From Bryan Welch:
In this presentation, Malcolm Gladwell answers an important question that came up during my talk with your class. I’d love for you guys to see it!
Filed under: Business + Politics, Society + Media, Waste + Recycling | Tags: 3 r's, environment, green, resole, shoe, simple, timberland
Yesterday I took a broad look at America’s shoe problem
Now I’d like to take things down a notch and look at the shoe bid’ness on the local level.
Arensberg’s Shoes has been operating in Lawrence since 1956. The family-owned store sells about 8,000 shoes a year.
I worked as a sales associate at Arensberg’s for 11 months. I have the utmost respect for the store and the management. They are the only shoe store that I have ever been to where the employees genuinely care about the health, comfort and satisfaction of their customers. However, I think the business could make simple changes that would significantly alter their environmental impact.
REDUCE
Almost all purchases are placed in yellow plastic bags. In the olden days, the sales associates at Arensberg’s used to tie boxes with string so that the customer could simply carry the boxes out holding the string. A spool still sits on the front desk in case their is a shortage of bags, but it is rarely used.
Towards the end of my shoe selling career, I started asking customers if they would prefer their boxes tied. To my surprise, many opted out of using a plastic bag. They were fascinated by this archaic technique and appreciated the extra effort.
If employees began asking customers if they would prefer a bag or a tie, I think the store would use far fewer bags – helping the environment and their expenses.
RESOLE
The Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada
I was baffeled by the amount of people who asked me to throw away perfectly good shoes. They would come in to buy new shoes because their sole had worn down, or worse – because a lace had snapped in two. Lordy Mae!
I think the Arensberg’s, as well as all Lawrence shoe stores should put a highly visible sign at the front desk that advertises BKB leather (a local shoe repair shop) and be more open to letting people know that they can easily and inexpensively repair most worn down shoes.
RECYCLE
Each pair of shoes are shipped to Arensberg’s in large cardboard boxes. Each individual shoe box is filled with oodles of packaging and mutltiple wads of paper are stuffed into each shoe to maintain the shape. There’s also usually a cardboard divider between the two shoes and tissue paper wrapped around each shoe. Almost all of this packaging will be taken out of the box and thrown away
This store could greatly lower their impact by recycling the packaging that comes from each opened shoe box.
REVAMP
I must give kudos to Arensberg’s for selling Timberland and Simple brand shoes – two companies that are use eco-frieldy and recycled materials, and are working to change the sustainability of the shoe industry.
I think they could expand their eco-friendly shoe selection and make a special section of the store dedicated to lower impact shoes. In addition to providing customers with the option of going green, it would also raise awareness about the environmental impact of the shoe industry and what to look for when trying to avoid shoes with a large carbon footprint.
-Travis Brown
P.S. Here’s a fun tip: The inside of a banana peal is a great non-toxic alternative to shoe polish.
Filed under: Food + Health, Waste + Recycling | Tags: divacup, environment, feminine hygiene waste, menstruation, packaging, tampons, TSS
Authors Note 5/5/08: This blog post has been re-posted on the GreenOptions
Every month it comes and goes, effecting women (and those around them) in their personal health, hormonally, emotionally and on a broader scale, in their environment.
Yes, I am talking about menstruation.
Menstruation is an issue that does pertain to both men and women. There is not an issue of menstruation itself, something that I feel should be celebrated, and not something taboo, uncomfortable, and feared. Unfortunately, there is an issue with the toxicity and disposability of the way women “take care of this problem”.
So, how is it relevant to men? If you have a women in your life, mother, sister, daughter, significant other, show them you care about their personal health by telling them about the consequences of using disposable products!
Excerpted from the Environmental Magazine’s article Inner Sanctum on the issue:
“According to waste consultant Franklin Associates, 6.5 billion tampons and 13.5 billion sanitary pads, plus their packaging, ended up in landfills or sewer systems in 1998. And according to the Center for Marine Conservation, over 170,000 tampon applicators were collected along U.S. coastal areas between 1998 and 1999.”
Can I get Chris Jordan to depict this please?
What makes up the tampon anyway? Think about the pesticide ridden cotton, the trees that make up the cardboard, or the oil used to produce the plastic… made just for us to collect and throw away our menstrual blood.
Not only is there so much waste generated from the use of “feminine hygiene products” (how cold does that sound?) but chlorine dioxide, a known carcinogen, is used to whiten the cotton used in these products .
