Plastic is Not a Toy

Sure, we’ve seen the photos. We’ve seen the sad images of albatross skeletons filled to bursting with plastic debris, the decaying outline of a chick or adult with the rainbow center. I’ve seen a lot of these photos, but when I visited Midway I wanted to see it for myself.

While there is an understanding we gain from a photograph, it is difficult to get the full emotional impact of an event or sight. That is the case with these birds who are dying from our plastic trash tossed out to sea, at least for me. I get the problem, but I wanted to get it. I wanted to be hit by it, punched in the gut when I finally saw for myself what a stomach full of plastic does to these birds. I never saw it. I looked everywhere, but I never saw it.

There are a couple possibilities. Rumor has it some visiting photographers are moving carcasses so that no one else can get these shots. Another possibility, though less likely, is that last year’s tsunami washed away many older carcasses that would have decayed enough to show the plastics inside. Okay fine. Whatever the reason, the fact is I did not see first hand the destructive force of our plastic problem.

But there is one person who has been witnessing this for years, for so many years that he almost forgot the visceral reaction to seeing it for the first time. Biologist Wayne Sentman, who leads groups on Midway for the non-profit organization Oceanic Society, is working on a Masters’ thesis that revolves around the plastic pollution problem. He recently wrote an article for Harvard Extension that gives some first hand details about the impact, and the scale of the issue.

Here is his article in full:

Cause of Death - Plastic

For a moment I forgot what a sad sight it must be for the tour group I was leading. In front of us lay a dead Laysan albatross chick, one of the unsuccessful young from the previous “hatch” year. In the exposed rib cage, many brightly colored objects were clearly visible.

As an ecotour leader at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, I was simply excited to find one of these intact carcasses so that I could use the opportunity to talk about the environmental problem of marine plastic pollution for ocean ecosystems and the wildlife dependant on them.

As the group gathered closer, we began to dissect the carcass. The group’s initial wonder at what all this colorful “stuff” was inside the dead bird turned to outrage and ultimately shame as we all started to recognized plastic objects from our daily lives (some we had even used that morning). In the end we counted three lighters, two magic marker caps, one toothbrush, numerous bottle caps, and many small unidentifiable pieces of plastic.

While this discovery was shocking to the group, especially given that we were on one of the most remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, it was a sight that I first saw in 1998 when I made my initial trip to Midway Atoll. I was helping monitor the endangered Hawaiian monk seal population.

Cruel Diet Plan

I am currently a Harvard Extension School master’s candidate in the Sustainability and Environmental Management Graduate Program. From 1998 to 2002 I lived on Midway Atoll, working on projects related to the three albatross species that nest there, tagging green sea turtles, and assisting with habitat restoration efforts. As a part-time graduate student I have been able to continue working while taking classes. Since 2008 I have been leading weeklong ecotourism groups to Midway for the Oceanic Society, a marine conservation organization based outside San Francisco.

About 1,200 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands you will find Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Midway is part of the world’s third largest marine protected area (an area larger than all the US national parks combined), the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

In July 2010 this marine monument became the first mixed United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in the United States, being recognized for both its unique and intact predator-dominated marine ecosystem, and its cultural heritage as “an embodiment of the Hawaiian concept of kinship between people and the natural world.”

However, as wild and beautiful as Midway Atoll is one of the topics increasingly being studied and documented at Midway relates to the impact marine plastic pollution is having on the resident albatross nesting there. Each year in late October over 400,000 albatross pairs return to nest. Midway is home to the world’s largest nesting colonies of Laysan and black-footed albatross. And recently the first recorded nesting in modern times of the highly endangered short-tailed albatross has also been recorded on Midway. This milestone was made all the more impressive by the young short-tailed chick that survived last year’s tsunami.

Found Around the World

Midway is an exceptional location to study the problem plastic pollution presents to the Northern Pacific albatross species since the areas they feed in overlap with the large “trash” gyres that have been identified in the North Pacific.

The albatross chicks sitting on their nest sites for the first four months of their lives get all of their food directly from their parents. These adults regurgitate meals collected (in large part) from these same gyre areas of the North Pacific.

For my master’s thesis I am hoping to re-create a 1994 study that examines the actual amount of plastic that these chicks ingest during their nesting interval, before developing the ability to regurgitate just before they fledge. I would like to see if over this 19-year interval the amount of plastic ingested by the albatross chicks at Midway has changed.

Current estimates calculate that about five metric tons of marine plastic pollution is accidentally fed to chicks each year at Midway. As many of these chicks do not survive, and those that due regurgitate undigested objects right before they fledge, all of that plastic is basically landfilled on Midway’s islands annually.

For a small piece of paradise, so remote from the rest of the world, Midway is a bit of a paradox. The resident wildlife species are exposed to environmental challenges that you would associate with more populated regions.

A Growing Problem

It is hard to understand the sheer scale of the issue without seeing it. Midway is an ideal place to start to grasp the impact. But the reality is that it is impossible to see it. Yes, we can witness the carcasses of birds that have died by ingesting plastics — plastics we recognize when we see them again. But the problem is of a scale so large, it’s hard to wrap our brains around it. And yet, we have to.

Walking around Midway collecting plastics, from toothbrush handles to toys to even a completely intact syringe, made me realize that while we struggle to understand the fact that what we toss aside — your disposable razor, your dental floss, the lid to the bottle of juice you just drank — ends up in the belly of an animal thousands of miles away, it doesn’t change the fact that it happens.

This is a solvable problem. And getting a grasp of our plastic use is the solution, the simple yet incredibly hard solution.

One Cup at a Time

We never tire of complaining about single serve coffee pods that are claimed to be “recyclable” but are just a waste of aluminum and plastic, and are piling up in landfills across America. That is the environmental cost, but Smart Planet notes that there is a real financial cost too. The price of convenience of the pod coffee is as much as fifty dollars a pound.

