CT Green Scene

How Do I Dispose of...

The Connecticut Weather Center Inc. Kicks Off it’s “KEEP IT GREEN TOUR” supporting the Center’s Recycling efforts at the Woodrow Wilson Middle School student parking lot (formerly Middletown High School) on August 23, 2008 from 9:00am-12:00pm, 370 Hunting Hill Ave, Middletown Connecticut. The event is “Rain or Shine.” This event will kick off the “Keep It Green” tour “on the road” where vans will provide drop off locations all over the State of Connecticut taking your old or unwanted electronics for recycling.

As part of the Connecticut Weather Center’s mission to provide public service and be environmentally friendly, the Center has been a recycling point for electronic equipment since 2006. Electronic items that can be dropped off at the Center’s statewide locations are listed under “Recycling Efforts” on their web page.

This is a great opportunity for people to dispose of electronic equipment for free and help to keep our planet green.  Items that may be dropped off in working or non-working condition are: Home and Business electronics including Computer equipment and Monitors, televisions, Cell phones, mice, keyboards, printers, etc. The Connecticut Weather Center Inc. will be working in cooperation with the ComputerRecycler.com of Cromwell Connecticut who assures the erasing and shredding of data storing equipment such as hard drives.

Look for the Connecticut Weather Center Van in the parking lot! For more information please call the Connecticut Weather Center Inc. at 203.730.2899.

Biodegradable Dog Poop Bags

On What to with A Handful of Dog Poo

by Elizabeth Howard

After we got finished discussing wine, films, Sex and the City, Myanmar and the general state of the weather at our cozy Southport luncheon, we finally got around to chatting about poo.

It started innocently enough, with a conversation about weaning ourselves off of plastic grocery bags. 

It evolved from the full-fledged bags to finding a replacement for the produce bags, which I had recently found a solution for.

"But then, you know," Carol asked, "what do you do about picking up the dog poop?" Carol is nothing if not practical. And she has a Black Lab.

Not to worry: when we aren't slathering butter on a cob, or pumping it into our gas tank, corn apparently has another brilliant use: biodegradable dog poop bags!

NOTE: The instructions on this product say you can toss the pet waste in the compost heap. DON'T!! Pet feces should not be mixed with normal garden compost that may come in contact with food. For a better alternative, check out Sharon Slack's Pet Waste Composter.

Recycling is Too Much Fun! Take 7,382 chopsticks...

OK: we are going to make this an ongoing series. This week's entry: chopsticks. Can you match this?

Thanks to CraftingaGreenWorld for their take on this though this is all over the Web right now:

Living in the Western world we Americans aren’t quite attuned to the disposal of used chopsticks. It simply isn’t that big of a problem, as we hurl food into our gaping maws with spiky metal shovels. Generally speaking, the only time we chop down forests in order to feed ourselves is when McDonalds expands its beef production into the Amazon. The Chinese, our brothers and sisters across the great blue expanse, have an additional problem: chopsticks. They produce approximately 45 billion pairs a year, most of which being as disposable as a Uwe Boll movie. That amounts to about 25 million trees a year.

Fun, Function, Art and Sustainablity

Consumers currently use 500 billion (yes, that's with a "B") plastic bags each year for shopping: that's 60,000 every 5 seconds. And what happens to many of those bags?

According to the San Fransisco Chronicle, "In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - the enormous stew of trash - twice the size of Texas, which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii."

OnusGear is focused on the solution. They have developed a unique way
to reduce the use of plastic bags and inspire community participation by conducting monthly design contests through their website, OnusGear.com.

Members can submit designs and other members can vote once per day.
Each month the 3 designs with the most votes will have their winning images printed on the heavy-duty canvas bags that come complete with a beverage holder and straps that are easy to sling over your shoulder. Membership is free.

The theme for the May contest is any design that has to do with trees.

So grab a pen, let the creative juices flow, and sign up on their website to submit your own design and vote!

Help the Planet and Our Students: Recycle Your Cellphones!

Image via TreeHugger

The average lifespan, in months, of a cell phone in the US, according to Earthworks' Recycle My Cell Phone. At that rate, 130 million cell phones are added to the waste stream in the US every year. Worldwide, according to CNN (and noted here on TreeHugger), global mobile phone use will top 3.25 billion users in 2007. Yikes.

Well, here in Connecticut...you can do something!

During the month of May (and year-round for those of you who are interested), The Metropolitan Learning Center Class of 2013 is sponsoring a collection of old and/or unused cell phones for recycling through Phoneraiser. 

Cell phones may be dropped off at MLC, located at 1551 Blue Hills Avenue, Bloomfield, CT.  Cell phones can also be given to any MLC student from Bloomfield, East Windsor, Enfield, Hartford, Windsor and Windsor Locks.  To arrange a collection box for your company/office or for pick-up of large quantity donations, call 7th grade parent representative Laurie Prouty at (860) 212-2383 or email MLCclassof2013@aol.com.

Don't Use Your Dryer on National Hanging Out Day

By Alex and Jordan of Little People, Big Changes

Did you know that the electricity your dryer uses takes up about 6% of your electricity bill and that there are 88 million dryers in the world! 

In fact, the average American uses more energy running a clothes dryer than the average African uses all year round for their energy needs.  We can all save a lot of electricity by using the wind and the sun to dry our clothes instead of a machine.

