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Thanksgiving thoughts from the Greenhabilitator...Is anyone else feeling the STRESS already this holiday season? It's been a long week, with an even longer one coming up. The kids are out of school, but the husband still has to work, so I get to work at home, fulfill my mom duties, plan and shop for Thanksgiving, clean the house, try to keep the kids from tearing it apart. Please promise you'll visit me in the loony bin!
In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone (no turkey pun intended there) and because I don't have anything else deep and insightful to tell you about this week, I thought I'd share some of my Turkey Day plans.
I've come to the decision this year that Thanksgiving isn't about trying to replicate what we did during my childhood (then failing at it and being grumpy that Thanksgiving just isn't what it used to be), but to make the best memories for my family today. To do that, I'm really trying to incorporate things that everyone likes.
First things first: Dessert
It's arguably the most important part of the Thanksgiving meal.
Most of the people coming to dinner aren't, well.....let's say....traditionalists. For example, my mother-in-law, who lives with us, came home from the store today with a bag of potato flakes and asked if we could "just have these for Thanksgiving dinner" instead of making real mashed potatoes. I tried to keep a straight face.
None of my husband's family likes pumpkin pie. Actually, they don't eat anything orange...or green. You see what I'm up against here. They'd much rather stop and get a chocolate pudding pie from Denny's. Gag.
On the other hand, it's just not Thanksgiving for my mom without pumpkin pie. I prefer pecan, but appreciate the tradition of pumpkin. A few weeks ago I made pumpkin puree from scratch and froze it so I'm planning to try either a pumpkin cream cheese pie, or pumpkin cheesecake a la Martha Stewart. (Photo from Martha's site.)
Turkey
I've heard so much this year about brining a turkey that I had to see what it's all about. According to Martha (BTW - I totally had a dream the other night that she came to Thanksgiving dinner.), "Soaking a turkey overnight in a solution of salt and water ensures moist results. When you add aromatics to the brine, the resulting roast is also infused with a subtle character all its own. Follow our instructions to prepare a perfect brined turkey for your next feast."
In keeping with Jess' post last month about Saving the Brick & Morters, I decided to stop into this sweet little kitchen store in town yesterday. I had 15 minutes before I had to be at school for the kids Thanksgiving luncheon, so I thought I'd take a look around. When I saw the "Gourmet Gobbler Kit" I knew it was fate that my bird should be brined this year. And so it shall be with a spiced brine blend, then seasoned with smoky peppercorn and herb rub.
Sides
My MIL is vegetarian, but not an actual fan of veggies, so that leaves a lot of pasta and starches. Lucky for me she loves my great grandma's pineapple souffle, as do I, so I get to keep that tradition alive. Score! Here's the recipe. Keep in mind that there is nothing healthy, organic, or local about it, but you can switch some of grandma's ingredients for organic.
- Preheat oven to 350
- Grease an 8" casserole
- Tear up 5 slices of white bread into small pieces and put it in the casserole dish
- Cream together 1 stick of butter and 1/2 cup sugar
- Beat 4 large eggs then mix thoroughly into the butter and sugar
- Add 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
- Pour this mixture onto the bread cubes, mix gently
- Bake uncovered for about 45 minutes
If you use organic sugar, butter and bread (and I'm thinking you can use wheat instead of white) it's not all that bad. But good luck finding local pineapple. Last time I checked that wasn't really a popular crop here in Colorado. But man is it gooooood!
Although I think my mom and I are the only ones who eat sweet potatoes, I'm planning to make some (in a small amount) anyway. There's just no way that I can resist Nikki's Sweet Potatoes from 101 Cookbooks made with coconut milk, toasted coconut, macadamias, and freshly grated ginger. Again, not a locavore's dish with the coconut and macadamias (am I losing my street cred here?).We'll also have some local green beans that I canned a few months ago, bread, mashed potatoes, gravy...all that typical stuff.
Accessories
I found a really pretty, fall-colored table runner at Goodwill last year that will go nicely with my second-hand china. I think I'll enlist the kids in some child labor next week and have them make beaded napkin rings. It should keep them occupied for about 3 minutes while I work. And I thought this was a cute idea from the Elmer's Glue Crew website.
They're made from holiday catalogs and we can alter it to be a place card, or glue a magnet on the back and let everyone take one home with pictures of the kids in them.Wow, well I'm feeling much more organized now. Thanks! We might just have to change this to the Green Therapy Booth.
I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving filled with good company, laughter, love and some delicious food.
Date Published: Nov 21, 2009 - 1:01 am
From the bean of Green Bean.
We make our home on the crowded San Francisco Peninsula. Our houses and shops press together like clothes in a too-full closet. Our streets are a flurry of trucks, cars, bicycles, and buses. Farmers markets abound and a pristine, double decker train, CalTrain, totes us up to the City or down to San Jose. When I worked in San Francisco, years ago, I took the train regularly. On the ride, I'd prepare for work, read a book, or close my eyes and listen to the rails click gently past. More recently, I've turned to the train for regeneration as another year ticked by or loaded my boys on it bound for adventure and ball games.
CalTrain is tame. It is less empty than it once was but the seats are spacious, the upper decks peer over the Bay, green fields and scrap yards as the train lumbers toward San Francisco. In Disney-speak, CalTrain is the Monorail. It is clean, considerate, conciliatory.
If CalTrain is the Monorail, then BART is surely the Matterhorn. At least, that is what my boys dubbed it when we boarded BART for the first time last weekend. BART is dark and jerky. It screams and hollers - like the Abominable Snowman - as it rockets through black tunnels. Riders are stuffed together, packed in like thrill-seekers on a roller coaster ride, jolted at each stop and corner. Stations are dimly lit and hint at the dark, mysterious trip ahead. The tunnels stretch further and further until you are thundering under the opaque waters of the Bay and then, mystically, emerge into daylight. Your ears pop and your children wonder when we can ride the BART train again.
CalTrain is tame. It is less empty than it once was but the seats are spacious, the upper decks peer over the Bay, green fields and scrap yards as the train lumbers toward San Francisco. In Disney-speak, CalTrain is the Monorail. It is clean, considerate, conciliatory.
If CalTrain is the Monorail, then BART is surely the Matterhorn. At least, that is what my boys dubbed it when we boarded BART for the first time last weekend. BART is dark and jerky. It screams and hollers - like the Abominable Snowman - as it rockets through black tunnels. Riders are stuffed together, packed in like thrill-seekers on a roller coaster ride, jolted at each stop and corner. Stations are dimly lit and hint at the dark, mysterious trip ahead. The tunnels stretch further and further until you are thundering under the opaque waters of the Bay and then, mystically, emerge into daylight. Your ears pop and your children wonder when we can ride the BART train again.
