SKCEA.ORG » Recycling

Ocean Acidity

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:44:57 +0000

Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world’s oceans. This is part of the natural recycling of carbon. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water’s acidity (lower pH), which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks, resulting in the potential loss of ecosystems. The extent to which human activities have raised the surface level of acidity, however, has been difficult to detect on regional scales because it varies naturally as well as due to man made sources from one season and one year to the next, and between regions, and direct observations go back only 30 years.

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Ocean Acidity

Critical List: Shale gas could squash renewables; scientists fiddle with photosynthesis

admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:43:07 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. New York City promises to double the percentage of waste diverted from landfills within the next five years. Increasing shale gas production could squas h renewable energy development. The Obama administration released a draft plan for protecting the country's oceans. Scientists are fiddling with photosynthesis in order to make biofuel. The Navy is trying to prevent the release of a report detailing toxic exposures at a Marine camp. To ameliorate climate change, cut methane and soot , not just carbon, a new study says.

Christmas recycling ideas from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality

admin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:42:46 +0000

Have a Green Christmas Look for reuse and recycling opportunities as you replace appliances, electronics and computers. Discarded cell phones may be donated for Domestic Violence Programs though your cell services provider. Discarded electronics (computers, copiers, fax machines, printers, monitors) may be donated to a local nonprofit, parent-teacher association or the Louisiana Corporate Recycling Council’s computers for schools program, 225.379.3577. Parts that cannot be refurbished can be sent for dismantling. Appliances may either be donated or sent for recycling. Outgrown toys and clothes and furniture may be donated to organizations like Salvation Army, Paralyzed Veterans, or Volunteers of America. Look for ways to avoid creating garbage. Rather than wrapping gifts for the youngsters, hide the presents, and turn Christmas into a treasure hunt. Create you own recyclable wrapping paper by using the Sunday comics, magazines and wrapping paper recovered from previous events.

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Christmas recycling ideas from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality

Critical List: EPA releases draft fracking report; Gingrich’s new climate change book

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:53:05 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. The EPA released a draft of its fracking report and found chemical contamination in a gas field well. The draft summary says that “EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time.” The U.S. got a little warm and fuzzy about a proposal climate roadmap proposed by the E.U. So at least we support suggesting the idea that we come up with some ways of doing something about the climate. Exxon Mobil believes in the hybrid revolution: the company predicts that half of cars will be alternative-fuel vehicles within three decades. The House just wants to make absolutely certain the EPA doesn't do anything at all, so it passed a bill to prevent the agency from regulating “farm dust,” even though the agency had no intention of regulating farm dust . Newt Gingrich is publishing a book on climate change … after the election. Recycling batteries is bad for Mexican children.

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Critical List: EPA releases draft fracking report; Gingrich’s new climate change book

Critical List: Huntsman goes right on climate change; the mob goes green

admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:42:12 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. Among Republican presidential candidates, denouncing climate science is like a bug. They all have it now. Even Jon Huntsman . Ban Ki-Moon is not particularly hopeful about the prospects of success at Durban. Justifiably. Britain is losing three-quarters of its butterfly species. Katharine Hayhoe is a climatologist and evangelical Christian, which means she spends a lot of her time speaking with Christian colleges and church groups about why climate change is a matter of fact, not faith. The Mob is going green .

Charlotte to Install First Airport Worm Composting System

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:38:10 +0000

While it seems logical that many restaurants have already begun to reap the benefits of installing onsite worm composting operations, airports may not be the first place people would think of to have such systems in place. The Charlotte Douglas International Airport will change that fact when they open a $1.1 million recycling center in February 2012, to include a vermicomposting system that will use 300 pounds of worms to chow down on up to two tons of airport patron waste per day.

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Charlotte to Install First Airport Worm Composting System

The wrong way to recycle your fluorescent bulbs: Eating them

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:05:08 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. This video is bananas. But fluorescent bulbs are not bananas. So don't eat them, like these guys do, and also don't do any of the other things in this video. Criminey. If you do have mercury-containing fluorescent bulbs that need to be disposed of, the EPA has a guide to what you need to do to recycle them. Your options include contacting waste-collection agencies, bringing them to local retailers that collect them, or sending them in to mail-back services. There is nothing about stacking them on some kind of rack and then jumping through them.

