Conducive Chronicle &#187; Joanne O'Donnell

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Every Recycler’s Worst Nightmare

Cash for (Household Appliance) Clunkers

Joanne O'Donnell — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:27:45 +0000

Is your refrigerator getting up there in years? Is your water heater older than you can remember? Or maybe your washing machine is not very efficient? If you answered yes to any of these questions, or had similar thoughts about any of your other appliances, you might be a good candidate for ENERGY STAR appliance updates.

Even though replacing large household appliances like these can take a little time and money to research, purchase, and install, it’s well worth the effort because ENERGY STAR and other high efficiency appliances save energy and money over time and are better for the environment. Plus, your State will soon be, if not already, offering new appliance rebates that are being made available from the Federal government to help you replace your old energy hogs. This funding falls under the State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP), and the funding for this is an offshoot of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Make sure to check out this website for more information about which appliance rebates are being offered for you. This funding won’t be available forever, so make sure to take advantage of it! Program plans for all 56 states and territories are now approved.

Also, many states or utility company’s already have energy efficiency appliance rebates available for you. If you couple these preexisting rebates with the new Federal tax rebate, you’ll save a significant amount of money upfront and you might be able to see a payback on your investment much sooner than you think. Most utilities or state energy offices have sections on their website describing what rebates are offered and how to apply for them.

If you’re not sure what rebates are available to you, check out DSIRE.org for a partial listing, or take a bit of time during your day to call up your utility or state energy office. It’s quick and easy, and you’ll know you’re doing your part to curb your greenhouse gas emissions, be more eco friendly, and save some money with your new energy efficient appliances.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Every Recycler’s Worst Nightmare

A Car-Free Life

Joanne O'Donnell — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:42:23 +0000

For many of us, a completely car-free lifestyle seems like a near impossibility. However, for residents of one German town, getting around without an automobile is their current reality. Vauban is a new experimental, one square mile, upscale suburban district near the French and Swiss borders.

It was completed in 2006, and in its previous incantation it had been Nazi military base. Residents are forbidden to have private garages or driveways, there is no street parking, and those who chose to own a vehicle must pay a $40,000 parking fee for a spot in one of the two public garages on the perimeter of town. Public transportation runs through the center of town in the form of a muni train headed to and from the nearest city of Freiburg, and a number of families participate in car shares for out of town excursions. However, many residents chose to bicycle or walk and do much of their shopping in local stores that were explicitly zoned to intermingle with private residences. In truth, driving down the narrow streets that had once been home to military barracks would be a near impossibility anyway. Instead, children play in the streets, neighbors walk freely to visit with each other, and a pervasive sense of quiet and calm looms in the air.

As the New York Times posted, he families that live here have chosen to be part of the experiment, with many noting that their car-free existence has helped to decrease their stress levels and increase their sense of community. Many residents have also signed on to the experiment as a way to do their part to decrease their own greenhouse gas emissions since cars, as well as homes, are major contributors to global warming.

Whether or not Vauban continues to be practical in the long run remains to be seen. There are plans for similar communities in other regions across the globe. A vehicle-free existence may not yet be practical for many other suburbanites around the globe, but as the town of Vauban shows, a number of people are willing to give it a shot as long as their is an adequate system for providing many of the goods and services they have come to expect. If you wonder what you can do to try to live a more car-free lifestyle, check out some of these tips from one family that has rolled this concept into their daily routine. Also check out this experiment by 100 Los Angeles residents.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Every Recycler’s Worst Nightmare

Eco-Friendly Home Remodeling

Joanne O'Donnell — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:29:35 +0000

I’ve recently moved into a new space, and let’s just say there have been some kinks to work out. We have some remodeling to do, and are in the processing of putting up lighting fixtures, varnishing floors, painting walls and replacing carpeting. I wanted to try my best to do these home improvements in an eco-friendly way.

