Well I’m on the fence about this as we believe in grasscycling (leaving your grass clippings on the lawn for natural fertilizer), but I just came across this article ::
The rise in the demand of bio-fuel has forced scientists to think of ways to produce fuel which don’t depend on food crops. Scientists at the National Science Foundation think they can produce bio-fuel from leftovers such as grass clipping and other organic waste.
Also
“So we have a billions tons of year of this stuff and it just, it sits around and it rots and it goes up into the atmosphere…why not use that and make energy out of it before it rots,” says John Regalbuto of the National Science Foundation.
Forest Ethics just came out with their new paper products report card. The report card rates the office companies on six forest-related environmental measures, including the extent to which they avoid selling paper from Endangered Forests and other controversial sources, and to which they instead promote paper from certified well-managed forests and recycled fiber.
Since 2007, ForestEthics has teamed up with Dogwood Alliance to create the Green Grades office supply report card to inform American consumers and large purchasers of office supply products about which companies’ paper practices safeguard the environment and the world’s forests.
I’ve had these apps for a while and it just occured to me that not everyone spends hours sorting thru the IPhone App Store…so here you go…my guide to 3 eco-apps I use at least twice a week::
Monterey Bay Seafood Guide App
Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Guide ::
This iPhone application brings the latest Seafood Watch recommendations directly to your iPhone or iPod touch. Now you can make sustainable seafood choices quickly and easily—whether you’re eating at your favorite restaurant or shopping for dinner. And at a time when the world’s oceans are severely overfished, your seafood choices make a big difference. Get the app before you buy another fish! I was very surprised by some of the fish on the no-buy list!
IRecycle: What and Where you can recycle those #5 plastic things!
Earth 911’s IRecycle App::
Earth911 has put out a neat iPhone app that makes recycling locally super simple, telling you exactly what you can recycle and where to take it when you’re ready to send it off.
From Earth911:
Compatible with both iPhone and iTouch, iRecycle brings you Earth911.com’s national, comprehensive database of over 100,000 recycling and proper disposal locations for over 200 products at the touch of a button. Whether you need to recycle motor oil and CFLs in San Francisco or rechargeable batteries and paint in Washington, DC, iRecycle can connect you with real, local options.
Even when you think you’re eco-savvy, sometimes you still find yourself asking, “Can I recycle this? If so…who takes it?” Kinda cool your phone can now answer that for you. The app tells you not only what and where, but even the hours of operation of the facilities and directions on how to get there. Check out Earth911 for download details. And, it’s free!
Greenpeace: Stop using old growth forests paper prodcuts!
Greenpeace’s Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide::
The Guide makes it quick and easy to find out which brands of facial tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, and napkins are truly green and which should be avoided. Our experts have carefully evaluated over 100 brands and recommended those that: contain 100% overall recycled content; contain at least 50% post-consumer recycled content; and are bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.
When you’re doing your grocery shopping or just stopping by the corner store to grab a roll of toilet paper, make an informed decision as both a consumer and someone concerned about the world’s ancient forests. Below is the online version. Above is the Iphone app version. Interesting that CVS paper towels rank above many others.
The New York Times has been regularly publishing articles about composting. It seems there are a lot of hip people in NYC apartments feeding their NY Times to their worms! I too shred my Sunday times (the only day I get a paper delivered) and use that on top of my can-o-worms composter. I was feeling like that was the best solution until this article today: Urban Composting: A New Can of Worms.
I was Wrong: Better to Recycle that Paper::
In this article they state that it is better for the environment to recycle that paper than to compost it. They also reiterate the importance of not throwing food waste into the landfills ::
Composting does not have as big an environmental effect as recycling, Environmental Protection Agency figures show: recycling one ton of mixed paper is four times as effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as producing the same amount of compost.
But keeping food discards out of landfills does more than twice the good of keeping mixed paper out, E.P.A. officials said, because decomposing food that is buried and cut off from air releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, at higher rates than paper. (The ventilation in composting prevents methane creation.)
I have always wondered this and am grateful to have an answer. Seems I’ll start using other forms of non-recyclable paper to lay on the top level of my wormery.
My teenager brought home this link for us to watch last night. I am passing it on and hope you will do the same…especially to our next generation.”The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard makes stats and statistics about consumption palatable to young people (and old people, for that matter).
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
The Story of Stuff brings these facts to life in easy drawings and video::
Each person in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day.14 That is twice what we each made thirty years ago.
For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb.
In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed.
In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left.
Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable.
The U.S.has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of the world’s resources4 and creates 30% of the world’s waste.
In the U.S., we spend 3–4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do.
So far, six million people have viewed the film at its site, storyofstuff.com, and millions more have seen it on YouTube. More than 7,000 schools, churches and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web.
Today I spent the whole lovely day in the garden! My grass is sprouting, my seedlings started inside were planted, and I needed just a few more little peat pots for some things like sunflowers and other warm-starting seeds.
