Green Pug is More Environmental Than You

Happy Earth Day everyone!  And since I spent the entire day doing wedding invitations and not being particularly earth-friendly, here is Green Pug.  Go Green Pug!

Recycle that newspaper!  Change those CFL's! Gooooooo GreenPUg!

Honda Will Extract Rare Earth Metals from Car Parts to Recycle

Good for them!  Honda Motor Co. has partnered with Japan Metals & Chemicals Co. and will start the world's first mass-production process to extract rare earth metals from used car parts like nickel-metal hydride batteries and recycle them.  Currently, China produces 95% of the global rare earth supplies and have hiked up prices.

This is good for the earth AND good for local economies.  Way to go Japan...stick it to your long-time frenemy!

Read more here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/honda-motor-to-recycle-rare-earth-metals-in-used-parts/articleshow/12699768.cms

Coal Power: Safe? Seems Not...

Since we are in the midst of nuclear terror, I thought I'd show that coal power is no angel either.

This happened a few years ago (2008), before I started really paying attention to this environmental stuff but nonetheless I'm pretty shocked. This is the story of a toxic waste spill in Tennessee where a levy broke and spilled some 50 years of coal ash water into the Emory river, contaminating water, land and livelihoods. Now we're not just talking environmental impact, here, we are dealing with direct human-health consequences...I mean, if we can't even protect our fellow man...How are we EVER going to protect the environment?

Here is the 60 minutes story of that disaster and of the safety of coal ash which contains arsenic, cadmium, and other nasty things. It seems that companies have been trying to recycle it by building golf courses out of it and putting it in everything from cement to counter tops to carpeting. All without really knowing if it's dangerous or not and at the same time asserting that it's perfectly safe. I mean, I'm glad they're trying to recycle it but seriously people....

These two videos ask the question:

“How did we get to the point where coal ash is in products without anybody knowing” its safety?

How indeed?

That lobbyist seems about as slimy as the Emory River....



"Clean coal" my butt....

Boy am I proud to be a Honda owner. Not only is my car cool-looking, functional, reliable (so far) and cheap, now I can know that the company as a whole views protecting the environment as more than just a revenue-generating tactic (Civic Hybrid, Accord Hybrid, Insight, Civic CND). Ten of Honda's 14 plants in North America have gone to Zero Waste! Though, I didn't realize this initiative had been going on for so long but I really only started looking into this stuff in the past few years. :)

Olivia "Livy" Honda - A 2008 Honda Element and MY car! :)

Article below:

Ten Honda Manufacturing Facilities in North America Achieve Zero Waste Sent to Landfill

TORRANCE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Honda announced today that it has achieved one of the most important targets in the company’s longstanding “Green Factory” initiative in North America: zero-waste-to-landfill. Ten of 14 Honda manufacturing plants in North America are now operating with zero waste to landfill, while the remaining four plants are functioning with “virtually zero” waste to landfill.

“There are hundreds of stories of associate innovation and challenging spirit that add up to this significant advancement in our commitment to more environmentally responsible manufacturing”

Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, in Lincoln, Ala., became the first zero-waste-to-landfill auto plant in North America at the outset of production in 2001, setting off an industry-leading trend within the company. Honda Manufacturing of Indiana, in Greensburg, Ind., also started production as a zero-waste-to-landfill plant in 2008.

Waste sent to landfills has been dramatically reduced at Honda auto plants throughout North America—from 62.8 pounds of industrial waste to landfills for every automobile produced in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001(FY2001), to an estimated 1.8 pounds per automobile in the current fiscal year 2012. Among all of its 14 plants in North America, Honda now sends less than one-half of 1 percent of all operating waste to landfills. Remaining waste product is either recycled or used for energy recovery.

Read More...

The plant in Lincoln, AL. Kinda boring, but Honda has never really been known for its sick-looking designs. HAHA!

Recycle Your Batteries!! (All of them)

I have been on a journey for a long while to try to find a place that recycles ALL batteries. Most places like Staples or the OfficeMax/OfficeDepot places and Best Buy will do rechargeable ones and some recycling places will dispose of the really hazardous ones like car batteries but not a lot of places do the regular ones.

Located on Arapahoe Ave. north of Pearl St. in Boulder, CO.

However, Batteries Plus will do ANY kind of battery! This includes:

 

 

Regular

 

 

Lithium Ion

Rechargeable (both nimh and nicd)

 

 

Cell Phone

 

 

Digital and Video Camera

And Laptop Batteries.

Even...

Car and Motorcycle Batteries!