The New York Times did the math:

For example, the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound. That’s even more expensive than all but the priciest coffees sold by artisanal roasters, the stuff of coffee snobs.

Cheap coffee can be found for about eight bucks a pound; the Fair Trade shade grown stuff I buy is about sixteen bucks. Paying over three times that is just ridiculous. But apparently people under 40 don’t notice because they think about coffee pricing differently than their parents.

Oliver Strand’s article in the Times:

“Americans under the age of 40 are thinking about coffee pricing in cups,” said Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. “If you asked my mother how much coffee cost, she would have told you that the red can was $5.25 a pound and the blue can was $4.25. If you ask people in their 20s and 30s, they’ll say coffee is $1.75 to $3.75 a cup.”

Next to Tasmanian ice cubes, coffee pods are about the most wasteful product I can think of, costing four times as much to make lousy coffee. Yet their sales are growing like mad, almost doubling in the last year to 7% of all the coffee made in America. Go figure.

Sustainable Farming

Tucked away in the picturesque valley of Sonoma County–just 50 miles north of San Francisco–is Lynmar Estate, a sustainable vineyard and winery, and almost virtual Garden of Eden.

The estate has 40-something acres of grape vines, nine of which are over 40 years old, while the remainder of the ranch is a wooly mix of ornamental and edible fruits and vegetables, which literally grow up together side-by-side. The produce is given to a local charity where high school students prepare healthy, whole-food meals for cancer and AIDS patients.

Part of the Russian River Valley AVA, the property was purchased by Lynn Fritz in 1980 and primarily used as a vacation property.

However, with each visit, Fritz would rehabilitate the property by adding trees, grape vines and shrubs, slowly transforming it from “a pasture to a vineyard with lush gardens, and native plants and trees.” But it wasn’t until the early 90s that Lynmar itself began producing and selling wine. The wine was well received, so in 2008, Lynn and his wife Aniysa moved in, making the 100-acre ranch their permanent home.

The estate, which has 17 different blocks, such as Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah, is under the influence of three separate ecosystems. Maritime winds keep the fog at bay early in the morning, allowing east-facing slopes to receive morning sunshine and even regulating temperatures throughout the ranch.

The breeze also dries out the vineyard’s canopy, reducing mold and mildew. By afternoon, winds from the Petaluma Gap make their way onto the property, cooling down the sun-bathed grapes and even preserving them. This ranch also benefits from an uncommonly long growing season, which is most noticeable when enjoying the wine.

If you like Pinot Noir, this winery–declared “the best place for Pinot in Sonoma County” by Wine Spectator–is for you!

Lynmar Estate was growing Pinot in Sonoma pretty much before anyone else. Oh, and way before it was the “cool” thing to do. It’s been on the property since the 1970s!

Their 2008 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir is a particular favorite of mine. The wine is filled with black fruit and vanilla bean, yet stays fresh and easily drinkable with notes of eucalyptus and mint. With just a hint of pepper, this wine is perfect for almost any meal, or on its own. You can order it online for $40 along with many of their other current releases.

Sustainable Farming Methods

Low-Energy, Gravity Flow Winery

All of Lynmar’s wines are processed using gravity flow, and you can taste it. This production format not only saves on energy but this method of winemaking is very, very gentle. The lack of mechanics and agitation help preserve a wine’s more delicate notes.

This trait is most evident in their Chardonnay, a varietal which is usually overworked and way too oaky. But Lynmar’s 2009 Laguna Ridge Chardonnay is quite the opposite. With notes of peach, apple and citrus, the wine is fresh and floral, as if it is blossoming in your wine glass right before your very eyes (and nose). Available online for $20.

But perhaps the best place to enjoy Lynmar wine is actually on the estate, surrounded by the organic gardens, a botanical utopia.

On-Site Seed Vault:

You’ll see we got a lot of different things growing together. Nothing is in blocks, like a block of broccoli here, a block of chard there, etc. We’re not doing any kind of monoculture farming. We’ve created an ecosystem where we’re planting lots of different flowers along with our edible plants, creating more of a harmonious environment for the plants, and for the creatures that are living in this ecosystem.

Tomatoes, tomatillos, leeks, fennel, carrots, lettuces, and red kale are just some of the crops you’ll find growing at Lynmar.

Eytan says they pay close attention to crop rotation so that the same vegetables are not always planted in the same beds over and over again. They even have their own seed vault (it’s really just an old barn) for when they “identify plants that do well in this particular landscape.” The vault currently hosts over 100 different types of seeds.

This isn’t some vanity garden. The crops are used in the tasting room’s kitchen by Chef David Frakes, who prepares food and wine pairings for visitors to enjoy.

Leftover crops make their way to a local charity called the Ceres Project, which teaches high school students how to prepare meals using whole foods. The meals are then delivered to people in need or those seeking medical treatment for such diseases as cancer or AIDS.

Eco-Curious:

Just like with the vegetable gardens, hedgerows are used throughout the vineyard as a haven for beneficials. Here pollinators, insects, birds and butterflies can all be found, keeping unwanted pests at bay. They also provide a barrier to dust and pollution from the nearby road. The hedgerows are comprised mostly of endemic drought-resistant plants which greatly reduces their need for water.

For pests not frightened off by the birds and bees, owl boxes have also been installed. A few cats also roam the property much to the gopher population’s dismay. Legumes along with crops like vetch, peas, wild oats, and barley are used as cover crop and then tilled right back into the soil.

Sailing says of their organic past:

We’ve been experimenting with organic since 1996 and making sure that we’re doing it well…getting the same quality for all our grapes and hopefully Lynmar expands to make the whole property organic one day.

And while only a few of the vineyard blocks are grown organically (not certified), the whole ranch is sustainably farmed. You can tell by the native weeds left to grow in-between the vines. Currently, the organic blocks are being used as eco-laboratories for developing best practices.