It is difficult, after such adventures, to usher everyone back into the car, the strapped seats, the smooth rolling ride where only other cars, not legendary monsters, lurk out of sight. Here, we are shielded from one another with closed windows and separate lanes. There is no people watching, no shared smiles as a boy on the opposite side of the train waves his Thomas toy in your direction, no reading books with two boys snuggled in your lap. You simply move from destination to destination. The journey is not worthy of mention.
Our trips by CalTrain and BART take only moments longer than by car. They yield much more though: gas saved, carbon emissions curbed, a sense of peace that cannot be located behind the wheel, and days of discussion about planes, trains and automobiles.
Date Published: Nov 19, 2009 - 8:52 am
Test your recycling knowledge with The Conscious Shopper
My mom runs the virtual lab at a high school (that's the computer lab where students can take online classes), and she sent me the following email today:
So here's a little quiz for you...Do you know what happens to your recycling after you drag your blue bin to the curb?
Take a mental note of your answers and then read on to learn all sorts of interesting facts about recycling, courtesy of earth911.com (the website I sent to my mom).
FOOD WASTE = COMPOST
Consider yourself lucky if you live in a city that has a curbside composting program. Almost 13 percent of the municipal solid waste generated in America comes from food scraps, and less than 3 percent of that is recovered and composted, according to the EPA.
YARD WASTE = COMPOST and MULCH
Most local governments have instituted yard waste collection and drop-off points. Remember though that the most energy efficient way to recycle your yard waste is to set up your own backyard compost system and use the yard waste in your own yard.
PLASTIC = COMPOSITE LUMBER
Most curbside recycling programs in the U.S. only collect plastic bottles because they are the easiest type of plastic to recycle, but grocery stores commonly have recycling stations for plastic bags. Recycled plastic is rarely turned back into a plastic bottle or bag - most often it becomes composite lumber, a mixture of plastic and sawdust, which is used to make things like benches and decking.
Producing plastics from recycled material uses 66% less energy than making plastics from virgin material, but only 1% of all plastics are recycled.
METAL = ALUMINUM AND STEEL CANS
Most curbside recycling programs collect aluminum and steel cans. Recycling aluminum uses 95% less energy than making cans from virgin materials, and recycling steel uses 75% less energy.
Aluminum cans are highly recyclable - it takes as little as 60 days to turn a used can into a new aluminum can. Steel is also a valuable and highly recyclable material because it doesn't decrease in quality no matter how many times it's recycled. Almost all steel products produced today contain some percentage of recycled content.
GLASS = GLASS BOTTLES, TILES, COUNTERTOPS, AND ROAD MATERIAL
Curbside recycling programs only take glass bottles, but most will take bottles of any color. Like aluminum and steel, it's a valuable recyclable material because it's infinitely recyclable, doesn't lose its quality, and has a turnaround time of about 30 days. Plus, it takes 40% less energy to make glass products with recycled material than with only raw materials.
PAPER and CARDBOARD = ALL SORTS OF PAPER PRODUCTS
Most curbside recycling programs have extensive mixed paper collection including newspaper, mail, printer paper, cardboard, and paperboard - as long as it's not contaminated with food or oil. Paper recycling uses 60 percent less energy than paper made from all virgin material.
****
Note that every city has its own recycling guidelines, and one wrong item can contaminate a whole batch, making all of those collected items useless. Check your city's website for information about what's recyclable in your area.
And please remember that recycling is the last step and should only be considered after you have REDUCED and REUSED.
My mom runs the virtual lab at a high school (that's the computer lab where students can take online classes), and she sent me the following email today:
I've got a student assignment where they have a list of products that can be recycled and have to tell what those products can be recycled into. I've spent a half hour on google and can't find a good website. I'd like one that covers most of the products. Know any? The products are--food waste, yard waste, plastic, metal, glass, paper, and cardboard.I sent back a quick reply and then started thinking...Do I know what those products are recycled into?
So here's a little quiz for you...Do you know what happens to your recycling after you drag your blue bin to the curb?
Take a mental note of your answers and then read on to learn all sorts of interesting facts about recycling, courtesy of earth911.com (the website I sent to my mom).
FOOD WASTE = COMPOST
Consider yourself lucky if you live in a city that has a curbside composting program. Almost 13 percent of the municipal solid waste generated in America comes from food scraps, and less than 3 percent of that is recovered and composted, according to the EPA.
YARD WASTE = COMPOST and MULCH
Most local governments have instituted yard waste collection and drop-off points. Remember though that the most energy efficient way to recycle your yard waste is to set up your own backyard compost system and use the yard waste in your own yard.
PLASTIC = COMPOSITE LUMBER
Most curbside recycling programs in the U.S. only collect plastic bottles because they are the easiest type of plastic to recycle, but grocery stores commonly have recycling stations for plastic bags. Recycled plastic is rarely turned back into a plastic bottle or bag - most often it becomes composite lumber, a mixture of plastic and sawdust, which is used to make things like benches and decking.
Producing plastics from recycled material uses 66% less energy than making plastics from virgin material, but only 1% of all plastics are recycled.
METAL = ALUMINUM AND STEEL CANS
Most curbside recycling programs collect aluminum and steel cans. Recycling aluminum uses 95% less energy than making cans from virgin materials, and recycling steel uses 75% less energy.
Aluminum cans are highly recyclable - it takes as little as 60 days to turn a used can into a new aluminum can. Steel is also a valuable and highly recyclable material because it doesn't decrease in quality no matter how many times it's recycled. Almost all steel products produced today contain some percentage of recycled content.
GLASS = GLASS BOTTLES, TILES, COUNTERTOPS, AND ROAD MATERIAL
Curbside recycling programs only take glass bottles, but most will take bottles of any color. Like aluminum and steel, it's a valuable recyclable material because it's infinitely recyclable, doesn't lose its quality, and has a turnaround time of about 30 days. Plus, it takes 40% less energy to make glass products with recycled material than with only raw materials.
PAPER and CARDBOARD = ALL SORTS OF PAPER PRODUCTS
Most curbside recycling programs have extensive mixed paper collection including newspaper, mail, printer paper, cardboard, and paperboard - as long as it's not contaminated with food or oil. Paper recycling uses 60 percent less energy than paper made from all virgin material.
****
Note that every city has its own recycling guidelines, and one wrong item can contaminate a whole batch, making all of those collected items useless. Check your city's website for information about what's recyclable in your area.
