Inspirational and #Educational #Sustainability Across the U.S.A.

Did you know that Chicago, IL has become the epicenter for LEED-certified buildings?

How about the fact that landscaping designed to conserve water is called Xeriscaping and it’s big in Denver, CO?

Freshkills landfill in New York, NY is a landfill that’s three-times the size of Central Park and it’s being worked on so that it can be turned into a park!

Portland, OR is home to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance whose mission it is to create healthy, sustainable communities by make bicycling safe, convenient and accessible.

 

Source: http://ecowatch.com/2014/07/14/ranking-sustainability-programs-u-s/

and 

http://btaoregon.org/

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo

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Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your #Carbon Footprint!

Here it is, a list of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint according to National Geographic and the folks @GreenHaloUSA

How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

1. Make your home energy efficient.
Your home can be responsible for creating twice as many greenhouse gas emissions as your car. Since half of the energy used in your home helps to heat and cool it, making your home as energy efficient as possible will take big chunks out of your carbon footprint. Steps you can take include: Getting a home energy audit; installing energy efficient windows; insulating your attic and walls; installing a programmable thermostat; turning your thermostat down 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer.

2. Drive less.
Combine your trips in the car, so you don’t have to go out multiple times to the same location. When possible, use public transit, walk or bike to your destination.

3. Buy the highest gas mileage car for your needs.
Cars contribute 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels; the better your gas mileage, the less gas you burn and the fewer emissions you create.

4. Buy energy efficient appliances.
When replacing appliances, buy Energy Star qualified appliances (these use 10-50% less energy than standard appliances and can save you $80 or more per year).

5. Recycle.
Creating products from recycled materials uses up to 98 percent less energy than producing things from new materials.

6. Replace your light bulbs.
Switching to energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs will save you $30 over the life of the bulb, because these they use about 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs.

7. Buy local food.
Each ingredient in a U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. If we all ate one meal per week of local, organic food, we’d save 1.1 million barrels of oil per week.

8. Eat less red meat.
Beef takes a lot of energy and resources to produce. Replace red meat with fish, chicken and eggs and cut your food carbon footprint by 29 percent. Go vegetarian to cut it by 50 percent.

9. Lower your water heater temperature from 140 degrees F to 120 degrees F.

10. Buy carbon offsets for the rest and make yourself “carbon neutral.”

( Source: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/trash-talk2.html )

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo

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Vermicomposting tips and tricks

Sustainable America put out an infographic about how to compost in small places like an apartment building. It’s a common concern especially for those who cook and have food scraps or those who are gardeners (composting makes some of the most nutrient rich soil!). So how do you compost in your apartment without experiencing weird odors? Look here:

 

( Source: http://www.sustainableamerica.org/

And

https://wastetracking.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/foodfuelfuture-sustainable-americas-infographic-on-composting-in-small-areas/ )

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Feel like you should clean-up #OurOcean2014 ? We are!

Litter from the streets usually makes its way to the ocean and the chances of litter harming any of the wild life on its “way to the bay” are huge and it’s extremely devastating.

The U.S. Embassy Manila’s Public Affairs Section just released a wonderful guide on how to organize a clean-up. There are simple guidelines for what to do 1 week before the clean-up, how to organize the clean-up 2 weeks before the date, on the date, and after the date making this quick and easy! Another awesome thing about this document:

http://photos.state.gov/libraries/manila/19452/pdfs/Coastal%20Clean-up%20Toolkit.pdf

Is that it shows you what tags will attract people to help you and to help you gain visibility to spread the word. There are trending Twitter, Facebook and Instagram tags right now such as #OurOcean2014 and #PHcares4oceans that can make clean-ups this year different than previous years.

Please Tweet us @GreenHaloUSA if we inspired you to clean-up #OurOcean2014 !

 

Another great Green article from Green Halo
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Awesome recycling infographic with stats about our environmental impact

This gem just came on the web, besides the awesome graphic design and the fact that this is paperless environmental education this infographic is just jaw-dropping.

Prepare to be amazed:

 

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RecyclerFinder.com

Landfill waste can be reduced from 40% to 30% by the year 2020 if people bought and sold reusable materials or salvage materials. RecyclerFinder.com makes it quick and easy to find recyclers near you for salvage materials and over 10 more categories of materials!

The cost savings of buying second doors, hardware for your home, tiles, cabinets and more is amazing. People who are into DIY or artists should also checkout a salvage yard sometime. Beyond the finds that you can give a new home, RecyclerFinder.com is also a great way to turn scrap into cash!

People who recycle in the U.S. and Canada will get money back for unwanted items and materials by simply finding facilities and making a few calls to find out how much they would be able to pay you that day!

