Recycling Cardboard Boxes

Does anyone know how we could make some money for our school with the boxes we recycle each day?

Americans produce more than a third of the world's garbage:4.5 pounds of trash per person every day. More than half of it ends up in landfills, where it emits methane, a greenhouse gas-more than any other source. Eventually, those landfills leak toxic materials into the surrounding soil and water.

Good Use for Junk Mail

I cut off my name and address from the tons of junk mail that I get and use it as return address labels for bills and other letters I send out. It works out and then I recycle the rest of that junk mail for, I suppose, more junk mail!!!!!

Fog Catchers

Fog Catchers Bring Water to Parched Villages

When people from rural Peru move to Lima, the capital, they're looking for a better life. But things can be tough.

It's hard to find a job in the city. The jobs they can get—bus driver, street vendor, construction worker—don't pay well.
And the cheapest area to live is high on steep hills on the edge of the city, where landslides are common and water is scarce.

German conservationists and biologists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich, who run Alimón, a small nonprofit that supports Latin American development, are trying to help with the last of those problems. Since 2006 they've been working with new settlements on the outskirts of Lima to set up special nets that scoop water directly from the air.

(See pictures of the fog-catching nets in Peru.)

Rain rarely falls on these dry hills. The annual precipitation in Lima is about half an inch (1.5 centimeters), and the city gets its water from far-off Andean lakes.

But every winter, from June to November, dense fog sweeps in from the Pacific Ocean.

With a few thousand dollars and some volunteer labor, a village can set up fog-collecting nets that gather hundreds of gallons of water a day—without a single drop of rain falling.
Ancient Technique, Modern Salvation?

As far back as 2,000 years ago, desert villages and other rain-starved communities around the world may have started harvesting fog that collected as water and dripped from trees, said Robert Schemenauer, executive director of FogQuest, a Canadian nonprofit organization that helps communities set up simple collection devices.

Serious work on collecting fog started about a hundred years ago. Since then, fog catchers have been used successfully—though on a small scale—all over the world.

Chacos

My kids got me this cool pair of Chaco sandals for Christmas and I've worn them like crazy all summer long. I just today had the time to sit down and look through the catalog that came in the box and I was impressed with what this company is doing to improve our environment. They pay their employees to ride their bikes to work, volunteer their time and advance their educations. They use recycled paper for all their print materials, used recycled rubber outsoles to their sandals and shoes and they are planting thousands of trees each year. Not only are they doing their part, these sandals are just incredibly comfortable. If the sandals tear up they can repair them therefore saving them from being dumped in a landfill. I love my Chacos!!!!

Summer Institute

Spent a week at Brandon Spring with the gang from the Center for Environmental Education. Both MSU and WKU joined forces again this summer to work with teachers and encourage us all to incorporate environmental topics into our subject areas. It was an amazing week and one that I won't soon forget.

River Sweep 2009

Come join in to help clean up the rivers of Kentucky.
You will get a free River Sweep Tshirt and also the satisfaction of knowing you helped out.
Saturday, June 20th in Smithland we will meet at the Extension Office at 8:30

Carbon Footprints

We all have one you know. Even though most give no thought to it all we leave behind an imprint each and every day of our lives by the things that we use at home and at work. There are two sources of carbon footprints, primary and secondary. Primary is the direct emission of CO2 such as cars, planes and our energy consumption. Secondary sources are indirect CO2 emissions from the whole life cycle of products we use in manufacturing. For more information check out carbonfootprint.com

New Business Opens in Paducah

The Cartridge Shop at 615 Monroe Street is helping to save the environment and the consumer to save money. Instead of tossing those empty ink cartridges in the trash which in turn is dumped in a landfill why not take them to this new business and let them recycle them. According to an article in the Paducah Business Journal May/June 2009 it takes up to 450 years for an ink cartridge to decompose in a landfill. Recycling the cartridge is a great way to do our part in living greener and to save ourselves some money. I have two empty cartridges that will be taken in very soon.

What is Sustainability

The term sustainability has roots in early movements for environmental resource preservation. It has broadened with increasing awareness that conventional means of interacting with the environment and use of natural resources have consequences that threaten our quality of life and the well-being of future generations and the ecosystem services- those natural systems which clean the air and the water, provide food sources and pollination. Sustainability describes a new way of living, learning, working, playing and doing business that embodies a spirit of environmental stewardship. Can we become a sustainable community in Livingston County? I believe we can.