In support of Stacy Malkan’s argument of exposing the toxic chemicals in our cosmetics, women should have an outright choice of what type of alternatives they have with their products they use for their menstruation, not just Cardboard of Plastic, with a disclaimer on Toxic Shock Syndrome.
So, what are the alternatives? Organic tampons and pads, reusable pads, or my personal savior and favorite alternative, THE CUP! (All conveniently sold locally by The Merc)
Organic tampons and pads are a great alternative, they eliminate the toxic qualities in normal tampons and are perfect for those who don’t want to take the plunge into getting to personal with their menstrual blood, although there still is the consequence of waste as a by-product.
The real excitement starts with the cup, a reusable product that captures menstrual blood and can be used for years that is safe for the body (is is made out of soft medical-grade silicon).
Personally, I have been using the cup for years, and I have never felt better about having my period. I feel more at whole with myself, kind of how when you switch to organic foods, you feel better about how you are taking care of your body, as well as the environment.
By using the cup, you are wasting considerably less, you save an incredible amount of money, it is more comfortable, less of a hassle worrying about health consequences, and you quite frankly, learn a lot more about the way your body works.
Without going into to much more personal detail, check out these websites for more information:
Menstruation is constant personal factor in our lives, just as much as food and energy is, so consider being good to your body and the environment!
Photo from flickr by Nopopcomics
-Juliana
Filed under: Society + Media | Tags: fall formal recruitment, greek alphabet, greek rush, panhellenic, sorority bid day, sorority recruitment, University of Kansas
theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega. GO GREEK!
You may hear the Greek alphabet, among other crazy sorority chants, during the week of Panhellenic’s Fall Formal Recruitment. This week at the University of Kansas typically occurs the same week that classes start in the fall, and lasts a total of seven days. The process of formal recruitment is the main source of new member “inflow,” so to speak, for the thirteen sororities on campus. After a long week of visiting each sorority, and mutually selecting chapters you feel most comfortable with, the new members celebrate with a grand finale: bid day.
Yay, we’re all happy, happy, joy, joy and singing our lovely sorority songs, and life is wonderful! Yippee!
But, wait. What really goes on during this time period? Well, I can tell you, there’s a lot of unneeded waste going on. Sorority recruitment is an event that could use some “greenin’ up.” On the first two days of recruitment alone, each of the approximately 800 potential new members attends all 13 sororities. This means, each chapter they enter, a potential new sorority member is handed a cup of ice cold water and a personalized napkin. Therefore, on average, 10,400 cups are used and disposed of within 20 minutes of their first use, as well as 10,400 napkins.
This waste does not include the paper waste that goes into this week. Each new member applicant must submit multiple page resumes, pictures, and recommendation forms. Pretty typical for any application process. But then each individual chapter will print out multiple-page notebooks, packets, song lyric sheets, instruction sheets, schedules, etc. and distribute these to the thousands of Greek women helping out with recruitment at their separate chapters.
On top of that, the entire recruitment staff moves their office from the Union (right on campus) to a hotel that is about an 8 minute drive away. Recruitment staff members will be driving around campus all day, back and forth from the hotel “office” to sorority chapter houses, running memo’s (more paper waste), nametags, and water (in bottles, of course).
It’s a relatively short process, compared to other year-round businesses, but I believe every organization and event can use this opportunity to better the environment. It’s just as simple to cut down on these wastes by cutting the unnecessary means sorority recruitment has come to. For those of you not in a sorority and those of you who are, please tell me you can relate to this situation: You walk into a restaurant and see that the staff serves you drinks in red plastic cups instead of chic martini glasses. Their napkins are rough against your skin, as opposed to a soft pashmina lap towel. But, the food is wonderful — the best you’ve ever had. Do you say to yourself, “I’m never coming back to this place again! Those red cups are absolutely abhorrable; I would never put my lips to such abominable glasses!” I’d hope you would reply that this situation is a little exaggerated and a little ridiculous… because, it is. As a member of a Greek chapter, I didn’t choose my sorority based on the pink streamers or plastic goblets I drank my lemon water out of — I chose it because of the quality of the end product, just as anyone does when making decisions on a restaurant, a hotel, or an apartment. You give and take a little when making decisions, and in this case, those “gives” should be aspects of the process that harm the environment.