Vineyard Manager Jason Saling says it best, “We’re farming the soil and the vines are our end product.” And it shows, the wines are simply amazing.

Come for the wines but stay for the gardens. You’ll be glad you did.

Visit the Green Wine Guide for more eco wineries and vegetarian recipes.

Pedal power army

My neighbor Linda Archibald has an off-the-grid house that is powered by an array of photovoltaic cells (solar panels). When she asked if she could recharge her backup batteries with pedal power and a bicycle adapted to generate electricity, I was skeptical — at first.

After doing a little research, I found that an efficient bike generator pedaled by a reasonably fit person can produce about 100 watts of continuous output. An experienced biker with pedal power can produce a peak of more than 400 watts, but peaks don’t count for much when it comes to pedal power generators. Assuming an ambitious exercise period of one hour, a person could produce about 100 watt-hours of electricity. That is one-tenth of a kilowatt-hour (1 kilowatt-hour = 1,000 watts for 1 hour).

Most of us pay our local utilities about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity, including taxes and surcharges. By getting our heart rate up and breaking a sweat for an hour, we could produce 1 cent worth of electricity. Not much incentive, I thought.

With the electricity produced by an hour of pedal power, we could light a 100-watt incandescent bulb for an hour, or power a 20-watt compact fluorescent bulb for about five hours.

Pedal power is a fun idea that does generate usable amounts of electricity, but it’s easy to understand why a human-powered device can be viewed as a trinket without a meaningful role in a household’s energy supply. Nevertheless, some pedal generators are used regularly to do serious work. The critical factor to making pedal power a viable option is matching expectations with realistic output.

To find out what types of applications are practical for pedal power, I called Sheila Kerr, part owner and customer service manager of Windstream Power, which is probably the nation’s most successful manufacturer of pedal devices designed to produce electricity.

Sheila remembers pedaling the Bike Power Generator her dad built in the 1970s, and she couldn’t have imagined then that she would earn her living building and selling human-powered generators. Her father, Colin, is a physicist who went into the solar business in the quiet Eastern Townships of Quebec in the early 1970s.

After a couple of moves, the family and the business landed in Vermont, where it thrives today. The company also sells wind turbines. “Our Human Power Series is our bread and butter. We ship several hundred a year,” Sheila says.

Windstream Power offers two human-powered devices. One is the Bike Power Generator, which is a stand to fit your bike to; it quickly converts a regular bicycle to an electricity generator.

The other product is the Human Power Generator, a floor-mounted stand with a pedal on each side and a generator inside. Simply sit in a chair in front of the Human Power Generator and start pedaling. Windstream’s customers often have surprising uses for its products. For example, the company shipped more than 300 units of the Human Power Generator to Siberian forestry camps to power communications equipment.

pedal power to watts

Both models produce direct current (DC), but you can purchase a battery pack that includes an inverter so you can power household appliances that run on alternating current (AC).

Educators, “off-gridders” and marketing firms that want to use pedal generators to promote a green image are Windstream’s main customers for human-powered products. Schools and museums also have been steady customers for the company. “Windstream builds interactive and educational displays that can provide the participants with an opportunity to experience the physical energy required to produce electricity,” Sheila says.

She describes a particularly effective display in which the generator load can be switched between a compact fluorescent light bulb, which is easy to light up by pedaling, and an incandescent bulb, which takes more effort to light because of its greater energy consumption.

Sometimes a Little Power Goes a Long Way

While a human-powered generator won’t produce the output of a wind turbine or photovoltaic array, it can produce usable power that contributes to your overall energy needs. If you use less electricity to begin with, the amount generated by pedal power can meet a larger percent of your power needs.

David Butcher’s experience is a case in point. Every morning he goes out to his garage and pedals a stationary bike for at least a half hour. The effort he puts into his workout isn’t wasted on friction as it is in most fitness gyms. Every pedal stroke makes electricity that is sent down a cable to his office in the house to power several small electrical devices. Pedal power recharges his electric razor and his cell phone, runs a computer monitor, and periodically runs the compressor that tops off the air pressure in the tires of his vehicles. David also runs the bike generator directly to a water pump whenever necessary for aerating and filtering the small backyard fishpond.

David works out of his home office in San Jose, Calif., as the client services director for a Web agency, and he sits in front of a computer most of the day. He needed a way to stay fit and remembered the pedal power generator he had built in college. As a serious bicyclist, David combined that interest with his passion for renewable energy, and in 1976 built a pedal generator to use as a trainer. The generator worked, and it certainly showed him the limitations of pedal power. But the trainer was heavy and cumbersome with its homemade frame, so he liquidated it at a yard sale rather than moving it to his new digs.

Then several years ago, he built what he calls the PPPM (pedal power prime mover) for daily exercise and as an outlet for his penchant for tinkering with renewable energy.

Pedal power computer

It seems one’s satisfaction with pedal power has a lot to do with attitude. David’s house is a good candidate for the little extra power his morning fitness program produces because it’s already energy efficient. The Butchers have moved well down the road to energy self-sufficiency by relying on renewable energy. He and his wife have a 2.5-kilowatt grid-tied solar array and are net suppliers of electricity to their local utility. They also use their electric bike or tiny electric car for local errands.

David came up with his pedal generator after thinking about how to reduce the friction loss inherent when a rubber bike tire turns a small roller with a generator attached. He also wanted to smooth out the normal jerkiness of a freewheeling pedal stroke. And, finally, he needed a way to spin a half-horsepower generator fast enough to achieve peak efficiency. The result was a 36-inch-diameter plywood disk in place of a regular bike’s front sprocket. A groove cut around the perimeter guides a light chain that turns a sprocket on the generator. (He’s recently gone back to a design that uses friction instead of a chain to run the generator. It’s much quieter.)