 Had enough? There's more! But I actually don't know what other types of batteries there are, but Batteries Plus would take them. This was confirmed by my local Batteries Plus (almost abbreviated BP but I didn't want to confuse anyone between good environmental practices and bad environmental practices....*coughcoughGulfOilSpillcough*). He said that I could bring in  "any battery that I could imagine" but I had to do 2 things:

1). Tape each of the contacts with any kind of tape.
2). Separate the different types from each other in pint or gallon ziploc bags. (I wonder if I could use paper bags since those are recyclable...But either way that's a lot less waste than a bunch of tiny containers of toxic chemicals!).

So...Peloton watch out! I'm comin' for your batteries!

(I don't know about iPods...but maybe I'll find out about that soon.)

How the HECK do I recycle THAT?

Hiya!

With the holidays having come and gone, new-year cleaning/reorganizing has begun and with that I have come up with a lot of things made from plastic or toxic materials that I REAAAAALLY don't want to put in the landfill. So I have taken it upon myself to find out if there is any hope for keeping these things in the society and out of the earth. So...here is a list of some hard to recycle items and their (possible) solutions. And this is only a partial list b/c calling all these companies takes FOR-EV-ER!

I will be distinguishing between "recycle" and "reuse" here because they are very different in nature.  Recycling does take some resources but it also turns useless things like old computers into useful things like new computers. Reusing takes little to no earthly resources (fuel, electricity etc) and keeps the products in the world they way they are. However, there's only so many hanger-mobiles or CD-scarecrows you can have before you need to recycle THOSE too!

Recycle: literally "to cause to pass through a cycle again" according to dictionary.com. But it also means "to alter or adapt for new use without changing the essential form or nature of".

So, can you recycle...?

• CDs/DVDs? YES! I used to work for the CU Engineering Center doing distance learning and I remember scratching CD after CD then putting them in a box to be shipped off to some big CD recycling place somewhere. So I was thinking...are those places still around? Because just this morning I noticed my gigantor CD binder filled w/ burned CDs many of which I'll probably never listen to again (thank you, Apple...) and thought "Gee...those guys are going to just sit in my house till I get tired of them but THEN where will they go?" The CD Recycling Center is just one place online I found that you can ship your CDs and cases to. Of course, this does cost money, in both the shipping costs as well as the $2.00 donation per shipment they ask to help keep their services free. But hey, $2 is better than $5 or $10 or $20 or $100 right?  So I still think it's a win! There's also a new program in which some bigger Best Buy stores are accepting CDs and DVDs w/o cases to recycle. I have a lot more info on this so check out my previous post: Holy Moly! It's Best Buy!

•  Computers - Best Buy!
• Metal Hangers?  - YES! My local recycling joint, Eco-Cycle, will take them in their scrap metal bin. 
• Plastic Hangers (the cheapo kind from clothing stores)? (you know, the ones that say size S on the top?) - Maybe. I've heard that some supermarkets will but I can't find any in my area that do. But you can reuse them (I gave them to my mom for her belly dance stuff)!
• VHSs - Best Buy!
• Plastic Bottle Lids - If you read one of my earlier posts plastic lids, you'll find out that plastic is scary. I'm still not sure on this one, I did find Preserve Products which recycles #5 and 6 plastics and toothbrushes, but I'm not sure where lids fall on the number scale. But this company is cool b/c they make stuff back out of the plastic! Also, theoretically, Aveda used to do these, but I'm not sure of the status now, so give 'em a call to find out!

Reuse: While "recycle" means to adapt and change a product, "reuse" means "to use again" or basically "repurpose" a item without changing its form or its nature. 

Can you reuse...?

• Air-filled Packing bags - YES! My place that takes the peanuts will also take the air-filled bags.
• CDs  - YES! Coasters! But seriously...apparently they work great as "scare crows" in gardens that keep the birds away. We'll see...
• Packing Peanuts/Plastic Loose Fill? - YES! Please see my previous post: These Peanuts Don't Make Good Butter.
• Plastic hangers from clothing stores? (you know, the ones that say size S on the top?) - YES! Some thrift stores will take these like the Salvation Army but make sure to check first b/c if they don't use them, they'll just throw them away. You can also do crafts with these like baby mobiles and, if you're really talented, knitted hanger covers
• VHSs - these guys are tough to deal with. The best thing to do is find out if places near you (schools, libraries, homeless shelters etc.) are not equipped with DVD equipment and you can donate them there. Or, you can crochet things from their tape. haha!
• Plastic Bottle Lids: My cat shelter, the Rocky Mountain Siamese Rescue does take them to make cat toys out of and you can use them in all kinds of fun crafts. This probably merits its own post sometime in the future....

