Posts Tagged ‘waste’

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The Road to Zero…

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Friday is garbage day in my neighborhood.  Ever since we moved to Cleveland, I have been amazed at the amount of trash that residents of Cleveland throw away.  I am sure that I have written about this before, but In Portland, we paid a monthly fee for garbage service and it was tiered by the amount of cans you had.  It was not cheap either.  For $35 a month, you got a single large garbage can-and this was in the late 90′s.  But this way of dealing with trash had interesting results.

First, curbside recycling was king.  In order to get your trash to fit in a single can, you had to recycle.  Secondly, less was disposed of.  Usable goods were creatively reused or refurbished.  If you had to find a truck and haul your old couch to the dump, where you paid to dispose of it, you were much more likely to call Salvation Army, find a friend or list sell it for cheap sale.  This meant that a lot of stuff was reused that in this part of the country is taken to landfill.  Thirdly, this high recycling rates means a plethora of recyclable materials.  This makes it easier and cheaper to incorporate goods with recycled materials into your business and personal life.

When we bought our first house, I was determined not to have to pay for this service.  We went 3 years without any home garbage service.  This meant that we had to be creative.  We began to really be discerning about the packaging that came with the things we bought, as this was the largest amount of our waste stream.  We recycled everything we could.  We began to compost.  All organic materials went into the compost bin.  We found that what was left was mostly some plastic wrap and packing materials.  This process left us with a great new attitude toward waste.  We started looking at all the packaging that things came with.  How much packaging was there?  Was it recyclable?   How easily?  (Let’s face it, who wants to spend half an hour taking the metal off of a cardboard tube of peanuts?)  Was there a better alternative?  We found ourselves buying more in bulk.  Reusing plastic bags.  Buying less that we didn’t need, and thinking about life cycles of the things we did buy.  For Portland, we fit right it… So, moving to Cleveland was a culture shock.  A family of four might have a half dozen garbage cans on the curb every week.  It fit right in with the furniture, building materials, and lawn waste that sits there every week.

I.t is not a huge surprise that I got involved with the zero waste core group of E4S.  Along with a growing base of companies, Great Lakes Design Collaborative has declared a Zero Waste BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) for 2019.  Our goal?  To be a zero waste company by 2019.  We are not alone.  We are in good company with businesses like Great Lakes Brewing and Trinity Cathedral.  We all want to make our locations zero waste producers.  But it is more than just a feel good thing.  Reducing waste can significantly affect the bottom line.  Big locations like Trinity Cathedral, which operates Trinity Commons, can generate large amounts of trash.  The more they reduce, the fewer the pick ups they need to schedule for their dumpster.  This can mean thousands of dollars in savings every year.  As the cost of transporting and disposing of waste only continues to rise, this savings will continue to increase.

One thing that the Zero Waste group is doing is hosting a series of workshops on getting your company to zero waste.  The latest one featured teams from NASA and Fairmount minerals.  They set their zero waste goal and they learned about how to start to achieve this goal.  After the workshop, the groups will conduct a dumpster dive.  This will give them a real and true idea of just what they are throwing away.   I spoke with others who have done this and they are always surprised to find that much of what they throw away every day is easy to divert from landfill.  Then comes the next step: setting goals.  Part 2 of their workshop will look at the data from their dive and figure out what they can easily start recycling.  Then we will look at the next few steps and how we can help them reduce in other ways.  Some things might be simple, switching from one product with a non recyclable package to a similar one that does recycle.  Others may end up being something that has to be tackled later in the process.  The key to this workshop is that it is tailored to those enrolled, and every company has different needs.

Have you thought about how your company can reduce its waste, and the dollars it takes to dispose of that waste?  Why not ask your boss or administrator to have your company sign up for a zero waste workshop?  The next date will be  Akron in August.  If you are a Clevelander, do not fear as there will be another in the September in Cleveland.

Find out more about Zero Waste and how you can be a part of this great movement.  Want to know more about a workshop?  Feel free to contact me and I will make sure to follow up with you personally.

 

 

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Global Warming?

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

A while ago a Scientist named Wallace Broecker coined the term “Global Warming” to fairly accurately describe environmental effects occurring around the planet.  Unfortunately that term immediately got used to “debunk” the theory by certain sets of conservatives.  They grabbed a hold of the word “warming” and laughed as record breaking snow accumulated during the winter, despite the theory depicting how snow fall would break records.