Cups, napkins, and papers should be these little things that don’t help the process of sorority recruitment whatsoever. The volume at which these little things that are carelessly thrown away within the hour of their use is just repulsive. Another way to reduce waste is an update in technology. I’ve got to hand it to the Panhellenic Association at KU, though. This year was the first year that all the bidding and application process was conducted electronically. However, many other processes are still behind. If each sorority on campus and Panhellenic banded together to create an easier process using the technology we now have, many of the paper waste could be thwarted. It’s all about making things simple. If I’m not going to choose your sorority based on the pretty pink embroidered napkin that I barely noticed during my 20 minutes in your chapter house, then it’s not something a sorority should waste money on and waste the environment on, too.
-Danae
Filed under: Art + Religion, Society + Media | Tags: 10 Commandments, Catholic, change, environment, facebook, global warming, God, green movement, Lauren Keith, pollution, Pope, Prius, Vatican
Photo from HouseofDavid.
Are you there, God? It’s me, global warming.
When I logged on to Facebook yesterday, I was disturbed to see that my two least favorite things (organized religion and Yahoo! Inc.) have friend requested my best buddy, the Green Movement.
And the Green Movement accepted their friend request.
In a story posted yesterday on Yahoo! Green (which I had no idea existed until 12 hours ago), the Catholics’ second-in-command declared pollution a sin.
According to the article, the Pope has made a decent fuss about environmental problems, enough so to scare some churches to invest in eco-palms for this year’s Palm Sunday.
As much as I disagree with everything else the Pope stands for, I like seeing a major religion acknowledge and combat the climate crisis. In fact, Vatican announced plans last summer to become the world’s first carbon-neutral state. Yahoo’s article said that photovoltaic cells have been installed and that the Church has discussed the consequences of global warming.
Even though pollution is now one of the seven deadly sins, recent studies show that fewer Catholics are attending confession. It’s okay, sinners, the rest of the human race doesn’t want to own up to global warming yet either.
While Catholics only have a few new sins to steer clear of, I’ve compiled the Green Movement’s 10 “Greenmandments” to make sure the rest of us can also avoid eternal damnation.
And Mother Earth did spake:
I: Thou shalt have no other planets before Me.
II: Thou shalt not exploit resources in vain.
III: Thou shalt take a break from electronic devices and unplug them while not in use.
IV: Thou shalt recycle, even if thou must driveth to Wal-Mart in thy carbon dioxide emitting, 10-miles-per-gallon-getting Hummer.
V: Thou shalt not kill animals grown in factory farm conditions.
VI: Thou shalt not sleep with polluters to convert them to thine side.
VII: Thou shalt not steal, because then thou art consuming earthly goods.
VIII: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor’s greenhouse gas emissions.
IX: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s solar panels, greywater irrigation system or organic garden because thou shalt soon have one of thine own.
X: Thou shalt not key thy neighbor’s Prius, even if thou would like to own one or thou knoweth the truth about its origins.
Hallelujah! Praise be with the planet.
—Lauren Keith
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Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health, Society + Media, Waste + Recycling | Tags: waste, plastic, recycling, preservatives, Airlines, airline food, convenience, wrappers, biofuels, flying, single serving
As we bounced through the turbulence somewhere over Nevada, our flight attendant announced that he would soon be serving the in-flight meal: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich doesn’t really count as a meal in my book, but I thought I would give it a try. And while I didn’t regret snacking on a childhood favorite, I couldn’t believe how much waste that decision was about to create.
I peeled open the cellophane wrapper and pulled out the plastic tray. Inside was an individually wrapped Smucker’s Uncrustables sandwich (do people really buy these?), a bag of baby carrots, and foil wrapped cookies. Shortly after that, the attendant brought by another plastic-wrapped plastic tray with vacuum-sealed salami, cellophane wrapped crackers, and a plastic container of cheese spread. In a matter of minutes I had generated a massive pile of non-recyclable petroleum-based waste. And while I didn’t spend much time looking at the individual labels, I can imagine I ingested more than a healthy amount of sodium, fat, and chemical preservatives in the process.
Image: Jet Trails, 2007 – Chris Jordan
With nearly 30,000 commercial flights a day in the US, we’re not only leaving a trail of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but mounds of garbage on the ground. The NRDC reports that US airlines throw out enough aluminum cans every year to build 58 Boeing 747’s. And that’s just the trash that’s recyclable. All told, airlines produce about 1.3 pounds of garbage per passenger. It seems like this industry has plenty of room for greening, starting with a few simple steps:
Recycle those aluminum cans: This is a no-brainer, but it isn’t happening. Airlines and airports could even save some money in the process.