Diet Sodas

I know, you're thinking what in the world does diet soda have to do with Living Green in our dear county and it actually doesn't have a whole lot to do with it at all. I have just had such a concern about sodas and especially the diet kind because seems so many people drink them and still can't lose the weight. I found an article in the magazine called First and after reading it wanted to share this with everyone.
Weight management experts are still shocked over findings presented by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. They discovered that for each can of diet soda consumed daily, a person's risk of obesity increased 41 percent! The culprits behind this disturbing news: artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame and sucralose. These artificial sweeteners seem to disrupt the body's natural ability to count calories and sense fullness.
How can I connect this to being greener in your life? Maybe if we give up diet soda we can lose some weight, feel better about our health and in turn want to get out there and do more to make our county a healthier place to live. Am I stretching it a bit? OK I guess I am. :o)

Reducing Paper Waste in Your Kitchen

Three Steps to Reducing Kitchen Paper Waste

By Emily Main

November 19, 2007
Photo: Coffee filters with coffee

Photo courtesy Shutterstock Images

Step 1: Reuse your coffee filters.

Ditch paper filters in favor of a filter-less French press, like the classic Chambord made by Bodum ($19.95; www.bodumusa.com, 800-232-6386). However, unfiltered coffee brewed in French presses and percolators has been linked to increased levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, due to oil on ground coffee beans that's usually removed by paper filters. In drip coffee makers, reusable cone or basket filters can get rid of the oils, but metal filters may not remove them as thoroughly as hemp cloth ($4.95; www.greenfeet.com, 888-562-8873). Since coffee grounds can be difficult to remove, try scrubbing the hemp filter with a brush after you've emptied it.

Step 2: Try the 80/20 rule.

Choose reusable cloths at least 80 percent of the time. Organic cotton kitchen towels ($4), colorful hemp napkins ($8) and hemp dish ($16) and kitchen towels ($16; www.rawganique.com, 877-729-4367) are good for everyday use. Handi Wipes reusable polyester wiping cloths work just like paper towels on messy or sticky spills (about $2.50; at most major drugstores). Or save yourself some money and eco guilt: Keep a few old T-shirts torn into rags for the dirtiest of the dirty messes.

For the other 20 percent of the time: Look for processed-chlorine-free (PCF) recycled-paper goods with the highest post-consumer-waste (PCW) content possible. Seventh Generation 80 percent PCW, PCF paper towels ($1.99; www.drugstore.com); Green Forest 40 percent PCW, PCF paper towels ($1.29; www.drugstore.com); Whole Foods' 365 brand 80 percent PCW, PCF napkins ($2.49; www.wholefoodsmarket.com).

Step 3: Eat less processed food.

Open your pantry door, and you'll likely be staring at rows of paper or cardboard packaging, which doesn't accompany fresh food. You may not be able to avoid processed food entirely, but you can...

Know what's recyclable. Cardboard boxes may go in your curbside recycling bin, but aseptic and paperboard cartons may not be accepted.

Buy less packaging. Cereal packaged in plastic alone requires less packaging overall (and less fuel to ship), and saltine crackers don't need to be packaged individually. Pack lunches in reusable containers: Lillian Vernon's "I Love You" #5 polypropylene sandwich container ($4.98; www.lillianvernon.com, 800-901-9402).

Helping to Keep our Drinking Water Clean

Here are a few Healthy Household Habits for Clean Water and ways to help keep our lakes, streams, rivers, wetlands and coastal waters clean.
Use a commercial car wash or wash your car in the grass rather than the driveway to minimize runoff of dirty soapy water.

Check your vehicles for leaks and spills and clean up anything that has already spilled onto the ground.

Use persticides and fertilizers sparingly

Drain your swimming pool only when a test kit does not detect chlorine levels.

Remember, nothing down the storm drains but rain.

For more helpful tips go to www.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater

Anyone Own a Kindle

They're called E-readers and they're a cool gadget that's good for the environment to boot. You could concievably save one tree per year by simply downloading your newspaper wirelessly every day. That's according to an article published in Environmental Science and Technology. A years worth of newspapers can amount to about 700 pounds of paper. You have to consider the greenhouse gases that are emmited while printing the newspapers too. I'm going to do some more research and just see how cool this new gadget is.

