Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ Category

Recycle what?!

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

It is always amazing to me that Philadelphia is the sixth largest city in the U.S. and yet their “recycling program” recycles so little. I even put it in quotes because it’s more like a “trash diversion program” than it is recycling. Even the little middle-of-nowhere town of 8,600 people I came from (St. Johnsbury, VT) recycles more than Philadelphia. In fact, up until 3 years ago this city only collected recycling every other week and didn’t accept any plastics or cardboard curbside; there were a few places around the city where you could take plastics and cardboard between the hours of 9-11am on the first or third Saturdays of the month - really convenient. You can imagine the average resident did not participate. Around the same time the city started curbside collection of cardboard and plastic (by the way, this means #1 and #2 plastic BOTTLES only) they implemented an “all-in-one” collection program where everything goes in the same bin instead of needing separated. Author’s note: yes this saves space and eliminates hassle but it also eliminates consciousness. I’m still not sure which is better.

Education about recycling is also lacking. Most people are misinformed or simply do not know what is and is not recyclable. Part of the misinformation is that most items are indeed recyclable somewhere, just not in Philadelphia. The reason why certain things are not recyclable in Philadelphia is the city outsources its recycling to Blue Mountain Recycling who takes all the material to their processing plants. The city only pays for certain options, so while Blue Mountain Recycling does process compostables, Philadelphia does not pay them to collect and process compostables.

Here is the list of what Philadelphia recycles (and does not recycle):

Metal: Bi-metal cans (like food cans), aluminum cans (like soda cans), empty aerosol cans, empty paint cans.
NOTE: foil and household or scrap metal like wire hangers, pots, tools, curtain rods, small appliances, furniture faucets or nails are NOT recyclable; these items typically have higher melting points or food debris that disrupt the recycling process of the items listed above.

Glass: Jars and bottles (clear, brown, green)
NOTE: lightbulbs, tempered glass (like entertainment center doors or coffee table tops) and Pyrex are NOT recyclable; these glasses have added chemicals or coatings that contaminate the melting process.

Mixed Paper: Newspaper, magazines, catalogs, junk mail, advertising inserts, telephone books, food boxes (like cereal and cracker boxes – remove plastic liner), computer paper, flyers, and soda cartons.
NOTE: any paper that has food or other debris like dirt, grease or detergent on it are NOT recyclable; the added residues contaminate the recycling process and are considered “organics” which are compostable but that the city does not collect.

Plastic Containers: #1 and #2 plastic bottles ONLY (mostly beverage and detergent containers). These containers have narrow necks and wider bottoms. Check the underside of each container for the number 1 or 2. All container lids are recyclable, and best if removed from containers.
NOTE: Styrofoam, plastic bags, #1 and #2 plastic containers (like food containers) that are not bottles, and any other numbered plastics are NOT recyclable.

Cardboard: Empty and flattened.
NOTE: pizza boxes are NOT recyclable because they fall into that “organics” category; clean cardboard only.

When you start looking at how much you throw away, you start wishing more could be recycled. Things Philadelphia does not recycle that are recyclable in a lot of other places include: cartons and aseptic packaging (like milk cartons, juice boxes, and containers for soy milk or soup), aluminum foil, electronics, and ALL #1 and #2 plastics including food containers. Some people think if you just put more in the recycling bin someone will see how much stuff could be recycled and will eventually begin to process those items. That is simply not true and is actually more wasteful than putting those items in the trash. Just because it costs a company to sort out all the waste that ends up in the recycling stream doesn’t mean that it would be more profitable to invest in the necessary equipment and pay more laborers to process the additional items. The fact of the matter is that it takes more energy to transport the non-recyclable items and then sort them out of the recycling stream and back into the trash stream than just putting them into the trash stream to begin with. It’s disheartening, but if you’re passionate about wasting less the reality is you waste more when you put trash into the recycling bin.