Unlike many other pedal power generators, David’s creation is not adapted from a bicycle frame, but is built from scratch using simple materials. He sells construction plans for the PPPM on his Web site.

An Off-grid Boost

Linda Archibald came to our neighborhood three years ago. She had a contractor install a small solar-electric system to power electric equipment, including a well pump and the laptop computer that is vital to her consulting business. Her 330 watts of solar collectors, battery bank and an inverter provide for her modest electrical needs — except during what Linda calls “the dark times” from October through December. The first cloudy autumn was tense, with the batteries running low frequently enough to be a serious problem. It was then she asked me about pedal power.

At the time, I was planning to build a wind turbine using an alternator made up of permanent magnets and coils of copper wire. This was to be a low-speed alternator, which, as it turned out, matched the rotational speed of a bicycle rear wheel. After much measuring and consideration, and after buying a used mountain bike from a pawnshop, I managed to shoehorn the alternator I had built into the rear of the bike and drive it with the normal multispeed bike gears.

No one was more surprised than I at how well Linda’s power bike performed. It was pleasant to pedal and seemed at least as efficient as any of the human powered devices I had researched.

pedal power watts

As an added bonus, the bike was remarkably quiet in operation because of its low speed and low friction, unlike some types of bike generators. But because of its complexity and the amount of time devoted to its construction, it cost several times more than any other power bike I’d seen.

Just the components purchased to build it cost more than $600, plus all the labor. Linda paid a total of $1,300, surely a premium price for a bike that could be expected to produce only 100 watts of power. Despite the high cost, I still had doubts it could make a meaningful contribution to Linda’s power needs.

I needn’t have worried. After more than a year of use, Linda views the bike as part of her overall electrical system and is pleased she is no longer totally at the mercy of the weather. “In the end, I just integrated the bike into my normal routine,” she says. “In cloudy weather, the more computer work I have to do, the more pedaling I’ll do. The bike has put my solar-power system under my control.”

Unlike David, Linda doesn’t use the bike for fitness, although that is certainly a byproduct. What really matters to her is how it reduces worry and stress. “Now I can just deal with low power conditions during cloudy weather without fear of discharging the batteries too far,” she says.

Linda’s off-the-grid existence has led to some interesting exchanges when her city-dwelling children come to visit. Her daughter, an athlete, was induced to pedal furiously one morning in order to use her electric hair dryer. And Linda’s 19-year-old son had to pedal one evening to reach an agreed battery voltage before watching a movie on Linda’s laptop computer.

For many people the idea of pedaling to produce electricity or perform other work has a lot of appeal. In North America, though, we use so much cheap electricity that the output from pedal power seems miniscule by comparison. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average American household (2.4 people) goes through about 30 kilowatt-hours per day, which is 300 times more electricity than a reasonably fit person pedaling a good power bike can produce in an hour. That’s enough to cause anyone’s enthusiasm to waver.

On the other hand, people such as Linda Archibald and David Butcher have found ways to match the modest output of a pedal generator to their needs and expectations.

One hour of pedaling produces about 100 watt-hours. That’s about enough energy to power:

A clock radio for 10 hours

A 15-watt compact fluorescent light bulb for 6 hours, 40 minutes

A laptop computer for 2 hours

A 19-inch LCD TV for 1 hour, 40 minutes

A toaster for 7 1/2 minutes

An iron for 3 1/2 to 6 minutes

In the process, they’ve proved that, under the right conditions, pedal power can be effective, fun and satisfying.

one dollar coin

Dear Pablo: Does the one dollar coin have a smaller footprint than $1 bills and what is the environmental impact of the $1 coins that the US Mint is supposedly stockpiling?

On the one hand paper money is lighter and cheaper to make but, on the other hand, coins last a lot longer. Let’s find out which has a lower footprint. We’ll also learn what’s behind the Mint’s stockpile of the unwanted one dollar coin.

National Public Radio (NPR) has recently reported on the Federal Reserve’s $1 Billion stash of $1 coins that nobody wants. NPR reports that “the coins are the wasteful byproducts of a third failed congressional effort to get Americans to use one-dollar coins in everyday commerce.” The current incarnation of the one dollar coin features presidential portraits, George Washington through Ulysses S. Grant so far, and 20% of US coins are required to carry the image of Sacagawea.

US $1 coins weigh 8.1 grams are made from copper (88.5%) with a manganese brass cladding (6% zinc, 3.5% manganese, and 2% nickel).

So the $1 billion in coins contain:

one dollar coin

7,168.5 metric tons of copper, worth at least $63.2 million dollars at today’s prices,

486 metric tons of zinc, worth $1 million,

283.5 metric tons of manganese, worth $1 million, and

162 metric tons of nickel, worth $3.5 million.

A formal Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on the $1 coin and banknote was performed back in 2007 by students at Michigan State University, before the current stockpile was minted. Their study was intended to answer “which is better, coin or paper?” and looks at the entire life-cycle of coins and paper money, from resource extraction all the way through to recycling/disposal.

What Is The Impact Of Making The Coins?

The impact of making the coins extends far beyond the US Mint. The impact begins with resource extraction, namely mining. Mining can result in erosion, siltation of streams, contamination from leachates and processing chemicals, and many other impacts, not to mention the human impact. One of the easiest impacts to quantify is the impact on climate change through emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG) associated with each material. The GHG emissions from the copper alone can be estimated at around 14,840 metric tonnes of CO2-equivalents, or the equivalent of 2,700 average US passenger vehicles.

What Is The Impact Of Making Dollar Bills

A US $1 banknote weighs only 0.917 grams and is not actually made from paper pulp but rather from 75% cotton and 25% linen (the fibers from a flax plant). The environmental impacts of growing cotton are well known; herbicide/pesticide use, heavy water use, and the use of defoliant chemicals. While coins tend to last many years or even decades, the average dollar is replaced after 42 months of circulation due to wear. After this it is partially recycled into roofing material but mostly sent to the landfill. On the other hand, dollar coins remain in circulation about 17 times longer and are fully recyclable in the end.