Here are some good resources to check out for hard to recycle items:

1. How Can I Recycle This? Note: this is UK site so some info might be different, so research first!
2. Eco-Cycle, Western Disposal, Waste Management (or your local recycling place website)
3. Freecycle "The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,904 groups with 8,075,584 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and thus keeping good stuff out of landfills."
4. The InterWebz - I know you're probably like...WTF? Of course I know this one, I'm reading your blog, aren't I? But that is where I got all of my info in this post. Oh yeah, and I called a f-load of stores. =)

*chokegasp* OMG....finally done! Enjoy! *shudder*

Holy Moly! It's BEST BUY!

While I was researching my "How Do You Recyle That?!" post I came across some awesome info that deserves its own post. Best Buy just started a new program called E-Cycle with the catch phrase "No matter where you bought it, we'll recycle it." Why haven't I heard of this sooner? Oh yeah...because I don't watch ANY TV and only listen to PBS kids when the kiddo's awake and I'm half-asleep.

Here's the info for Colorado.
What they take (from their website):

• Three items per household per day.
• Nearly everything electronic, including tube TVs and monitors up to 32", flat-panel TVs and monitors up to 60", peripherals, DVD players, home and car audio, cell phones, MP3 players, and cables.
• Desktop or laptop computers with the hard drive removed. See this Geek Squad video for Do-it-Yourself instructions, or they will remove it for $9.99.
• Small electrics, fans and vacuums.
• They charge $10 for televisions and monitors, but you immediately receive a $10 Best Buy gift card good toward future purchase.
• $10 fee does not apply to any Insignia®, Dynex® or VPR Matrix® products. Best Buy accepts these brands free of any charge.
• The bubbly sales-girl on the phone also told me that they take VHSs and Floppy Discs too but that wasn't on their website so check first.

What they don't take:

• Internal and External computer hard drives.
• Console TVs of any size, or tube TVs and monitors larger than 32". Use their  haul-away or pickup programs for these items.**
• Electronics containing refrigerants, such as mini refrigerators or air conditioners. Please contact your local waste disposal department.
• Appliances. Use our haul-away or pickup programs for refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, washers and dryers, ranges and microwaves. **

This is in addition to the stuff they already took which was inkjet cartridges, rechargeable batteries, CDs/DVDs, and gift cards. How cool is that? Mega cool, I say. 

**The fact that they have haul-away and pickup programs is great to!

These Peanuts Don't Make Good Butter

It's Christmastime, you get a package in the mail. Who's it from? Grandma? You can't stand the excitement as you jam scissors into the tape. Maybe your 3 year old helps and gleefully rips the box apart. Suddenly...an EXPLOSION! Your excitement for the gift momentarily flags as you look around your littered living room.

 

OH NO! PACKING PEANUTS! 

The bane of package-openers everywhere!  Oh sure, kids and cats and static cling love them but the rest of the world, you think, would be better off without them. You resign yourself to cleaning up the mess, carefully pulling your gifts out so as not to anger the peanuts. Finally success presents itself to you and now you have a shiny new whatever from Aunt Fannie as well as a giant box of pink and green Styrofoam balls of death.  How thoughtful.... Packing peanuts- 1, you - 0.

But never fear! For there is a solution in hand! In fact, this solution has been around for almost 2 decades but it seems not many people know of it.  RECYCLE the peanuts! The Plastic Loose Fill Council has been working since 1991 to "develop, promote and implement the original use and subsequent recovery, reuse and recycling of polystyrene loose fill, commonly known as "packing peanuts."" Who knew? They arrange drop-off sites as well as operate a hotline to deal with these little buggers. So check for a location near you and maybe next time, packing peanuts won't be so scary! (Still...keep the cat away from them. If you've never had to remove packing peanuts from a cat's fur, you've lived a privileged life).

