Filed under: Local Events + Action, Waste + Recycling | Tags: "reduce, 3 r's, crap, debris, diaper, filth, garbage, junk, landfill, Lawrence, litter, poo, poop, recycle, reuse, rubbish, waste
Has the poo crusade of Brad Pooterish had an impact in America? Let’s take a look at waste reduction and recycling in Lawrence, KS to find out.
Use less CRAP, people! Reuse your crap! Recycle your crap!
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Local Events + Action, Waste + Recycling | Tags: "reduce, 3 r's, debris, diaper, diapers, filth, garbage, junk, landfill, Lawrence, litter, poop, recycle, reuse, rubbish, trash, waste
This is the account of a poo expert’s crusade to save landfill space for dirty diapers. Brad Pooterish, founder and CEO of Daddies Using Diapers (DUDs) shares a dirty little secret behind America’s looming landfill crisis.
All statistics in this video are true and based on real reports from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Diapers really do make up only 1.4% of the waste stream, while paper products and yard waste make up 47%. NO, paper and yard waste do NOT decompose in landfills. Landfills are designed to be a “dry tomb” environment; waste becomes mummified due to the lack of moisture and air flow.
What’s in your landfill?
REDUCE – REUSE – RECYCLE
For more info, visit http://www.epa.gov/msw/facts.htm
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Society + Media | Tags: blog, class, college, environment, green, tuition
I’d much rather spend my tuition dollars on a class like “Media & The Environment” – awesome guests, amazing field trips, free online readings, no exams – than the typical course where we listen to the same person lecture each time, nobody ever talks or shares opinions/ideas, you have to buy some big expensive textbook that you never read other than right before the exams, and you never really learn much about anyone else taking the class. I think this class was a truly worthwhile investment of both time and money.
I learned that there isn’t ONE solution just waiting for us to discover it. Nobody has all the answers – environmental issues are just too big and complex. However, there are a lot of little solutions that can be implemented in different ways that overall will have great impact. The future of humanity and the Earth will depend on every individual, world government, and business leader doing their part. Nobody is exempt; waiting around for someone else to find that ONE solution, for someone else to invent a technological fix, for someone else to figure out what to do with YOUR garbage … it won’t work. We all have to do our part, and we have to act now.
I learned that blogging can play a role in the communication of important issues and that bloggers can be a reliable information source (but be careful). I had never read a blog before this class, much less written for one. I always thought, “Who the hell are these bloggers? Who has time to blog? Don’t these people have real jobs?” Now I know the answer is that they’re people, just like me, who are passionate and have something to say. They squeeze blogging into their lives because they care and yes, most have ‘real’ jobs because blogging (in most cases) provides little to no income. (Suprise!)
I also learned that the frame in which I understand climate change and in which I make my daily choices is mine and may not make sense to anyone other than myself. Everyone has different values, different ideas, different priorities and agendas, different lenses through which they view the world – everyone is just different. We must consider these differences when framing environmental issues and make sure that the message is relevant to the audience that we are communicating with. Frame, re-frame, re-frame again and keep on keepin’ on. There will always be one more person down the road who’s just a little bit different from the last…
Anyway, I’ve learned more than what I’ve written here, but some of it is still digesting. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone in the class – some a little more than others and others maybe a bit too much – but it was always fun and interesting to hear what everyone was thinking. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to learn from y’all – hope to see some of you around this summer!
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Business + Politics, Waste + Recycling | Tags: conference, dream, eco-critic, environmentally, event, green, hotel, industry, meeting, planner, planning, responsible, stakeholder, sustainability, sustainable, theme, venue
Planning a conference gives you incredible purchasing power, why not use it for good?
(Image from Lunar Events, UK)
Each year, your event planning team meticulously plans a conference bringing thousands of the best from your industry together for a few days to learn and share expertise and discover the latest industry perspectives. Whether the theme is information security, investment strategy, global health, consumer demands, or one of a myriad of others, there is one thing that all conference planners must consider: sustainability of the conference itself.
Building sustainability practices directly into the conference itself can both wow your stakeholders by demonstrating that you’ve got green savvy while pleasing your eco-critics with your new and improved environmentally responsible conference.
A whole systems approach will maximize the sustainability factor of your next conference, here’s a few steps to get you started:
1. Cut printing and mailing costs by going paperless.
*Launch a website for the conference and perform registrations and confirmations electronically.
*Keep the conference agenda and other materials online providing on-demand access for individuals with computers or handheld devices.