And please remember that recycling is the last step and should only be considered after you have REDUCED and REUSED.
Date Published: Nov 18, 2009 - 1:01 am
Fun with leaves from The Conscious Shopper
"My husband spent three hours getting the leaves out of our yard last weekend," a friend told me. "An hour to blow them all into a pile, and then two hours to bag them all up."
"Wow!" I replied casually, but inside I was screaming. Why, oh why, did he waste time getting the leaves out of his yard??? I want more leaves in my yard! We don't have any trees, and although we got enough leaves from our neighbors' trees to do this...
...it wasn't nearly as many leaves as I'd like. When I add a garden next year and start working on our landscaping, I'm definitely going to need more leaves for my stockpile. I'm sure my neighbors will be happy to share.
Don't have a proper appreciation for leaves? Try these fall projects:
For you
"My husband spent three hours getting the leaves out of our yard last weekend," a friend told me. "An hour to blow them all into a pile, and then two hours to bag them all up."
"Wow!" I replied casually, but inside I was screaming. Why, oh why, did he waste time getting the leaves out of his yard??? I want more leaves in my yard! We don't have any trees, and although we got enough leaves from our neighbors' trees to do this...
...it wasn't nearly as many leaves as I'd like. When I add a garden next year and start working on our landscaping, I'm definitely going to need more leaves for my stockpile. I'm sure my neighbors will be happy to share.
Don't have a proper appreciation for leaves? Try these fall projects:
For you
- Mulch your garden. Instead of bagging up your leaves, pile them in your garden and around your shrubs, flowers, and leaves. Why buy mulch every year when your trees provide it for free?
- Mulch your lawn. If you don't have a lot of leaves, you can simply mow over them with your lawn mower. They will decompose right where you left them and add beneficial nutrients to your lawn.
- Leaf mold. Decomposed leaves are a great addition to a garden. You can let the leaves decompose on their own or add them to other organic material to make compost.
- Play house. When I was a kid, we would mound leaves into rows to make the floor plan of a home, and then we'd designate a mom, dad, and kids for a game of "house." I really wish there were enough leaves in my yard to pass that tradition on to my children.
- Identify leaves. I love picking up a leaf and quizzing my kids on the type of tree it came from. How many types of leaves can you find in your yard? You can also press leaves and keep them as a memento.
- Catch leaves. My son's teacher told their class, "If you catch a leaf as it's falling, you'll be holding a leaf that has never touched the ground." My son thinks that is so cool.
Date Published: Nov 17, 2009 - 1:01 am
Bleatings from EnviRambo.You recycle paper, glass, and even plastic bottles, but what do you do with their pesky caps? Unfortunately the answer for millions of Americans is throw them away. But, they do not have to.
Aveda has a program for recycling plastic bottle caps. Recycle Caps With Aveda is a campaign that collects caps to be repurposed into new packaging. The program accepts caps that are rigid polypropylene plastic - #5. Not sure what that is? It includes hard plastic caps that twist on a threaded neck such as caps on shampoo, water, soda, and milk. As well as flip-top caps on tubes and food product bottles like ketchup and mayonnaise, laundry detergents and some jar lids such as peanut butter.
Have an Aveda store near you? Not sure? Click here to find out. Once you have located an Aveda near you, call to confirm they participate in the Recycle Caps With Aveda program. If they do, start saving those pesky plastic caps and simply turn them in. If not, you can mail them directly to:
DISTRIBUTION CENTER
AVEDA CAP PROGRAM
ATTN: CESAR SOTO
475 WEST APRA STREET
RANCHO DOMINGUEZ, CA 90220
Even better yet, you can get your or your child's school to act as a collection point. Once completing the enrollment form, Aveda will partner with your school providing shipping labels for your school's cap-filled containers. The school just needs to call UPS when a container is ready to be shipped. For more information on enrollment email capcollection@aveda.com or call 1-877-AVEDA09.
No Aveda near you? Well, you could always turn your plastic caps into refrigerator magnets.
Date Published: Nov 16, 2009 - 1:00 am
Go green, save green with the Greenhabilitator...
As wife to Cheapest Man on the Planet (yep, official title there) I know a thing or two about saving money through green means, which is the topic of next week's Green Mom's Carnival hosted at Condo Blues.
My husband doesn't go for things like "going green" if it comes with a high price tag. Don't get me wrong, he loves the earth, but he also loves living a simple life where he doesn't have to work two jobs to afford living green. So tell him it will save him money though and he is ALL.OVER.IT!
Give it up.
One of the first things we did to live more sustainably was to give up a lot of the wasteful convenience items we used. We traded our paper towels for wash cloths and paper napkins for cloth and stopped using dryer sheets in our laundry. These might not be things that will change the world, but they're good first steps and a good way to save a little money.
To save a bundle, I gave up shopping as a fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon or just because a store was having a sale and started to differentiate between want and need. The things that I need (or really reeeeeally want) I look for second hand.
Clean it up.
I make my own laundry soap (recipe here) at a cost of about $0.10 per load. Not a phenomenal savings, but a savings over many traditional brands and "green" brands nonetheless. The ingredients are natural, biodegradable and come in recyclable paper or cardboard boxes. No plastic containers to be manufactured or downcycled. No chemicals going into the ground water.
I use vinegar & water as my all-purpose cleaner (kitchen, bathroom, windows, you name it). One large jug of vinegar runs $2.57 and lasts me about 6 months. I save at least $4 per month on a regular store-bought spray cleaner...plus all those other things I used to use: tile cleaner, and toilet bowl cleaner, stuff for the tub and stuff for windows.
Make it From Scratch.
From cupcakes to clothing to gifts I'm slightly surprised, yet happy to say, that I've started a love affair with making things myself. I've never really liked cooking, or been good at it, but suddenly I'm actually enjoying making things from scratch - soups, spaghetti sauce, baked goods...sometimes I surprise myself.
Tonight my little girl attended her first birthday party (Tinkerbell themed!). I made the birthday girl a sweet little Tinkerbell outfit, complete with crown, for a total cost of about $5. And it was *really* darn cute!
Drive it home.
We downsized to a smaller car which was used by the person who had to drive the farthest each day. I took public transportation some days and, finally, I started working from home. Less money spent on gas and car repairs, less CO2, more time at home with family.
To be honest, there are very few steps we've taken along this path to a sustainable lifestyle that have cost us more than our old ways. I may spend a few extra dollars here and there on organic foods, but I spend less on groceries overall by making more food from scratch.