Here are some locations in the Denver-Boulder area:

CENTENNIAL CONTAINER, INC. 13105 EAST 38TH AVE, UNIT 58 NEAR 1-70 AND PEORIA STREET DENVER, CO  80239-3551 (303) 371-7700

I SOLD IT ON E BAY CO. 7506 EAST 36TH AVE, UNIT 450 SHOPPING CENTER DENVER, CO  80238-3444 (303) 539-6915

Pak Mail 2075 S. University Blvd. Denver, CO  80210-4300 (303) 744-6245

PostNet 1312 17th Street Denver, CO  80202 (303) 595-0500

PostNet 200 Quebec St. Bldg. 300, Suite 111 Denver, CO  80230 (303) 340-0998

THE UPS STORE 1685 SOUTH COLORADO BLVD, UNIT S COLORADO BLVD & MEXICO AVE DENVER, CO  80222-4040 (303) 753-0888

Pak Mail 2525 Arapahoe Ave., #E4 Boulder, CO  80302-6720 (303) 444-0831

    

AIM MAIL CENTER 2205 W. 136TH AVE, STE 106 KING SOOPERS CENTER ON 136TH & ZUNI ST BROOMFIELD, CO  80023 (303) 280-6245

THE UPS STORE 1685 SOUTH COLORADO BLVD, UNIT S COLORADO BLVD & MEXICO AVE DENVER, CO  80222-4040 (303) 753-0888

Lucky #7 - 7 things to reuse, 7 things to avoid

I just found this site called Greenopolis and while I haven't explored it fully, I found two fun and useful articles for the time being.

#1:

The Magnificent Seven: 7 Top Materials To Use And Recycle!

For millennia we used leather, wood, clay, and stones along with animal and vegetable materials for nearly everything. When we threw something “away”, it went away- really back into the natural systems it came from.

But 7 billion of us can’t rely strictly on grown materials, and most of our modern materials don’t go away very easily. Does that mean we should not use them? Not at all. We just need to get as smart as Ma Nature and learn to reuse and recycle those materials again and again. These Top 7 materials are safe, recyclable and just work really well for so many things. They include 2 metals, 3 plastics, and 2 natural materials. Here’s my list:

1. Steel. Steel is probably the most recycled material on earth- about 70 % of all steel is recycled and nearly all the steel you use has recycled steel in it. Works great because of its strength and malleability. I’m a big fan of steel roofs, among other things.
   
   
2. Aluminum. Abundant in nature, strong but lighter than steel, and it doesn’t rust. Aluminum is what caps the Washington Monument because it was once so prized. But mining and smelting aluminum is very energy intensive and polluting. That’s why recycling it is so important. Right now about 50% is recycled- we need to get that up into the 90% range like gold.
   
   

MORE...

What I want to know about this article is how it mentions recycling bottle lids. If anyone knows how to do that or can point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful! Sometime soon I will research this myself.



#2

7 Deadly Sins: 7 Materials To Avoid

In the Church Of Green Living, some sins are more deadly than others.


Little sins like forgetting to recycle paper can be overlooked, unless you are a newspaper publisher. But some are to be avoided at all costs. Here’s a list of 7 substances that cause real problems in the environment, and that we can avoid by taking a few simple steps in our lives.

1. Polyvinyl Chloride, aka PVC, aka Vinyl aka #3 plastic. We’ve all got some vinyl in our houses, on furniture clothing, plumbing pipes- it’s the third most common plastic. But it usually has bad stuff that can leach out of it, like diethylhexyl phthalate, which is banned in Europe, vinyl chloride and dioxins.  The U.S. Green Building Council states that the "risk of dioxin emissions puts PVC consistently among the worst materials for human health impacts”.  You probably don’t have to strip off your vinyl siding, but avoid toys (including sex toys) with PVC. You don’t want it in or near you or your kid’s body.
   
2. Polystyrene, aka Styrofoam, aka #6 plastic. Polystyrene is not easily recycled because of its light weight (especially if foamed) and its low scrap value. Discarded polystyrene does not biodegrade for hundreds of years. Commonly used in coffee cups and clamshells for food, it contains benzene, a known carcinogen, and while the FDA claims it is safe, there are studies concerning polystyrene containers used for food packaging which find that styrene oligomers migrate into the food and may increase thyroid hormone levels. It’s your call if you want your hot coffee or entrée served up in polystyrene. I avoid it.

MORE...

In this article it's these first two that bother me the most.  Partially for their poisoning rap but also (and, let's face it, MOSTLY) for the fact that I'm so good about not throwing away all kinds of other stuff, including stuff that breaks down faster (food --> composting) but I still get styrofoam take out containers and plastic crap off of the kid's toys. I think my next big goal is going to be to figure out how to cut back on using these items. NO STYROFOAM! grrrr....

So...Many...Catalogs...

OMfreakingG...Why does Macy's have to send SO many catalogs out? Seriously they send like 3 per week sometimes - clothes, casuals and home. Each one of these is like a novel in size and none of it is really anything I want to buy. Hell, I don't even look at them anymore because it's totally boring. Thus they go straight into the recycle. And when you combine Macy's with REI and Black&White and other random crap that I've never even bought from...that's a lot of waste. Ok yes, it does get recycled but that still takes resources and energy and creates some waste.