My last gripe about recycling in Philadelphia is that businesses are required to hire a private collection company; the city does not collect recycling from businesses. This means that most buildings over 3 stories have their own private trash companies. In a utopia this could mean the property owners would hire companies who collect more recyclables than the municipal program but in reality this means property owners could hire companies that do not collect recycling at all. Yes recycling is THE LAW in Philadelphia, and most policy-makers believe that is an all-encompassing incentive to get people to recycle, but when a law is not enforced many people choose not to follow it. Businesses are required to submit recycling plans to the city, but if they don’t provide every tenant in their building with adequate facilities recycling simply doesn’t happen. I’ve talked with many people who work in high-rise buildings downtown who have said their offices do not recycle. Many property owners use space as an excuse: “We don’t have the space to increase our recycling facilities.” My former job used the same excuse, so I started my own desk-side recycling and once a month drove to work to bring home the paper, glass bottles, and plastic that I had set aside. Other people caught on and began asking me if they could contribute to my mini-recycling program. I was suddenly hauling 2-3 huge trash bags full of recycling back to my house every couple of weeks when my boss approached me and asked if I could look into getting recycling bins for the office and he would look into getting Waste Management to incorporate recycling into our collection program. Within a month of our office-wide recycling program, Waste Management replaced our trash dumpster with one half the size. The recycling dumpster combined with our trash dumpster equaled the previous footprint of just the trash dumpster. The space already exists.

I grew up with a mom who recycled, composted, or re-used EVERYTHING. Very little got put in the “trash.” So this mentality is part of who I am. If a town of 8,600 can do it, a city of 1.4 million can do it. C’mon Philly; everyone wants you to!

Links to more information about recycling in Philadelphia:
Recycling Pays
Philadelphia Streets Department
Philadelphia Recycling Alliance
Secure data and e-waste recycling
Household Hazardous Waste (paint, pesticides, fertilizers, cleaning solvents, rechargeable computer and cell phone batteries, automotive products, etc)

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…and then it was June

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

I am really bad at keeping up with my journal. Online anyway; the conventional version is not spared. I have a few excuses though, and will summarize below.

September 2009: I joined the volunteer efforts of PRooF (Philadelphia Rooftop Farm), a group of gardeners, architects, builders and industrial designers who intend to increase fresh food access and local food production by transforming Philadelphia rooftops into thousands of acres of viable farmland. To date we have designed a prototype program, learned a lot about city codes, have had discussions with some interested city officials, and worked with the Community Design Collaborative to provide a design for modular, flexible, self watering planters that can be retrofitted onto any row or twin house in the city. We are currently in the process of fundraising, and you can help by voting for one of our grants through the Just Means website.

October 2009: Operation make my own line of skin care products commenced. I began researching, researching, and researching some more, and finally experimenting with making my own recipes. I had been uneasy with the whole skin care industry for a while, and then the Environmental Working Group came out with Skin Deep: The Cosmetic Safety Database. This is the same group that has created the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, the Sunscreen Safety Guide, launched the Kid-Safe Chemicals campaign, and has compiled data and published numerous reports on things like bottled water and cell phone radiation to name a few. Anyway, I’ve used just about every common drug-store cosmetic and had started going a more natural route after about 25 years of dissatisfaction. When I saw how many carcinogenic and toxic ingredients (affecting the environment and its wildlife, internal organs, developmental and reproductive systems, the brain and the immune system) are in everyday products we rub on ourselves I began to think the goal of the cosmetic industry was to kill women. Literally. Even in my “natural” and “organic” products I was finding parabens (cancer-causing preservatives used to extend shelf life) and SLS (sodium lauryl/laureth sulfates; sudsing agents that wreak all sorts of havoc on our skin and the environment. In fact, if you have problems with canker sores or eczema you may want to try eliminating these ingredients from your toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, and laundry detergents and see what happens). So I researched the ingredients in the “natural” products I was using, learned all about emollients, humectants, emulsifiers, thickeners, stabilizers, and preservatives, researched straight-from-the-earth alternatives including beneficial plants and oils, looked into some age-old beauty recipes, and started working on my own formulations. By December I had struck gold, and had a non-foaming cleanser and light moisturizer that I was using on a daily basis. I made Christmas gifts for the special women in my life, and since then have developed cleansing grains and chapstick, and a few days ago I made my first shampoo. Hopefully I will have enough time and money in the near future to get a table at the farmers markets and start getting the idea out there. Local, fresh, non-toxic, handmade. This is what I bring to the table. And when you stop using poison on your skin the result is truly beautiful skin.

