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Man refuses to throw away his garbage to make environmental statement
Without ever lifting a shovel, an archaeologist could dig through Dave Chameides’ house and get a pretty good picture of how he has lived for the past eight months.
Empty soda bottles lead down the staircase. Pizza boxes line the walls. In the cellar are neatly stacked Styrofoam trays, used tea bags and plastic wrap.
Almost every bit of Chameides’ garbage has been carefully preserved in a testament to the volume of trash produced by daily living.
What’s even more surprising is what he doesn’t have to show for it. While the average American generates more than 900 pounds of garbage in eight months, Chameides has produced only 30 pounds.
“Whenever I tell people what I’m doing, there’s always that look — the furrowed brow and then the ‘I’m sorry? You’re doing what?’” said the freelance cameraman for “Nip/Tuck,” the FX plastic surgery show that celebrates excess. “I tell people I know this is nuts.”
Chameides prefers to think of the yearlong experiment as his contribution to the study of consumerism.
The path to becoming a pack rat with a purpose began years ago when he installed compact fluorescent bulbs, bought a Prius hybrid car and began using solar panels.
But as Chameides learned about the staggering amount of trash rapidly filling landfills, he began to ponder keeping his garbage for a year and then broached the subject with his wife.
“He said, ‘I’d like to do this experiment. I’d like to keep my trash in the basement for a year,’” recalled his wife Aliza Chameides, who did not object as long as the project didn’t affect her.
He set up ground rules: He would only collect his own trash, not that of his wife or two young daughters. Potential health hazards — toilet paper or fish wrappers — would be logged on his blog and then tossed. Food scraps would be composted, and everything else was to be saved, even recyclables because they take energy to haul away and re manufacture. Without ever lifting a shovel, an archaeologist could dig through Dave Chameides’ house and get a pretty good picture of how he has li... more -
Living with your garbage
Ecobloggers bring the landfill home.
Ari Derfel likes living with his garbage. He hasn't thrown anything away in more than a year, but he insists he doesn't suffer from any compulsive hoarding disorders.
Rather, Derfel views the bins of bottles, boxes, leaflets, cartons, and wrappers he's stacked in his Berkeley, Calif., home as fruits of a continued meditation about sustainability.
"Something inside me doesn't feel right every time I throw things away," said Derfel, who runs an organic catering company. "When I look around at the piles, it's like, 'Hey, man, here's your life. Here's what you spend your money on and put in your body.' It has a profound impact."
Derfel, 35, is joined by a handful of bloggers who are going to extremes to keep their trash out of the landfill. Motivated by global warming, they say they are fed up with promiscuously packaged, toxic products and other evils of conspicuous consumption they say are trashing the planet.
These pack rats are stashing their trash at home and then writing about, photographing, and even weighing it. They belong to a growing cadre of "green" lifestyle bloggers who provide a personal angle to broader issues covered by big-name ecoblogs such as Treehugger.com.
Seems a touch extreme to me... Ecobloggers bring the landfill home. ... more -
Bottled water industry faces growing opposition
Last week’s decision by a York County water board to delay a vote on whether to sell municipal water to Nestle Corp., the owner of Poland Spring, did not happen in a vacuum.
* Last month in McCloud, Calif., after encountering opposition to what would have been the largest water bottling plant in the country, Nestle announced plans to significantly reduce the plant’s size.
* Earlier this month in Enumclaw, Wash., the city council rejected a proposal to allow Nestle to build another such plant.
* And last Monday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors voted to phase out use of bottled water for municipal employees.
Across the country, opposition to bottled water is building, amid growing concerns about the industry’s environmental impact and rising fears about private control of public water supplies.
“There’s no question that there is a groundswell,” said Ruth Caplan, coordinator of Defending Water for Life, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign that opposes the bottled water industry.
There are several reasons for the backlash to bottled water. Some of it is driven by fears about global warming - given the amount of oil needed to bottle and transport the water.
Some stems from concerns about the chemical makeup of plastic water bottles.