*Advertise the conference using online marketing and email.
*Encourage conference speakers to post presentation handouts online rather than printing them out.
2. Use recycled, chlorine-free paper and vegetable-based inks when printed materials are absolutely necessary. Use both sides of each page.
3. Choose your host city carefully.
*Reduce travel by choosing a location that’s close to as many delegates and speakers as possible.
*Does the city have an eco-friendly reputation?
*A recycling program?
*Public transportation?
*Walking and bicycle routes?
4. Implement the 3Rs everywhere.
*You’re paying for the services of the hotel and/or conference venue, don’t hesitate to ask for visible and accessible reduction, reuse and recycling services for paper, plastic and other relevant conference materials.
*Or better yet, look for conference space (hotels, convention centers, universities) with recycling and/or composting programs already in a place.
*The morning coffee reception is an ideal time to implement the first two Rs: reduce and reuse. Get the event sponsors on board by providing reusable mugs printed with their logo(s). These can also be given away on the last day of the conference.
5. Use a responsible and environmentally conscious food and beverage service.
*Ask for meals that use fresh local produce, organic when possible, and free-range meat and poultry.
*Offer vegetarian meal options.
*Use reusable service ware and/or ensure that any packaging can be recycled or composted.
*Arrange for excess food and waste to be composted or donated to a soup kitchen or pig farm.
6. Green the swag.
*Distribute all giveaways in reusable bags.
*Suggest that your sponsors or exhibitors giveaway items that are in line with the conference’s sustainability values – recycled, durable, and/or reusable.
*Include a Poplar tree cutting as part of the mix, ask delegates to plant their tree back home to offset their carbon emissions from conference travel.
7. Promote your green conference innovations.
*Get creative, contact the media or network with bloggers to get the message out that you’re an environmental leader.
*Gather statistics about how many tons of waste were composted, recycled or avoided all together by your initiatives. Statistics can be expanded to include energy, fuel, and carbon savings.
*Remember: don’t make any claims that you can’t back up!
8. Educate yourself by finding out more! Check out these great resources:
Meeting Strategies Worldwide: sustainability experts
(Recently Launched!) Green Meeting Blog by event planning expert Nancy J. Wilson
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Green Meetings Initiative
EPA’s Guide to Planning and Conducting Environmentally Aware Meetings and Events
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Business + Politics, Society + Media | Tags: Business, carbon, care, compost, compostable, conference, conserve, dream, eco-critic, eco-friendly, emissions, engineers without borders, environmental, event, green, hotel, making a difference, meeting, offset, package, planner, planning, recycle, responsible, stakeholders, sustainability, sustainable, travel, venue
I recently returned from the Engineers Without Borders conference on “Sustainable Engineering and Global Health” in Seattle. The flight on Southwest was disappointing to say the least, from an environmental perspective, but the conference was a green dream come true, thanks to a “sustainability coordinator” in charge of making the conference itself as sustainable and carbon neutral as possible.
The first thing that I noticed was the in-room recycle bin at the hotel, shortly followed by the Project Planet door-hanging in the bathroom encouraging me to conserve water and use my towels more than once.
The next morning I discovered it was a mere 10-minute stroll from the hotel to the conference venue on the University of Washington campus. Cool, I thought, no need to waste money on a taxi.
Once at the conference hall, I lost myself in the fairyland of recycle and compost bins, zero paper handouts, and fully compostable beverage cups and napkins. It only got better as I picked up my t-shirt made from 100% fair-trade organic cotton and water-based ink. Lunch came and I found myself relishing the local, organic fare pre-boxed in compostable packaging. I had never been to a conference planned quite like this before – it was exciting!
To top it all off, EWB gave each of us a “Carbon Offset Care Package” complete with two hybrid Poplar tree cuttings to plant when we got home. After all, flying the 3,105 miles from Kansas City to Seattle I had emitted approximately 1,400 lbs. of CO2. I planted them as soon as I got home, because it was going to take the two of them together almost 20 years to offset my emissions from this single trip.
(My cute little Poplar trees are already growing after 1 week!)
The whole experience made me feel good. Sometimes, I feel as if I’m one of only a handful of people recycling or bringing my own cup to the coffee place, but at the conference, there were hundreds of us walking, recycling, composting, and maybe even planting all those trees. I felt like I was a part of something bigger than me and that that something was making a real difference in just one weekend. It was a real green dream come true!