February 2010: I started working full time at Zimmerman Studio LLC. Right now it’s just Pam and myself, renting office space from Friday Architects/ Planners Inc. (founded 40 years ago by my thesis advisor). We are doing mostly university/ institutional work, including the Eva-Jane Coombe Special Collections Suite at Bryn Mawr College, and a number of laboratory renovations for the University of Pennsylvania. Keeps me busy. This is also the same time I began starting tomatoes and peppers indoors, and later herbs and flowering annuals for the summer growing season.

March 2010: I was a featured volunteer for the Community Design Collaborative: click here for the full story.

April 2010: I began preparing the gardens for the 2010 season; cleaning up and readying planters, killing off my first winter cover crop experiment (that I planted way too late), cleaning up dead leaves, cutting back dead flower stalks left for winter decoration and for birds, and direct seeding cold crops of lettuce and chard. I also entered my backyard into the City Gardens Contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society.

May 2010: I began hardening off plants that I had overwintered (cacti, sages, geraniums, jasmine) and my 2010 starter plants. I also decided to build 2 large planters instead of putting the vegetables directly in the ground. Last year I began getting into the roots of the Japanese Maple I planted a few years back, so the planters will avoid this hassle and I think they’ll also make readying the soil for following years A LOT easier. Goodbye clay. The planters are made from free wood palettes, construction wire and 4mil. plastic (to keep the dirt and the moisture in behind the slats), and bolts with washers to hold the sides together. Each planter cost around $15. They were filled with a soil mix of peat moss, compost and vermiculite (around $70 for a 42″ square x 20″ deep planer), and in went the tomatoes, peppers, pole beans and herbs.

<br /> 01 2010 planters

Currently I’m working on my next strategy to save the world and pay my bills. I’ll keep you posted when I figure that out. And hopefully I’ll write more in the mean time.

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PARK(ing) Day 2009

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

02 PARK(ing) Day 2009

(Picture of the sign, photo courtesy of ChiPhilly - a diagram of how to conserve, recycle, compost, reclaim, reuse and grow your own food, all in your own (urban) backyard.)

PARK(ing) Day is an event that started in San Francisco in 2005 and has since spread throughout the world. It started as a statement about the use of public land in urban areas and lack of public park space, and continues to promote creativity, civic engagement, critical thinking, conversation, play and urban green space - read more on the official PARK(ing) Day website.

This was Philadelphia’s second annual PARK(ing) Day, coordinated through the efforts of Pam Zimmerman, principal of the architecture firm Zimmerman Studios, LLC. I volunteered to design, build and play in the space in front of the Center for Architecture at 1218 Arch Street, sponsored by the Community Design Collaborative & the AIA. Our concept was centered on creating an urban sustainable backyard with an emphasis on zero-waste. Throughout the day we spoke with passers-by and handed out recycling bins and resources on how to think creatively and sustainably about small spaces, including where to get free compost, mulch and rain barrels - check out our resource sheet.

The design utilized drywall/ paint buckets (the 5-gallon type) to create a colorful barrier-support wall across which we laid salvaged lumber from various Philadelphia rowhomes. Atop this we placed various planters from my backyard, creating a lively planter ledge. In front of our planter wall we turned over recycling bins topped with more salvaged lumber to create a seating bench. On the ground we laid out some camping tarps and spread wood mulch from the Fairmount Organics Recycling Center and old carpet tiles to create a patio where we set up a table and chairs. We also had a hammock, a clothes line, and a dead tree that we decorated with glass bottles and painted throughout the day. With a little creativity and ingenuity anyone can create an oasis out of found, salvaged, or otherwise free materials the city has to offer.