The next time you need to recycle or dispose of cardboard, bottles, cans, plastics, metal, e-waste, construction and demolition debris, concrete, wood, hazardous waste, paint and more visit RecyclerFinder.com!

Another great Green article from Green Halo
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Machine Turns Plastic Waste Into Oil!

Bad environmental news such as the Great Pacific garbage patch, and the recent findings of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes had this writer wondering what would be a good treatment for the plastics that many people use and pollute the environment with. Our research found an amazing company called Blest.co.Ltd. which turns plastics such as polypropylene, polyethylene and polystyrene back into oil! When using one of Blest.co.Ltd.’s machines, the user simply places acceptable plastics in a chamber, presses a few buttons and watches as the recycling gets heated and the steam gets distilled resulting in mixture oil. The mixture oil can be further processed to make gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, and heavy oil. The link to order your own Blest machine is here: http://www.blest.co.jp/index-english.html

To make matters even better, Blest’s Founder and CEO, Akinori is so passionate about this machine that he visits children in developing countries and other parts of the world to change their perspective about trash and to educate them about recycling. Akinori converts plastics into oil in front of children’s’ eyes because he is so inspired by preserving the environment for children. To see Akinori and this fabulous invention, please play this video and prepare to be amazed:

 

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Basel Convention and Khian Sea

The Basel Convention is a United Nations treaty that was signed in 1989 to control the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal. The treaty helped define hazardous wastes, outlined how hazardous wastes are disposed and set guidelines such as approved facilities by city governments.

 

It’s been said that one event that prompted the Basel Convention was the Khian Sea waste disposal incident from 1986-2000. The Khian Sea cargo ship (which was registered in Liberia) was loaded with 14,355 tons of non-toxic ash from waste incinerations from the US. The story goes that a US company that handled the waste subcontracted a shipment to dump the ash in the Bahamas, however, the Bahamian government turned down the ash and so, for over one year the Khian Sea searched for a place to dump the ash. Many regions of the world refused to accept the ash and since the ash was even refused from the original area in the US from where it was received, in 1988 the crew dumped about 4,000 tons of the waste in Haiti as “topsoil fertilizer” and fled before they could pick up the ash as the Haitian commerce minister ordered. The Khian Sea then moved on to regions such as Morocco, Sri Lanka and Singapore where the captain testified to dumping about 10,000 tons of ash into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

 

Here is an image of the home port of the Khian Sea in Philadelphia:

 

 

(Source: http://www.basel.int/Home/tabid/2202/Default.aspx and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khian_Sea_waste_disposal_incident )

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Not just a blob, it is an edible water bottle

The amount of plastic bottles that make it into landfills each year is gigantic and so a new edible water bottle is a valuable invention, and alas it is here.

A team at London’s Imperial College invented the Ooho water bottle from a process called spherification which forms a membrane around a frozen liquid and once the frozen liquid (water) melts, then it is contained in a flexible, gelatinous pouch.

Spherification is also used in molecular gastronomy or in the culinary world to make fancy foods such as popping boba teas and faux caviar but now this method can quench people’s thirst and save plastic from landfills. The photos are just amazing.

The leader of the project’s name is “Rodrigo García González” and he said that the group’s experimentation involved “lateral thinking and experimentation”. The product isn’t ready for market yet because the team wants to find a solution to resealing the pouch once it’s pierced. Also, González admitted that people do not always care for the texture. So much research and development is also much anticipated.

For now, curious individuals might want to try making this at home by using calcium chloride to form a membrane around frozen liquids.

Dunkin’ Doughnut’s vs McDonalds, on Beverage Containers

Dunkin’ Doughnuts is under pressure to replace their polystyrene foam with cardboard like many food chains around the USA have already done. Dunkin’ Doughnuts has been experimenting for the past few years and “aims to have an alternative cup in two to three years”. Dunkin’ Doughnuts says that the cup has to meet a few different criteria but according to Venessa Wong from Bloomberg Businessweek, other chains’ customers are “pretty used to paper”. This article shows some of the comparisons between what food chains and restaurants face to go green but the contrasts between where McDonald’s is now, compared to Dunkin’ Doughnuts’s strategy is enthralling.

Here is the second article that this summary refers to. Back in 2012, Mc Donald’s choose to phase out polystyrene beverage cups since petroleum-based food packaging persists in the environment for hundreds of years after use and polystyrene might even be a human carcinogen. This switch to paper cups reduced restaurant waste by 30 percent, and saved an estimated $6 million per year. Interestingly enough, McDonald’s is now: “the largest purchasers of recycled paper, used in its food containers, bags, and napkins”. One thing is for sure, eco-friendly packaging is sweeping the globe and taking care of our earth is extraordinary.

Another great Green article from Green Halo
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