EASY NEWSPAPER POTS: NO GLUE, TAPE, STAPLES NEEDED:
In an attempt to avoid jumping in my car I found this cool shortcut to quick starter pots…newspaper seedling pots. I quickly assigned these to my kids to do (which they happily stopped raking and hoeing, got a lemon-aide, and sat down and followed the you-tube video). The newspaper will decompose in your garden or you can remove it before setting the plant into the garden. Worried about toxic ink? Never mind that… most daily newspapers are printed with food grade soy based ink nowadays, and even the color ink is made from it…just not the shiny stuff. The only thing to remember is to make sure the newspaper is not above the ground when planting or it will wick the moisture from your seedling.
Now that it’s time to bring worm composters out from the basement and to the outside, we are getting quite a bit of email with questions, comments, and even pictures that we thought we’d share.
Q. What temperature can we bring the worm bin outside?
A. Once temperatures reach above freezing reliably, you are good to go. Worms like temperatures are between 40 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Red worms generally prefer temperatures in the 55 to 77 degree range.
Q. We are seeing little red round mites in our bin now that it’s outside. Do we need to start our bin over? Are they hurting the worms?
A. No and Maybe. So, don’t start over, at least yet. Mites can be a worm composter friend. But in big populations they can bother your worms and send them down below the surface. How can you tell if your worms are bothered? Are they hiding in clumps below….time to think about mite reducing strategies.
mites gathering on melon
Q. OK, so what are mite reduction strategies? A. First mites are not necessarily bad. Red (or reddish brown) mites find the conditions in a worm composting bin an ideal habitat. They are part of the composting cycle, helping to break down any tough fibrous materials. Increased mite populations happen when a bin is too wet, or the pH becomes too low. How did the pH become too low…probably you put a bit too much food in the bin, it got nice and fermented and then the pH dove down. Then the mites threw a reproduction party! So now that you know the reasons, here are a few solutions ::
You can raise the pH with lime, egg shells, or even wood ash.
open the lid and let the sun UV light kill off some mites.
trap them on melon skins or bread soaked in milk. Lay these on the surface of the bin, and when they are covered in mites, lift them out and dispose of them. Repeat the procedure till numbers are reduced.
scrape the top layers of worm castings off each day and the mites go with it. It took me about 4 days doing this on the 3 layers of my own can-o-worms worm composter and the mites were back to levels where I didn’t notice them anymore.
lastly, I offer it up but do not recommend it…some people use a propane torch on the top layer of the bin to kill the mites. My son offered to help me with this one!
Q. Are you sure these red worms will not escape into my yard, killing all my native earthworms and take over? A. Nope…some will escape. But they can’t live in a typical garden setting so they are not going to compete or even fight with your native earthworms. Know there is actually no way to get all those little worm egg sacks out of the worm castings you harvest. However, the red worms that we recommend don’t live in gardens well because they can’t burrow or take dry conditions. They can live in piles of stuff, compost piles, and bins where the moisture level is high and even.
Eisenia fetida, known under various common names, including redworms, brandling worms, “tiger worms” and red wiggler worms, is a species of earthworm adapted to the environment of decaying organic material. It thrives in rotting vegetation, compost, and manure, i.e. it is an epigeic worm. It is rarely found in soil, and instead, like Lumbricus rubellus, prefers conditions where other worms cannot survive.
Q. Yikes, my bin is smelling all of a sudden. What’s up? Is it because it is moved outside? A. Nope. It’s because the pile is too wet or there is food decaying before the worms can get to it.
And that brings up something very important…worms don’t actually eat the food scraps…they eat the microorganisms and bacteria that are breaking down the food.
That said, if the problem is rotting food, you may be feeding too much or need more worms. If it is stinky food on top of the pile, I have found if you bury anything stinky, the odor goes right away. And in general, I leave onions out of my bin because I hate that smell. If the problem is a wet pile, air it out, add some dry bedding, and mix it up. If you are using a home-made bin, consider drilling more air holes.
Q. Why are my worms laying together on the top of my can-o-worms side-by-side? A. They are having a party of sorts. Shut the lid and come back later!
Q2. OK, I shut the lid. Now my worm numbers have quadrupled in size. How did this happen? A. Time for a worm “birds and bees” talk::
Worms are hermaphrodites — each worm has both male and female reproductive parts. When a worm has the urge and finds a suitable partner, they lay side-by-side with their heads pointed in opposite directions, glue themselves together with mucus bands and deposit sperm in pores on their partner’s body. After each “mating event,” which can last up to an hour, both worms go to work making a number of little cocoons with their partner’s sperm and their own eggs. The eggs meet the sperm inside the cocoons, fertilization takes place, and a few worms emerge from the cocoon several weeks later.
You may ask: Why not just stay home on Saturday night and fertilize ones own eggs? That’s an option, but not a popular one due to the desire to diversify the genetic pool for worms. Generally, worms are self-fertile only when they can’t find a mate.
Q. I am harvesting my castings and trying to save all those lovely egg cocoons. Help my motivation, please tell me how many worms am I saving each time I do this? A. Sure! You are saving the lives of approximately 5-20 worms for each little sack you find. I can pick roughly 10 cocoons a minute out of my castings so at the rate of between $20 and $50 per 500 worms, I think that worth the time and truthfully, I just love to keep every single worm in my bins!