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The wrong way to recycle your fluorescent bulbs: Eating them

Galactic Process

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:01:48 +0000

New observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers’ understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements. This process allows galaxies to build successive generations of stars stretching over billions of years. This ongoing recycling keeps some galaxies from emptying their fuel tanks of interstellar gas and stretches their star-forming epoch to over 10 billion years.

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Galactic Process

Hilton hotels recycle soap for charity

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:44:07 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. Pretty much nobody besides Eloise and Leonard Cohen stays in a hotel for long enough to go through a bar of soap. They can't put your slightly-used soap out for the next guest, though, so hotels throw out more than two and a half million bars a day. Hilton Hotels have now realized how stupid this is, and they've partnered with a nonprofit called the Global Soap Project to re-form discarded soap into brand-new bars for distribution in impoverished countries. Hilton will donate all the discarded soap from its 3,750 hotels to the Global Soap Project, which will recycle them into new bars and then distribute them to vulnerable populations. The project distributes the soap through non-governmental organizations that work with orphans, disaster victims, and refugees in developing countries. Hygiene products like soap can mean the difference between life and death in areas with a high risk of parasites or infectious disease — it can reduce deaths from diarrhea, prevent children from getting pneumonia, and lower infant mortality rates. So the partnership will reduce Hilton hotels' waste by 20 percent, and also help avoid the 1.4 million deaths per year that could be prevented by handwashing with soap, according to the Global Soap Project.

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Hilton hotels recycle soap for charity

Infographic: The top toxic health hazards

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:08:58 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. We figured this depressing Scientific American article about the top 10 pollution-related health hazards deserved the Onion -style infographic treatment. Here are the actual numbers for how many people are being sickened or killed by toxic pollution worldwide: Mercury pollution from gold mining (3.5 million people) Lead pollution from industrial parks (nearly 3 million) Pesticides from agriculture (more than 2.2. million) Lead smelting (just under 2 million) Chromium pollution from leather tanning (more than 1.8 million) Mercury residue from other mining (more than 1.5 million) Lead pollution from mining (more than 1.2 million) Lead pollution from improper battery recycling (nearly one million) Arsenic in groundwater (at least 750,000) Pesticide manufacturing and storage (more than 700,000).

Curbside Recycling: Preventing a Market Failure

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:58:08 +0000

Nobody likes trash: taking it out or talking about it. It smells, it is a hassle to deal with, and it can be hazardous to your health, which is why we go through great lengths to have it hauled away every week. Recycling is trash’s cuter brother, with more support because resources are being re-used versus just being thrown out. That is what recycling is at its core: salvaging value from discarded materials. It is a service that prevents us from maxing out landfills, further depleting resources, or contaminating our soils and drinking water. It also produces considerably less carbon; recycling just 1 ton of aluminum cans conserves more than 1,665 gallons of gasoline.

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Curbside Recycling: Preventing a Market Failure

This bridge is made from recycled plastic

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:30:08 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. This 90-foot bridge in Wales is Europe's first to be made entirely out of recycled plastic, not to mention the longest plastic bridge ever built. More than 50 tons of plastic went into making the bridge, which can carry vehicles up to 44 metric tons (heavier than most tractor-trailers).

The kitchen of the future runs on leftovers

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:30:18 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. The kitchen of Philips Design's ” Microbial Home ” turns food waste into compost and cooking gas. Organic waste gets thrown in a ” bio-digester ,” where specialized bacteria process them into methane gas to fuel the range. Then the remaining solid matter is turned into compost. So the peelings from a potato might provide the heat to cook the potato and the fertilizer to grow more potatoes.

Put your junk mail to work keeping Wall Street occupied

admin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:14:31 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. Here's a twofer: you can occupy Wall Street and do something with that junk mail besides just chucking it in the bin. Sure, it'll still end up in the recycling eventually, but it won't be any MORE trashed than before, and in between it can do some good. (Plus, if enough people do this, maybe they'll quit sending the damn things.)