The Floors

When we pulled up the old carpeting, a beautiful, but old and scratched hardwood floor was beneath. It needed some love, so we got to sanding. We hand sanded the living room and bedroom not only to save some cash on renting an electric sander, but also to save on a bit of energy by using man power rather than electricity. Turns out using our feet–or rather strapping the sanding blocks onto our sneakers–was an easier way to get this job done (as opposed to our hands). However, if this had been a larger surface area, we might have wanted to consider some other options. For varnish, we saw a great trick on how to make your own homemade, non-toxic floor varnish from HGTV. We added steal wool to about 2 gallons of vinegar and let it soak overnight. The next day we were left with a gorgeous dark stain for our newly sanded floors. We’re still looking for a good eco-friendly sealant to bring out the shine and protect it from scuffing.

For carpeting, we choose bamboo area rugs. Bamboo grows very quickly and has a smaller impact on the environment than traditional carpeting which often comes with a high amount of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that are harmful to your lungs as well as to the environment. However, there are some carpet companies that are beginning to offer green lines of carpeting products.

The Walls

We’re not planning to paint anywhere other than our living room and a few areas that need a bit of touch up. Instead, we’re using simple shelving and our own furnishings to liven up our spaces. Paints, like many carpets, also suffer from a high VOC content. There are a number of more environmentally friendly paint options on the market today. Alternatively, you can often find paint for free at your town or city’s hazardous waste collection sights. Most sights are open to the public once a month to bring items like tires, polyurethane, batteries, computers, and yes—lots of excess paint.

For the windows, we’re planning to make our own curtains with some heavy, beautiful fabric we found at a used clothing and home goods store. The heavy fabric will help keep our apartment insulated as will the weather strips and plastic covering we put on all those windows we’re not planning to open as the winter sets in. Check out this video about the simple steps it takes to weatherize your windows: Window Weatherization

Appliances and Energy Use

We just set up our account with our local gas and electric utility, and we decided to opt into their “Green” program, which allows us to dedicate 50 percent or 100 percent of our electricity to go go towards wind energy development. We’ll be paying an extra 0.837 cents per kWh, which we figure will balance out since we’re intending to be very conscious with our usage of lighting, hot water, and heat. We also requested a programmable thermostat from our utility efficiency program, which is eligible for an ENERGY STAR rebate, and we’re looking into qualifying efficient lighting rebates in our area as well. We also ordered a SmartStrip and will be receiving a $10 rebate. The SmartStrip will help us allows to cut down on our phantom electricity load associated with our household electronics. We haven’t yet talked to our landlord about potential upgrades to the larger appliances, such as the water heater, refrigerator, or furnace. However, it’s a great time to upgrade to high efficiency because many of these large appliances will be receiving incentives from ARRA funding, and most existing efficiency programs offer rebates directly to their customers if these units meet a certain efficiency level. It can often be challenging to encourage landlords or rental companies to upgrade to high efficiency because they’re not responsible for the utility bills. However, there are a number of ways that a renter can broach this subject, and a number of reasons why building owners should be considering investing in high efficiency.

We also were able to procure bedroom doors from our local “free pile” at the dump, and I’m hoping that we’ll learn a thing or two about weatherization as we work on putting up more insulation and dry wall. Lastly, I’m hoping to schedule a free energy audit from our utility in the new year to see how good of a job we’ve done. If you’re looking to do the same, make sure to schedule these far in advance with your utility, as there can be a long wait—which, if you think about it, could be seen as a good thing, because it means many households are scheduling energy audits and are becoming increasingly interested in energy efficiency.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Every Recycler’s Worst Nightmare

Joanne O'Donnell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:25:39 +0000

For many, the Pacific Ocean conjures images of azure blue seas, exotic marine flora and fauna, and vast expanses of sheer water separating continents.
However, this image is somewhat tarnished by the existence of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Ocean Trash Vortex or the Northern Pacific Gyre. There are dozens of similar patches across the globe, most congregating where surface ocean currents collide to create a rotating gyre. However, the patch that occurs in the Nothern Pacific Gyre might just be the largest.