Each cocoon can hatch up to 20 worms within about two to three weeks depending on temperature and moisture. Cocoons can also lie dormant in the soil for over two years until temperature and moisture conditions become tolerable for survival.
Q. Mold is growing on the top of my worm bin pile. Is this bad? A. Mold actually helps break down the food so worms can digest it. However, molds and fungi also serve as an indicator, telling you if the feeding rate is adequate. Mold grows most prolifically in still, quiet environments, so large amounts of mold and fungi indicate there is more food than the system can quickly manage. So that means get more worms or reduce the feeding rate.
Q. Is it true that if you cut an earthworm in half, it will grow into two individuals? A. No! No! Absolutely No!
Q. What are the foods I should never feed my worms? A. Well, obviously meats, cheese, oily things. But in the vegetable family, the 3 no-no’s are citrus, onions, and rhubarb which send the worm bin ph acidic quickly.
Q. What are these blind weird crawling maggot-like things in my wormery?
critters 1
critters 2
A. They are both actually the same bug. They are the larvae from soldier fly. I hate them, as I often see them chase the earthworms out of my outside composter in mid-summer. However there is a whole world of soldier-fly composters and fans out there and they are very effective aggressive digesters. They are just not as lovely to me as earthworms. So I snip them in half when I see them and my worms eat them up! A bit persnickety…I know. Unless your worms are hiding from these critters tho, there is really no need to get rid of them as they hatch and fly off. This is truthfully, a personal vendetta and dislike so you should pay no attention to my advice here!
Q. I’m off to a Tropical Island for a week. Do I need to hire someone to watch my worms? A. Nope. A well established wormery can be left for up to a month before the worm numbers start to fall. If you are going away give your worms a good feed just before leaving. IMPORTANT: Leave the tap open while you are away to ensure the wormery does not get waterlogged and your worm drown. I personally have forgotten to do this and after just one week I came back to a nasty smelling pool of dead worms in fermenting liquid at the bottom of my can-o-worms.
That’s it for today. Next up we are gathering the tips for the spring maintenance for your sun-mar continuous composter and getting it’s pile off to a great hot start.
The Pledge: Years ago, when I was teaching, we began each year by taking the back side pledge. The pledge is to use both sides of every piece of paper. Since doing the pledge years ago, I have continued that practice on a daily basis.
Printing: When we print out orders, they are done on paper with printing on the other side. This practice has meant using half the amount of paper required to run a business.
A customer just called and said that we were mentioned on page 32 of April’s “Food and Wine” issue. Evidently a previous customer bought a Sun-Mar 400 Continuous Compost Unit from us. The previous customer speaks highly of the experience with the unit.
Sun-Mar 400:
The Sun-Mar Continuous Compost maker is a large unit which has a 100 gallon capacity. It is excellent for kitchen scraps and cut-up material from the garden. It is 36″ high, 42″ long, 28″ deep and weighs 60 pounds.
Ecopod to Mode: For a few years we successfully sold a product called the Ecopod. It was designed by BMW and customers loved this product. Then the distributor just disappeared and we could never reach them again. After 2 years, we are thrilled to have found an even better, more sturdy product at a lower cost, the Mode recycling units.
Mode Offers Three Units: Mode Products offers three units. The top of the line is stainless steel. Next in line is made from painted plastic. The next does not offer the electric measuring device.
Mode Recycling Centers
Bottle and Can Crusher: These units come with a bottle and can crusher which dramatically shrinks your waste. The units also come with a compartment for paper and magazines.
For those wishing to lessen their waste and keep bottles, cans, paper, and magazines organized in one place, the Mode is here.
Sort. Store. And crush your way to a cleaner counter top. The Mode™ Premium All-In-One Recycling Center, featuring our patent-pending compaction system.
——————————————————-
I started my worm composter last summer with 2ooo worms and you can see from below they got “really busy”! I must have tens of thousands now….maybe more. I have a Can-O-Worms and you can see I am up to my 3rd level and probably the bottom 2 are ready for the garden (just waiting for spring thaw!). I chose this particular worm composter because it has stacking bins and it is easy for the worms to migrate up towards the food in the upper bins and leave the bottom bin ready to unload….less hassle. Less worms to sort out. Also, really important is that the extra moisture drains from out the bottom spigot so unlike closed bottom wormeries, you never get that anerobic mess that kills the worms. I digress….
Yes that is a wine rack behind it! It is in my basement, odor-free, and I can easily grab a nice bottle of wine when feeding my food scraps to the worms. Right now, I can barely keep up with them. They certainly go thru food faster than a composter. Just remember…no citrus. And those long strips are the Sunday NYT shredded every week and placed on top. Yum!
Peoplepoweredmachines is a family owned business, 10 years old, selling environmentally sound products such as reel mowers, electric mowers, composters, rainbarrels, solar products and more.
My Town: In my town we have lots of restaurants, lots of schools, and lots of trash. Sadly, one school serves cafeteria food on disposable trays which are thrown out after every use. 100s of trays everyday make their way into our trash. These trays will remain in the trash waste stream for thousands of years.
Bad Lesson: Many folks don’t like this for a few reasons. It is a bad lesson for the children to throw a disposable item away which will be around for thousands of years. The trays have to be carted off to a trash system. This hauling is expensive and regular. This hauling contributes to the Greenhouse effect.