Curious about how you might create a green dream for attendees at your next conference or meeting? See my next post: Wow your stakeholders (AND please eco-critics) with your next business conference.
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health | Tags: affordable, brands, budget, cows, dairy, generic, Great Value, grocery, hormone free, hormones, Kansas, Kroger, labels, lobby, milk, monsanto, organic, rbgh, rBST, Safeway, Wal-Mart, Walmart
Wal-Mart, the largest grocery retailer in the US, made a bold move last week when it announced that its Great Value brand milk will be sourced exclusively from hormone-free dairy cows. Other “budget” retailers like Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc. have changed their house brands to using exclusively hormone-free milk, too.
Why are budget groceries making the switch? Because customers have demanded it.
Not everyone can afford to purchase organic milk, often costing more than $3 for half a gallon as compared to around $1.70 for conventional milk. Store brands, or “generic” brands, offer the same kinds of products that national brands do, but at rock bottom prices. For consumers concerned about what’s in their milk, hormone free options from some of the most affordable brands in the US, like Great Value and Kroger, make a nice economic middle ground between conventional and certified organic.
Growth hormones, often referred to as rBST or RBGH, is marketed under the name Posilac by Monsanto, a giant agricultural company that also makes herbicides, insecticides, and genetically modified seeds. Some of you may remember that just this month Monsanto was lobbying in Kansas to keep milk producers from putting “hormone free” on their labels. We’re not the only ones. Monsanto has been waging big battles in other states as well (see this NY Times article).
Monsanto, are you listening? Consumers don’t want milk from cows treated with your product.
Monsanto may create front groups, lobby our government, and even try to control the media…
But we can all take comfort in knowing that in the end, it’s us – the consumers – who can stop a Goliath like Monsanto by simply voicing our concerns and putting our money where our mouth is. Thank you Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and others out there who are listening!
Learn more about the issues surrounding Monsanto and rBGH at Sustainable Table.
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: agriculture, center, city, environment, farm, farming, food, green, Health, Kansas, local, markets, organic, urban, vegetable
Simran Sethi’s Media & Environment class at the University of Kansas paid a visit to the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture (KCCUA). According to their website: The KCCUA operates the Kansas City Community Farm, a 2-acre, certified organic urban vegetable farm in the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, KS. The farm is used as an educational & research space for urban farmers and others interested in urban agriculture. Produce from the farm is available through the local Community-Supported Agriculture program (CSA) and farmers’ markets.
Please read Danae’s awesome post called “Organic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: try going local.”
~Sarah H
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Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: expensive, food, Health, money, natural, organic, poor, popcorn
I really enjoy organic foods. They have a more vibrant color, more pleasing texture and amazing flavors when compared to their counterparts that are produced in “conventional” ways. I’m also obsessed with organic dairy products and 100% whole wheat foods like bread, pasta, cereal, crackers, etc.; I just can’t get enough.
Yes, organic foods cost more. However, I feel that making the choice to nourish my body (the one and only body that I get for this lifetime) in the best way possible, and limiting its exposure to pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, and other chemicals as best I can is worth it. I don’t want to experience disease and other ailments, that could have been prevented, later in life. Why kick myself later when I can just follow the old “Better safe than sorry” rule right now? Health insurance and medical costs are expensive now; it’s quite likely that they will be just as expensive in the future, if not more so. So, for me, spending a little extra on organic foods is really an investment in my future – kinda like college. I spend $625 per class – I can think of a lot of other things that I could do with this money, but my education is worth it to me.
No, I’m not a kid with wealthy parents who pay for everything. I work 28 hours a week, my annual income is less than $20,000 and I’m just barely above the official “poverty” threshold determined by our government. Despite these things, I’m still convinced that I’m better off forking over the extra dough to purchase organic products. My overall health and well-being today, and 40 years from now, depend on the food choices that I make every day.
I’m not perfect. I do have a few non-organic guilty pleasures and they are Edy’s Slow Churned Rich & Creamy No Sugar Added Vanilla Light Ice Cream, microwave popcorn, Diet Dr. Pepper with Vanilla from Sonic (i.e. high fructose corn syrup), Craisins, and Wasabi Peas. Yes, microwave popcorn is probably the worst thing you can eat – hydrogenated fats, artificial flavors, artificial colors, artificial preservatives, and tons of salt all conveniently packaged at your fingertips. However, I did find Orville Redenbacher’s Natural Buttery Salt & Cracked Pepper to be the most delicious and not as horrible as others. Good old Orville, he even makes an Organic SmartPop Butter popcorn that is 94% fat free. No sign of it in stores around here, though.