The drywall buckets were re-used for container gardening, the lumber is being turned into furniture by Bench Dog Design, the wood mulch was used in local gardens, and the carpet tiles were shipped back to Interface for recycling. The only thing we really spent money on was transporting the materials via PhillyCarshare.

Thanks to Emily Stromberg and Nissa Grant, my partners in creativity.

Check out the Collaborative’s blog about PARK(ing) Day 2009.

03 PARK(ing) Day 2009

Recycled carpet tile patio (photo courtesy of ChiPhilly).

04 PARK(ing) Day 2009

Some visitors.

05 PARK(ing) Day 2009

Me in our ‘yard’ (photo courtesy of ChiPhilly).

06 PARK(ing) Day 2009

Clothesline & dead tree made alive with paint, glass bottles and wind chimes strung on the branches.

07 PARK(ing) Day 2009

View from across the street capturing the Center for Architecture storefront and our colorful recycled bucket barrier wall.

08 PARK(ing) Day 2009
Click here to view the 2009 map of participants designed by Anna Ishii. (4.5MB)

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Support your local CSA or Farmers’ Market

Friday, April 10th, 2009

2009 Spring Flowers_01

Spring is here in Philadelphia, despite those random snow showers happening elsewhere in the country. We’ve got nothin’ but April showers and blue skies in between. The trees are in bloom, there are daffodils and tulips galore, and miraculously I am not suffering from incapacitating allergies for the first time in four years. I attribute this to the lack of stress in my life right now, despite being unemployed and trying to flesh out my first business plan. I am also eating an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, and dabbling in juicing thanks to some inspiration from Raw Epicurean. The change in seasons also means a shift in energies and the body responds to these changes by flushing out accumulated toxins; this is why many people experience colds with changes in the weather. Thanks to modern medicine we have numerous anti-histamines to choose from that keep the body from dispelling mucous to rid itself of toxins. Whether or not you choose to suppress symptoms of the common cold or you decide to deal with it naturally, boosting your intake of fresh fruits and vegetables also helps to flush and replenish the body by removing free radicals and supplying an abundance of vitamins and minerals. My source of fresh fruits and veggies varies, but over the past few years I have been eating an increasingly “seasonal” diet and trying to support the local Clark Park Farmers’ Market (which really takes any need to plan a grocery list out of the equation). This year I also looked into joining a CSA, though I’ve decided to stick to the farmer’s market and add my name to the waiting list at the local food co-op for now.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, where a mutual beneficial relationship exists between a community and a local area farm to support one-another. CSA members commit to purchasing a share which in turn sustains the local farm who raises and harvests the food. In Philadelphia there are numerous CSA options, all for around $35 per week ($700-800 a summer for weekly shares and $300-400 for bi-weekly shares). Your weekly share will generally include an assortment of 4-7 fruits and veggies, a choice of locally produced cheese, eggs or other dairy product, and a locally raised/ produced meat or pasta. You can count on variety like kale, beets, lettuce, spinach, onions, swiss chard, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, basil, garlic, peas, peaches, apples, berries, squash, corn, watermelon, artisan breads, pasta, tofu, meats, cheeses, yogurt, butter, milk and more. Often times recipes are included with your pick-up or are published online to give you an idea of what to do with some of the less common items you may receive. The main reason I decided to stick with the farmers’ market for now is because I can walk to it from my house, whereas I would have to hop on the subway to get to any of the pick-up places for CSAs, and all the items typically found in a CSA share are available every Saturday year-round at the Clark Park Farmers’ Market. I figure for $35 a week, why not support the closest option?