So, someone who was a bit more media savvy came up with the term “Climate Change”.  This innocuous term has been embraced by the environmental sciences community, but the original term is still regularly used by the naysayers, seemingly locked in an ideological battle.  But is this term really better?  Challengers to the theory point to the fact the Earth has gone through many cycles, including large shifts on its axis, which have affected the climate drastically.  After all, most of the Northern Hemisphere was covered in ice little more than 15,000 years ago, which is a tiny blip on the planet’s time line.  Before the ice age there were vast forests, plains, jungles and lakes.  The fact that the glaciers are melting is just a natural part of the cycle.

The main point of Climate Change/Global Warming science is to point out how man has affected this cycle.    Their evidence suggests the answer is yes.  They have, in their arsenal, over 300 years worth of temperature recordings from England showing how quickly or slowly the climate has warmed; clue: as soon as the industrial age hit the temperature spiked dramatically.  They know what Carbon Dioxide (CO2) does in the planet’s atmosphere (it heats it up) and they pretty much know how much CO2 humans have produced.  The correlation is obvious.

But, let’s say the correlation isn’t so obvious.  Perhaps there’s really no way to accurately measure the CO2 we’ve produced.  If we were to throw out the two legs of Climate Change, as those conservatives have done, then the entire theory collapses.  So, for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s a bunch of ballyhoo, malarkey, and baloney.

Even if the entire concept of Climate Change is somehow hooey, why would we want to continue polluting the atmosphere, our water supply, our land?  Why would we wish to cut down all of our forests indiscriminately?  The answer, of course, is money.  In many cases the money I’m talking about is greed.  Large, cold, corporate factories pumping heavy metals into a community’s water supply (like Texaco, now owned by Chevron, did to Ecuador) are not surprising to anyone.  In other cases however, the problem is more complex.

In many parts of South and Central America, the rain forest is being slashed and burned, hundreds of acres daily.   Not only does the smoke pollute the air, but the lack of vegetation reduces the amount of “CO2 scrubbers”.  Plants take in CO2 and produce Oxygen, hence a lack of plants equals a lack of good air and an abundance of ‘bad air’.  The forests are being cut, not by some greedy corporation, but by common folk looking to raise cattle.  The cattle themselves require huge amounts of feed, water and space which really only worsens the problem.  But no one can question the people’s need for food and money, especially in very poor locations.  There are programs centered on steering these people to better forms of agriculture and industry, but one could question their efficacy.

Even if you are on the “other side” of the argument; a conservative who does not believe man is causing the rapid rise in global temperatures, I would ask you: why not recycle, use less of our resources, and curb pollution?  None of us want to live in a garbage pit, and it’s very simple to see how throwing plastic into landfills only makes landfills bigger and bigger.  Reusing materials makes such perfect sense, it seems strange to be against it.  And really, who wants to be poisoned?  If you find yourself doubting the whole Global Warming issue in general, doesn’t it make sense to still do these three simple things to help make your own life and that of your children cleaner, brighter and overall better?

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Jeni’s at the Film Festival

Friday, April 8th, 2011

So as you likely know, I have spent the last couple of weeks preparing for and working at the Cleveland International Film Festival.  Once again, this year, we are composting and recycling up at the Hospitality Headquarters.  With record attendance and a huge increase in passholder sales, it has meant a big increase in folks up at the re purposed Bice restaurant space.  About a month before the festival, I decided to see if I could reach out to Jeni’s Ice Cream in Columbus.

If you have read this blog for a while, then you know how much I love Jeni’s Ice Cream.  I have written about them a number of times.These folks are so focused on quality and local ingredients, they practically know the cows that produce their milk.  Focused on local and high quality ingredients, these guys make the best ice cream ever.  I would be hard pressed to find an ice cream maker that tickles my fancy as much.  So I was thrilled to hear that they were willing to come up to Cleveland to scoop ice cream for the last of the festival and to promote their upcoming location in Chagrin Falls.

