the Maker Faire celebrates DIY (do-it-yourself) spirit, which often involves the ingenious--and environmentally friendly--reuse and reimagining of ordinary materials. Our friends over at ReadyMade will be there, hosting a timed MacGyver challenge competition and showing off some of their latest projects, while the good folks at Swap-O-Rama-Rama will be hosting a refashioned fashion show. All this, and fighting robots too.

Advice on recharging and recycling

In the May/June 2007 issue of Sierra, Mr. Green considers the merits of using a Prius as a power source and offers tips for getting your workplace on the recycling bandwagon.

Curious, concerned, or just generally confused about environmental issues of all stripes? Send your thoughts and questions directly to Mr. Green, or weigh in in the comments section.

Fast Fact

U.S. airports and airlines discard enough aluminum cans each year to build 58 Boeing 747s. nrdc.org/trashlandings

Counter Intelligence

Looking for a countertop that's worthy of your organic veggies? Old glass bottles glitter in Vetrazzo's granite-strength slabs. Recycled paper and petroleum-free resins form PaperStone's durable surfaces. And recycled aluminum puts the industrial chic in Alkemi's copper, gold, and blue counters. If earthy tones are more your style, EnviroMode offers a terrazzo surface (at right) made from old bathtubs, sinks, and toilets. --Maria Trombetta

(Photograph courtesy of EnviroGLAS Products Inc.)

Soda's Redeeming Quality

If you live in California, you've just got a few days left to turn your used 20-oz. soda bottles into a little cash for the California State Parks Foundation. Until the end of April, the plastic bottles can be dropped off at any Orchard Supply Hardware store in the state and our friends over at TerraCycle will pick them up as part of their Bottle Brigade recycling program. TerraCycle will reuse the bottles to package their ecofriendly plant foods and fertilizers--and donate a nickel per bottle to the parks program. Too bad keeping the bottles out of the landfill won't keep the soda from rotting your teeth.

Bring In Those Batteries

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), a single car battery contains about 21 pounds of lead, three pounds of plastic, and one gallon of sulfuric acid--all of which can be recycled. From now until Earth Day (April 22), the motoring club is offering free recycling of old car, motorcycle, and boat batteries at various drop-off locations. Sites in California, Nevada, and Utah can be found at batteryroundup.com, while residents of other states can contact their local AAA chapter to find out where to go.

Share Your Solutions

Have you joined a car-share program? Hung your laundry out to dry on a clothesline? Started riding your bike on short trips (or all the way to work)? Set up a community recycling effort? Switched from air conditioning to a fan?

Inspire others with your actions to curb carbon emissions by taking a photo of your small (or big!) step and uploading it to the Sierra Club's Every Day Solutions site. If you're fresh out of green ideas, check out what other folks are already doing.

Sad Mac

Ouch. While I've been following my boyfriend around our apartment, turning off lights and recycling things he puts in the trash (he's getting a lot better about that), he may actually have been being the better environmentalist--at least when it comes to our respective choices of computers. As a devoted Apple partisan for more than two decades (ah, the memories), I was none too pleased to see the maker of my favorite machines come in dead last in Greenpeace's recent ranking of electronic manufacturers' policies on recycling and toxic contents. My better half's employer, Dell, was a respectable #4 on the list, and his boss got props for "challeng[ing] the entire industry to adopt a worldwide takeback policy."

Fortunately, I'm not the only one feeling a little pain. The Greenpeace folks admit to being Apple fans too, and have started up a "Green Apple" campaign to get the company to offer safer products and better recycling. I'm off to write my letter to Steve Jobs now...

Leave No Waste

Unsqueamish recyclers are devising innovative uses for extreme castoffs. Worm castings provide the raw material for TerraCycle's natural plant foods, which are packaged in used soda bottles. The dung of Welsh sheep and Sri Lankan elephants, which eat cellulose fibers, has been enlisted as a source of pulp for paper. And the city of San Francisco is testing a way to turn dog droppings into methane for power. What's next, a car that runs on dirty diapers?

(Illustration by Josef Gast)

Advice on travel, technology, and recycling mythology

In the March/April 2007 issue of Sierra, Mr. Green waxes mathematical on the carbon dioxide emissions generated by air travel, gives computer users some energy-saving rules to live by, and dispels rumors about recycled paper.

Curious, concerned, or just generally confused about environmental issues of all stripes? Send your thoughts and questions directly to Mr. Green, or weigh in in the comments section.

Cheap to Chic

Fashionistas are turning from Gucci to Goodwill. Nearly 20 cities have hosted massive clothing swaps with workshops and sewing stations for attendees to refashion their "new" finds. In central New York State, students at Cazenovia College have created a clothing line (above) out of thrift-store donations by embellishing out-of-date denim, piecing together new shirts from ripped polos, and snipping "old man sweaters" into stylish shrugs. And author Megan Nicolay has taken her book on "108 ways to transform a T-shirt" (below) to both Martha Stewart's TV audience and the Bonnaroo music-festival crowd. Clearly, the bargain bin is "in."