So why Community Supported Agriculture and Farmers’ Markets? The majority of food at the local supermarket is trucked in from all over the country; fruits from Florida and South America, greens and veggies from California, grains, dairy and meats from the mid-west. All this trucking and outsourced growing consumes huge amounts of energy and resources, from the gasoline burned on the trek across the U.S. and to keep the items cool, to the water required for irrigation that drains the local water table. And then when it gets to the supermarket more water is used to keep the greens looking fresh, and more energy is used to heat, cool, and light everything on display. Locally sourced foods support the local economy, consume less gas to truck into the city, and are significantly fresher than foods that have sat on trucks and then on shelves which means more nutrients delivered to your body. They also serve to deepen the understanding of our interdependence on one-another and the land for our sustenance. For those of you who choose organic foods I challenge you to think about why organic is important. Sure it means pesticide and chemical-free, but the whole practice of organic farming is based on principles of health, ecology, fairness and care and extends beyond our own wellness to that of the environment and the community as well. These principles are hard to sustain when the goods are mass-produced hundreds of miles away from the end-user. There are many organic options available locally and I encourage you to look harder at where the items in your pantry come from and try to choose local options as much as possible.

Whether you are still unsure about this idea of supporting locally sourced food or are ready to take the plunge, I encourage you to do your research and check out the variety of options available to you before making a choice. I have provided links to Philadelphia’s Farmers’ Markets and CSAs at the bottom of this entry. It is also important to consider your cooking and eating habits when trying to decide what option is right for you; do you stock up on produce and then become disinterested halfway through your week’s supply? Do you eat out or order in a few times a week? Are you a finicky eater or afraid to try new things? If you answered “yes” to just one of those questions then going to the farmers’ market will give you the leeway to pick and choose items and quantities you know you’ll use, or if you’re a little more adventurous try a “half-share” CSA option. Happy eating!

Farmers’ Market Resources:

Reading Terminal Market Farmstands

Clark Park Farmer’s Market

Farm To City list of Farmer’s Markets

CSA Resources:

Greensgrow Farms

Red Hill Farm

Scarecrow Hill Community Farm

Somerton Tanks Farm

Farm To City list of CSAs

Please post additional resources I may have missed in the comments section.

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Energy Saving Tips

Monday, December 1st, 2008

It’s finally ‘winter’ in Philadelphia. I think we’ve actually broken a record low this year for having over 4 consecutive days under 40° in November. Coupled with the state of the economy, what better time to start saving money by conserving energy? There are some simple things everyone can do whether you rent or own your home to cut costs and your carbon footprint.

If you rent, what utilities you pay for may factor in to how you think about energy. Each situation is a little different depending on how your landlord has the utilities partitioned, but these are some common examples based on the apartments I’ve lived in. These factors are also applicable to homeowners, though there are some more advanced aspects of owning a home which factor into energy usage and I will list these later. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs and energy-star appliances such as toaster ovens and microwaves can all cut down on your electric bill. Plug your ganged electronics such as TV, DVD, stereo system, computer, etc. into power strips and turn the power strips off when these items are not in use; anything that has a digital clock or little glowing LED light simply indicating that it’s plugged in constantly consumes power even when not in use. There are also two new types of power strips on the market that eliminate the aspect of unplugging by reducing idle current: Wattstopper and Smart Strip. The Wattstopper uses an occupancy sensor to control 6 of the 8 outlets which turn off when not in use, while the Smart Strip has three groups of “smart” outlets that sense whether the device is on/ off and mitigate power flow accordingly (always on, switched depending on whether the device is on/off, and a control that links to the switched outlets). Both are available online, but if you know of a local store that caries these please post it in the comments.

Weatherproofing your doors and windows is a good way to eliminate heat loss. To start, close your glass storm windows if they’re provided. You can also pick up some plastic weatherproofing at your local hardware store and secure it with the provided double-stick adhesive strips around the perimeter of your windows, then shrink-tight with a blow-dryer; this will add an extra layer of draft-stopping and insulation in those older Philadelphia homes. You can also add draft-stoppers under doors; they’re easy to make out of things you probably have around the house, or you can buy them online at Amazon. There are additional ways to weatherproof that are more permanent so I will discuss these in the homeowner section, but these additional tips may be useful if you’re motivated and you have a decent relationship with your landlord and can get reimbursed for repairs.