I could go on and on about all the changes we've made that save us money. In fact, I was able to leave my full time position to work part time and be home with the kids. We're not living the high life, but we do get by on a teacher's salary and a part time pittance.
The biggest validation of our lifestyle came a few weeks ago though, when I got a call from my son's preschool. My heart sank immediately expecting to hear "Fletcher broke his arm." or something equally horrific. Instead, they were calling to offer us a free, confidential Thanksgiving basket as well as help with Christmas dinner and gifts. They said that they offer this to a select few families each year who might need some extra help.
I think my response was something like, "Uhhhhhhh..... Us?" since we actually head up an effort each year to collect Thanksgiving baskets for families in need.
After hanging up, my wheels started turning. You see, our annual income qualifies us to pay a reduced rate for our son's preschool, which we gladly accept. (I never look a gift horse in the mouth...whatever a gift horse is.) Evidently that would normally mean that we are a family in need.
Ah-ha! I almost called her back to say "Wait! We're not poor -- we live this way on purpose!" Instead I use the story to remind myself how far we've come.
Date Published: Nov 14, 2009 - 1:01 am
From Truffula.
The introductory remarks brought us heart-warming anecdotes of learning about history through eating the impressive, organically-grown produce from a museum garden, of developmentally-disabled adults finding meaningful community connections (and better nutrition for themselves) through farming, and of the unparalleled pleasure and pride of eating food harvested from your very own garden.
The health benefits from this consuming such good food almost went without saying - this was a committed audience, fully appreciative of nutrient-packed greens; crisp, just-picked apples; and sun-warmed-off-the-vine tomatoes.
Then, our discussion took a tack, exploring that at the intersection of our tummies and the healthy food we want to put into them lies... an opportunity for putting our mouths where our
For example, we heard that officials are busy working on creating markets for healthy food, but... that expanding access to healthy food is actually not about markets. (As the Green Phone Booth community can attest, getting a CSA slot or scoring delectable raspberries at the farmers' market can be pretty darned challenging because there are quite a few folks vying for them! And, one speaker told of an area food bank, eager to buy as much fresh, healthy goodness as his farm could provide.) Instead, the shortage is on the production side: there are not enough farmers.
The kicker is that there are young people interested in farming (and to be sure, less younger ones, also!), but access to land is all-to0-frequently a deal-breaker. Buying land is expensive, and coming up with the necessary dough can be nigh unto impossible.
We talked about fact that growing healthy soil is at the heart of producing healthy food. Together, we recognized what hard work that is, how the time to achieve fertile soil is measured in years, and that only long-term land-use arrangements create the conditions to make this feasible.
Food growers are a practical bunch, and neither the panel nor the audience allowed the evening's rain to dampen its spirits or optimism! Some of the "next steps" we headed home with included:
- Engage in food activism, for which the timing has rarely been better - talk to politicians about things like "growing more farmers" and "relocalizing food", using and reinforcing terms which have emerged in the national vocabulary. Encourage them to support ideas like long-term leases of public land to smaller-scale farmers.
- Envision food growing in less conventional places. Adopt Woody's motto of planting "peas, not petunias." What if your community's maintenance crew went from tending lawn to cultivating an edible landscape?
- Educate yourself about your foodshed.
- Grow something, whether you have an acre, a yard, a sunroom, or even a windowsill. Experience the transformative nature of growing food.
- Share something - a vegetable from your plant(s), seeds you've saved, a meal you've prepared, a story, etc.
Date Published: Nov 13, 2009 - 1:01 am
The Green Phone Booth welcomes Boston writer Karen Moser-Booth for a bit of trash talk today.
Every Thursday morning as I meander down my block towards the bus stop, I check out my neighbors' trash. Big black plastic sacks ooze remnants from the week gone by and twice a month, bright blue recycling bins overflow with evidence of just how much plastic the average American household goes through. I count the number of ugly brown trash cans each neighbor needs to contain their week's waste. I make note of those who stuff leaves into bags for their curbside pick-up and those who do not. Mostly, I examine my neighbors' lives like an archaeologist examines a culture's remains--I draw conclusions about their habits based on what they throw away. Yep: I like trash.
Ahh, trash. Good ole American trash. We throw out 4.3 pounds of you per person per day, nearly double the daily amount produced per American citizen in 1960. Life Less Plastic blogs about the EPA's 2005 report on municipal waste, saying the amount of trash sent to landfills has actually decreased slightly this decade. Some theorize that deposit bills mean we're throwing out more but it weighs less. Five cents for that plastic Coke bottle is an incentive after all. According to the State of Garbage in America report cited in Royte's book, 65.6% of our trash goes to a landfill. The rest is composted, recycled, or burned. Essentially, we are producing more waste, but recycling a bit more too. Sounds to me like the third R--recycle--was heard more clearly by the American public than the first and most important--reduce.
Where does it all go? After the sanitation workers pick up your trash and whisk it away, it usually heads for a transfer station nearby (and often, this means a lower-class neighborhood), where the supercompressed garbage is dumped. From there, your trash travels on a tractor-trailer to an incinerator or landfill, which is more and more often in another state and almost always in another economically depressed town. There, your trash produces contaminated moisture, or leachate, and toxic landfill gases--including 32% of our nation's methane emissions--for thousands of years. "If you produce pollution, someone's going to get it," Majora Carter called out at a lecture last year in Boston. She deemed poverty a byproduct of overconsumption, and assured us that "there are smarter ways to deal with waste."
What used to happen to trash? One hundred and fifty years ago, a peddler would have come to your house and taken your old clothes, ashes, metal, bones, and rubber, which in turn would be sold back to you in the form of soap, tins, boots, and buttons. Cooking grease would become candles or soap. Every bit of an animal's carcass from the kitchen would turn into something else: knife handles, lighting, glue, fertilizer. The waste system was more of a closed-loop one than we have now, and paper was so precious that it wasn't thrown away at all. I envy this circular system and I've added Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strasser to my to-read list. Eventually, though, as population bloomed and cities proliferated, the trash piled up so high that the government had to step in and create a disposal system.
"Virgin papermaking is one of the most environmentally harmful industries on earth," Royte writes. The Natural Resources Defense Council puts the papermaking industry at the third spot on its list of the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. Paper, along with glass, is easy to recycle, and essential, seeing how it is the #1 household item thrown away (food is #2).
Composting confession at the Booth: I never really got composting. My thinking was something along the lines of, well if food's easily biodegradable, why would I go through the trouble of composting? As an urban dweller, I had no need for garden dirt. But food doesn't easily biodegrade in a landfill. In fact, the majority of objects in a landfill never touch soil. Now I've learned that worms are the best pets. Every piece I don't throw out is more land for the future.