The exact breadth and depth of the patch has not been fully mapped to date, but it stretches from California to Japan, and some have estimated that it is the size of Texas, or maybe even double that.

Much of the debris consists of floating plastics items from ocean going vessels like cargo ships, fisheries, military vessels, and cruise ships. However, the greatest portion of that debris, potentially up to 80 percent, is also carried from our coastlines, and can be transported through ocean currents as well as through the air.

The Algalita Marine Foundation was first to find the patch, and have done much to publicize its existence and the need for cleanup over the last number of years. The Foundation has studied the patches impact on the biodiversity in the region and has noted that there is “more plastic an plankton by a factor of 40.” In 2008, they put together the JUNK Raft excrusive that sought to raise awareness about the patch by sailing from Long Beach, CA to Hawaii on a raft made of 15,000 old plastic bottles. The SEAPLEX expidition have also conducted research on the patch, studying impacts on the marine life, water quality, and plastic degradation.

Even the most avid recycler would be daunted by this much litter, and there is currently no major plan of action amongst governing nations. Because the garbage patch does not fall under any one country’s jurisdiction, there is a sense of lack of ownership. So what can an average person, who will likely never even see the Pacific Garbage Patch, do to help stop it? [

As many advocates have noted, the future is in reuse. Each one of us can do our own part to lesson our impact on our natural resources and not only reuse and recycle our waste, but make conscious decisions to reduce how much we consume. You can also sign the petition to clean up the Northern Pacific gyre, and you can learn more about other steps you can take to help curtail plastic degradation in our world’s oceans by checking out the Environmental Cleanup Coalition’s Gyre Cleanup Project as well as and Project Kaisei.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Every Recycler’s Worst Nightmare

Greening your…teeth?

Joanne O'Donnell — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:41:52 +0000

Move over Crest Whitening Strips, it’s time to talk about greening our teeth, rather than whitening them. Or, to be more precise, greening our toothpaste. After coming across an article on Grist.com about one family’s attempt to find the tastiest, most environmentally friendly toothpaste on the market, I got curious about how my own toothpaste measured up.

Was changing brands from my favorite tried and true toothpaste going to really help the planet and be better for my health? Would these ”eco toothpastes” actually be up to par with the minty fresh experience I have come to enjoy? As I held my toothbrush and toothpaste in hand the next morning, I decided I needed to do some research of my own.

While many of the all natural toothpastes I looked into claimed to conduct sustainable business practices and used recycled packaging, I still found a number of potential health and environmental concerns to be aware of. The chemical Triclosan is a common additive in many toothpastes, even some that claim to be ”all natural”. Food and Water Watch notes that Tricolosan has been linked to an array of health and environmental effects. The Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetics Database lists a limited number of products that contain Tricolosan and those that don’t.

Also, a number of natural toothpastes now market themselves as Fluoride-free, as Fluoride builds up in the body over time. However, the American Dental Association still recommends the use of Fluoride in all toothpastes as it has not been proven to cause negative side effects in the majority of the population. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is another product often added to toothpastes (and many other products). It’s been linked to canker sores, skin irritations, and potentially some more serious health risks.

I tried a handful of toothpastes including

My favorite turned out to be The Natural Dentist, as it tastes great, isn’t too pasty, and doesn’t contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (which is the additive I decided I wanted to avoid the most). It does contain Fluoride, but I’m personally not too hypersensitive about this as I’ve come to expect it as part of my oral hygience experience. I had a lot of fun making the homemade toothpaste, but I’d really need to work on getting the consistency right if I was to use it on a daily basis. Based off this preliminary, totally unscientific research, it wasn’t too difficult to find a toothpaste that satisfied my eco-consciousness, my slight hypochondriasis, and my taste buds. As with everything, it’s important to consider your personal preferences and do your research. If you’re interested in reading more, the hidden world of toothpaste is discussed further on a number of websites including ConsumerResearch.com.

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