Reconsider airline food – especially the packaging: Instead of everything being individually wrapped in plastic, perhpas airplane meals could be served in a compostable, compartmentalized paper tray sealed with 1 cellophane top. And all those aluminum cans could be eliminated by using a fountain-style dispenser instead of cans. One had been developed for the now defunct National Airlines, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else. (Perhaps the dispenser was part of their demise?)
Educate people about their options: While there may not be room for a full kitchen and dish set in the cabin of a plane, the overall waste could obviously be reduced by encouraging reusables. There is nothing wrong with packing your own reusable flatware, cups, and mugs.
Despite these simple steps, the biggest news in greening airlines these days seems to focus on reducing the carbon footprint of the industry through carbon offsets. Virgin Atlantic also recently made history by powering a flight from London to Amsterdam with a biofuel blend. But offsets don’t reduce carbon emissions and even Virgin admits that the biofuel they used isn’t the answer. Maybe they should start by getting rid of all of our single serving friends.
- Jeff Severin
Filed under: Business + Politics, Local Events + Action, Waste + Recycling | Tags: apartment, beer, cans, curbside recycling, Kansas, Lawrence, Lawrence Sustainability Advisory Board, recycle, rent, whisky
Sunday morning is depressing. Beer cans, whisky bottles and plastic cups on streets, front yards and in a dumpster. This is a college town. I can’t stop thinking how much waste has been thrown in one day without being recycled.
My proposal for Lawrence business – Why don’t we green student apartments? Solar power, storm-water system, composite toilets, we can be as much as creative. But I think most practical and user-friendly idea is to provide a recycling service to large apartment complexes, such as the Reserve, Legends Place and Hawks Pointe. Just like the campus recycling, place recycle bins next to regular dumpsters.
Benefits of this proposal- We don’t have to drive for recycling. It will raise the residents’ awareness and make environmentalism more mainstream. The service will expand business opportunities in Lawrence.
The most single problem is the cost. At what cost, can the apartment complexes offer this kind of service? Currently, Sunflower Curbside Recycling picks up residential recycling with $16/month for a weekly service and $10/month for a biweekly service.
The Lawrence Journal World recently reported the future possibility of municipal curbside recycling in Lawrence. The curbside recycling has been a top priority of the city’s Sustainability Advisory Board. According to the article’s estimate, such a municipal service will require $5.6 million to start and $2 million a year to keep it running. This will add $12 to each residential utility bill for once-a-week curbside collection.
Based on those numbers, let’s assume the recycling service would cost between $12 and $16, which will be included to rent. Do you think the residents of the apartments are willing to pay this price? Twelve dollars per month sounds expensive to me, but if you think they will split the cost with their roommates, it’s not that much.
As the city envisions, ideally the recycling service will be available to all Lawrence residents. But it will take time. Plus, I think this is particularly important to be initiated at larger apartment complexes first. It’ll be more cost-efficient and its influence will be huge in terms of changing the residents’ and students’ behavior and the amount of materials recycled.
I’ll end my proposal with the quote of Celeste Hoins, administrative manager of the Environmental Stewardship Program at KU, who talked to me about the KU recycling service last semester.
“The visibility of our containers encouraged recycling. It’s a habit. Once you start recycling, then you feel weird throwing a plastic bottle in a trash.” (The University Daily Kansan, “New Service Recycles Campus Furniture“)
By Sachiko Miyakawa
Photo credit: Hastings Borough Council
Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health, Society + Media | Tags: food costs, Grain, junk food, McDonalds, U.S. economy
Anyone else find this photo creepy?
Something about the sunglasses, I guess. Or the export of American culture.
The photo dipicts clowns who were on hand to celebrate the opening of a McDonald’s in Beijing, and it was part of a New York Times article about the company’s record profits in February. McDonald’s profits jumped 11.7 percent internationally, fueled in part by Leap Year sales but also the weak U.S. dollar. You can get more Mac for your Yuan these days.