Today I discovered a site called Catalog Choice where you give your info and the info of the catalogs you no longer want and they'll make sure you stop getting them. Now will it work? I don't know yet, I plan to sign up for it tonight. If it does, however, I'll be the happiest girl in the world because it's near-impossible to contact the corporation/company and make it clear that you want no more catalogs...bastards....

Anyway, I'm thinking that all companies need to just switch to email ads and catalogs anyway. Those are great b/c i just label them and archive them so when I do want to check out sales/coupons I can just go into my folder and find what I need. Doesn't waste my time, nor does it waste paper or energy etc. Wave of the future, people, c'moN!! =)

The other option is for Macy's to get famous movie stars on their covers. For example, if this were Drew Barrymore I'd hang it on my wall and admire it always. (Ok, slight sarcasm, but it may work for some...).

I Can Has Beer Can AND Sustainability?

My PBR and RoRo drinkin' boyfriend will be happy to hear this one. Apparently aluminum cans are easier to recycle than bottles. This is due to the fact that even though aluminum is harder to mine and process, it uses a lot less material and is more easily recycled. Glass-makers are more likely to use virgin sand than recycle glass because it's easier/more convenient.

Also, glass is heavier making the overall product more effortful to transport, thus producing more carbon emissions.  

And cans are better to transport to the pool on those wonderful and fleeting summer days! Beer snobs need not worry, either, more quality breweries are getting into the swing of cans like New Belgium, Oskar Blues, Maui Brewing Company and a few others I haven't heard of. So even if you're not hip and indy like My Dearest Man, you can still work toward a greener future! Who knew?

Read the full article here.

R-E-C-Y-C-L-E According to Rocko

The other day, I was reminded of a song about the environment from Rocko's Modern Life, one of the cartoons I watched as a kid. This was probably done in the mid- to late 90s, before even Boulder did city-wide composting. It is extremely catchy and to this day I have the chorus memorized:

You need to R-E-C-Y-C-L-E, recycle!
And C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E, conserve!
And don't P-O-L-L-U-T-E, pollute the river, sky or sea
Or else you're gonna get what you deserve!

So now, please join me and Captain Compost Heap in this fun and responsible little ditty! (You now know the chorus, so no excuse not singing along!).

Composting Vs. Recycling vs. Trashing (Part Two)

So I really dropped the ball on this one. Summer's been very busy and the last thing I want to do when I get on home from my job working on a computer is get on my computer. But  I feel like I should write this now so that I won't feel bad posting other stuff later....Here goes:

Western Disposal, for those of you who have that, has a convenient composting service that is getting more widespread. Our apartment complex just started it and it's going great. They have a good list of stuff to compost so I'll post that in a bit. But I wanted to first highlight some of the "OMGs" that I learned.


Weird things that are not recyclable that you thought were:

Pizza boxes - the grease makes it "contaminated".

Frozen food boxes (w/ the exception of Amy's Brand) - they are coated w/ plastic so they don't get soggy. (On an unrelated note, Amy's Pesto Tortellini is fabulous!)

 Small Paper bits - when you do single stream recycle the small bits get stuck to the glass, plastic and aluminum.

Plastic Bottle lids - not quite sure why, but yeah. They're not. =( So then birds eat them and die. It's sad.

Luckily, all this stuff except the last one is COMPOSTABLE YAY! Although, with the shredded paper you need to make sure it's wet b/c otherwise when they pour it into their giant grinder it looks like New Year's or a wedding revisited. And trust me, have you ever seen a Western Disposal worker covered in tiny paper bits? I haven't but  can imagine that it's not the prettiest of sights. ;-)

And finally, here's a list of the more obvious things that can be composted.  Depending whether you do the whole process yourself or send it away to do, you may not want to add meat and milk to your compost but I think that's mostly cuz it gets pretty stinky.

• Yard Waste: 
• Brush
• Tree trimmings
• Grass clippings
• Weeds
• Flower clippings
• Leaves 
• Small amounts of dirt

• Food Waste 
• Vegetables
• Meat 
• Dairy

• Wax coated cardboard 
• Paperboard 
• Some papers which are not otherwise recyclable: 
• Napkins 
• Paper Towels 
• Kleenex 
• Paper bits 

• Compostable (not just biodegradable) utensils, cups,  plates 

Check out "The Compost Bin" in my sidebar for more info on Composting! And do it if you can.