Frankly Green

Tall Soy Chai, Hold the Cup

A post from my friend Zem's site ecofabulous! 

Posted: 21 Aug 2007 08:46 AM CDT

Travel mugs are the way to go when you're on the go but in dire need of a beverage break. Did you know that once daily drinkers can save nearly 23 pounds of paper cup waste a year by simply toting around their own reusable mug (Typepad crew, you can triple that estimate.)? End to end the amount of disposable cups used for hot beverages could circle the earth about 55 times. And that's not including the negligibly useful sleeve they give you these days. As many are wary of pouring steaming hot liquids into plastic for fear that chemicals will leach into their beverage, we've come across some bioplastic mugs perfect for this must-do on the eco-agenda. I'm Organic offers Eco Travel Mugs made entirely from corn and oatmeal printed with vegetable based inks that have cute graphics and proudly state "I'm Organic," "Kiss Me - I'm Organic" or "I Love Organics." The jury's still out on how long these babies last (they're handwashable), but, in the meantime, you'll be throwing away less and making a meaningful statement. And if you can get some fair-trade, organic coffee into your mug, that's all the better. As a side note, if you ever find yourself mugless at your favorite java joint and opt for the paper cup, first make sure they don't double-up, and if you must take a sleeve, when you're done with it, just slip it off and put it back where it came from or stick it in your car and save it for the next time you wind up at a cafe sans your commuter mug (it happens to all of us at some point). Cheers!

Donation Request: Pantyhose and Tights

This post may be a little off topic for this blog, but it is for a very good cause nonetheless. My friend Whitney is on the board of Fistula Foundation and sent this request:

Dear friends,

I'm on the board of the Fistula Foundation, which supports the Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) Fistula Hospital, an amazing, inspirational place founded by an Australian gynecologist, Dr. Catherine Hamlin, and her late husband to heal women suffering from the terrible childbirth injury, an obstetric fistula.  She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and I view her as the Mother Teresa of Africa.

I recently received this email from Sister Ruth Kennedy at the Hospital and hope you can help!

Thanks!

Whitney

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ruth C. Kennedy [mailto:kennedy.r@hamlinfistula.org]
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 8:38 AM
Subject: Tights, panty hoses, stockings whatever you call them!

Dear friends of the fistula patients,

Many of you send us panty hose (USA) and tights (UK), which we truly appreciate! In fact it is more than that we need them and we are running out of them. Dr. Hamlin telephone me and said:

“Ruth we are running out of tights (pantyhose), what shall we do?”

These items are your old tights (pantyhose) with holes or runs in them – no matter… we use them.

The patients still leaking and going home use the top ends for holding pads in place, they have no underwear – yes they are that poor!

The leg parts we also use, in the past we said cut off the legs (of the tights not the ladies!) and post them, now we use the legs too. We braid them into rugs!

So this is a cry for your help – tights, pantyhose, stocking, any color, holes or no holes - whatever kindly post them to us in a small, medium or large parcels by surface mail (cheaper) or airmail (costly) to:

Hamlin Fistula (Tights)
PO Box 3609
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia

We will have plenty of very happy customers!

We thank God for all of you!
Ruth C. Kennedy
On a tight campaign for Hamlin Fistula
Ethiopia

Business Goes on an Energy Diet

Companies use a big share of the world's energy. Here's how some of them are cutting back.
By LEILA ABBOUD and JOHN BIERS
August 27, 2007

A good article from the Wall Street Journal on the huge opportunities for businesses to save money and the environment by reducing their energy consumption. The article looks at several industries  including heavy manufacturing, food and beverages, high technology, and retailing. See the link below for the full text of the article.

Scientists and politicians are searching for big ideas to help the environment. But companies across the world are slowly waking up to a simpler solution: Use less power.

Businesses are some of the world's biggest energy consumers. They need huge amounts of electricity to keep their factories humming and their stores air-conditioned, as well as countless gallons of gasoline for their delivery trucks. Consider this: The manufacturing sector alone accounts for nearly one-third of the world's global energy use, especially heavy industries like chemicals, iron and steel, cement, paper and aluminum.

Now, with oil, gas and electricity prices soaring, companies are beginning to realize that saving energy can translate into dramatically lower costs. And that means higher profits and happier shareholders -- not to mention a cleaner planet.

So, companies are beginning to pour more money into making old equipment energy-efficient or upgrading to cleaner models. And they're starting to streamline their operations to cut down on waste...

The potential savings from such projects are enormous. A recent study from the International Energy Agency showed that energy use in heavy industry could be reduced by 18% to 26% just by applying best practices and available technologies. That savings is equivalent to about one to one-and-a-half times Japan's annual energy needs, the agency said.