Reusing an old worn out grill

I saw a fun idea for re-purposing an old rusty grill and thought I would share it with you. This grill had wooden side trays for starters which made it much handier. They spray painted it green and used it as a cart for their potting shed. They had gardening tools and other items underneath the lid and each tray was used to hold flower pots as you re-pot them. I just loved the idea and it's a great way to keep from sending that item to a landfill.

Garden Club

Smithland is starting their very first Garden Club, or at least the first since I have lived here. We will be meeting at the extension office on Wilson Ave. March 26th at 6:30. Everyone is welcome to join.

It's Almost Spring

Found some Helpful Hints

Got these from a Rachel Ray magazine recently.
Give up paper towels and use terry cloth rags. Just wash and re-use over and over again.
When you turn the water on to take a shower place a bucket under the faucet to catch the water before it warms up and then use it to water your plants instead of letting it just run down the drain.
Grow your own fruits and veggies and save yourself a trip to town to buy them.
Buy products in packaging that is recyclable.
Use those cloth bags instead of plastic! ( I still haven't gotten the hang of this one)

Thank You!!!!

Wanted to send a huge thank you to the person responsible for getting the recycling trailer delivered to the middle school today!!!!!!!!!! We desperately needed to load our paper and cardboard and thankfully we were able to do that today. We appreciate it so very much. Thank you again!

Recycling at the Middle School

Due to the ice storm the county is unable to bring the recycling trailer to the middle school on Mondays when the Green Team recycles all the materials we have collected the previous week. Recycling will have to be suspended until further notice unless we can find a volunteer who will come and help us over this hump.

Soles for Souls

Americans are shoe-crazy: We go through so many that stores import eight pairs for every man, woman and child in the country each year. By comparison, the average in Mexico is three pairs of shoes per person, and an unfortunately large number of people there have none at all.


Finding shoes for the unshod is a task that first electrified Wayne Elsey, founder and CEO of Soles 4 Souls, during the 2004 tsunami, which destroyed villages and lives across Southeast Asia. From his position as an executive in the shoe industry, he coordinated an effort to ship hundreds of thousands of shoes to those who lost their belongings. In 2005, Elsey did the same in New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama after Hurricane Katrina, and shortly thereafter, in 2006, he founded Soles 4 Souls to transform an ad hoc effort into an institution. All told, the nonprofit has distributed 3.6 million pairs of used and new shoes, donated by average citizens and shoe companies alike, to people in 61 countries.
Taken from greenguide.com Feb. 2009

Greener TV sets

With the changeover from analog to digital TV signals less than a month away, many of us are looking at TV upgrades to match. Given the choice between an LCD or a plasma, however, it's hard to know which to pick. Both use more energy than older CRTs (cathode ray tubes, the onetime standard for television technology), and both are made with nitrogen trifluoride, a chemical that lingers in the air for up to 550 years and one some climate scientists say has a bigger impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power plants. The most earth-friendly decision you can make is to stick with your old CRT until it bites the dust, but when it's time for a new one, is there a truly greener flat-screen TV?
LCD TVs
What they are: Images are created when electricity passes through liquid crystals, a process that prevents screen burn (a problem with plasmas) and also reduces waste heat. The technology works at any size, allowing for smaller, less energy-consuming TVs. However, LCDs contain a fluorescent bulb, and a blown bulb means the end of the TV. As with all TVs, LCDs have plastic shells treated with brominated flame retardants and wiring that has various toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium, antimony and beryllium.

Health: Brominated flame retardants, which attach to dust and get inhaled or ingested, have been found to trigger learning problems in children and to interfere with certain hormones. The other toxic materials are well enclosed and should pose little risk to users, but they could be released into the air or waterways during manufacture or disposal.

Life span: 60,000 hours

Screen size range: 12 inches and up

Energy Use: .12 to .37 watts per square-inch in full operation (about 106 watts for a 27-inch LCD); .32 to 76.11 watts on standby

Disposal: LCDs have the same disposal issues as plasmas (see next slide).
Plasma TVs
What they are: Electrically charged phosphors generate the extremely high resolution images and superior picture quality that make plasmas so popular. These TVs, however, generate excessive heat and have the potential for screen burn. And, like LCDs, the plastic cases and wiring contain brominated flame retardants and heavy metals.

Health: The health issues with plasmas are the same as with LCDs.