The GHG emissions associated with the materials in a US dollar can be estimated at around 3 grams of CO2-equivalents, so the emissions are about one fifth that of the coins. When you take into account the longer lifespan of the coins though, the benefits of coins become clear. The coins cause only one third the greenhouse gas emissions as the equivalent US Dollar bills.

What Is The Impact Of Coin Weight?

one dollar coin

When the $1 coins are finally released their heavier weight will have a small incremental, yet potentially significant impact on transportation emissions. This is not only the case when coins are transported from the US Mint to Reserve Banks and individual retail banks, but also in the weight that they add to our own transportation footprint. The emissions from air travel, for example, are highly dependent on the weight being transported. This may seem trivial but just imagine if every American commercial air travel passenger carried just one $1 coin over the 500 million passenger-miles traveled last year. If some airline have considered urging passengers to empty their bladders prior to departure then a couple of grams per customer in excess coinage must also have an impact. In aggregate, this would result in an estimated 1,350 kilograms of extra GHG emissions! Ok, so that’s only one quarter of the emissions of the average US passenger vehicle, so the US Dollar coin is still environmentally preferable.

The bottom line is that few people want heavy coins weighing down their pockets and purses, as is evidenced by the growing stockpile of unwanted coins in the US Mint’s vaults. But one organization is working to change that. The Dollar Coin Alliance is trying to promote the use of dollar coins for their environmental and economic advantages. But today less and less people are using cash anyway. Maybe we should be asking “what’s better for the environment, paper cash, the one dollar coin, or credit?” Maybe we will answer that question next time…

Pablo Päster is a weekly columnist for TreeHugger.com and Principal Environmental Consultant at Hara Software.

Ways to go Green

1. Hit the (Reusable) Bottle

End your one-use plastic water bottle addiction by investing in a BPA-free plastic container or steel bottle as a Way to be Green. If you’re worried about your tap water, pick up a reusable water bottle with a built-in filter so that you can hydrate your body without hurting the Earth.

2. Switch Up Your Suds

When you suds up with shower gel, you’re left with an empty plastic bottle, and many communities don’t have the facilities to recycle these. Try swapping your shower gel with super-low-waste soap, preferably from a hand-cut bar or with recyclable paper packaging.

3. Host a Clothing Swap

If you’re jonesing for a wardrobe update and a Way to be Green, but you want to go green (and save some green), invite your friends to bring over their unwanted items for a clothing exchange. After all, one woman’s trash is another woman’s tres chic. Turn it into a potluck by making hors d’ouevres and asking everyone to bring a dish. Donate any leftover or unwanted clothing to charity.

 4. Unplug It

Electronic items can still consume energy when they’re turned off, so before you leave the house for the day (and especially if you’re leaving for vacation), unplug all unused devices. Make this task easier on yourself by plugging several items into a powerstrip. Don’t forget to yank laptop and mobile phone chargers out of the wall, too.

5. Bulk Up

Pretty packaging might make you want to buy that new brand of cereal, but what you’re really paying for is marketing. Ditch the unnecessary boxes and bags and stock up on staples like oats, lentils, trail mix and more in the bulk foods section of your local grocery or natural foods store. Not only are bulk foods cheaper, but you’ll also be able to buy only as much as you need.

Ways to go Green

6. Make Paperless Payments

Cut the clutter and save some trees by converting to online statements and payments for as many bills as possible. From credit cards to rent to electricity, nearly every bill can find a way to go green and be paid electronically now, so just create email folders for statements and payment confirmations to organize and keep track of your payments. Bonus: Come tax time, you won’t be drowning in shoeboxes full of paper statements.

7. Rag Time

Get extra use out of torn or holey t-shirts, sweatshirts, towels and more by cutting them up and using them as dust clothes or wash rags. And, once these items are no longer usable as rags, check to see if there are any textile recycling drop-offs in your area at RecycleMatch.com.

8. Soften Up

Ditch the dryer sheets artificial fragrance-heavy liquid fabric softeners in favor of a more natural solution. Just add a cup of white vinegar during the final rinse cycle and enjoy a way to go green.

ways to go green

9. Work in Your PJs

If you can effectively do your job from home, talk to your boss about telecommuting a day or two each week. According to the EPA, leaving your car at home one or two days a week can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 1,600 pounds per year. If telecommuting isn’t an option, check out carpooling, public transportation or private ride-share commuting opportunities.

10. Love to Lather

It’s hard to work up a good lather when water is beating down on you, and how can you tell if you’ve missed a spot shaving your legs? Invest in an inexpensive shower head with an “off” button, and get your suds on while saving gallons of water.

11. Get High and Dry

Drying on high heat breaks down the elasticity in fabrics, so prolong the life of your clothes by hanging as many items as possible on wooden racks or drying them outside. Bonus: The scent of sunshine-dried sheets makes for sweet dreams.

12. Eat Like Your Ancestors

Author Michael Pollan said you shouldn’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t have recognized as food. So, rid your grocery cart of highly processed, overpackaged foods and kick your diet old school. You’ll see a difference in the way you feel and on your grocery bill.

13. Bag It

ways to go green

Paper or plastic? Try neither. Some cities are starting to charge for plastic bags, which is yet another reason to keep a few collapsible bags in your car or purse. Bonus: Sturdy fabric bags are a lot sturdier and more comfortable (not to mention more stylish) to carry than plastic.

14. Lighten Your Load

Clean heavy, unused items out of your car to reduce the amount of gas you’re using. As excited as you might be for golf season, carting your clubs around all the time is going to cost you and the environment.