Light industries, like retailing and the food sector, could cut energy use by an even greater percentage -- up to 50% -- because they haven't always made efficiency a priority, says Paul Waide, an energy-efficiency analyst at the Paris-based IEA.

Still, most companies are moving slowly in implementing these types of changes -- if at all. For one thing, they must balance energy efficiency against other concerns. Should a manufacturer replace machinery that still works fine just to bring in more energy-efficient models? Or should it spend that money on much-needed capital improvements? In some cases, companies have made all the easy fixes they can, leaving only expensive measures that will take years to return their cost in energy savings.

Link to Article

Video: Carbon Offsets - What are They and How Do They Work?

By now you have probably heard about carbon offsets. But what exactly are carbon offsets? As this video explains, carbon offsets are projects that reduce or prevent the accumulation of global warming gases in the atmosphere to make up for the gases that you inadvertently put there. This video explains how they work, how they are abused and points out that all carbon offsets are not created equal. But let's not overlook the fact that the best solution is to not to put the global warming gases in the atmosphere in the first place!

Link to Video

BP, Citing Regional Opposition, Backs of Increased Pollution of Lake Michigan

Thanks to those of you who signed the petition. It worked!!!

Yesterday marked a great victory, one that demonstrates the power of everyday people to stand up and fight to protect their environment.

Citing "ongoing regional opposition," BP America Chairman and President Bob Malone announced yesterday morning that the company will avoid any increased pollution into Lake Michigan from its oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana.

BP has heard the voices of millions of Great Lakes Region residents that Lake Michigan is our natural treasure and source of drinking water, not our dumping ground. BP's statement indicates it will avoid increased dumping of ammonia and toxics-containing solids, which are allowed by its new discharge permit issued in June by Indiana's Department of Environmental Management.

My Visit to Method - Cleaning Products for Your Home

I recently had the chance to visit Method's headquarters here in San Francisco. Method was founded around 2000 by Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan (two fellow Michiganders) to bring design and sustainability to the home cleaning products industry. Not only are Method's products environmentally sound, their packaging is beautiful.

During my visit, I met with Lindsay Balton, Director of Buzz, and Drummond Lawson, Green Giant. While LIndsay's title is self explanatory, Drummond's is less so. Drummond has a degree in environmental chemistry and is tasked with selecting ingredients for Method's products.  I also met with Alastair Dorward, Chief Executive...against dirty.

Method works with Michael Braungart, co-author of Cradle-to-Cradle and co-founder of MBDC Design Chemistry, on the formulation of their products to ensure the best and most environmentally friendly formulations. To date, five of Method's products have been recognized under the the EPA's Design for the Environment (DfE) Formulator Program, a program that commends companies "for their leadership in designing products that are good for their businesses and for the environment." To date, Method's All Purpose Cleaner Spray-Lavender, Dish Cubes-Lavender, Handwash-Pink Grapefruit, and Tub & Tile Cleaner have all received recognition from the DfE program. Additionally, Method has submitted another 26 products to the DfE program.

If you are not familiar with Method's products, I highly recommend you try them. They are available  at over 25,000 retailers across the U.S., Canada, and U.K., including Target, Lowe's, Duane Reade, and Tesco.

Food That Travels Well

New York Times
August 6, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS

 

Austin, Tex.

Thanks to Marie M. for this article!

Link to Article

The term “food miles” — how far food has traveled before you buy it — has entered the enlightened lexicon. Environmental groups, especially in Europe, are pushing for labels that show how far food has traveled to get to the market, and books like Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” contemplate the damage wrought by trucking, shipping and flying food from distant parts of the globe.

There are many good reasons for eating local — freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space — but none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment.

On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer. In Iowa, the typical carrot has traveled 1,600 miles from California, a potato 1,200 miles from Idaho and a chuck roast 600 miles from Colorado. Seventy-five percent of the apples sold in New York City come from the West Coast or overseas, the writer Bill McKibben says, even though the state produces far more apples than city residents consume. These examples just scratch the surface of the problem. In light of this market redundancy, the only reasonable reaction, it seems, is to count food miles the way a dieter counts calories.

But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment? Click on the link above to read more.

GE's Green Credit Card

GE is planning to invest $4 billion by in renewable energy projects by 2010! A large chunk of the money will be invested in wind. Other investments include solar, geothermal, bio fuels, and biomass.

GE is also issuing a green credit card that will allow consumer's to allocate 1% of their purchases to the purchase of greenhouse gas offsets.