I always shake my head at bags of leaves. Why do we interrupt nature's cycles? Leaves are not waste. Once, a harried neighbor was raking her leaves into a bag and trying to watch her two children near the street when I happened by. "I can only get one bag done today," she confessed. "Why bother?" I asked, gesturing to her children. "You have more important things to do." She paused to position her rake better. "Because everyone else rakes them up around here, so we probably should, too," she explained.
What about the people? Recycling employs ten times more people than landfilling or incineration. It also creates havoc in developing countries when plastic and toxic e-waste is just dumped. According to the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers cited in Royte's book, 35% of PET bottles collected in the U.S. in 2003 were exported, usually to China.
For every 100 pounds of consumer products, 3,200 pounds of waste is created. -Paul Hawken
"Perhaps one of the most important things I'd learned in the past year," Royte writes, "was the names of the people who took away my trash." Tape the sharp ends together. Uncover your cans, but put the lid on if it rains. Tie up your cardboard. Put your garbage cans in an easily accessible spot (which is to say, not behind a parked car). Say hello and wave. These small steps make sanitation workers' lives easier.
What can you recycle? As Royte toured paper recycling mills and observed the process of making "primordial paper soup," she realized through the slurry that "putting waxed-paper bags in my recycling pile wasn't the worst thing in the world, that I didn't need to tear out glassine windows from pasta boxes or get every last popcorn kernel from the microwave. Chris Lovett would do it for me." What a relief! I always wondered just how much I had to rinse those peanut butter jars.
While I'm not quite ready to be pegged a zero-waste zealot, my latest project is using less plastic. Like EnviRambo, I'm asking why. I'm refocusing my efforts on reducing and reusing so my child will be left with land, not landfills. And while I acknowledge that solid municipal waste--all 232,000,000 tons of it each year--accounts for a mere 2% of the total U.S. waste, I still see value in being an ecological citizen.
Every Thursday morning as I meander down my block towards the bus stop, I check out my neighbors' trash. Big black plastic sacks ooze remnants from the week gone by and twice a month, bright blue recycling bins overflow with evidence of just how much plastic the average American household goes through. I count the number of ugly brown trash cans each neighbor needs to contain their week's waste. I make note of those who stuff leaves into bags for their curbside pick-up and those who do not. Mostly, I examine my neighbors' lives like an archaeologist examines a culture's remains--I draw conclusions about their habits based on what they throw away. Yep: I like trash. Having recently polished off the wonderful tome Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte, my Thursday mornings have taken on a different meaning lately. More than a voyeuristic glimpse at someone's private life--it's like the gossip section of a magazine without buying a magazine!--or a somewhat self-righteous assessment of others' ecological footprints, my walk now conjures up statistics of biosolids, stories behind Fresh Kills, the nasty PR campaign surrounding triangular recycling symbols, and musings about how long leachate containment systems will hold up. To share this new awakening with you dear Boothers without subjecting you to another book review, I grabbed my camera for my curbside stroll, nabbing pictures (and pretending not to mind neighbors' inquisitive eyes) and scribbling notes as I went.
Ahh, trash. Good ole American trash. We throw out 4.3 pounds of you per person per day, nearly double the daily amount produced per American citizen in 1960. Life Less Plastic blogs about the EPA's 2005 report on municipal waste, saying the amount of trash sent to landfills has actually decreased slightly this decade. Some theorize that deposit bills mean we're throwing out more but it weighs less. Five cents for that plastic Coke bottle is an incentive after all. According to the State of Garbage in America report cited in Royte's book, 65.6% of our trash goes to a landfill. The rest is composted, recycled, or burned. Essentially, we are producing more waste, but recycling a bit more too. Sounds to me like the third R--recycle--was heard more clearly by the American public than the first and most important--reduce. Where does it all go? After the sanitation workers pick up your trash and whisk it away, it usually heads for a transfer station nearby (and often, this means a lower-class neighborhood), where the supercompressed garbage is dumped. From there, your trash travels on a tractor-trailer to an incinerator or landfill, which is more and more often in another state and almost always in another economically depressed town. There, your trash produces contaminated moisture, or leachate, and toxic landfill gases--including 32% of our nation's methane emissions--for thousands of years. "If you produce pollution, someone's going to get it," Majora Carter called out at a lecture last year in Boston. She deemed poverty a byproduct of overconsumption, and assured us that "there are smarter ways to deal with waste." What used to happen to trash? One hundred and fifty years ago, a peddler would have come to your house and taken your old clothes, ashes, metal, bones, and rubber, which in turn would be sold back to you in the form of soap, tins, boots, and buttons. Cooking grease would become candles or soap. Every bit of an animal's carcass from the kitchen would turn into something else: knife handles, lighting, glue, fertilizer. The waste system was more of a closed-loop one than we have now, and paper was so precious that it wasn't thrown away at all. I envy this circular system and I've added Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash by Susan Strasser to my to-read list. Eventually, though, as population bloomed and cities proliferated, the trash piled up so high that the government had to step in and create a disposal system."Virgin papermaking is one of the most environmentally harmful industries on earth," Royte writes. The Natural Resources Defense Council puts the papermaking industry at the third spot on its list of the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. Paper, along with glass, is easy to recycle, and essential, seeing how it is the #1 household item thrown away (food is #2).Composting confession at the Booth: I never really got composting. My thinking was something along the lines of, well if food's easily biodegradable, why would I go through the trouble of composting? As an urban dweller, I had no need for garden dirt. But food doesn't easily biodegrade in a landfill. In fact, the majority of objects in a landfill never touch soil. Now I've learned that worms are the best pets. Every piece I don't throw out is more land for the future.I always shake my head at bags of leaves. Why do we interrupt nature's cycles? Leaves are not waste. Once, a harried neighbor was raking her leaves into a bag and trying to watch her two children near the street when I happened by. "I can only get one bag done today," she confessed. "Why bother?" I asked, gesturing to her children. "You have more important things to do." She paused to position her rake better. "Because everyone else rakes them up around here, so we probably should, too," she explained. What about the people? Recycling employs ten times more people than landfilling or incineration. It also creates havoc in developing countries when plastic and toxic e-waste is just dumped. According to the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers cited in Royte's book, 35% of PET bottles collected in the U.S. in 2003 were exported, usually to China. For every 100 pounds of consumer products, 3,200 pounds of waste is created. -Paul Hawken "Perhaps one of the most important things I'd learned in the past year," Royte writes, "was the names of the people who took away my trash." Tape the sharp ends together. Uncover your cans, but put the lid on if it rains. Tie up your cardboard. Put your garbage cans in an easily accessible spot (which is to say, not behind a parked car). Say hello and wave. These small steps make sanitation workers' lives easier.Plastic. Artists are drawing attention to our habits, using pieces drifting in the ocean, photographing albatross chicks, and drawing attention to Styrofoam. Plastic bottle caps are the new six-rings. "[Plastic recycling] is not recycling at all," Ann Leonard of the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance told Royte. "We're just delaying its eventual dumping." Plastic never biodegrades--it photodegrades, which means it gets smaller and smaller until we can't see it. But it's still there, and when marine researcher Charles Moore surveyed 500 square miles in the North Pacific in 2002, he found 10 pounds of plastic for each pound of zooplankton. "Plastic is toxic both to make and to dispose of," Royte writes: five of the top six chemicals whose production generates the most hazardous waste are commonly used by the plastics industry, according to the EPA.