I’d like to use that story to play the Six Degrees of Separation game. But instead of people, in this instance, I’d like to look at the short distance between food news. We know McDonald’s is doing well – that’s one data point. Let’s put another marker by the story that University of Washington researchers determined that calorie for calorie, junk food is way cheaper than good-for-you food. According to the researchers, who compared foods in major grocery stores in the Seattle area, you pay $1.76 per 1,000 calories for sugary, fatty foods that have the most calories, but you pay $18.16 per 1,000 calories for the lowest-calorie foods (which are most often better for you, such as fruits and vegetables).
Now, here’s our third degree: increasing food costs overall. We’ve endured a 4.2 increase for meats, fish, veggies, fruit, dairy and eggs in 2007, and there’s a predicted jump of 3.5 to 4.5 percent in food costs for this year. May not sound like much to you as an individual, but when you add in higher fuel costs for gasoline and heating your home, you’re bound to notice it.
And finally, there isn’t enough grain to go around. We’re looking at a worldwide grain shortage brought about in part by more people on the planet, corn-hungry biofuels such as ethanol, and fewer acres to grow food successfully. Or, you can think of it the way Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource put it in this comprehensive look at grain shortages:
“Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,” Basse said. “But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.”
When I look at the big, big picture, taking all this news and more into account, I’m scared by what I see coming together. A faltering U.S. economy. More people are cash-strapped and rely on unhealthy, calorie-dense foods. Those unhealthy foods gobble up lots of resources (transportation, grain for animal meats, land and plastics for packaging, among them). Global warming may restrict those resources even further. At the same time, prices for all foods are going up, driven in part by scarcity of supply. Already, some nations have to safeguard grain supplies that are distributed to keep people from rioting.
There’s no easy way to answer such a complex economic web of problems. But I think that if anything would bring about change to the American, Western diet that the world seems to embrace more and more often, it’s going to be the force wielded by economics. If there isn’t enough money to buy meat, or bread or milk, at some point we will be forced to go without it. I wonder how that will affect that jump in profit at McDonalds?*
*And I’m not picking on McD’s as the evil empire, but they are a mom and apple pie export of American living, as well as an enormous corporate success. About 47 million people each day eat at the 31,000 McDonald’s locations worldwide. That’s roughly the entire populations of Greece, Australia and the Netherlands combined.
–Jen Humphrey
Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: morels, mushroom hunting, spring greens, stinging nettles, wild edibles
Maybe you’ve noticed that it’s getting warm enough to be tolerable outdoors again (knock on wood); the birds are chirping at the crack of dawn right outside your window, people are outside and smiling at the same time, girls are wearing oversized sweatshirts but forgetting their pants – hey, it’s too warm to remember the spandex these days! Just ask this chick:
Flashdance
Plants have started noticing spring’s arrival – especially since they set their clocks forward an hour over the weekend. Crocuses are popping up, trees have buds, even the chocolate mint in my garden is coming out to say hello. Wild edibles – meaning plants that you don’t have to plant or pay for – are getting ready for the warm weather, too.
Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), www.gardenorganic.org.uk
If you’ve ever accidentally grabbed a stinging nettle, you’d know it, my field guide cautions: “Handle only with gloves“. When still young, with shoots just a few inches tall, simmering the pale top leaves for about 15 minutes makes a great side dish when served with butter and a squeeze of lemon. (Don’t worry, the stingers are disarmed by the cooking process.) You can also boil the young shoots and leaves to make a tea high in Vitamins A and C, and I would recommend adding a sweetener. Stinging nettles also have medicinal qualities; if you’re feeling particularly arthritic – or masochistic – purposely stinging yourself can be a good thing.
Morel Mushrooms (Morchella esculenta); Pamela Kaminski
Wild mushroom hunting is an activity everyone should try at least once – it’s a great date idea: just the two of you, looking in the woods for a hidden meal, the ecstatic frenzy of the find…. you get the idea.
Morels are one of the easier mushrooms to gather without risking your life: false morels (the poisonous ones) look identical to the edible variety except only the ones you eat are hollow. They’re commonly found in moist areas, especially after a good warm rain, in shadier areas – think river banks, etc. There is even a local mushroom hunting group, but don’t be surprised if they don’t share their frequented hunting spots, it’s actually bad form to ask!
Luckily for us, there are two great field guides – Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie and Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie – written by Kelly Kindscher, a professor at KU and a researcher for the Kansas Biological Survey. So as the weather warms up, keep your eye out for these two plants and more. If you eat wild foods, there really can be such a thing as a free lunch!
AZ Bushwacking Guide to Edible Wild Plants
News Reporter goes looking for Mushrooms
–Jennifer