Link to Video

GM to Begin Testing Volt Electric Car by Spring

Product chief Bob Lutz says the plug-in vehicle is on track for production in 2010.
August 9 2007
Link to Article
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Reuters) -- General Motors Corp. will begin road testing its Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid in the spring of next year and remains on track to produce the rechargeable car by late 2010, a senior executive said Thursday.

As the race to bring a mass-market, rechargeable electric vehicle to the market heats up, GM's global product chief Bob Lutz said he expects to have next-generation lithium-ion battery packs ready for the vehicles by October this year.

"We should have the battery packs by October," he said, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference. "We'll have some on the road for testing next spring, and we should have the Volt in production by the end of 2010."

GM is the only automaker to have provided a timeline on the production of a plug-in hybrid vehicle, even though other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are working on similar technology.

Automakers have said lithium-ion battery technology remains the biggest challenge in producing a plug-in vehicle as they try to lower the cost of the batteries and increase their power and storage capacity.

The current generation of lithium-ion batteries, used in devices such as laptop computers and electronic devices, also has a tendency to overheat.

The Volt would be outfitted with new lithium-ion battery packs, which hold a charge longer than the nickel metal hydride batteries now used widely in automobiles...

Unlike earlier gasoline-electric hybrids, which run on a parallel system twinning battery power and a combustion engine, plug-in cars are designed to allow short trips powered entirely by the electric motor, using a battery that can be charged through an electric socket at home.

BP Gets OK to Dump Mercury Into Lake Michigan

Thanks to Bruce W. and Morgan F. for the heads-up on this. This is unbelievable!! Three pounds of mercury a year is HUGE!!! Even 1.3 ounces per year is unacceptable!!

Did you know that the amount of mercury contained in a thermometer, about 1/70th of a teaspoon, is enough to pollute a 25-acre lake?! 1/70th of a teaspoon is .1667 ounces. Therefore, 1.3 ounces equals 7.8 teaspoons. 1/70th of a teaspoon is enough to pollute a 25-acre lake. Therefore the 1.3 ounces BP wants to dump into Lake Michigan EACH YEAR is enough to pollute 13,636 acres!! Additionally, from 2002 to 2005 BP was dumping 3 pounds of mercury each year, enough to pollute 503,496 acres!! Multiply that by 4 (for each year from 2002 to 2005) and it equals 2,013,984 acres or about 15% of Lake Michigan's surface acreage! Why anyone would allow this is incomprehensible! Shame on BP!!!

If you want to help you can sign on online petition at Environment Michigan's website.

Oh, and in case you don't know, mercury is highly toxic and even at very low levels can cause irreversible damage to the central nervous system.

By Bobby Carmichael, USA TODAY

Link to Article

A BP (BP) refinery in Indiana will be allowed to continue to dump mercury into Lake Michigan under a permit issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

The permit exempts the BP plant at Whiting, Ind., 3 miles southeast of Chicago, from a 1995 federal regulation limiting mercury discharges into the Great Lakes to 1.3 ounces per year.

The BP plant reported releasing 3 pounds of mercury through surface water discharges each year from 2002 to 2005, according to the Toxics Release Inventory, a database on pollution emissions kept by the Environmental Protection Agency that is based on information reported by companies.

The permit was issued July 21 in connection with the plant's $3.8 billion expansion, but only late last week began to generate public controversy. It gives the company until at least 2012 to meet the federal standard.

The action was denounced by environmental groups and members of Congress.

"With one permit, this company and this state are undoing years of work to keep pollution out of our Great Lakes," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., co-sponsor of a resolution overwhelmingly approved by the House last week that condemned BP's plans.

Studies have shown that mercury, a neurotoxin, is absorbed by fish and can be harmful if eaten in significant quantities, particularly by pregnant women and children. Each of the eight Great Lakes states warns residents to avoid certain kinds of fish or limit consumption.

The permit comes as the states, working with the federal government, are trying to implement the $20 billion Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy, an umbrella plan to restore the health of the lakes signed in late 2005.

Indiana officials said the amount of mercury released by BP was minor.

"The permitted levels will not affect drinking water, recreation or aquatic life," Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Thomas Easterly told the Chicago Tribune.

BP said it doubted that any municipal sewage treatment plant or industrial plant could meet the stringent federal standards.

"BP will work with (Indiana regulators) to minimize mercury in its discharge, including implementation of source controls," the company said, according to the Tribune.

Part of the concern is that the Great Lakes have only one outlet — the St. Lawrence River.

"Lake Michigan is like a giant bathtub with a really, really slow drain and a dripping faucet, so the toxics build up over time," said Emily Green, director of the Great Lakes program for the Sierra Club.