By Courtney Keenan
Tired of yelling at your significant other or kids all the time to take out the trash? Is your recycling taking over your kitchen? Why not just reduce your waste.
It sounds simple enough, but every trip to the grocery store combats the theory. Most food is packaged in plastic, in cardboard or in both. Then in another plastic bag to carry it home.
Created by: MastersDegree.net
This very cool infographic was brought to my attention to share on my blog by a member of the design team at Masters Degree, and they created this graphic to take a closer look at the environmental effects of ocean pollution. So thanks Meika! :)
Macleans magazine had an article earlier this month about tea bag food waste in Britain. Having recently developed a tea habit on that fair island, and being generally concerned with food and waste and composting, I've got a vested interest in this.
Britain's 62 million residents drink 165 million cups of tea per day. (Fun fact! That's 2 ⅔ cups per person.) This is a lot of tea, and it produces a lot of waste: tea bags add 370 000 tonnes of waste to landfills per year.
Biomedical waste in solid form is noticed by everybody but hospitals also generate liquid waste daily in huge quantity. For an example a 150 bedded hospital generating 15/20 thousand liters of liquid biomedical waste from all the departments i.e. OT to canteen, every where the water using is rolling down to a main drain of the hospital finally. This water is a mixed solution of all potential toxic substances discharged by various departments, including the residential area of the hospital, Nurses quarters, canteen etc all.
Electronic waste or e-waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world today, contributing to almost 5 per cent of the total municipal solid waste generated worldwide. Annually, India generates almost 800,000 tonnes of e-waste and is expected to grow at an average rate of 10-15 per cent, according to estimates. At present, almost 90 per cent of this waste is recycled in the informal backyard set-up with no regard for environmental safeguards.
It’s time to do away with coal-fired power plants and nuclear energy and switch to renewable energy sources. Coal not only destroys the air we breath, but the mining of it destroys our land and water supply. Nuclear is way too dangerous as we all found out from the disaster that happened in Japan last year.
We the people need to stand up to Big Oil, Coal and Nuclear companies, and most of all, our leaders in D.C.
I just learned that, up until now, Icelanders didn't sort their garbage! What a shock, I thought everybody (at least in Europe) did that by now! But apparently not... In Belgium we've been sorting it for ages. I don't even remember a time when we didn't have to sort anything, so it must be at least 10 years? Belgium is one of the best garbage-sorting-country's, yes we do have one thing to be proud of :) (well two, we also invented french fries..)
I'm not a big fan of hospitals. Oh, I know the great things that they can do to keep us healthy, but they make me nervous. I'm not exactly sure why. It could be because I don't understand the medical lingo. It could be because of the pain and suffering that I know lies behind the patient doors and I am unable to offer any assistance.
by Adria Saracino
With Moore’s law in full swing, it seems like every day brings the release of new technology. This is great for those of us who love to play with the latest gadgets, but it also means that e-waste is increasing at an exponential rate as we toss old technology into the dump.
This can lead to a variety of health and environmental concerns, as nasty chemicals like lead, cadmium, mercury, brominated flame retardants and hexavalentchromium compounds leak into the ground and water supply.
Hawaii’s Plastic Beach
Earth’s oceans are vast – they cover 71% of our planet’s surface – and the majority of that area is never visited or even seen by people, which can make it easy to ignore the growing problem of pollution in our waters. It’s an especially difficult issue to tackle because, even in the parts of the ocean that we can see, most of the trash actually sinks or floats below the surface, making it hard to determine just what’s going on out there.
By Erica Sofrina, Author of Small Changes Dynamic Results! Feng Shui for the Western World
I do my part to recycle and bring my own bags for purchases, but I am far from producing zero waste. While lugging multiple recycling bins to the curbside every week it has occurred me that I have a lot of recycling for only one person.
What do you mean, you want a zero carbon building?!
You might think it is going to be difficult to get to zero carbon, but technically it can be done quite easily.
The right mix of insulations, managing passive solar gain, heat recovery and renewable energy will do it.
But, pause a little, let’s first examine what is really meant by zero carbon.
5 Ways To Green Your School
Schools play a central role in children’s lives, so it makes since that they would be the perfect place to introduce kids to the importance of being environmentally friendly. Not only that, but turning schools green is a great way to keep kids healthy and safe when they’re away from home. So whether you’re a student, a parent, or someone who just want to help your community, here are five ways you can make any school eco-friendly.