Some of the opposition is a byproduct of the huge price disparity between bottled water and the kind of water that comes from the tap for free.
Here in Maine, some of the local opposition to Poland Spring’s operations has stemmed from the traffic generated by the trucks that transport the water.
Perhaps the biggest factor, though, is a fear that as bottled water becomes more popular, private corporations are gaining more control over a natural resource that is central to life.
“The fundamental issue is, who owns the water?” said Jim Olson, an attorney for Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, which has been engaged in a legal battle with Nestle. “If this company gets to do it, all companies get to do it, and you’re not going to be able to say no in the future.”
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We need to stop the commoditization of this resource which is the lifeblood of the Earth. Water is a human right. It cannot be bought by Nestle at the expense of the poor in countries where water is already scarce. It is a good sign to see people finally standing up to these companies. Last week’s decision by a York County water board to delay a vote on whether to sell municipal water to Nestle Corp., the owner of Pol... more -
Thirst for bottled water unleashes flood of environmental concerns
Plastic water bottles produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, according to a 2007 resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. That much energy could power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a year, according to the resolution.
Cornell University professor and environmentalist Doug James said the irony of bottled water is that it's marketed as clean and healthy when its production contributes to unnecessary environmental degradation.
"Fiji water, for example," he said. "A one-liter bottle is taken out of the aquifer of this little island, and shipped all the way across the world, producing like half a pound of greenhouse gases so you can have this one-liter bottle of water."
The taste question
Another obvious issue in the consumption of bottled water is taste.
In some areas, tap water simply isn't drinkable, Brown said, and in those situations, bottled water is a useful resource.
Other consumers simply prefer the taste of bottled water, Lauria said.
"Consumers have lots of preferences and some people want mineral water for taste," he said. "Everyone has their own reasons for buying products. And some people have a preference for bottled water."
But, Brown argues, perceptions about the taste of tap water and realities about the taste of tap water can be very different things.
To test her hypothesis that tap water tastes as least as good as bottled water, Brown has been conducting a series of taste tests at Ithaca College in the past year.
In five blind taste tests over the last year, the tap water has won four times, she said.
The growth in advertising and consumption of bottled water has occurred "frankly, since the big soda companies bought up water," she said. "They would buy up the Dasanis, and they would buy up the Poland Springs, and you get into the huge marketing machines of the major soda industries, Coke and Pepsi, notably, and they take it to a whole different field."
Water and waste
Then there's the waste stream.
In roughly the last 10 years, the amount of polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottles being recycled increased from about 775 million pounds in 1995 to about 1,170 million in 2005, according to the Container Recycling Institute.
But during the same time period, the amount of PET bottles going into landfills skyrocketed from 1,175 million to 3,900 million pounds.
Water bottles are a big part of that problem, Brown says, because there are so many more of them, and because in many states, water bottles don't have a redemption value like soda and beer bottles do.
Lauria said the focus on water bottles is unfair because they make up "less than one-third of one percent" of the entire U.S. waste stream.
"There are many other plastic objects that are in our lives that no one seems to be concerned about and yet it all needs to be recycled," he said. "As you recycle bottled water you should also recycle many other products that are in your refrigerator when you're done with them."
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1.4 billion people worldwide are without potable water, while FIJI water is taken and transported around the world for profit at great environmental cost as women and girls in Africa risk their lives to walk up to nine hours a day to collect only enough jugs of polluted water to last one day for a family of four to six people.There is no moral justice to that at all. And while yes, it is very good to cut as much plastic waste in bottles, bags, etc. as you can, water bottles are targeted because they are an unnecessary waste and because study after study has shown that bottled water is no better than tap water in many cases. Corporations also wish to commoditize and privitize water which is a human right to make it a product on the open market like oil. This is simply something we must not allow to happen especially in wake of the climate crisis that is causing water scarcity and food shortages. Plastic water bottles produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, according to a 2007 resolution passed by... more -
Hancock, MI June 21 e-waste collection for NW Upper Peninsula: EPA Challenge, Eart...