Universities try to out-green each other in bid for NYC science campus

admin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:09:01 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. New York City is fielding proposals from universities to build a new science and technology campus on Roosevelt Island, and the competition is showing how desirable green buildings are becoming. The two front-runners, Cornell and Stanford, are falling over themselves to offer all manner of green features in their plans: acres of solar panels, geothermal wells, net zero energy buildings, a marsh to filter water, green roofs, and storm runoff recycling. One campus would generate 1.8 megawatts of power. If every new building in New York had this much green swag, the city would cut down its carbon use in no time.

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Universities try to out-green each other in bid for NYC science campus

E-waste idea: Turn an iMac into an aquarium

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:51:29 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. The iMac was built to be pretty. So why not sidestep the difficulty of recycling e-waste by making discarded iMac carapaces into something attractive for the home? Jake Harms had the clever idea to make them into aquariums , for “Mac and fish enthusiasts worldwide.” The cases for his

Japanese companies turn bras into fuel

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:56:56 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. The whole “feminists burn their bras” thing is kind of a canard , but now you can do it for real and for an equally good cause. Japanese lingerie manufacturers are collecting bras and recycling them into solid fuel. It's been pretty successful , too: Triumph has collected more than 200,000 bras since it began the program in 2009 and turned them into 14 tons of [refuse paper and plastic] fuel. Wacoal has collected more than 179,200 bras and produced 17.9 tons of the fuel. Apparently Japanese women are powerfully bashful about the task of disposing of worn-out underclothes — which makes more sense when you know that many municipalities in Japan require you to put trash in a transparent bag and leave it at a public pick-up point. Women apparently feel weird about being all “HERE'S MY OLD BRA, WORLD,” and who can blame them.

Soiled diapers can now end up as roof tiles

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:14:59 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. Babies! They use so much energy that the best thing you could do to save the human race from climate change might be to avoid having one altogether . But if you choose the reproductive path, at least the six thousand poopy diapers that your offspring will produce in the course of his or her early years could have a second life as part of your house — specifically, as the shingles tiling your roof. The diapers, thank goodness, are sterilized first. Then they’re separated out into their components. The, um, “organics” go to waste-to-electricity products, and the plastic part goes into roofing tiles. So it's not like you'd literally be living in your kid's waste. But close!

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Soiled diapers can now end up as roof tiles

Critical List: Invasive species jump the border; Gulf sheen not BP’s fault

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:11:26 +0000

by Sarah Laskow. While U.S. border monitors were busy looking for terrorists in cargo containers, a slew of invasive species slipped unnoticed into the country. Whatever that sheen in the Gulf is, it's not BP's fault , okay?? If carbon is a risk (and it is!), the market should adjust for that, valuing companies with high ” exposure to climate change ” less than those that are climate-resilient. But since markets don't seem to ever do what they should in theory, that hasn't happened yet. Electric vehicles are only as climate-positive as the electric grid that fuels them, so in places like China where coal-fired electricity reigns, EVs can account for more carbon than gas-powered cars. How a recycling company renovates its office: it uses trash . TerraCycle's new digs use soda bottles and vinyl records for walls, old doors for desks, scrap carpeting, and more. Cheap solar panels mean more solar installers .

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Critical List: Invasive species jump the border; Gulf sheen not BP’s fault

Discarded glass bottles can be used to clean up water

admin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:57:48 +0000

by Jess Zimmerman. Unless you're stranded on a desert island, you should not throw empty glass bottles in the water. But you SHOULD apparently grind up those bottles, mix the ground glass with lime and caustic soda , and put that in the water to clean out toxic heavy metals . The U.K. has backlogs of brown and green glass, because there's less recycling demand for the colored bottles than there is for clear ones. Now Dr. Nichola Coleman of the University of Greenwich has discovered that the unwanted glass can be used to filter water. The mixture of glass and caustic materials, heated at over 200 degrees, produces the mineral tobermorite, which can absorb heavy metals out of waste water and underground water reserves.