Look up this project on the website of its architects, ACXT, and you will find that it goes by the rather understated name of 242 Affordable Housing Units in Salburúa (Salburúa being a neighborhood in the Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz). In many ways the downplaying of the name is in keeping with ACXT's quiet approaches to sustainable design. Though there may be no obvious green bells and whistles such as wind turbines or photovoltaics, passive architectural methods combined with on-site generation contribute to what ACXT claims is a "considerable reduction" in the building's carbon dioxide emissions.
Something’s brewing in Bihar. After decades of being India’s most notoriously 'backward' state, the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has tempered corruption, built roads and spurred development. Given the impressive achievements of his previous term, it's no surprise he rode to overwhelming victory in recent elections. What is surprising is that his campaign platform consisted of more or less a single promise – to deliver electricity access to the 82% of the over 100 million inhabitants of Bihar who lack it.
Starting from today (aptly World Environment Day), I will be running the "Living Green in India" series, where I will share some of the unique challenges of living in an environmentally friendly way in India.
Recently something curious happened at home in our Indian apartment. We had stored all of our used glass and plastic bottles on our balcony, not really sure of what to do with them (given the lack of accessible government recycling facilities).
It’s got a dry, sunny climate, an addiction to fossil fuels, and it’s set to become a hot spot for renewable energy development, especially solar. That would be the Middle East, where countries such as Saudi Arabia subsidize electricity generation by using their own oil and where natural gas is the main source of power for the United Arab Emirates.
During extreme heat or out in the sun, we are always grabbing a bottle of cool and refreshing bottle of water or soda. Although we don't really care about our famous plastic bottle, did you know what can one plastic bottle you recycle can do? .
We use around 15 million of plastic bottles in the United Kingdom and that's a lot of waste!
The dump, recycling center, transfer station, whatever it is called in your area, is a must visit! In our town of 30,000, we don’t have trash or recycling pick up, so most people go to the dump. There they recycle newspapers, magazines, junk mail, cardboard, plastic containers, cans, glass bottles and jars, computer monitors, television sets and for a small fee, old appliances, yard debris, bulky metal, etc.
This post is part of a 3-part blog series. For more, please see part two and part three.
I: MAKING THE CLEANEST ENERGY ECONOMY CLEANER
Brazil’s energy matrix is often touted as among the cleanest in the world: over 80% of Brazil’s power is produced from renewable resources. The predominant share of this 80%, however, stems from hydroelectric power, an energy source increasingly criticized in Brazilian civil society for its damaging ecological footprint and potential for community displacement.
You would be surprised by how many things you can do to make your hotel better for the environment and you do not have to spend a lot of money for you to take advantage of having your hotel become more environmental friendly. A few things you can do to involve your guests and employees would include recycling, changing light bulbs, save water, buy the things you need in large quantities, use different transportation options, and reuse any items such as towels.
Conserving water makes sense on many levels. It saves money, it is better for the environment and it helps people become more self reliant and better prepared for emergencies. The less water you use the less we take from the environment, the less we need for day to day use, the less we need in an emergency, the less we need to have stored or our stores will last longer and finally the less water we have to pay for (pumping, treatment, water bill).
Save Energy and Save Money!
Does your dustbin overflow every now and then? How often do you have to get rid of the waste?
One of the major problems the world is facing today is the disposal of waste. All kinds of waste have been dumped together and this has heightened pollution of the environment. While disposing the wastes is very important, what tops the list of priorities in this area is reducing this waste.
Small solar electric or photovoltaic (PV) systems are currently gaining popularity in the public domain in several Caribbean islands including Barbados and Jamaica as a result of spiralling electricity cost in the region. The cost of these systems, however presents a huge drawback to consumers, thus forcing them to think twice before investing.
When considering the economics of investing in small solar electric systems it is necessary to look at both the capital cost and the long term operating cost.
Water is the most important natural resource and a great gift to the whole humanity. Water is an essential element in all our day-to-day chores like washing clothes and utensils, bathing, cooking and cleaning. It is a human tendency to take things for granted especially if they happen to be free. Famines and droughts did make people understand the importance of water but not enough to avoid the state we are in now.
Composting in an office environment might sound taboo to some, but it provides a valuable opportunity to save costs, bring co-workers together for a common purpose, and cultivate resource-rich materials. The many benefits compost offers such as the satisfaction from cultivating it, and seemingly magical properties has earned compost the nick name "Black Gold".
The accumulation of waste produced over the years has been growing to the extent that options to store trash in landfills and transport it from city centers are becoming very limited and extremely expensive.
This is EPA data for what Americans discarded as municipal solid waste in 2010. Recycling is not considered in this graphic, just total generation of waste (250 million tons). A picture is worth 1000 words, so you can see some of the wasteful habits here. Although 28.5% of waste is paper, not all of it is recycled. The same holds true for food scraps.
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