The Western Upper Peninsula Electronics Recycling Program and the Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) provide an environmentally and economically sound solution to disposing of household electronic waste.
Residents of Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Keweenaw, and Ontonagon Counties may bring their items to e-waste collection sites on the specified collection dates in their area.
The initiative received grants and other assistance from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The collection is part of the EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge involving over 100 projects in eight states across the Great Lakes Basin.
More than a dozen previous collections since 2005 have garnered nearly 48 tons of e-waste from over 850 participants.
2005: 8 collections, 26.5 tons
2006: 4 collections, 15 tons
2007: 1 collection, 6.25 tons
Called e-waste, electronics waste includes old /broken computers, cell phones, and TVs.
The collection for Houghton and Keweenaw counties will be June 21 from 9 a.m. to noon at the health department in Hancock.
An e-waste collection will be held in Baraga County on July 12 from 10 a.m. to noon at a site to be announced.
Collection events for other Copper Country counties will be announced in the future.
The cost to drop off e-waste is 10 cents per pound.
The collection will accept a wide range of e-waste including cell phones, computer and related equipment like laptops, monitors, towers aka central processing units, printers, scanners, keyboards and computer mice
Other e-waste accepted includes stereo equipment, televisions, VCR and DVD players, copiers, cordless telephones, fax machines, fluorescent light bulbs that are 4 to 8 feet in length, microwave ovens and batteries including alkaline, nickel cadmium, lead acid, lithium, mercury.
It's estimate that between 1997 and 2007, nearly 500 million personal computers became obsolete. That's almost 2 computers for every person in the United States.
TV's and computer monitors contain an average of 4 pounds of lead and other toxins.
According to Closing the Circle News, the manufacture of one computer consumes 529 pounds of fossil fuels, 49 pounds of chemicals, and 3,307 pounds of water.
The EPA says nearly 250 million computers will become obsolete nationwide in the next five years.
For additional info contact the Western Upper Peninsula Electronics Recycling Program or RSVP at 906-482-7382.
The goal of the EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge was the collecting and recycling of one million pounds of electronics (e-Waste) plus the collection and proper disposal of one million pills. The goals were exceeded by 500 percent.
The Earth Healing Initiative assisted some challenge organizers with interfaith liaisons to volunteer and encourage members of local churches/temples to participate in the Earth Day events in their area.
This video on the projects in the EPA Challenge was made possible by a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency; the EPA's Region 5 office and the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office in Chicago, with the non-profit Interfaith Earth Healing Initiative in Marquette, MI.
The EHI involves American Indian tribes and a coalition of churches, synagogues and other faith traditions joining together to heal, protect and defend the environment.
I’m Greg Peterson, Earth Healing TV
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Western U.P. District Health Department
http://www.wupdhd.org/rsvp/e-waste.html
RSVP
http://www.wupdhd.org/rsvp/index.html
EPA Region 5 Office Chicago
http://www.epa.gov/region5
Interfaith Earth Healing Initiative
http://www.EarthHealingInitiative.org
Cedar Tree Institute
http://www.CedarTreeInstitute.org
Interfaith graphics by Justice St. Rain (Baha'i) of Interfaith Resources - Special Ideas website:
http://www.interfaithresources.com
1-800-326-1197
1-847-733-3559 The Western Upper Peninsula Electronics Recycling Program and the Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) provide an environment... more -
Tell bottled water corporations to come clean
In the face of a growing global water crisis, corporations are turning water into a profit-driven commodity. Nowhere is the corporate water-grab more insidious than the exploding corporate control of our drinking water.
Bottled water corporations use clever marketing and misleading advertising that makes people doubt the safety and quality of their own tap water. In reality, bottled water is less regulated than public water systems, and studies reveal that bottled water can actually contain harmful bacteria and other contaminants. Public water systems are required to disclose the source and quality of their water and are accountable to the public. Often, water bottlers are not.
Furthermore, the corporations threaten local control of water supplies in communities across the U.S. and around the world when they aggressively build bottled water plants over community protest.