What can you recycle? As Royte toured paper recycling mills and observed the process of making "primordial paper soup," she realized through the slurry that "putting waxed-paper bags in my recycling pile wasn't the worst thing in the world, that I didn't need to tear out glassine windows from pasta boxes or get every last popcorn kernel from the microwave. Chris Lovett would do it for me." What a relief! I always wondered just how much I had to rinse those peanut butter jars. While I'm not quite ready to be pegged a zero-waste zealot, my latest project is using less plastic. Like EnviRambo, I'm asking why. I'm refocusing my efforts on reducing and reusing so my child will be left with land, not landfills. And while I acknowledge that solid municipal waste--all 232,000,000 tons of it each year--accounts for a mere 2% of the total U.S. waste, I still see value in being an ecological citizen.If you don't have time to read Garbage Land or pick up Royte's newest, Bottlemania, her blog is chocked full of resources and short bits of info that can be digested quickly.
Date Published: Nov 12, 2009 - 9:00 am
First some business from The Conscious Shopper...The winner of the No Impact Man giveaway is: Oldnovice! Please email your address to consciousshopperblog [at] gmail [dot] com, and I'll ship that right out to you!
My butt is mad at me tonight.
Earlier today, I had a meeting downtown, so I loaded up the stroller - three umbrellas, two kids, one backpack, and a partridge in a pear tree - and hauled all 100 pounds of it up and down North Carolina's hills to the bus stop a half a mile away. We took a quick trip on the bus to my husband's office, and then I deposited the load in my husband's safe hands before heading off to the meeting.
Two hours later, the stroller, boys, backpack, and I took the bus back uptown to kill some time at a museum until my oldest's school let out. Then it was back on the bus, half a mile walk to the school, find son, half a mile walk to the bus stop, bus ride, half a mile walk home. All the while pushing a stroller with two kids and a backpack up and down North Carolina's hills.
My butt is mad.
Most days I don't do quite that much walking, but three afternoons a week we do make that trip on foot/bus to my son's school. It takes me an hour and forty five minutes and involves two miles of pushing two kids on a stroller. I honestly don't mind the walk. I needed more exercise anyway (as my butt can attest). But I am struggling with the hour and forty five minutes.
Choosing to walk to pick my son up from school rather than drive our gas guzzler changes the great convenience of living less than two miles from my son's school into a complete inconvenience.
I often hear the excuse that going green is more expensive. It really doesn't have to be. But it can be much more time consuming.
I'm lucky to have the flexibility to be able to devote an extra hour of my day to a long walk, but most people don't have that luxury. If the choice is between a short commute in the car or a doubled commute by bus, how many people are going to choose the long commute?
But on the other hand, I sometimes think as I'm walking (while pretending to have a conversation with my babbling son), what if the bus stop were a quarter mile from our house and the school instead of a half a mile? What if the bus came every ten minutes instead of every twenty? Those small changes could easily cut the travelling time down to an hour. And an hour is very doable.
I believe individual personal changes are hugely important to the green movement. But the truth is that they can only take us so far. Here in America, our infrastructure has not been designed for a green lifestyle, so until we change the system, we're going to hit a wall.
If we want people to drive less, we need cities and suburbs that are walkable with affordable public transportation. If we want people to support local food systems, we need to make it as convenient to shop at a farmer's market as it is to shop at the corner grocery. If we want our children to spend more time unplugged outdoors, we have to provide accessible green spaces and playgrounds and create safe neighborhoods.
Personal changes matter, but they're not enough. We've got to change the system.
But in the meantime, I'll keep loading up the stroller for the long walk downtown. My butt can use the exercise.
My butt is mad at me tonight.
Earlier today, I had a meeting downtown, so I loaded up the stroller - three umbrellas, two kids, one backpack, and a partridge in a pear tree - and hauled all 100 pounds of it up and down North Carolina's hills to the bus stop a half a mile away. We took a quick trip on the bus to my husband's office, and then I deposited the load in my husband's safe hands before heading off to the meeting.
Two hours later, the stroller, boys, backpack, and I took the bus back uptown to kill some time at a museum until my oldest's school let out. Then it was back on the bus, half a mile walk to the school, find son, half a mile walk to the bus stop, bus ride, half a mile walk home. All the while pushing a stroller with two kids and a backpack up and down North Carolina's hills.
My butt is mad.
Most days I don't do quite that much walking, but three afternoons a week we do make that trip on foot/bus to my son's school. It takes me an hour and forty five minutes and involves two miles of pushing two kids on a stroller. I honestly don't mind the walk. I needed more exercise anyway (as my butt can attest). But I am struggling with the hour and forty five minutes.
Choosing to walk to pick my son up from school rather than drive our gas guzzler changes the great convenience of living less than two miles from my son's school into a complete inconvenience.
I often hear the excuse that going green is more expensive. It really doesn't have to be. But it can be much more time consuming.
I'm lucky to have the flexibility to be able to devote an extra hour of my day to a long walk, but most people don't have that luxury. If the choice is between a short commute in the car or a doubled commute by bus, how many people are going to choose the long commute?
But on the other hand, I sometimes think as I'm walking (while pretending to have a conversation with my babbling son), what if the bus stop were a quarter mile from our house and the school instead of a half a mile? What if the bus came every ten minutes instead of every twenty? Those small changes could easily cut the travelling time down to an hour. And an hour is very doable.
I believe individual personal changes are hugely important to the green movement. But the truth is that they can only take us so far. Here in America, our infrastructure has not been designed for a green lifestyle, so until we change the system, we're going to hit a wall.