The temperature setting on your hot water heater is another form of heat loss, or rather energy wasted on heating water beyond a reasonable temperature. Residential hot water temperatures should ideally be 110°- 120°F or ‘medium’ – often times they have been set higher than they need be, consume more energy, and waste additional cold water while you try not to scald yourself. Play around with the temperature if you have access to your water heater and find the temperature that’s right for you. These guidelines may also be useful.

There are also some more tedious energy-savers depending on how much effort you want to expend. Keeping your refrigerator/ freezer full helps maintain a steady temperature through the contents’ mass and therefore uses less energy to sustain a cooler temperature (you can also fill soda bottles/ milk jugs with water to add extra mass). Using a dish pan or a glass/ bowl filled with soapy water to rewet & rinse off your sponge while scrubbing dishes instead of keeping the water running also conserves hot water.

There are also things that may not factor in to what you actually pay for monetarily, but impact the environment. Wash your clothes in cold water instead of hot; I have been testing this over the past year after reading an article that indicated clothes would get just as clean. I use plant-based biodegradable liquid detergent by Seventh Generation that is formulated to work in cold water, as well as their chlorine-free bleach, and I have found that there really doesn’t seem to be a difference between the cleanness of clothes washed in hot versus cold water. A number of companies have cold water detergents, so be sure to look for this on the label. (Note: I’m not a particularly messy person, though I am a bit messy in the kitchen, and I don’t have kids getting mud, grass stains, and whatever else they can find to grind into clothes, so if you’ve tested the cold water method in these situations please tell me about it in the comments section.)

Faucet aerators are yet another great way to save water (including hot water). These have a rated flow imprinted on the side, which should read 2.75gpm (gallons per minute) or lower. If your faucet doesn’t have an aerator installed, check to make sure there are threads just inside the faucet to ensure it will be able to receive an aerator. These can reduce water flow by up to 50%. Additionally, you can look for low-flow shower heads (either aerating or non-aerating) that reduce water flow without reducing pressure. You can also conserve water by collecting cold water wasted while waiting for your hot water to come out of the faucet and save it to water your plants. Calculate your water footprint and learn more ways you could conserve.

Lastly, putting non-recyclables in with recyclables wastes energy because these items eventually have to be sorted out at the recycling plant in order to go back to the landfill.

Homeowners:

Additional ways you can invest more money to save you more in the long run include the following:

As our focus on sustainability increases, this list will continue to expand. Please feel free to add input in the comments section on ways that you save energy that are not listed above.

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Energy diversity

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Well, it’s been a while … just think: we have a new President. A President whose ideas - at least in theory - are rooted in creating a sustainable America. From healthcare to energy policy, Barack Obama’s future visions have the potential to revitalize the American economy by investing in technology and creating jobs that are dedicated to the wellbeing of Americans.

Just what is a sustainable economy? A few posts ago, I cited the EPA’s definition of sustainability that we can also examine with respect to economic models: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” A sustainable economy is one in which jobs, goods, profits and natural resources address demand and public welfare in a manner that will not cause future economic collapse due to short-term profit-seeking at the expense of the environment, investors, and consumers alike; waste is minimized and efficiency is prioritized in production and manufacturing.

With respect to energy policy, this means investing in research programs and implementation for harvesting and converting alternative energy for everyday tasks like cooking, turning on the lights, and hot water among others. Making the practices that deplete natural resources such as coal and oil more efficient is only one part of the puzzle. Diversification of our energy sources, with an emphasis on zero-waste practices is key to making not only the U.S., but every country in the world energy-independent and sustainable.