15. Clean Easy

Do you really need a separate cleaning product for every surface in your home? Of course not. Whip up an all-purpose solution of ½ cup vinegar and ¼ cup baking soda in half a gallon of water and just spray and wipe away.

When you choose Green lifestyle products and measures, you’re usually easier on your wallet and the environment. Remember, you don’t have to live in a tree house in the forest to find Ways to be Green.

Recycling is not all that tricky, but some people waste a lot of time doing stuff they shouldn’t. For example, below are some surefire ways to recycle incorrectly…

Recycle Wrong

ways to recycle

1. Crush all cans carefully – waste o’ time. Nowadays you don’t need to do this step. Recycling centers take un-crushed cans happily and is one of their ways to recycle.

2. Toss greasy and food ridden cardboard into the recycling bin. Sadly, this can mess up an entire load of recyclables. Recycling center machines are not fit to take on grease and grime. If you’ve got sticky, messy, greasy paper you need to toss it not recycle it.

3. Don’t sort the recycling – some recycling centers will sort if you don’t but others will just toss bins full of mixed goods which does no one any good. Set up a home recycling center and sort your recyclables.

4. Be a perfectionist about food in jars – the machinery at the recycling center will zap that excess mayo or peanut butter out of a jar. In fact, if a lemon is stuck in a beer bottle or you can’t remove food from inside a narrow container you can still recycle it.

5. Fail to recycle glossy paper – most recycling facilities do take old magazines and other glossy paper now. Ch

eck to be sure, but don’t just assume you can’t recycle it.

6. Recycle before you re-purpose – recycling actually uses a fair amount of energy. IF you can re-purpose

an item first, you should as one of the better ways to recycle.

7. Toss anything into the bins – many items need to be recycled in a different manner than your recycling center can deal with. For example, toys and dishes and the like should go to the thrift store, CFLs need to go to a CFL specific center, hazardous waste is a whole other issue, and food can be composted. Don’t recycle willy nilly.

8. And the number one best way to recycle wrong – don’t bother at all – who cares if you trash the planet?

This has been:

              ways to recycle: everything wrong,

I hope you got a few ideas of how to recycle right.

Recycling is one of the ways we save energy and protect the environment. Recycling can lower you homes power bill and even has the possibility of lowering your water consumption. When you recycle correctly, you use less water and you use less hot water and that means energy and money savings.  Now, go pour the rest of that unfinished glass of water in the doggy bowl. Comment by Don Ames

The cost of electricity is going up (both in dollars and in environmental and health impacts) and it doesn’t show any signs of doing otherwise. About half of the energy in the American grid is coal generated. We won’t bore you with what you already know: coal is a really stinky, dangerous, nasty, unsustainable, and silly way to make power. By using less energy, and greening the electricity that we do use, we can lighten our footprint immensely. The subject of electricity and its environmental impacts is a massive one and we can’t cover every corner of it here; hopefully, this brief guide can offer some solid suggestions for greening your electricity and use thereof.

Top Green Electricity Tips

Audit yourself

A home energy audit is a way to inventory your home’s energy use, where energy is lost, and where it can be saved. You can do an energy audit yourself or get a pro. Many utilities also offer home and business energy audits for free.

Reduce your use

The lowest hanging fruit just begging to be picked are simple energy-saving practices. They’re also the most cost effective. Top tasks include:

Replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) or even cutting-edge light emitting diodes (LEDs).

Turn off lights and other devises when they’re not needed. Check out the How to Go Green: Lighting guide for more lighting tips.

Eliminating electronics that sleep on a standby setting; they continue to pull a current even when “turned off.”

“Wall warts,” those clunky AC adaptors on many power cables, pull current, too, so those should be taken out of the wall when not in use — this is also known as phantom power. Your best bet is a “smart” power strip, or a power strip that can be turned off at night.

Clothes driers gobble up a lot of power, so line drying can be a great energy saver.

Put your house on a diet 

Homes consume an enormous amount of energy, especially in heating and cooling, and American homes consume around six times the world average. Once you’ve audited your home for energy use (even if you haven’t) some simple moves can cut your electricity bill. Keep your house cool with natural ventilation instead of air conditioning as much as possible. Use in-room, ceiling, or whole-house fans to move air throughout the house. Blocking sunlight during hot hours of the day can help lower your cooling load. If your house uses electricity for water heating, wrapping your water tank in an insulating blanket can save on power. Also, if your house is heated with electricity, to be top green – see How to Go Green: Heating for more in-depth advice.

Buy wise

After cooling and heating, appliances and other plug-in devises are the next biggest users of energy in your abode. When looking for new appliances, seek out the most energy-efficient models. Most new appliances come with a yellow EnergyGuide label which, like mileage ratings on cars, shows its consumption in terms of kWh per year. Also look for Energy Star rated products (more on Energy Star below). Electronics like computers and audio equipment can be big power suckers, too. See below for more on greening your computer usage. Being smart with lighting is another key way to green your power usage. See How to Go Green: Lighting for more.

Homemade juice

You think making your own bread at home feels good? There’s nothing quite like the feeling of making your own electricity from the sun, wind, or water. Installing an home alternative energy system is becoming more and more cost effective as technology improves and assistance programs spread. Photovoltaic, or solar electric, systems are the most common. Depending on your available space, local climate, budget, and local utility, a solar electric system can provide all the energy needed for a typical home (and possibly more). Check with your local power utility about subsidy programs or other available programs. Small, home-sized, wind turbines are a rapidly growing field. Time Magazine called the Skystream 3.7 one of the best new inventions of 2006. These can be pricey little whirleygigs, but depending on your local wind conditions, it can take a big chunk out of your energy use and replace the dirty with clean. There’s also a thriving DIY wind movement.