Good Lesson: Enter Vegware tableware and cutlery or similar products. If Vegware biodegradable were used the disposable waste could be placed in a unit clearly marked for compost. The compost could then be used by the school with no transfer fee, or it could be taken to the town’s transfer station. What a good lesson to teach children. If you can’t wash it and reuse, then use biodegradable tableware, cutlery, and drinking cups.
Your Town: Think of your town and its take out food industry. Imagine what a difference it would be if biodegradable products were used by your fast food establishments. In addition to tableware, Vegware also provides biodegradable cutlery and cups for hot and cold drinks. So nearly all of the take out waste could be going to make good compost and save on hauling expenses.
BIO-DEGRADEABLE CUTLERY and TABLEWARE
Vegware.us products include bio-degradable knives, forks and spoons as well as compostable plates and bowls. Vegware.us also has a variety of compostable take-out boxes and fully compostable hot drink cups with an eco-friendly corn starch rather than plastic lining.
CUTLERY Knives, forks and spoons made
from corn and potato starch,
biodegradable and compostable.
TABLEWARE Plates and bowls made from bagasse,
a fibre created from the pressing of
sugar cane. Sturdy, eco-friendly,
compostable and biodegradable
HOT CUPS the hot drink cup revolution,
compostable hot-drink cup
and lid combination, completely
biodegradable and suitable for composting.
TAKE-OUT BOXES Hinged boxes made from bagasse,
a fibre created from the pressing
of sugar cane. Sturdy, eco-friendly,
compostable and biodegradable
Last Day: It is the last day of the show. Two of our suppliers, Brill reel mowers and Haaga sweepers, have booths.
Haaga: Haaga’s booth is run by Mike Krumm. In photo below is Haaga’s new Turbo Accu sweeper. The new Turbo Accu powers the sweeper for an hour and a half. When Mike demoed the Turbo Accu sweeper he did it on a carpet and the Turbo Accu sweeper picked up everything. The Turbo Accu sweeper can also be used manually. It takes 8 hours for the battery to recharge. Batteries can be easily obtained here in the states.
Brill: In the photo above Lars Hundley and Steve Vesper are working away. They are the importers for the Brill reel mowers and the Tumbleweed composters. The Brill reel mower line will remain the same for 2009. In accompanying Brill reel mowers, Brill may start producing a lithium ion battery to replace the Accu battery presently sold for the electric reel mower. Tumbleweed composters are launching a new product which will enhance its compost line. The new product provides a catalyst to the compost process.
Second Day: Here we are at the show. The pace and numbers increased dramatically today. The stars of the show are the Sno Wovel, Walkover Sprayer, and Rolypig.
Mower Manufacturing: Today I was approached by an inventor of a patented lawnmower to manufacture his creation. It is a reel mower which is powered by two large bicycle wheels and two smaller gears which propel the spinning of the blades. This action causes the blades to spin very fast. We’re trying to compare the RPMs of our electric reel mowers with it.
The Cyclemower: The mower is called the Cyclemower, and they are looking for folks who would like to manufacture the mower. The hope for the mower is that it could adjust from .5″ to 3″ and be able to mow all grass types. We’re trying to compare the RPMs of our electric reel mowers with the Cyclemower.
Neptune’s Harvest: I found a liquid fertilizer and a liquid weed killer which can be applied with the walkover sprayer. The product is called Neptune’s Harvest. The products are made from fish, seaweed, and shellfish.
3 PLASTICS (PROBABLY IN YOUR KITCHEN NOW) LINKED TO POSSIBLY TOXIC LEACHING
This summer my daughter convinced me to change out my nalgene water bottles for aluminum ones because of the possible toxic leaching. We had quite a collection so it took her while to convince us to give them up. But being a persistent teen and an eco-warrior, she prevailed! So here’s the info about those 3 nasty plastic numbers to consider avoiding for your children and grandchildrens’ sake ::
avoid these plastics
Number 3 Plastics
V (Vinyl) or PVC.
Found in: It’s used in some cling wraps (yikes!), many children’s toys, fashion accessories, shower curtains, and detergent and spray bottles. To top it off, PVC isn’t recyclable, either.
Why? Number 3 plastics may release toxic breakdown products (including pthalates) into food and drinks. The risk is highest when containers start wearing out, are put through the dishwasher or when they are heated (including microwaved). PVC manufacturing can release highly toxic dioxins into the environment, and the materials can off-gas toxic plasticizers into your home.
Number 6 Plastics PS (polystyrene)
Found in: Disposable plates and cups, meat trays, egg cartons, carry-out containers, and some plastic cutlery Why? Number 6 plastics can release potentially toxic breakdown products (including styrene). Particularly when heated! It has been found to leach styrene–a neurotoxin and possible human carcinogen–and has been banned in cities like Portland, Ore. and San Francisco. Still, it persists and is not often recyclable in curbside programs, though some recycling centers will take it.