They came and brought their own stuff, and scooped good sized scoops of tasty ice cream while mixing with the crowd.  They were so well received that people were late to movies to get their tasty scoop-sorry theater guys.  When they were offering the deepest Dark Chocolate that could still be called ice cream, I am not surprised.  Of course they served up their signature Salty Caramel, which always seems a little more like brown butter it is so rich and tasty…. They brought the Goat Cheese and Figs as their “way out there” flavor, which is tame by comparison to some of their other offerings.  Still, for the faint of heart it was a bit edgy.  Even so, it got lots of oohs and aaahs from the staff and patrons.

The only problem I  was concerned about when I knew they were coming was logistics.  Up in the hospitality suite, we were doing so well at diverting huge amounts of trash from landfill.  For the hundreds of patrons that came up there between each film, we still managed to do less than half a garbage bag a day.  That garbage bag, ironically, was usually filled with the plastic sleeves that surrounded the biodegradable paper cups and plates that we brought in.  In order to accomplish this, the staff and volunteers (all of us masochists, I am sure) would pick up and separate each persons trash for them.  When you bring in an outside vendor, then you have to separate their stuff, make sure the plastics get recycled, the paper is compostable, etc.  That is why I was so thrilled when Jeni’s started scooping and I saw they were using compostable goods.  The tasting cups were made from recycled content and the spoons made from potato starch.  Both went directly into our compost bins and will be dirt by the end of summer.  I knew that Jeni’s was committed to local foods-they buy all their strawberries for the year, because quality strawberries are only in season in Ohio for a short while-but I was so pleasantly surprised to see that they also were worrying about their trash.  Many of their ice cream containers were purchased to be reusable and when they left, they left nothing behind.  It just warmed my heart to see them being so environmentally responsible, while also producing such great products and being successful enough to expand.

If you know me, you know that there are few companies that I like enough to want to work for them.  So  you put Jeni’s and the CIFF together, and I am in heaven.  Could I do this every day?

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Composting on a large scale with EnviroPure

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

This is a guest post by a rep from EnviroPure.  While I have not used this product, or seen it in action, the company seems to be gaining ground and market share.  At one of our recent meetings of the Zero Waste Network, we discussed how food waste is one of the biggest contributors to office waste.  That being true, then we know that food waste must be huge at restaurants, food courts and cafeterias.  This is a product that could make a huge difference in those areas.  Composting can be very difficult in an urban environment, and even in a suburban one.  Image a restaurant or food service facility that can compost most or all of its food wast-how much would that help them to achieve a zero waste goal?  Could we hope to start seeing these around Cleveland?

I would like to introduce Opus EnviroPure Systems food waste elimination technology.  It is essentially a hyper-accelerated composting process which eliminates food waste onsite.  Each system is custom-manufactured right here in the Midwest.  Food service facilities will no longer need to incur costs collecting and transporting food wastes from the kitchen to loading dock and beyond.  Generally food waste is totally disintegrated within 24 hours. The process is simple. Food is placed into an onsite sealed system which prevents access by vermin and insects.   The continual feed system eliminates food waste and decomposition odors.  Trash and recycling containers stay more sanitary.  You can choose either the wet or dry technology which can be located inside near the dining area/kitchen or outside near the loading dock. The wet system converts food waste into grey water which can be collected and used for agricultural purposes such as plant or lawn irrigation.  The dry unit utilizes a mulch type medium which only requires changing once or twice annually.  This system is ideal for facilities which would like to compost but do not have nearby commercial composting sites.  And best of all food is composted within 24 hrs rather than weeks and months.

By diverting the food waste from dumpsters, dumpsters weigh less which equates to fewer waste hauler pickups and lower collection fees.  Since the food waste does not end up at local landfills, no deadly methane gas is emitted.  This system ultimately saves time, hauling costs, and is socially responsible.   When foodwaste is eliminated at its source, there are fewer carbon producing waste trucks on the road (the trucks that would transport this foodwaste to composting sites or landfills).  Also when the food waste is eliminated at its source the foodwaste is not dumped in landfills where it emits methane which is 30x more toxic than C02.

Below is a brief video which will help explain the Opus EnviroPure system.  We would appreciate the opportunity to discuss how EnviroPure Systems might contribute to your readers green initiatives.

(units now can be sized to eliminate up to 3000 lbs per day)

http://www.youtube.com/user/opusenviro

Linda Basinger EnviroPure Systems, Inc.