When people think of alternative energy sources, most think of solar panels and wind turbines. However, there are numerous other alternative technologies out there such as:

  • Green roofs reduce rainwater runoff, reduce surface temperatures up to 70%, and increase energy savings by up to 25%.
  • Hydroelectric turbines harness the power of waves underwater.
  • Geothermal energy uses heat, steam or hot water from geothermal reservoirs to power turbines.

Presidential campaign promises are all too often empty promises. Hopefully Obama makes good on his promises of hope for a better tomorrow. In the meantime, many of these alternative technologies are available to implement within your own home or municipality. The key is research and awareness, and activism if you’re concerned about your municipality’s involvement in a sustainable future. I can’t help but to wonder as Mayor Michael Nutter makes more budget cuts and announces the closing of libraries what he’s doing to recoup the budget shortfalls to ensure that some of the more critical losses can be restored? Namely, I wonder as I read about other municipalities like New York City and Chicago investing in energy-saving green technology what Nutter is doing to improve our own city’s energy programs? You can bet my next letter will be to him.

If there’s one thing you take from this past election, let it be that your personal involvement at the local level can bring about change. Don’t idly stand by on the issues when you disagree with your local leaders. Write a letter, start a petition, talk to your neighbors. Change starts with you.

Links:

Nine Cities, Nine Ideas: Local governments around the globe are coming up with some of the most innovative ways to cut energy use.

Alternative Energy News and information resources about renewable energy technologies.

New York City’s Plan for a sustainable future.

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What is green?

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

I think I’m suffering from writer’s cramp already. Or is it the overwhelming amount of information out there that I want to share with my readers and am having a hard time narrowing down to just one? Based on how this entry is shaping up, it must be the latter. The next few blog entries are going to break down the basic issues of sustainability affecting our everyday lifestyles in digestible, bite-size pieces.

What is green? And greenwashing? Why do I care? How does it affect you? The planet? Everything.

First let’s get the ugly right out in the open. Greenwashing: the best definition I found on the Internet that really pinpoints what greenwashing is came from LOHAS.com (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, aka my favorite new website). According to LOHAS, “greenwashing is a superficial nod to the environment that marketers and businesses that historically were not interested in sustainable concerns, are doing in order to improve their public relation standings with the consumer or public. Analogous to brainwashing.” Greenwashing can sometimes lead to positive outcomes in cases where companies decide to make a serious commitment to protecting, caring for or improving the environment - any amount of effort down this path only stands to make our Earth a better place. However, continuing to invest in destructive economic, social or environmental practices for the sheer yield of profits is not only detrimental to the planet, it is a business model that will eventually fail over time as natural resources are depleted.

The best example of greenwashing I have come across so far is this:

The Human Element. Beautiful, right? It’s a really touching message, and some great footage. In all seriousness. For DOW Chemical Company?! DOW makes just about everything. A quick glimpse of their product inventory includes:

  • Agricultural and Food
  • Automotive and Transportation
  • Building & Construction
  • Coatings and Adhesives
  • Electronics and Appliances
  • Fiber/Textiles, Footwear
  • Flooring
  • Furniture and Bedding
  • Health & Medical
  • Home and Personal Care
  • Oil & Gas/ Chemical Processing
  • Packaging & Films
  • Water
  • Wire & Cable

If that doesn’t cover every chemical industry in the world and every aspect of our lives, I don’t know what does. This is exactly what sustainability is all about. Everything we do on a daily basis is affected.

The EPA defines sustainability as “environmental protection [that] does not preclude economic development and that economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the long run. Common use of the term “sustainability” began with the 1987 publication of the World Commission on Environment and Development report, Our Common Future. Also known as the Brundtland Report, this document defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This concept of sustainability encompasses ideas, aspirations and values that continue to inspire public and private organizations to become better stewards of the environment and that promote positive economic growth and social objectives. The principles of sustainability can stimulate technological innovation, advance competitiveness, and improve our quality of life.”

What have you done for yourself that also benefited the environment lately?

The next post will narrow down our focus a little bit and hone in on some simple ways to start thinking sustainably.

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