Number 7 Plastics Miscellaneous Found in: Baby bottles, three- and five-gallon water bottles, certain food container. A wide range of plastic resins that don’t fit into the other six categories are lumped into number 7. Some are quite safe, but the ones to worry about are the hard polycarbonate varieties, as found in various drinking containers (like Nalgene bottles) and rigid plastic baby bottles. Why? Studies have shown polycarbonate can leach bisphenol A, a potential hormone disruptor, into liquids. According to Trasande, no level of bisphenol A exposure is known to be truly safe, and in August a government panel expressed ’some concern’ that the ingredient causes neural and behavioral problems in children.
#5 PLASTICS RECYCLING: PRESERVEPRODUCTS.ORG AND WHOLE FOODS HAVE DROP OFFS NOW Not all plastics can be recycled. In fact, most yogurt cups and other polypropylene #5 plastics, unless they’re reused, end up in the landfill since so few municipalities accept them. It’s a shame considering so much of our food arrives in #5s including packaging for cottage cheese, hummus, medicine, ice cream and take-out containers. Preserveproducts.com offers solutions for recycling items like toothbrushes and razor handles…you mail them in with a printable postage-paid mailer. They are also now offering drop off locations at Whole Foods Stores
‘Gimme 5’ recycling program:
Products packaged in #5 plastic are sold widely, but #5 is not recycled in most communities. By recycling your #5 plastic through the Gimme 5 program, you are saving plastic from being sent to landfills, keeping the plastic local by recycling it here in the USA, and you are powering Preserve by helping us transform your recyclables into new Preserve products.
We are pleased to be adding Vegware to our products. Vegware uses technology to make fully compostable cutlery and tableware. Their longterm goal is to make a difference in how waste is managed and processed. You can eat and drink and then compost.
Styrofoam cups, and disposable tableware and cutlery. Currently huge volumes of paper plates, trays, and styrofoam cups make their way to our landfills. The U.S. Department of the Environment estimates 50 billion styrofoam cups were put in landfills last year. An equal number of disposable tableware and cutlery were thrown in the landfills as well. All of this could be used in compost making in the future.
The Vegware Way. Vegware’s fiber based products present saner ecological and economic options that could have a significant impact in reducing the amount of waste generated from disposable tableware and cutlery products. Vegware is made from sugarcane, potatoes, and corn. It is fully biodegradable and ready to compost.
Presently. North American consumers are ordering take-out meals in record numbers. U.S. government statistics show American families spend $3,360 a year to avoid cooking at home. Currently, an estimated 39 billion items of disposable cutlery make their way to American landfills yearly (source: The Food Packaging Institute, Washington, D.C.). Unlike traditional cutlery, Vegware products are designed to breakdown naturally, eliminating unnecessary waste.
Ways to compost. Vegware can be put into a compost pile or for better composting, crush the Vegware into smaller pieces before composting. The plates, bowls, forks, and spoons can all be composted. We’ll be adding more information as we get to know this product better.
CUTLERY Knives, forks and spoons made
from corn and potato starch,
biodegradable and compostable.
TABLEWARE Plates and bowls made from bagasse,
a fibre created from the pressing of
sugar cane. Sturdy, eco-friendly,
compostable and biodegradable
HOT CUPS the hot drink cup revolution,
compostable hot-drink cup
and lid combination, completely
biodegradable and suitable for composting.
TAKE-OUT BOXES Hinged boxes made from bagasse,
a fibre created from the pressing
of sugar cane. Sturdy, eco-friendly,
compostable and biodegradable
When was the last time you used a printed telephone book to look up a phone number? In fact, with cell phones, how many phone numbers are actually in telephone books these days anyway? Directory publishers usually do make their listings available online, but the printed books are big money-makers for them as print ads fetch gazillions, even though their effectiveness is waning and much harder to track. It’s time for telephone book companies to face the fact that their products are becoming obsolete to many and should only be delivered if someone wants them. The Yellow and White Page industry have failed to understand the social, economic, and political green movement across the country…so let’s help them!
5 MINUTES TO OPT-OUT OF GETTING A TELEPHONE BOOK… Most individual yellow and white page publishers have “no deliver” lists they can add you to, but they will not be held accountable if the books show up anyway. The YellowPagesGoesGreen.org website will find your local/regional directory pages publishers and ask them not to deliver on your behalf. The site warns, though, that there are no guarantees with this either. So go right now and add your name, pledge your support, and we can make a change!
Yellowpagesgoesgreen.com is helping municipalities and local governments around the country establish ordinances to mandate Yellow Pages and White Pages only be delivered to home and offices that ask for them. Municipalities and local government that provide trash services are extremely concerned about the landfill cost and why they have to absorb the cost of handling the telephone directories.
NOT SURE IT’S WORTH THE TROUBLE…READ THESE FACTS ::
19 million trees, 7.2 billion barrels of oil, …:
According to YellowPagesGoesGreen.org more than 500 million phone directories — nearly two books for every American – are printed and distributed every year in the U.S.. To produce 500 million telephone books it takes:
19 million trees need to be harvested
1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered
which then generates 268,000 cubic yards of solid waste (not including the books themselves, many of which eventually end up in landfills in areas where recycling is not available or convenient
Only 10% of phone books are recycled:
No specific data is available but a random sample from this site shows people are recycling these books at a rate of less than 10%. Most respondents just throw them in the trash can.