(Photograph at top right by Laura Pirkl; Diagram above by Megan Nicolay; Photograph above by Andrew McLeod)

Steeled for the Trail

Adventurous types can wear their passion on their sleeve--or ears or neck--with stylish, outdoor-themed wristbands, earrings, and pendants by Tarma Designs. Made of recycled stainless steel, the line of men's and women's jewelry features designs based on natural shapes and active pursuits, from climbing to kayaking. Repurposing the metal is a sensible and sustainable choice, says cofounder Stephanie George. "It's lightweight, durable, and you can sweat in it!"

Fast Fact

One person's trash is another's treasure: Trade not-quite-right holiday gifts at eswapit.com, swapthing.com, or throwplace.com.

Outspoken Advice for All Your Disposal Dilemmas

In the November/December 2006 issue of Sierra, Mr. Green explains what to do with your old Energizers, offers some ecumenical advice to a churchgoer concerned about Styrofoam and stewardship, and reconsiders the garbage disposal.

Not sure what to buy or how to get rid of something? Send your thoughts and questions directly to Mr. Green, or weigh in in the comments section.

GarbageScout, RIP

Much to my boyfriend's chagrin, I'm a sucker for free stuff on the street. I don't always pick it up, but I love checking it out (and often photographing it), and I've got this habit to thank for a faux-gilded mirror frame, a nice set of candles, and some other little treasures. So I was stoked when I heard about GarbageScout--a New York-based online mapping system for people to report cool stuff that's been put out to the curb--and a little bummed when I learned that founder James Nachlin had recently shut the site down. Somewhat ironically, he'd been plagued with a spam problem--real junk getting in the way of good "junk."

I still think it's a great idea, and hope some tech-savvy trash-lover starts it up again. Seems like there's a lot of new mapping sites that could work well for this sort of thing.

Any other junk fans out there? What's the best thing you've ever recycled from the street?

Rah-Rah, Recycling

Okay, so it's no Halloween or New Year’s Eve, but since I'm a firm believer in the any-excuse-for-a-holiday philosophy, happy America Recycles Day!

While I'm sure Green Life readers are already recycling regularly (you are, aren't you?), advanced recyclers can still get in the spirit of things by figuring out how to handle something a little trickier than bottles or cans--say, batteries or computer equipment or cell phones or old fluorescent bulbs--or by brushing up on some handy recycling facts to help you convince the skeptics in your life. (Don't feel bad, we've all got 'em.)

Of course, recycling materials is only part of the solution--buying recycled products is just as important. And when they're this beautiful, clever, and inspiring, there’s really no reason to buy new.

Gourmet Gas Source

Table scraps from some of San Francisco's top restaurants are being turned into fuel, thanks to a state-of-the-art digester unveiled this week at the University of California at Davis. The methane and hydrogen gas produced will initially be used to power garbage trucks and other commercial vehicles, but could eventually generate household electricity.

Could the innovation be the silver lining to the United States' overconsumptive ways? State Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Gold River) seemed to think so, telling the San Francisco Chronicle that "maybe we can now look at America as the Saudi Arabia of waste."

Intoxicating and Illuminating

These recycled-wine-bottle lamps were created by Jerry Kott, one of dozens of designers whose sustainably crafted home furnishings were showcased at the HauteGREEN exhibition during New York Design Week in May.

(Photographs by Jerry Kott)

Fast Fact

If every U.S. household replaced one roll of regular paper towels with 100 percent recycled ones, we'd save 544,000 trees. nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp

In the Bag

Fashion is a funny thing: Trendsetters are revered, but if too many people follow their lead, their style becomes decidedly untrendy. Avoid catching the wave too late by opting for something truly unique--say, a dumpster-chic purse. Messenger bags made of old vinyl billboards (vyandelle.com), handbags woven out of candy wrappers (ecoist.com) or formed from old books (rebound-designs.com), plastic-bag purses (ecochicinc.com), and duct-tape totes (mimimarie-sf.com) are just a few of the handcrafted creations available. Want to get a jump on the next trend? Place an order now for a solar handbag (solarjo.com) that can recharge your cell phone.

(Top photograph and below, from left, second, third, and fourth photos by Lori Eanes; below, first photo, courtesy of Ecoist)

From Bath to Path

Since the late 1990s, the water utility in San Antonio, Texas, has been doling out rebates on low-flow toilets to residents who turn in their outdated, water-wasting models. But the program posed a problem: what to do with the old commodes? Last year, the city cleaned and crushed 1,000 recycled toilets and used the pebble-size pieces to pave a nature trail at Calaveras Lake Park. The white porcelain even helps light up the pathway at night.

(Illustration by Greg Mably)

Advice for Lawn Lovers and Baseball Buffs

In the May/June 2006 issue of Sierra, Mr. Green offers suggestions for maintaining your "big green square of homogeneous turf" naturally and getting local ballparks on the recycling bandwagon.

Do you love or loathe lawns? How can public venues best encourage recycling? Send your thoughts and questions directly to Mr. Green, or weigh in in the comments section.

A WEEE Problem With E-Waste

Belated kudos to Washington state for sticking electronics manufacturers with the cost of recycling their obsolete (and