So, even though I’m just as poor as the next guy or gal, it’s worth it to me to spend a little extra on the food that I put in my body. I’ll be thanking, rather than kicking, myself later.
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Waste + Recycling | Tags: "reduce, America, armor, effort, garbage, Iraq, metal, overseas, patriotic, recycle, reuse, soldier, supplies, support our troops, trash, troop, USA, war, waste, weapons
Definitely not as cool as “Make Love, Not War,” but hey, sometimes you just gotta try stuff out.
FACT: Americans collected and recycled rubber, paper, scrap metal, fats, and tin cans during the 1940s to help the war effort. These efforts actually resulted in 25% of the entire waste stream being recycled and reused!
(Source: EPA “Milestones in Garbage” report)
WWII: “Help put the lid on Hitler by saving your old metal and paper.”
FAST FORWARD: It’s 2004, America is again at war, this time in Iraq. Soldiers overseas defy orders and report to journalists that they don’t have the necessary armor on their bodies or their vehicles, and there aren’t enough field radios, night vision goggles, or ammunition to go around. Back home only 36% (about 7 million tons) of metals are being recycled. Metals during this time make up 8% of the total waste stream. This means that despite soldier needs, 19.4 million tons of metal are being buried in landfills. Could there have been a national war effort to recycle all of this metal to keep our soldiers adequately supplied? I think so.
(Source: EPA “Facts & Figures” data)
Did we let our troops fight without wartime necessities because nobody really asked us to DO anything? Sure, there are the signs, bumper stickers, etc. that yell “Support our Troops!” but what does that really mean? If someone had told you it meant recycling, would you have done it?
Maybe it’s time to make recycling a patriotic act…again. Recycle for your country, recycle for the troops! It’s your duty as an American, after all.
NOW: It’s 2008, we’ve still got troops in Iraq. We’ve still got families purchasing body armor for their sons and daughters with money out of their own pockets. The unmet needs of our troops overseas are still there.
Won’t you take a look at your garbage? Won’t you help us reduce, reuse and recycle?
I did take a look at my garbage. I produce less than a pound of waste each day. The average American produces about 7.5 pounds a week. However, you’ll never find a can, #1 or #2 plastic container, glass, any bit of cardboard, chipboard, or paper in my trash.
There’s a war on, don’t you know, and I’m doing my bit. Are you?
~ Sarah H
Above: Our recycling in the garage…
Below: Take a hint from the 1940s: carpool or ride a bike.
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Filed under: Local Events + Action | Tags: advisory, board, city, Climate, cool city, emissions, energy, environment, Force, government, green, greenhouse gas, Jeff, Kansas, KS, Lawrence, mayor, plan, Protection, resolution, Sethi, Severin, Simran, sustainability, Task
Our very own Simran Sethi and Jeff Severin were recently appointed to the Climate Protection Task Force for the city of Lawrence. The 13 (or so?) member group will be responsible for drafting a Climate Protection Plan for the city by February 2009. The task force was established by city Resolution No. 6752.
The task force was proposed by the Sustainability Advisory Board out of the Lawrence Waste Reduction & Recycling department, of which Simran is also a board member.
This follows former Mayor Highberger’s initiative to make Lawrence a “Cool City” when he signed the Mayoral Agreement to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions by at least 7% by 2012 back in March 2006. According to the Cool Cities website, our city is 4/5 of the way to becoming officially “cool.” Steps left to complete include adopting energy efficiency policies, green vehicle policies and renewable energy policies.
While we may be well on our way, the first step for the task force will be to compile data for the city’s green house gas emissions (GHG). Once a baseline has been established, we’ll be able to establish and measure the efficacy of a comprehensive GHG reduction program.
Our city is also one of 700 members of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) – Local Governments for Sustainability. The ICLEI helps Lawrence develop local sustainability campaigns and programs to raise awareness as well as other technical services and consultancy.
LJ World story here, note somewhat negative backlash in the comments under this story.
Wanna get involved in our city of Lawrence?
Check out the vacancies on City of Lawrence Boards and Commissions here. Cruise around www.lawrenceks.org to read agendas, minutes, find meeting times and more about the government where we live. Click on “Calendar” to see a comprehensive schedule of meeting times and locations; most are open to the public!
Congratulations to Simran and Jeff!
~Sarah H
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J500 Media and the Environment 