Phone Books cannot go in your regular recycling stream due to paper quality:
Many recyclers won’t accept telephone books because the fibers used to make the books’ lightweight pages are too short to be reformulated into new paper. In fact, mixing old phonebooks in with other waste paper can even contaminate the batch, hindering the recyclability of the other paper fibers.
When books are recycled, think of the transportation and logistics costs:
You can visit a site called www.earth911.org/ to find the closest recycling center to take your used and or unwanted books for recycling. And this all sounds great except how much gas and energy is being used by the individual to go and recycle a telephone book that you did not want in the first place? So I am getting an unsolicited book and being told to recycle it. How about not giving it to me in the first place?
If you can get them recycled, yes there is a great savings:
According to Los Gatos, California’s Green Valley Recycling, if all Americans recycled their phonebooks for a year, we would save 650,000 tons of paper and free up two million cubic yards of landfill space. Modesto, California’s Parks, Recreation & Neighborhoods Department says that for each 500 books recycled, we save 7,000 gallons of water, 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, 17 to 31 trees and 4,100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power an average home for six months.
And there are some odd uses for exisiting phone books:
Their pages make excellent fire starters in a wood-burning fireplace or outdoor fire pit.
Balled up or shredded phonebook pages also make nice packaging filler in place of problematic polystyrene “peanuts.”
Phonebook pages can also be shredded and used as mulch to keep weeds down in your garden.
The paper is compostable and biodegradable and will eventually return back to the soil.
Those with an artistic bent can use old phonebooks to make flipbook style animated drawings, as described by animator Robert Truscio on his “Drawings That Move” instructional website.
There are also a number of telephone book collectors; some who make money selling their stock to those with a historical interest or who are researching family genealogies. Lifelong collector Gwillim Law sells old phonebooks from all 50 U.S. states as well as from most Canadian and Australian provinces.
Peoplepoweredmachines is a family owned business, 11 years old, always selling environmentally sound products such as reel mowers, electric mowers, composters, rainbarrels, solar products and more.
Now that many cities are moving towards single stream recycling systems, one thing that is not clear to consumers is that not all paper can go into these big sorters. In fact do not put any shredded paper in as it clogs machines, and if it does get thru it lowers the value of that batch of paper!
Shredded paper is too small to sort—the pieces fall through the cracks of the sorting machines, stick to the belts and end up all over the floor.
As well, the paper mills that buy recycled paper must do a quality sort on the material before they put it into their multi-million dollar machines, and it’s just plain impossible to do a good quality sort of shredded paper. Many contaminants can hide in the shred, such as plastic strips from a document cover that were accidentally shredded along with the paper. For this reason, paper markets don’t like to buy shredded paper and don’t like to see it in with the higher-grade junk mail and office paper.
When you shred paper, what you’re actually doing is cutting the lengths of the individual paper fibers, thus cutting the future recycling potential of that fiber. The length of a paper fiber determines its value since a longer fiber can be used to make a higher-grade paper and can be recycled more times.
NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS::
Worms love a layer of shredded paper on top of them. They like the dark and the paper keeps the moisture content nice and even. So use the paper in your worm composter.
Compost piles are always looking for “brown matter” during these winter months, so that is a great place to put your shredded paper. It will virtually dissolve before spring. We have a Sunmar composter which is filled with kitchen waste and the newspaper definitely helps heat up the composter during the winter months.
MORE RECYCLING FACTS:
COOL VIDEOS ON SINGLE STREAM RECYCLING :
And if you are curious, there are a host of videos on YouTube showing you how these very cool single stream recycling centers work. I particularly like to watch how magnets make the aluminum cans fly away from the other waste materials.
America’s institutions of higher learning are some of the best incubators of sustainable solutions to myriad problems, and they are molding and inspiring the bright minds that will inherit the environment from the current generation of leaders.
CONGRATULATIONS TO TOP 10 GREENEST COLLEGES IN AMERICA ::
College of the Atlantic
Warren Wilson College
Evergreen State College
Oberlin College
Middlebury College
Berea College
University of California
UC Merced
Harvard University
Duke University
AND THE HONORABLE MENTIONS ::
Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut.
Tufts University in Massachussets.
Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont.
Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
We are delighted to announce the addition of Big Belly Solar products to our line. These compacters can do a great deal toward lowering energy costs associated with trash pick up.
The compacters can work in many ways. The units have a solar panel which is placed on top of the compacter which stands about four feet high. All trash can be placed in the unit and is slowly compacted by energy gathered by the solar panel. Compaction occurs at an average of 5 to 1. This means that collection occurs 80% less frequently.
A more efficient use would be to have just recyclables placed in the Big Belly Solar unit. After the 5 to 1 compaction and collection, the contents should be brought to a single stream recycling facility, where everything would be effectively recycled.
The City of Boston has many Big Belly units in use, and Mayor Menino speaks highly of the job they are doing. Towns, cities, businesses, parks, beaches, and colleges will soon be adding Big Belly Solar compacters to their recycling and trash plans.