April 19th is “National Hanging Out” Day! Show your support by hanging an item of clothing from a pole in front of your house or simply hang your laundry out to dry on a line to show that you are willing to change little things in order to help reduce carbon emissions.  Our planet needs you! If you absolutely must use your dryers, there are still things you can do to help.  Lower your temperature settings and for your washer, use warm water instead of hot when possible.  Make sure your washer or dryer is full before running it.  Clean your dryer filter after every use.

We hope to see you in your long johns on April 19th! Your friends, Alex and Jordan

Landfills aren't the Crisis

NPR had a "Trash Talk" series this week, and my favorite was the interview with Eric Lombardi from Eco-Cycle.  He said:

"We never had a landfill crisis. What we have is a resource-efficiency crisis. There are resource wars going around the planet right now to get the raw materials that are being destroyed in our landfills and our incinerators."

To listen to the interview, click here, or read and print the transcript here. Lombardi is among the experts whose goal isn't REDUCING waste-- it's ZERO waste. Waste is expensive and inefficient.

For Other Trash Talk from NPR this week see "Getting Rid of Junk, Staying Green."

How Green can St. Patrick’s Day Be??

By Kia Martinson-Wenzel

www.ESTOccasions.com

You won’t need the help of wee little leprechauns to make your St. Patrick’s Day celebration green in all sense of the word. Just a little clever planning and effort will lead to a successful green event.

First off, comes the invitations to your green party. Online sites like www.evite.com and www.zoji.com allow to send and keep track of your guest list. Do something clever and have everyone bring a green article of clothing that can be donated to the Salvation Army. This is a great way to get a head start on spring cleaning and to help out others.

Visit your local nursery and purchase a full sheet of clovers in mini biodegradable planters. Fill one of your trays at home with them and place them in the middle of your party table as the centerpiece. Best thing is, that at the end of the party, let your friends take some home with them to plant. So with one stop you have taken care of your centerpiece and favors.

Serve www.Steaz.com sparkling green tea soda. Their use of the best tea leaves and organic sugar cane gives the product an amazing taste. Now there are more flavors than just green tea to try. Local Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joes and other health stores do carry them. Finding a great organic beer is getting easier for all of your beer lovers. In Portland Maine, Peak Organic Beer brews three different types of beer. All of their barley and hops are grown without toxics or pesticides. www.Peakbrewing.com Serve these all in your biodegradable plastic cups. The Fabrikal cups are made agricultural crops, like potatoes and corn. They are reusable but the amazing thing is that they can be placed in your compost pile and they will biodegrade. Order them at www.greenearthofficesupply.stores.yahoo.net

Start your party off with a chilled cantaloupe melon soup. This can be made in a day or two before the party. Serve them in shot glasses as a starter or a passed appetizer. For added cuteness place them in the clover tray and give the centerpiece an extra duty. A simple Kiwi and green grape salad is a refreshing treat. While it can be hard to locate great food that is green in color, just remember to keep it green in the other sense.

If there is going to be children at the party, have them all bring two old coffee cans and have them make their own Lime ice cream. This is a great way to show them how to recycle a common household item and it is fun. http://crafts.kaboose.com/coffee-can-ice-cream.html

Last of all, for all the parents who send in treats for the St. Patty’s Day parties at school, this year send in a packet of seeds for each child. Have your own child pick out their favorite green veggies and give peas, cucumbers and lettuce packets. We can all hope the children will be interested in growing and making their yard a little greener this spring.

         

Will Connecticut Ban Plastic Bags?

It seems there's another battle being fought, though both sides appear to agree on one thing: plastic bags = bad news for the environment. Retail stores seem to favor incentives such as charging for using plastic, or rebates given for plastic bags that are returned to the store, but lots of people think an outright ban is the way to go.

What's most interesting is yet again, our youth in Connecticut is leading the charge!

According to this article in The Day...

On Monday, the growing movement to curtail the use of plastic bags by grocery stores and other retail outlets gained a foothold in Connecticut when the legislature's Environment Committee heard testimony on a bill that would ban the use of non-biodegradable bags by 2010. Americans use an estimated 50 billion to 80 billion plastic bags annually, only a small fraction of which get reused or recycled.

“Life will go on without plastic bags, as it did for thousands of years,” said Emily Rintoul, 15, of Portland, one of several youths who urged lawmakers to push Connecticut to become the first state to enact a law to ban or discourage their use. “Please don't pass this burden of these bags onto my generation.”

Eleven-year-old Malaika King of Hartford, who preceded Rintoul with similar testimony, concluded by handing out nylon reusable bags to each member of the committee. Her mother, Imani Zito, sells the bags in her store, The Green Vibrations Alchemy Café and Eco Boutique in Hartford.

Sleep Better with IKEA

Last year, Sweden-based IKEA launched an initiative called “Bag the Plastic  Bag.” 

The  goal was to reduce the more than 100 billion plastic  bags used annually in the United States. Beginning March 15, 2007,  they began charging customers 5 cents for every plastic bag; they  also reduced the price of their durable, reusable IKEA blue bag from  99 cents to 59 cents. 

And, to make it a win-win for everyone, all proceeds from the plastic bag sales are donated to American Forests, the  nation’s oldest non-profit citizens’ conservation organization.   IKEA North America has partnered with American Forests through the  Global ReLeaf Tree Planting program and over ten years, has planted 
more than 500,000 Global ReLeaf trees in environmental restoration  projects.

So how much  money has been raised by selling the plastic bags, by what percentage were they able to reduce the number of plastic bags used, and what are their plans for the next phase of the “Bag the Plastic Bag” program?  (The  goal was a 50% reduction in bag usage, but it’s projected that that they surpassed expectations.) Stay tuned or read on for reasons why banning plastic bags is vital.