2011 West Fulton St. Chicago  IL  60612

p. (888) 324-7265    f.  (312) 951-9575

lbasinger@enviropuresystems.com

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Reduce, reduce, reduce 10 steps toward zero.

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

In case you didn’t know, GLDC has expanding its branding and online social media services.  This week has added a series of new clients, and we have been busy around the office trying to get some of the work cleared out before the holiday weekend.  St the same time, I have been having multiple discussions surrounding reducing one’s waste.  It seemed like a great time to offer up a “classic” blog post that I published a while ago.

Zero waste. It sounds impossible. One problem that we encountered when addressing setting up the new office, was trash pickup. We found that as a commercial site, we couldn’t get Cleveland trash pickup. We didn’t really want a giant ugly dumpster on the property that would end up being much more than we needed. The solution: a zero waste office. It remains to be seen if it can really be done or not. We are already working on it for our home. Today is trash day, and for the second week in a row, we don’t have a bag of garbage to put out. But can that sort of curb on trash be translated to an office setting? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, here are 10 steps that everyone can try to work toward a zero waste life.

1. Cook at home. Home cooking means that you know what goes into your food. You can control portions and deal with the waste. Additionally, take out food comes in containers that are often hard to recycle and often end up in the trash; and even recyclers don’t want that pizza box.
2. Reduce. Buy products that have little or no packaging. Yes, it freaks out the cashier when you set a handful of tomatoes on the blet with no little plastic bag, but they will get over it. If you can, buy in bulk. If large packages don’t fit your lifestyle (how long will it take me to use 25 lbs of sugar?), you can visit bulk departments at the supermarket. Take along your own containers, and you effectively eliminate packaging all together. And don’t forget to bring along your reusable shopping tote and avoid the plastic bags!
3. Recycle. While recycling may not be available curbside, there are plenty of drop off spots. I have heard that you can even drop off Styrofoam at Heinan’s. When you make the effort to go zero waste, you start to see just what can be recycled, and what can’t. This will eventually impact your buying choices-a good thing.
4. Reuse. Why buy Tupperware when those margarine containers are perfectly reusable? I even started washing ziplock backs and reusing them. Yes, my partner laughs at me, but who cares? Before replacing that broken appliance, see if it can be repaired rather than thrown out.
5. Compost. Organic materials compost and make great food for your plants. The garden will be better off, and so will the planet.
6. Take your own cup for coffee. If you buy coffee on the go, add it up. Every coffee or latte usually has a cup, a lid, and often a gripper. Where does it go when you finish? Bring your own mug and reduce all that waste.
7. Skip bottled water. Plastic bottles are bad for the environment. Why recyclable, most are destined for the landfill, so skip them. There is plenty of new research out that says they leach chemicals into the water and lots of bottled water companies are just packaging tap water anyway. Invest in a good steel water bottle if you drink a lot.
8. Buy better stuff. Why many goods may be cheaper, buy products that are sure to last. If you don’t need them anymore, they can be donated. Antiques are around, because we used to value craftsmanship and quality. Buy goods that will last longer than you need them to and donate, reuse or give them away when you no longer need them.
9. Have a garage sale. They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You will be hugely surprised just how true that is if you have a garage sale. Put a price on something and people want it. You will find that even the stuff that charity shops don’t really want, you can sell at a garage sale for a couple of bucks.
10.Adopt the one in one out rule. We have a strict policy of not adding to our household. For every new item that comes into our home, another goes out. This system is perfect for us. We no longer amass things that we don’t need. If we get a new item of clothing or new coffee mug, then another has to go out. This keeps us getting rid of items while they are still usable and can be donated or shared, instead of waiting for 10 years when those jeans are so out of style that no one will get any more use out of them.

What can you do to reduce your waste?

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Wrap up…

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Another record breaking year for the Cleveland International Film Festival.  Attendance was up again-7 % over last year’s record breaker.  Undaunted by a March snow or difficulties parking, over 71 thousand people made their way into the movies over 11 days.  During this time, we managed to serve over a thousand people every day between movies.  Thanks to the large containers provided by Rosby’s Resource Recycling and facilitated by Tower City Center and Forest City Enterprises, we managed to compost most of our waste.  By my calculations we managed to recycle and compost about one and a half tons of waste.  At the same time, we generated only one bag of garbage each day-that is about 15-20 pounds.