The Tumbleweed manufacturers have come out with a new Tumbleweed composter. This tumble type compost maker is made from 100% post industrial recycled plastic and carries the same warranty as the original Tumbleweed composter. It is important we all begin to demand plastic products come from recycled products whenever we can and this is an easy way to start.
tumbleweed composter makes compost faster and easiesr
The new Tumbleweed made from 100% recycled plastic is black (The original Tumbleweed is green). Presently US supply is out of the green Tumbleweeds, but is fully supplied with the black one. The black color should generate more heat as well.
Take the back-breaking work out of composting! There’s no need to fork and lift when you use the Tumbleweed Compost Bin. Just add kitchen and yard waste to the 7 cu. ft. bin, and with a quick spin, you can create a rich compost mix in as little as 21 days. Due to the Tumbleweed’s patented “aeration method”, you can make at least four loads of compost in the time it takes traditional methods to produce one. All with only a daily spin. No turning, no mess, no pests. Save your back and enjoy your garden!
How The Tumbleweed Compost Maker Works:
Add organic waste and tumble on a regular basis. The Tumbleweed loads easily thru the top of the unit.
Just a spin a day : No Heavy forking of the contents or complicated layering techniques are not required.
Minimum effort : simply fill the bin with the required materials and tumble every couple of days.
Leverage allows young and old to tumble the bin, even when full.
Air and moisture are distributed by the tumble action creating ideal conditions for rapid decomposition.
Valuable nutrients are retained within the bin.
Will recycle 100% lawn clippings. Grass cuttings are usually produced in such quantity that traditional composting methods cannot handle them.
The Tumbleweed has been our best compost maker when using grass clippings. In two weeks time, the grass clippings convert to compost fully. The Tumbleweed can also be used for food waste. See our page for Tumbleweed Composter Composting Tips or read our more general compost tips and tricks for more info on the type of foods and other composting info.
——-
Peoplepoweredmachines is a family owned business, 11 years old, always selling environmentally sound products such as reel mowers, electric mowers, composters, rainbarrels, solar products and more.
Some folks get discouraged and stop composting in the winter months. The Soil Saver may bring some of those folks back to composting 12 months of the year.
The Soil Saver is not new, it has been in production for 25 years. It was designed for warm and cold climates and features insulating UV – resistant foam panels to hold in the heat. The Soil Saver also has watering holes which work with the rain to keep compost moist.
Two foot wide openings make for easy drop in of waste materials for compost. Two foot wide panel doors make for easy compost harvesting. The Soil Saver is well designed and serves a household of 5 people.
Just a year ago we sold a neat in home or office recycling unit called the Ecopod. Ecopod operated business on the west coast. Something happened to the owner, and we were no longer able to get supplies.
Since we lost contact with Ecopod we have been looking to replace the product line. We just have made contact with two exciting products. One is very similar to the Ecopod and is called the Mode Premium. You use it in your home to store and compact bottles and cans. You also use it for paper collection and trash.
At the same time we have made contact with a company which makes solar compacters on a larger scale. These would be used by businesses, towns, schools, and universities. Presently the compacters compress what is put inside at a 5 to 1 ratio.
Customers have the option of identifying one compacter to be item specific so that plastic bottles go in one compacter, aluminum cans go in another compacter, and trash for yet another. This is obviously better for the recycling benefit.
The compacter company sites all the savings associated with trash collection. Successful use would mean an 80% savings on fuel, traffic, and pollution associated with trash collection.
We’ll keep you posted as we learn more about the Recycling units and Compacters.
As we get close to selling industrial composters an interesting thought came to mind. Wouldn’t it be something to go to a restaurant where you ate a great meal. The food scraps from the meals and the food waste from the preparation went into a compost maker on the roof. The compost produced was used to grow vegetables and fruit at the roof top garden. Later these fruits and vegetables will be used in the cooking of the meals.
I’m sure to some this sounds a bit out there. And I’m sure to others it makes complete sense. And I’m pretty sure this is being done in some form in some locations. But this could be a common practice soon.
What a great idea for congested cities with no more garbage collection for all the restaurants. Think of the savings on fuel and the benefits to the environment. Think of the benefit of local produce, both for the grower and the customer.
While we have been very pleased to be able to offer high quality compost makers to our customers, we had been disappointed not to be able to advise folks who handle large quantities of food waste. Happily this is no longer the case.
Over the summer months we began looking at industrial composting companies. We think that we are close to making a deal which would allow us to advise customers on how to go about composting large amounts of food waste.
The company we are negotiating with offers 4 compost makers. They range in size and how much mixed food waste they can process in a week. The smallest machine can process 600 litres of mixed food waste per week which would be the equivalent of 50 households. This machine would be suitable for schools, businesses, and restaurants. The largest machine can process 7,000 litres of mixed food waste per week which would be equivalent to 580 households. This machine would be suitable for large businesses, large boarding schools, and universities.
We look forward to being able to consult customers on their composting needs. More to come as we finalize negotiations.
——-
Peoplepoweredmachines is a family owned business, 11 years old, always selling environmentally sound products such as reel mowers, electric mowers, composters, rainbarrels, solar products and more.
Many folks face the problem each fall and winter of having too many leaves. One product we added this fall seems to be pleasing our customers. It’s the Flowtron LE-900.