If we want people to drive less, we need cities and suburbs that are walkable with affordable public transportation. If we want people to support local food systems, we need to make it as convenient to shop at a farmer's market as it is to shop at the corner grocery. If we want our children to spend more time unplugged outdoors, we have to provide accessible green spaces and playgrounds and create safe neighborhoods.
Personal changes matter, but they're not enough. We've got to change the system.
But in the meantime, I'll keep loading up the stroller for the long walk downtown. My butt can use the exercise.
Date Published: Nov 11, 2009 - 1:01 am
From the bean of Green Bean.
* All photos courtesy of blogger and friend, Jess Nichols, of Sweet Eventide.
I don't have much time to write this post. There is bread rising on the counter that will need to go into the oven. The dehydrator is whirring with a neighbor's persimmons. Dried beans from our front yard garden soak in a bowl next to the sink. Butter softens next to the stove - a prime suspect for this afternoon's cookies. Eggs await in a cooler at a friend's house - a drop for pastured, local eggs.
The farmers' market is tomorrow and I need to make my list, peruse my cookbooks, leaf through favorite recipes. I wonder what might be there. Broccoli and potatoes for sure. That sounds like soup! Spinach and beets. Maybe a salad? Pasta sauce that I made in September will need to be pulled out of the freezer. A jar of blackberry jam goes into the fridge. And those pumpkins lurking by the front door - those 128 pounds of pumpkins that we grew in our garden - those will need to be dealt with.
There are peeps emanating from the garage. No doubt water to be changed, feed to be added and soft, tiny bodies to be cradled. (Yes. I've got chicks! That's Fluff, Serena and Butterscotch up above and Willow and Lollipop down below).
It's a cold November morning and there is laundry to be done. There's a chill and so I put on a jacket and some slippers. I leave the heater set at 64 degrees and tiptoe out to turn the sprinklers down on the vegetable garden and off on everything else.
A tangle of yarn and double pointed needles poke out of my purse, demanding to be transformed into a teddy bear (shhhh!) for Christmas. There's the stack of knit wool hats to be sold at the craft faire to raise money for my son's school. And also some recycled crayon Christmas trees. What should we charge for those, I wonder?
My son's robot costume - the winner of a green Halloween costume - looms on the dining room table; a ghost caught between our home and the recycle bin. A jar of cast off buttons waits on the kitchen table. That, two kids and a bottle of glue and we've got grandma's Christmas present.
Today, I am to write for the APLS Carnival, though. To talk about whether I've been able to change a behavior I initially thought I could not - in the name of sustainability. I think about how I, a lover of all things Target - the shiny red carts, the knock off clothing, the holiday knick knacks, stopped shopping. About how I, an eater of Lean Cuisine, went "from scratch" on everyone. About how I turned my nose up at Halloween candy and gave most of it away because, honestly, after a year of eating home-baked goodies, a Reese's peanut butter cup really doesn't taste that good. About how it I, who adored convenience, looked blankly at my brother-in-law when he asked for a paper towel. A paper what?
The truth about "going green" though is that it doesn't happen all at once. You don't wake up one morning with a fully formed victory garden outside, a pantry full of home-canned preserves and an Amish buggy in the garage. You start with something small and then take another step and another and another until suddenly you are somewhere you never thought you'd be doing things you never thought yourself remotely capable of (ahem, baking artisan bread). Don't think about where you are going. Just what the next step is. Whether it is moving from conventional produce to organic to the farmers market to growing your own. It's the thousand mile journey that begins with a single organic apple.
At least that's how it happened for me. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's my turn to pick up the carpool and I need to empty the compost before I go.
If you'd like to weigh in, check out the carnival topic details here and submit your post to steph@greeningfamilies.com by November 15. Or pop over to Greening Families on November 18th to read what other APLS have to say about making changes in the name of sustainability.
Date Published: Nov 10, 2009 - 11:25 am
Bleatings from EnviRambo.
Sadly it is that time of year again. Time to batten down the hatches, button up the house, and put the storm windows on. All of our house has new double pane windows, except for the solarium. Sixteen 107 year old leaded glass windows and no insulation. You bet your bottom it gets darn right cold in there. The windows have started to bow and warp and are anything but air tight. You can actually see outside on some of them! And I am not talking through the glass either. When it rains hard with a lot of wind, water comes in. Ah, but they are beautiful, add charm and are part of what appealed to me when we purchased the house.
Looking out without the storm windows on.
So, every fall I pull the storm windows out of the shed, drag out the ladder, prepare my bucket of water and vinegar and get to work. The outer windows only get washed twice a year; when the storm windows go on and again in the spring when they come off. I am lazy when it comes to this task, but not so lazy that I want to spend the next seven months looking through dirt and bird poop.
Heat loss through windows accounts for 10 to 25 percent of your home heating bill.[1] Windows are a major source of escaping heat since they provide a poor thermal barrier, with an R factor of only .89. They are also often not well sealed and let cold air in. Adding storm windows greatly improves both of these situations.[2]
Looking out with the storm windows on.
Looking out without the storm windows on.
So, every fall I pull the storm windows out of the shed, drag out the ladder, prepare my bucket of water and vinegar and get to work. The outer windows only get washed twice a year; when the storm windows go on and again in the spring when they come off. I am lazy when it comes to this task, but not so lazy that I want to spend the next seven months looking through dirt and bird poop.
Heat loss through windows accounts for 10 to 25 percent of your home heating bill.[1] Windows are a major source of escaping heat since they provide a poor thermal barrier, with an R factor of only .89. They are also often not well sealed and let cold air in. Adding storm windows greatly improves both of these situations.[2]
Looking out with the storm windows on.This window assembly—the single-pane window plus the storm window—has an R factor of 1.79, which is actually more energy-efficient than a double-paned window assembly that has an air space up to half an inch (and an R factor of only 1.72).[2] Your old storm windows may be more energy-efficient than you think!
If you don't have storm windows, an inexpensive option is to make your own storm windows by adding a clear vinyl film to the outside of your windows using a special tape designed for this purpose. This is a compromise, since vinyl is decidedly eco-unfriendly, but while you cannot recycle the tape, you can recycle the vinyl and use it next year.[3]
With & without storm window.
If you don't have storm windows, an inexpensive option is to make your own storm windows by adding a clear vinyl film to the outside of your windows using a special tape designed for this purpose. This is a compromise, since vinyl is decidedly eco-unfriendly, but while you cannot recycle the tape, you can recycle the vinyl and use it next year.[3]
With & without storm window.This side by side comparison was taken in the morning. The left window has an exterior storm installed; the right window does not. It is completely covered in condensation. All that moisture is on the inside. A darn good way to rot the wooden window frame!