The entire experience was a great one.  Being conscious of everyone’s trash really makes you think about your own.  Much of what we threw away was plastic wrap and bags that food and ice products arrived in.  The rest was coffee cups, Styrofoam and straws that were brought in from outside.  It is really encouraging to think, however, that most of the waste we generated would be dirt within a few short months.  The other real encouragement was how all the staff and volunteers got on board.  Everyone started to think about what they brought into the Hospitality Headquarters.  More people brought in their own coffee cups and water bottles.  It also made me realize just how much food people waste.  I have read studies that say we throw about 40% of the food we buy away.  It made me vow to reduce the amount of food we throw away in my own home.  So working with the public, I was amazed at how easily people threw stuff out.  People are quick to take a can of soda, even though they only want a few sips.  They will pile a plat high without ever having the time to eat it all.  While this might be just what happens around the festival when time constraints and free food make for a unique experience, but I suspect that it is really the norm for most people.  While people are starving and we over produce food on large scale farms, we continue to throw out edible food at an alarming rate.

I have managed to see some 15 film this year, and hope to still see some more.  I have not seen many of the big award winners, though I managed to meet the guys who created Louder Than A Bomb-the documentary that one two awards.  Bud managed to meet Jennifer Coolidge, and while I wanted to go and say hello to her, after a couple of martinis it would not have been a good idea, so I am glad that I restrained myself.  I am sad, in a way to see the festival end, as it is kind of like the end of summer camp.  I am glad to get off my feet and actually get some sleep, though.  For those of you who are interested, you should start thinking about volunteering next year.  Help us make the Cleveland International Film Festival the premiere event in the country for films and arts.

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Nature Friendly makes my day at the CIFF!

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

home I forget that not everyone thinks like me.  I hang out with so many “greenies” that I am sometimes surprised when someone that I am talking to just doesn’t ‘get it.’  From my experience at the film festival last year, I knew that we would be generating a pretty hefty amount of garbage.  Feeding thousands of plates of snacks and sandwiches, I was determined to find a way to reduce our environmental footprint.  With plenty of negotiations and a few dozen phone calls, I was finally approved to start composting on Tuesday morning.  Unfortunately, the hospitality headquarters opened on Friday morning.  I put our order together, and had it delivered Thursday afternoon.  When it arrived, however, I was disappointed to see a substitution.  My enviro-friendly hot cup with the corn resin sealant on the inside was substituted for a hot cup that had a Styrofoam core.  Not happy.  I then spent the afternoon scouring the city for a hot cup that I could use in the compost.  There were surprisingly few options.  When I did find an option, I couldn’t get it.  Minimum orders, no delivery, no pick ups, were all assorted hold ups.  Enter Nature’s Friendly Products…

I had started with Nature’s Friendly Products, as I knew they had a full line of compostable products.  They have stuff made from stuff like corn and sugar cane.  They will compost in your own garden over a season.  While their office is here, they need several days lead time to get the orders in from their warehouse in Indiana (or Iowa-one of the I states…).  Jeri Leigh talked me through all the catalog and sent me more information than I needed.  I put them on my short list to order from.  When the deadline passed and I still did not know if I would be composting, I started looking at other sources.  When my order came in wrong and I was freaking out, I finally called Nature’s Friendly Products again and nearly cried on them.  A sweet young lady named Tammy calmed me sown with her sweet southern drawl and promised to call em back.  Within ten short minutes, I got a call back.  The customer forms were in the email and a single case of cups had been rounded up and would be waiting for me by 10 am the following morning.  I am sure that she called every rep they had and probably pulled their cups from the employee break room to take care of me.

The following morning after our staff meeting, I jumped in the car and dashed off to Beachwood to pick up my cups.  Within a few minutes of arriving, they were loaded and I was back on the road.  As I sped down the road, driving farther than I have driven in months, I wondered about the emissions and gas usage by this crazy pick up.  As if on cue, the first of several plastic bags floated across the road and hit my windshield with a light smack.  The irony was not lost on me that while I was desperately trying to divert our food service waste from the landfill, the trash from someone else was attacking me.  While I cannot manage to keep others from littering or reducing the trash that they create, I can make sure that the things under my control were as green as possible.  Without the help of Nature’s Friendly Products, I would have had to use a standard hot cup and that might derail all of my plans for composting our waste.  And compost we are!  In a single day, we managed to create a single bag of garbage.  With the hundreds of plates of food that were served, that was quite an accomplishment.