Charge up your toys

For all the portable electronic gizmos in your life, consider feeding them green power with a solar charger. Some look like notebooks, cell phones, flowers, or are built into backpacks. Your MP3 player, laptop, PDA, cell phone, and camera can all be charged with portable solar, and you’ll never find yourself searching for a plug (see below for a list of top green chargers that TreeHugger has covered).

If you build it…you will save A home or building designed and constructed around energy efficiency can realize enormous savings. Everything from the positioning of the house, use of daylight and natural ventilation, lighting and appliances, and renewable energy system can push a building closer and closer to net zero energy consumption. If you are considering building a home, do serious renovations, or an addition, make sure that energy efficiency is a key design criterion. The Energy Star rating system has a home certification program, and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) now has a rating system for residential homes. One of many great books to consult is Your Green Home, by Alex Wilson.

Sign up for green power

Getting green power may be as easy as checking a box on your energy bill. About 600 of the US’s 6,000 power utilities offer a green power option of one kind or another. In this sort of program, the local utility buys renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.) and then passes it along to customers. It often costs a bit more, but not much, and it helps support the industry for clean, green power. Before you sign up, though, ask where they’re getting their power from. If it’s a source like waste coal or waste-to-power, you might be better off buying your credits elsewhere.

Buy renewable energy credits

Another way to support renewable energy and “offset” your own environmental footprint is to buy renewable energy credits (RECs). There are many websites that will help you calculate your energy consumption and buy a requisite amount of RECs to compensate for it. RECs are a pretty new idea; they’re not well understood and there are many rumors of not-so-green or altogether fake credits being sold. The most recognized certifier of RECs is Green-e, an independent, non-profit group that verifies renewable energy credits and certifies that they are what they claim to be.

Think lifecycle

We all use energy. It’s just a fact. Even an off-the-grid house is filled with embodied energy. Everything from the power it took to manufacture the solar panels (which was a lot), to the fuel burned in transporting the micro wind turbine from the factory, embodied energy, or lifecycle energy, is in everything we buy and use. Manufacturing, advertising, packaging, shipping, etc. are all part of a product’s energy history. We should all learn to think of things this way. Solar panels, for example, have a great deal of energy embodied in them, much more than, say, a passive solar water heating system.

72 percent: Total U.S. energy consumption used by buildings.

98 percent: Amount of U.S. power that comes from non-renewable sources.

51.7 percent: Amount of U.S. power that comes from coal; the remainder of the 98 percent mentioned above breaks down like this: 19.8 percent nuclear, 15.9 percent natural gas, 7.2 percent large hydroelectric, and 2.8 percent oil.

3 million megawatt hours (MWh): Demand for renewable energy credits (RECs) in 2004, valued at between $15 and $45 million.

20 million MWh: Estimated demand for RECs in 2010, which would grow the market to between $100 and $300 million.

Green Electricity: Getting Techie

Kilowatt Hours We use them, we pay for them, we talk about them. But do we really know what in tarnation a kilowatt-hour is? A good way for our brains to handle the scope is to parse megawatts and kilowatts into something more easily digested, like everyday human activities.

For example, here is what 1 kilowatt-hour can allow you to do: shave 1200 times with electric shavers (> 3 years), slice 100 loaves of breads, dry your hair 15 times, watch TV for four evenings, listen to 15 CDs, use a small refrigerator for 24 hours, microwave 20 meals, drill 250 holes, enjoy four evenings of light with 60 W incandescent bulbs or bask in 20 evenings of light with 11 W compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Certified Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) What are certified renewable energy credits? Also know as “green tags”, they’re a label created and administered by the Center for Resource Solutions, a San Francisco-based NGO. Their Green-e label certifies that the power is renewable, and came from solar electric, wind, geothermal, low-impact hydropower, biodiesel, or fuel cells running on hydrogen produced with renewable power.

Among other things, it specifies that the energy was not generated under mandate from state or federal requirements, and is not “double dipping”. Net-metering is a very important concept in the world of home power generation. Net-metering means that if you produce your own electricity (with solar, wind, etc.) you can use this energy to offset the power you would otherwise buy from the utility company. Your NET power use refers to the balance of energy consumed from the grid and energy produced by your home system. Not all states have net metering laws in effect. For more info visit the DOE’s page on the subject.

It usually makes more sense to repair rather than replace existing windows — unless your windows are in really bad shape.

There’s a story about this road:

When something isn’t working, get creative and do something about it. Just like windows that aren’t working well.

As I was hosing down the dirt driveway in front of my house last week to keep the dust down with some guests due to arrive, I got to thinking about Chicken Dinner Road.

I once lived in Canyon County, Idaho and often passed a junction for Chicken Dinner Road. Some years ago, I was told, this road was a dusty dirt track traveling between a few farms. One of the farmers got tired of the dust clouds that came up from passing vehicles. He had the local highway supervisor over for a chicken barbecue, and had a buddy driving up and down the road, demonstrating the problem directly. The road got paved, and it also got a name.

There’s another story about this same road — read on to the end. But one lesson I take from the ol’ chicken dinner: when something isn’t working, get creative and do something about it.

Cost-effective window fixes may not add R-value.

If you have windows that have rotting sashes, failed seals (telltale sign: fogging between panes), extensive lead paint (especially in the part where the window slides), slapping on an extra layer of plastic or glass, as we talked about last week, may not solve your problem. If you want to save that old window, and maybe a few bucks, it’s time to get a bit more involved.

An air-sealing upgrade and repair package for the existing window can be the place to start. Professional air sealing and repair may involve replacing seals and gaskets throughout the window assembly, replacing double-paned glass or entire sashes if necessary, bringing window frames back into square, and repairing sash frames or the glass itself. While these repairs can be fairly cost-effective (if not always inexpensive), they do not add much R-value to the window — though replacing a sash pocket pulley system with a spring system and filling the air space with insulation will provide marginal improvements.

Combining approaches for better thermal performance.