Tell corporations to come clean about bottled water. Ask Coke, Nestlé and Pepsi to:
Reveal the sources and sites of the water used for bottling;
Publicly report breaches in bottled water quality comparable to reports by public water systems; and
Stop threatening local control of water when siting and operating bottled water plants.
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There is a link at the link provided to send your letter to call on corporations that bottle water to come clean about their practices. Please help bring accountabilty to an industry exploiting a human right for profit. Thank you! In the face of a growing global water crisis, corporations are turning water into a profit-driven commodity. Nowhere is the corporate ... more -
Teen figures out how to decompose plastic bags in 3 months
For a science fair project, Canadian teenager Daniel Burd isolated the bacterial cultures that degrade plastic. He managed to create a formula that will degrade plastic in 3 months. Plastic normally takes years 1000 years to degrade. This is a great leap forward in terms of waste management; the world produces more than 500 million plastic bags per year, all of which will eventually all end up in landfills. For a science fair project, Canadian teenager Daniel Burd isolated the bacterial cultures that degrade plastic. He managed to create ... more
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EPA says e-waste, drug collections protect Great Lakes, environment and Earth
EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge removed a huge amount of electronic waste and pharmaceuticals from eight states.
The goal of the EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge was the collecting and recycling of one million pounds of electronics (e-Waste) plus the collection and proper disposal of one million pills.
These goals were exceeded many times over.
A few examples:
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In Milwaukee, WI: 32 tons of electronic waste and 3.5 tons of pharmaceuticals were turned in.
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At the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin near Green Bay: Approx. 4 tons of e-waste was collected plus thousands of pounds of other trash cleaned from reservation Tribal members turned in over 23 pounds of medicines including 100 bottles of pills, more than 25 computers and dozens of related components like hard drives, printers, keyboards and speakers; televisions, radios, DVD players, 12 cell phones and over 100 small batteries.
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In Traverse City, MI: Over 28,750 pounds (over 12.5 tons) of computers and other e-waste was collected.
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The electronic waste is recycled, and the pharmaceuticals are incinerated in state-of-the-art EPA -license facilities.
So why is this important?
The old and broken electronics - like computers, cell phones and TVs - contain heavy metals that can leach into the groundwater if dumped into landfills.
The unused pharmaceuticals can end up in your drinking water if they are flushed or poured down the drain.
That’s because most wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to remove chemicals from these pharmaceuticals including hormones, narcotics, seizure medication and many more - that end up back in your drinking water.
In an April 2008 press conference in Milwaukee, EPA and other officials explained why the Great Lakes Challenge and similar projects are important to protect the environment and your health.
Pharmaceutical chemicals are sent back out into the Great Lakes, rivers and other places were people recreate and are the intakes for drinking water.
Studies show that the chemicals are appearing in the nation’s drinking water in small amounts - the long term effects are not known - however they have been linked to mutations in fish and other wildlife.
Also - these medicines can be stolen, diverted or accidentally ingested by children - if they languish in your medicine cabinet.
Around the country many e-waste and pharmaceutical take back programs have been developed by governments and local businesses.
Please check with your local officials to find out details for your area.
Because every day should be Earth Day.
This video on the projects connected to the Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge was made possible by a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency in collaboration with the EPA's Region 5 office in Chicago the EPA Great Lakes national Program Office also in Chicago in cooperation with the non-profit Interfaith Earth Healing Initiative in Marquette, Michigan.
The EHI involves American Indian tribes and "a coalition of churches synagogues and other faith traditions joining together to heal protect and defend the environment" said EHI founder Rev Jon Magnuson of Marquette.