If you are having an event, I highly recommend checking in with Jeri Leigh Siss and her cohorts at Nature’s Friendly Products.  With the help fo them and Rosby Companies, your next event could be zero waste.

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Why we cannot feed the world.

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Population explosion.  Drought.  Famine.  Politics.  These are all the reasons that people around the world go hungry every day, right?  Wrong.  The real reasons why we cannot feed the world’s population is waste.  We throw away too much food.  We overproduce foods that we will not be able to consume, and then we truck food all across the globe for no good reason.  And we are greedy.

It is always easy to point the finger at someone else and say it is their fault.  The truth of the matter is that we are all to blame.  We have all led to the current mass production of food and the need for mechanized farms.  At one time, most of the food that we consumed was grown on small family farms.  It was produced locally.  And farming was a career to be proud of.  When did things change?  Slowly, the family farm was replaced by large scale corporate giants.  These conglomerates began squeezing out the family farm in pursuit of the almighty dollar.  And consumers loved it.  Let’s face it, how much will you really pay for a tomato?  Will you pay $5 a pound if it means that it was grown on a small farm, provided living wages to all employees without exploiting them, and used farming practices that were less harmful to the environment?  While we like to all think we would, the lack of these tomatoes in the local grocery says quite simply that the majority of Americans will not.  Furthermore, most cannot.  If you can, well more power to you, but how many of the stocks or mutual funds in that IRA of yours are drawing their profits from the likes of Monsanto (in my opinion the anti-christ of the farming world) or Dole (the devil of worker mistreatment)?  I live on a budget and thus am guilty as anyone else.  And I like pineapple, on occasion (so you know of another brand besides Dole?)  As we are slowly squeezing out the family farm, we are dumping more food onto the American marketplace so fast that we have to find new ways to use it.  We are sweetening everything with corn, feeding it to cattle and other livestock, and now trying to make biofuels and dishes out of it.  Corn is not really a sustainable product, it just makes massive farms a lot of profit.

The result of all this cheap food on the market?  Stamping out starvation?  No.  Instead, we Americans are simply throwing it away.  I have heard it said that we already produce enough food to feed every person on the planet.  So why aren’t we?  Americans are wasteful gluttons.  First off, we throw out a lot of food.  It is estimated that we throw out 50% more now than we did in the 70s.  Studies say that amounts to between 30 and 40 percent of all the food produced in this country.  A lot is lost at the production and manufacturing level, but at least half of this wasted food is tossed out at home by consumers.  I was sure that this was over estimated, until I really took a hard look at our own household.  Two people living in one house find it hard to eat the food we buy, and it is even worse for someone who lives alone.  Packages of food are too large for small households, and shopping is often inconvenient.  It has become harder and harder to shop more often and buy less things.  I am watching our consumption very closely, but we still have leftovers that do not always get eaten, produce that goes bad before it really ripens or foods that get freezer burn.  The results are probably right on the mark.

Besides the waste in food itself, there are more ramifications to these studies.  More wasted food means more wasted fossil fuels in their production and transport.  Growing excess foods means we use more and more water-a growingly scarce commodity.  To top it all off, our supply chains no longer make sense.  We import apples to Ohio from Washington state, new Zealand, etc. while we have plenty of farms right here to supply our local apple needs.  In fact, I have been told that only 1% of all food produced in Ohio actually is consumed here.  Michael Polin (Deep Agriculture) told how we import butter cookies from Denmark, and export butter cookies to Denmark when we could just exchange recipes.  If we could fix some of these inequities in the supply chain, we could use the saving to transport excess foods to those places where it is needed to feed those who are starving.  But then there is no profit in that.

Then there is the health problems in this country.  Diabetes is on the rise, as well as heart disease and obesity.  Many contribute the excess of food production as  contributing factor to these problems.  Manufacture and marketing of food products is big business in America, and we will work extra long hours to avoid cooking our own food and to provide Twinkies to our family.  We wold rather drive through a McDonald’s than buy and prepare our own food.