It is a lightweight unit weighing only 17 lbs. which breaks the leaves up to 30 to 1 size reduction. This shredder/mulcher can be used alone or stood on a trash container with a liner for instant disposal. The size of the LE-900 is 19.5″ x 19.5″ x 23″. The unit runs on ordinary household current.
The Flowtron Leaf Eater also works on pine needles and grass clippings.
About the only complaint we hear regarding the Rolypig is that it takes about an hour to assemble and that the compost is not always in fine, finished form. These issues are being addressed by the manufacturers in the UK. The new Rolypigs will be nearly complete when shipped, so very little assembly will be required.
And this spring, the Rolypig will be joined by the Rolymole. The Rolymole is a wormery which works along side the Rolypig. Often the compost coming out of the Rolypig is not completely done. But it is perfect for the Rolymole. Just dump in the partially processed compost and let the worms do their job. As the worms eat through the compost, the finished compost drops down to the bottom of the Rolymole. Wiggle the Rolymole’s tail from side to side and the worm castings drop out for your use. The worm castings are a very finely composed compost.
The makers of the Rolymole and Rolypig hope to have the new models available in the US this spring. Below are pictures of the Rolymole and an explanation of how it operates.
The leaf blowers are killing me this year! My neighbors use them to blow even a sprinkling of leaves off their driveway, and NOTE: they only use them when I am home and recovering my sanity in my garden. Fueling my simmering irritation, during our first magical snow this season my wife and I took a moment for a walk thru the woods and what did we hear….not that soft gentle hushed sound of snow…but my neighbors snow blower. GRRRRR. I won’t go into when one neighbor left for the weekend and their car alarm went off in 15 minute continuous cycles until the battery wore down.
So this post is to say…neighbors…before you fire up your weed whacker, leaf blower, hedge trimmer, riding lawn mower, snow blower, snow mobiles, etc…. know you are effecting not just my health but yours! Study after study has found that community noise is interrupting our sleep, interfering with our children’s learning, suppressing our immune systems and even increasing our chances of having a heart attack. It is also tarnishing the Golden Rule, reducing people’s inclination to help one another.
Basically, noise causes so many horrible things that it’s a wonder there aren’t warning labels tacked to the sides of vacuum cleaners.
NOISE HARMS OUR HEALTH:
Recent studies reveal that noise can be harmful to human health, just like water or air pollution, damaging not only hearing and sleep but raising our blood pressure to dangerous levels.
According to the World Health Organization, noise pollution is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths a year. scientists at Imperial College London monitored the blood pressure of 140 sleeping volunteers who lived near London’s Heathrow airport. They discovered that subjects’ blood pressure rose when a plane few overhead even when the subjects remained asleep.
A study of 5,000 45-to-70-year-olds living near airports for at least five years found that they were at greater risk of suffering from hypertension, aka high blood pressure, than their counterparts in quieter realms.
“The idea that people get used to noise is a myth,” the Environmental Protection Agency has reported. “Even when we think we have become accustomed to noise, biological changes still take place inside us.”
Children near the working airports had significantly higher levels of adrenaline and cortisol — the body’s so-called stress hormones.
Studies have also shown that in the presence of continuous noise, people are less caring, communicative, and reflective.
Extreme noise has been found to give the listener a sense of helplessness and powerlessness.
Hospital noise has been shown to slow healing.
In one study, people were less likely to help someone pick up a bundle of dropped books when the noise of a lawn mower was present.
Another showed that in a noisy environment, people playing a game were more likely to see their fellow players as disagreeable or threatening.
NOISE IMPAIRS LEARNING AND CONCENTRATION (DUH):
Another insidious effect of noise is its cultivation of what scientists call “learned helplessness.” Children given puzzles in moderately noisy classrooms are not only more likely to fail to solve them but are also more likely to surrender early.
Many studies have shown children in schools around noise pollution had impairment in reading on standardized tests.
In Munich, students near an airport initially scored lower than others on tests of memory. When that airport closed and moved, thier reading improved, while their counterparts living near the new airport saw a decline in scores after the switch occurred.
SO WHAT TO DO:
First everyone needs to understand there is an issue. Even in ancient Rome, chariots were banned from the streets at night to prevent clattering wheels on stones from waking people up. Here are a few places that beat that drum:
NoiseOff.org – a Web resource for fighting local noise pollution
Then of course, know there are alternatives…regular readers here know what’s coming…like quiet quiet quiet push reel mowers, back saving snow removal tools that really work, push sweepers (janitors secret weapons) and push leaf sweepers, and other fall cleanup tools like (!) rakes (!) coupled with lovely leaf bags that roll. Can’t do manual, how about electric options like electric mowers, electric blowers (still blow around allergens), and electric snow blowers (haven’t found one yet we like). So many wonderful options out there. And then of course there are the big picture alternatives like reducing your lawn size…but that is another ranting article! So in summary treasure the quite! Shhhh…..
——-
Peoplepoweredmachines is a family owned business, 11 years old, always selling environmentally sound products such as reel mowers, electric mowers, composters, rainbarrels, solar products and more.
Most individual yellow and white page publishers have “no deliver” lists they can add you to, but they will not be held accountable if the books show up anyway. The 