I’m Greg Peterson and you’re watching Earth Healing TV EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge removed a huge amount of electronic waste and pharmaceuticals from eight states. ... more -
Le Cavers Garbage // Comment Picked for TV
Thanks to Mulcahey for leaving his comments on "Le Cavers Garbage." This pod is all about volunteer cavers in France excavate hundreds of years worth of garbage in a landfill to help the environment. Check it out: http://current.com/items/88878478_le_cavers_garbage Thanks to Mulcahey for leaving his comments on "Le Cavers Garbage." This pod is all about volunteer cavers in France excava... more
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Methane Sources Over The Last 30,000 Years
Ice cores are essential for climate research, because they represent the only archive which allows direct measurements of atmospheric composition and greenhouse gas concentrations in the past. Using novel isotopic studies, scientists from the European Project for Ice Coring In Antarctica (EPICA) were now able to identify the most important processes responsible for changes in natural methane concentrations over the transition from the last ice age into our warm period. The study now published in the scientific magazine nature shows that wetland regions emitted significantly less methane during glacial times. In contrast methane emissions by forest fire activity remained surprisingly constant from glacial to interglacial times.
In the current issue of Nature, members of the EPICA team publish new insights into natural changes in the atmospheric concentrations of the second most important greenhouse gas methane (CH4). The scientists present the first glacial/interglacial record of the carbon isotopic composition of methane (δ13CH4) providing essential information on the sources being responsible for the observed CH4 concentration changes.
The well known glacial/interglacial changes in atmospheric methane concentrations are quite drastic. Glacial concentration were on average 350 ppbv (part per billion by volume) and increased to approximately 700 ppbv during the last glacial/interglacial transition superimposed by rapid shifts of about 200 ppbv connected to rapid climate changes. During the last centuries human methane emissions artificially increased CH4 concentrations to approximately 1750 ppbv. Ice cores are essential for climate research, because they represent the only archive which allows direct measurements of atmospheric ... more -
Sales of bottled water decline after environmental backlash
After ten years of soaring business, the tide is starting to turn against bottled water.
Shop sales were down by 9 per cent in the year to March to £284million, according to the retail analysts TNS.
This follows a widespread backlash by environmentalists who condemn it as wasteful and even immoral.
UK sales of bottled water had been growing at more than 6 per cent annually for more than a decade, reaching 2billion bottles a year.
One reason for its success is that many claim not to like the taste of what comes out of the tap. In some parts of the country there is a chlorine taint.
However, blind taste tests by Decanter magazine put London tap water ahead of many brands transported at a premium price from as far away as Fiji.
Fashionable labels such as Evian, Perrier and Volvic have recently faced a combined onslaught from Government ministers, consumer groups and green campaigners.
A 500ml bottle of Evian typically costs 42p in a supermarket, or 84p a litre. That is 840 times the price of tap water, which comes in at 0.1p a litre.
Among the environmental costs of bottled water are the energy needed for production, transport and disposal of the bottles. Compared with tap water, it generates more than 5,000 times the amount of carbon emissions per litre.
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Music to my ears. After ten years of soaring business, the tide is starting to turn against bottled water. ... more -
Le Cavers Garbage
Volunteer cavers in France excavate hundreds of years worth of garbage in a landfill to help the environment.
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Chicago Set To Tax Bottled Water
This is a double edged sword for me. While I do think consumers who are just set on buying bottled water even knowing the environmental costs should pay a bit more for it, I don't think that will actually solve the waste problem or stop it from being sold... and I wonder now if politicians will latch onto the environmental movement to stop the waste of bottled water just to raise income. Why can't we tax the companies that continue to deceive people that this water is no better than what comes out of our taps? I also think giving people incentives to recycle the bottles is also better than charging a tax that will only have them going elsewhere to buy it continuing the same behavior. The idea should be to awaken people to not want to buy in the first place. Like I said, I'm torn. I hope the income goes towards infrastructure and educating people about the truth of bottled water. This is a double edged sword for me. While I do think consumers who are just set on buying bottled water even knowing the environmenta... more
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New Jersey Plan To Ban Plastic Bags
New Jersey could well be the first state to place a ban on plastic bags. As a New Jerseyite this is great news to me. It's time to bag the plastic bags! New Jersey could well be the first state to place a ban on plastic bags. As a New Jerseyite this is great news to me. It's time t... more
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