The lack of clean water and steady food supplies has lead to starvation, instability, and unrest in many parts of the world.  At the same time, we are tossing out tons of food every year (more than $48 billion worth).  The rest of the world is suffering and we sit back and gorge ourselves.  No wonder so many other countries hate us.  At the same time, envy of our lifestyle has led to the desire to add more meat to the diets in other countries.  This leads to more conversion of global rain forests to grazing lands to support cattle.

So in the scheme of things, war, famine, drought population have less to do with our ability to feed the world’s population than our own wasteful ways.

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Coupons? There’s an app for that!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

While I still don’t have an iPhone ( I love Verizon and its customer service), I am excited about all the apps out there. They are changing the way we do business, run our ives, even shop. The Apple app store has applications for their iPhones in numbers that stagger the imagination. Lost? Use the iPhone to give you directions. Wonder what that song is you are hearing? Let the iPhone tell you. What star is that in the sky? Take a picture and the iPhone will tell you. Yes there is an application for nearly anything under the sun, and while many are frivolous and silly, many are going to have a huge impact on how we look at things like paper printing and credit cards. It does take electricity to keep your iPhone powered up, but the reduction in paper could make a huge impact.

A while back, TSA started a pilot program to allow some customers to download their boarding pass directly to their smart phone, where it could be scanned for boarding. If you think about the sheer volume of people flying into and out of a major airport, we could same tons of paper every day with a program like this. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had over 90 million passengers last year. That is 90 million sheets of paper that could have been saved. By my unscientific calculations, that is a stack about the size of a 10 story building every day, or 35 stacks a year the size of the Eiffel Tower. That is just one airport, granted the busiest airport in the world (rated by the Airports Council International), but still only one airport.

I have heard that JC Penney was experimenting with coupons for smart-phones and iPhones. This is a program that I can get behind. We have undergone a huge paper reduction and managed to get our junk mail reduced significantly. Still, we receive a pretty hefty chunk of coupons in the mail. Then there is the newspaper, which is dying a slow painful death these days. With sales and coupons available online, consumers no longer need to deal with the stack of print that we used to. If one could opt-in to recieve ads and coupons directly to your phone from all your favorite stores, then shopping would become a breeze. No more HH Greg coupons if you don’t buy appliances or electronics, or no more clothing ads if you are thrift store shopper. Not only could this make a huge dent in the amount of paper we waste every year, but it could go a long way to making stores more profitable. They can market to the customers who want their merchandise and not the whole world. One day, it could mean the end of the printed circular.

There are two apps for the iPhone that make shopping easier now. Wallet Zero and CardStar allow users to imput their store loyalty cards into their iPhone and it creates the barcode that can be scanned at the store. I don’t know about you, but between Best Buy, Giant Eagle, CVS, Pat Catans, Staples, and a host of other stores, my wallet can be bulging. I tried using the keyring bits, but they all come off and the bar code becomes obscured. Now with the right app, one can eliminate all of that. Good news, too, as those highly laminated cards do not recycle.

Traveling? Forget about printing maps anymore. With an app from the Apple Store, you can have virtually any map on your phone in seconds. No more need for printing postcards or stamps. When you are out and about, you can make your own with a photo that you snap with your phone and email instantly. With phrase books on your phone, you can get everything that you want while you are away. For that matter, you can buy whole books and read them on the go, what a convenience.

Another cool app is changing the way we do business. Ever wanted to pay with a credit card while at an art fair or other outdoor performance. Now there is an app that lets a merchant run a credit card through their phone, capture a signature and emails a receipt. No fuss, no muss. Many thermal receipt printers use paper that is not recyclable, and they fade rather quickly. Have an electronic receipt would make my life so much easier to manage.

While there are greener phones out there, like Samsung’s phone with 80% recycled materials, the iPhone could help the whole world jump start their green efforts. A simple reduction of paper, means less trees destroyed, less emissions from mills, and less waste. When you think about the fact that most landfills are approximately 36% paper filled, we could do a lot for the planet by simply reducing our paper usage. For every ton of paper that is not thrown out, we save 3 cubic yards of landfill. So, saving the planet, there ARE apps for that!

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Posted in Arts & Culture, Green | 2 Comments »

As the leaves get more yellow, Cleveland gets more green!