Air sealing does save energy as well as improve thermal comfort by closing off air leaks and reducing drafts, and it can be combined with high-performing storm windows or insulated shades to get up to four times better thermal performance without a pricey window replacement — a great option if you need shades for glare or privacy anyway, or if maintaining the look and feel of original windows is important. Improved operation can also save energy by allowing windows to be opened in the summer for ventilation.

“The only reason to replace a window is complete deterioration,” says Jean Carroon, an architect with Goody Clancy in Boston. Carroon specializes in historic preservation, and her work often leads to extensive restoration and repair of historic windows as well as the addition of attachments like interior panels — or even replacing windowpanes with insulated glass units in the historic window frame.

Most of today’s windows can’t be repaired.

Carroon is distressed by the rate at which windows are replaced, especially since most of today’s double-glazed, low-e windows cannot be repaired. (I have learned this the hard way, naively taking one such broken window into the local hardware store, and then to the local glass repair shop, before finally taking the numbers off the unit to order a replacement from the dealer.)

Installing non-repairable windows leads to a “cycle of replacement” and is “a symbol of a non-sustainable world,” Carroon says. While restoring windows can be labor-intensive (and thus expensive), “you are almost always pouring the dollars into the local economy,” not sending it to far-away manufacturers, she notes.

Ten tips for deciding how to handle old windows.

Here are some tips on deciding what do to with old, under-performing windows:

1. Replace existing windows only if they have failed or are in poor shape. Almost all windows need attachments, and opting for a higher-performance attachment, rather than a window replacement plus a new conventional attachment, may be a better solution.

2. Get a handle on the entire spectrum of possibilities from the last two weeks’ columns (on keeping the sun out, and on keeping the heat in), and by reviewing WindowAttachments.org, and then prioritize your needs.

3. Using these priorities, compare how well conventional window treatments meet these needs in comparison with more expensive but higher-performing window attachments.

4. Use the individual window attachment fact sheets (also at WindowAttachments.org) to gain a complete understanding of each option.

5. Look for and use credible resources — not manufacturer or sales claims — to support your window attachment decision-making. Two such resources are RESFEN and WINDOW 6.3 — free, downloadable software tools.

6. Select an attachment with multiple attributes; sometimes one attachment can solve multiple problems.

7. At the same time, understand that optimal management of heat loss and gain may require two window attachments — an interior one for the former and an exterior one for the latter.

8. Take care in combining double-glazed low-e windows with either low-e exterior storm windows or high-performance insulating interior attachments; deployment of either in managing solar gain during the summer may result in damage to the insulated glazing unit seals.

9. Understand what the proper maintenance will be for your attachments, and any operational needs. Awnings will work only if opened!

10. Prioritize energy performance in your window attachment decisions, but don’t forget to seek out nontoxic materials. While some window attachments typically come in only one form, the market is expanding rapidly. Recycled content, low-emitting materials, non-treated fabrics, and other green options may already be available.

More resources — and versions of the story.

As with other recent columns, check out Making Windows Work Better, by Paula Melton and Peter Yost. That’s the recent feature article from Environmental Building News, and offers more detail on today’s advice along with other more comprehensive information.

Back to that chicken dinner: An online article tells me that one family on the fabled road back in the 1930s was friendly with the governor. They had him over for a nice chicken barbecue, and buttonholed him about the road. He agreed to keep it oiled if the county would grade and gravel it. The county agreed on it, and a legend was born.

The nice thing about this article is that the refrigerator program is alive and well over the country – not just Ohio. Contact your power company to see if there is a program cooling off in your neck-of-the -woods.  comment by Don Ames

In the past two years, more than 24,000 refrigerators or freezers have been recycled — and their owners rewarded — through an American Electric Power rebate program.

Yesterday, AEP said it is going to continue the program and keep the rebate given to participants at $50. The rebate was raised from $35 as part of a summer promotion but was scheduled to drop back to that amount on Aug. 1.

This is part of an energy-efficiency initiative that a leading environmental group says has been a clear success.

“AEP gets a big gold star for this,” said Nolan Moser, director of energy and clean-air programs for the Ohio Environmental Council, and a frequent critic of AEP on other issues. “They’ve done really exceptional work.”

The rebate isn’t the only financial benefit to participants. AEP estimates the energy savings from taking an inefficient refrigerator out of service can be up to $150 per year.

“This program pays people to save money on their electric bills, and that’s really important as high summer temperatures place heavy demand on home cooling systems,” Jon Williams, AEP Ohio’s manager of energy efficiency, said in a statement.

To be eligible, a household must be in AEP territory and the refrigerator must be between 10 and 30 cubic feet. It also must be clean and in working order, and it must be the household’s secondary refrigerator. Typically, customers will ask the company to take refrigerators out of the basement or the garage.

The program is part of a larger slate of energy-efficiency efforts by AEP. A 2008 state law requires all investor-owned power companies to take steps to reduce wasteful electricity usage. The funding for the program comes from a fee in AEP customers’ bills that adds up to about $3 per month.

Moser said AEP has embraced the energy-efficiency goals much more than the state’s other major utilities have. The companies’ various programs are projected to save customers up to $400 million by 2016, he said. The programs started in June 2009.

Electric companies are often reluctant to encourage efficiency because their financial success is tied to increasing power use, not decreasing it. Largely because of this, other utilities in Ohio saw energy-efficiency rules “as a threat to their bottom line,” Moser said.

AEP, however, has set up its energy-efficiency programs in a way that allows it to make a profit that counteracts the loss in electricity sales, he said. He sees that as a good thing because an increase in efficiency reduces the need for new power plants, which can lead to a long-term decrease in air pollution.

For more information about the refrigerator rebate and other energy-efficiency programs, visit AEP Ohio’s website, www.aepohio.com, or call 1-877-545-4112.

For the refrigerator program where you live, contact your power company.  comment by Don Ames