While it is not a job I enjoy and the storms are mighty ugly to look at, I will continue to drag them out and put them up year after year. They conserve energy, reduce my heating bill, increase our comfort, preserve a historic aspect of our home, and add a creepy effect for Halloween!
While it is not a job I enjoy and the storms are mighty ugly to look at, I will continue to drag them out and put them up year after year. They conserve energy, reduce my heating bill, increase our comfort, preserve a historic aspect of our home, and add a creepy effect for Halloween!
- US Department of Energy - Tips on Saving Energy & Money at Home
- US National Park Service - Conserving Energy in Historic Buildings
- Energy Boomer - Easy Add On Storm Windows From The Outside
Date Published: Nov 09, 2009 - 1:00 am
From the bean of Green Bean.
Photo of my son's toes courtesy of photographer, friend and blogger extraordinaire, Jess Nichols.
With the holidays hot on our heels, many greenies are thinking about what to buy. Or not to buy. Simple Mom offers a list of 10 Clutter-Free (and earth friendly) ideas for kids. Mnmlist, on the other hand, suggests 7 Ways to Avoid Buying New Stuff.
If the holidays and winter have you thinking about restocking your wardrobe, be sure to take the ethical clothing pledge (via Sono-Ma):
"I pledge to only wear clothing that is one or more of the following:
1. Pre-loved
2. Handmade (preferably by me)
3. Reconstructed
4. Made with ethical / environmentally friendly materials
5. Made by a company with strong ethical policy & workers' rights
* Companies with environmentally friendly practices (such as cutting down on waste/energy/water) get brownie points
* If I get one little inkling of sweatshop labour, I'm outta there!
* Above all though, I think the most important thing is reducing the amount of things we use in the first place. Not purchasing ANOTHER piece of clothing just for the sake of it is the biggest statement we can make."
1. Pre-loved
2. Handmade (preferably by me)
3. Reconstructed
4. Made with ethical / environmentally friendly materials
5. Made by a company with strong ethical policy & workers' rights
* Companies with environmentally friendly practices (such as cutting down on waste/energy/water) get brownie points
* If I get one little inkling of sweatshop labour, I'm outta there!
* Above all though, I think the most important thing is reducing the amount of things we use in the first place. Not purchasing ANOTHER piece of clothing just for the sake of it is the biggest statement we can make."
Of course, if you're too busy enjoying the Recession to think about the buying, that's okay too. That's right, I wrote "enjoying the Recession" because more and more studies are finding that people are enjoying the Recession and everything it has given them - like realizing what really matters in life. I tend to agree.
I also tend to agree that there are some things that we have to purchase. Like food and staples. When that happens, make sure you are supporting who you think you are supporting - with Eco-Salon's write up of The Stories (and Money) Behind 10 of Your Favorite Organic and Natural Brands (via It's Not Easy Being Green). Good things to know so that you can avoid the ever-present greenwashing - something Eco Yogini rants about when it comes to "compostable" coffee cups.
Oh, and no segue whatsoever but did you hear that Ireland banned GM foods? Yup!
Last but not least, why do we write? Why do we do all these little things? The reusable totes and water bottles? The composting? The carpooling? The reused clothing and the pared down holidays? We all know that personal environmentalism doesn't matter, right? It's all about big industry and politics.
Or is it? The New York Times argues otherwise and highlights the tangible benefits of individual changes - nearly 8% of emissions. And blogger bud, Ruchi over at Arduous argues that "Yes, This Is Important" - seeing personal changes as a gateway to social change.
Now that you've embarked on personal environmentalism, dip your toe into activism by asking the President and the EPA to stop the mountain removal at Coal River Mountain - a potential windfarm site - and feel proud of yourself for speaking up.
Date Published: Nov 08, 2009 - 1:01 am
Some useful information from the Greenhabilitator...
My daughter started Kindergarten in August and we had the pleasure (?) of our first school supply shopping experience. I was befuddled by a few things: 1) They asked for copy paper. Isn't that something the school supplies teachers with? 2) They didn't ask for notebook paper. I don't expect her to be writing essays or doing algebra, but won't they be writing anything? 3) They ask for an awful lot of glue sticks.
After 2.5 months of school now it all makes sense. They don't need notebook paper because they write on worksheets...lots of worksheets - thus the need for the copy paper. LOTS of worksheets. And most of them include cutting things out and pasting them onto other worksheets.
Macy is learning a TON, so I won't even think about complaining about all the worksheets. They do go into the recycling bin as soon as they come home. (Shh...don't tell her that though!)
The glue sticks are another issue. All that plastic.
Enter Elmer's Glue Crew Recycling Program! Elmer's has partnered with Walmart to take back their empty glue sticks and bottles. All you have to do is box them up, print a label, and drop the box off at Walmart. Here's what happens next:
A local plastic recycling company picks up the empty bottles and glue sticks from Walmart®, takes them to their factory, and puts them into a machine to compress the plastic bottles and glue sticks into a block. Then they ship these plastic blocks to a toll company, where the plastic blocks are put into another machine to be ground into bits. Once the plastic is ground up into little pieces, it is sent to an injection molding company, which rinses the ground-up plastic again to remove any traces of glue or other debris. Once the ground plastic is thoroughly clean, it is melted down into liquid plastic and placed into a variety of injection molder machines that form new consumer products or packages.Sounds like a lot of energy exerted to me but, because we're not going to stop schools from using glue, we should at least make sure the glue sticks and bottles get recycled and given a new life. According to the website they're made into things like gardening equipment and park benches.
The photo above is the glue sticks that we collected in my daughter's Kindy class in a little less than one month. That's about 45 glue sticks. Over nine months of school we're likely to collect 400 glue sticks from her classroom alone. There are 4 Kindergarten classes in her school, so we could recycle 1600+ glue sticks this year - more if the other grades participate as well. But I'm working in baby steps!
If you'd like to get your local school participating, just visit the Elmer's Glue Crew website. They offer contests, prizes and activities throughout the year as well as some really good lesson plans (with the standards that apply, for you teachers out there!) and activities.
This is something that is so easy to do: Drop off a small collection box to each classroom, collect the glue sticks once in awhile, drop them off at Walmart. You save some plastic from the landfill, the kids learn about the importance and process of recycling.
Date Published: Nov 07, 2009 - 1:01 am