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

This is turning into a busy season for the sustainability movement in Cleveland.
Last week I was invited to join a green business round-table at CSU. The place was packed. It could have been because of the free pizza, but I think it had more to do with students being interested in turning their education in science and engineering into a green career. I was very enthusiastic to see so many fresh faces and young minds who thought they could make a living while helping to save the planet. Organized by Philomena M. Johnson, the Careers Coordinator at CSU. It is great to see so much interest by students and staff at Cleveland State, but even more impressive was the response from the speakers. The panel was huge, and there was simply not enough time for everyone to speak. Philomena confided in me that she couldn’t turn anyone down after they gratefully accepted her invitation. As someone who has had to coordinate this type of an event, I know how hard it is to get commitments, and even harder to get everyone to show. In this case, nearly everyone committed and showed, which only reflects on the regions desire to move forward in the green economy. Among the speakers were scientists, faculty, business owners, and even one student who co-organized and helped to create the green roof on the new rec center building at CSU!

I also attended a NE Ohio USGBC Chapter social gathering. Held at Stone Mad, I was delighted to see people from all industries and walks of life. Michelle Kilroy has done an excellent job of making our local affiliate of the USGBC something to be proud of. When I joined, I really didn’t see the benefits, as they were going through a serious transition. Since Michelle has taken over, however, it has gone from an affiliate to full chapter status. Furthermore, she has organized committees, created programs for continuing education credits, and started social and general informational sessions. If you are interested in sustainability in NE Ohio, then you should definitely join. It is always good to connect socially with like minded individuals, and the event at Stone Mad was perfect. The weather was beautiful, and the place was full. I ran into many of my colleagues and cohorts, and was really pleased to touch base with Jennifer Eaton from Tri-C. Colleges and universities have been fairly slow in their acceptance of the green movement as an area that needs to be addressed in the curriculum. Not so for Tri-C! They have an entire Green Academy and Center for Sustainability. This goes beyond the simple make our campus buildings greener approach, they are training the leaders of the sustainability movement. With courses that help prepare the workforce in things like renewable energy, they are going to have programming that will be a leader in our education system. For those vendors, buyers, and developers who are interested in Greenbuild (the yearly trade show of the USGBC), but cannot attend in December, Tri-C is going to offer a special chance to attend without attending. On January 23, 2010 Tri-C will be hosting a Greenbuild Re-Cap. This will be an all day conference featuring Greenbuild highlights, including breakout sessions, speakers and exhibits. At only one day and $85, this will be a great way to see the best of the show without spending the huge lay out of cash. To register call 216-987-2800, and the course number is 16053. Want to exhibit? Call 216-987-2859. For more information, contact Jennifer Eaton, the Program Manager: jennifer.eaton@tri-c.edu

Then there is the Sustainability Summit. Moving forward, many groups have formed the necessary components for next steps. During the summit, 20 key areas were created which we could use to move the green economy of Cleveland forward. Many groups have been going gung-ho to organize and create momentum. The Waste to Profit group, for example, has been working hard. One sub group of this group is the Wastipedia Center group. This is the group that I have been involved with. We have been meeting regularly since the summit and have even put our first application in for a Civic Innovation Lab grant. We did not get chosen to move forward, yet, but we did get valuable insight into moving forward and honing our executive summary to a really sharp focus. We are currently working on the economics of our ideas. Another sub group, the Zero Waste Initiative has also been meeting regularly. This group is on fire! They have organized and started a zero waste pledge drive. They are striving to get 50 local business to sign the pledge and become zero waste businesses. They already have a good start, join us here! They are also working on drafting public policy for a zero waste initiative for Cleveland. This would put us in good company with the likes of Seattle, Boulder, Austin and Oakland. The Green City Blue Lake blog has a great post on what this group is doing. In addition, the steering committee has been formed for next years sustainability summit. I was glad to be included in this group who will help make next year’s event even more successful than this year. We meet next week to begin the process.

Last week also marked the grand opening of the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry. While this project is exciting for its green values alone (dry cleaners and laundries have HUGE environmental impact), it is also a cooperative. This means that the workers have a stake in the company and are going to work hard to make it a success. Hopefully this is just the beginning of the co-op movement in Cleveland, as this type of business model makes more sense that working just to make someone else rich. This could change the way Clevelanders look at work and make them proud to be employed, because they are employed by a business they partially own.

Yes, the leaves are getting colorful. While the trees are displaying a bright mixture of reds, golds and oranges, Cleveland is pulling out it the green.

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