Life span: 30,000 to 60,000 hours, depending on the quality

Screen size range: 37 inches and up

Energy use: .18 to .62 watts per square inch while in operation. That's about 234 watts for a typical 42-inch plasma and up to 609 watts for larger screens. On standby, they use anywhere from .3 to 25.12 watts.

Disposal: Although more states now require electronics recycling, little attention is paid to where, exactly, all these recycled electronics are sent. Of those TVs that are recycled, half wind up in Africa, China or India, to be taken apart by poor families, including children, who are exposed to the lead, cadmium and other hazardous substances in TVs. According to U.S. News & World Report, nearly 80 percent of children in some major e-waste hubs suffer from lead poisoning.


Winner
It all comes down to screen size. On a per-square-inch basis, plasma energy consumption is just barely higher than an LCD's. But LCDs come in smaller sizes, and those small screens use less energy (both in production and at your house) and contain fewer hazardous chemicals than larger plasma screens. They'll even cost you less to operate—in some cases, $115 less per year than a plasma TV. Opt for an LCD in the 27-inch range; screens larger than that start using about the same energy and resources as plasmas.

When you do your shopping, look for the Energy Star label. Energy Star's recently updated television ratings judge TVs according to how much energy is used in full operation rather than how much it uses in standby only. Requirements vary depending on screen size, but any 42-inch Energy Star–rated TV, for example, must use less than 208 watts.

Old TV's are Trouble for the Environment

Old TVs cause new problems

RECYCLE IT RIGHT

Activists would be just as happy if Americans would keep their old TVs as plant stands for a few years until better recycling programs are in place. But what if the garage is full and the closets are stuffed? Ask whether the store where you bought a new TV will take the old one. Many do for free, others for a small fee. Or find a nearby recycling program:

• The EPA has a list of recyclers.

• Earth 911 is ZIP-code searchable for recycling options.

• The National Recycling Coalition has links for every state.

• At e-Stewards, find recyclers who have signed the e-Steward pledge, a certification program that is today's highest standard of recycling.

"The rule of thumb is: It's nasty stuff, don't smash it, don't break it and don't dispose of it at the curb," says Robert Houghton of Redemtech.
Batteries are among the electronic waste processed at Universal Waste Management.
Enlarge By Martin E. Klimek, for USA TODAY
Batteries are among the electronic waste processed at Universal Waste Management.

THE REAL COST OF RECYCLING

What a 66-pound, 19-inch TV set would cost a recycler without state subsidies:
Revenue
Sale of precious metals and other recyclable material +$3.96
Costs
Recycling TV tube and screen glass -$4.80
Labor -$4.16
Shipping -$0.99
Net -$5.99

Source: Redemtech



By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
EL CERRITO, Calif. — When the hatch popped open on Louis Cornelius' SUV, there were four TVs piled up in the back, all destined for recycling. "My wife wanted to be up to date on the electronics," he says.

Sumiko Flodin's 35-year-old TV "still works," but she bought a new 19-inch set at Best Buy and wanted to empty out her living room. "I don't like the idea of having all this stuff hanging around."

When Virginia Ritchie decided to clear out her old TVs, she loaded up the big one that didn't work anymore, "and then I found three TVs in the basement to get rid of."



For each of them, and most of the 300 or so people who came to an "electronic waste recycling event" on a chilly Saturday here, the motivation was simple: cleaning up. But for the Environmental Protection Agency and activists worried about soil, water and air pollution, it's more complicated.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Congress | Mexico | New York City | Oakland | TVs | Environmental Protection Agency | Government Accountability Office | Best Buy | Kyle | Cherry | Recovery | El Cerrito

Televisions carelessly disposed of can be toxic to the environment. A huge backlog of unused old ones (99.1 million, the EPA says) is sitting around in people's homes.

And later this year — either on Feb. 17 or on June 12 if Congress passes a delay — the USA will switch from analog to digital TV transmission. The number of unwanted TVs will go even higher as consumers upgrade to sets capable of receiving high-definition broadcasts.

Though a TV set is benign in the living room, it's not when it is broken up to reach the reusable materials inside. There's a lot of lead, a bit of barium, cadmium, chromium, traces of gold and even mercury in the lamps on some flat screens.

The best way to deal with them is not to throw them away at all but to keep using them, says John Cross of EPA's Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. Buying a converter box or getting cable or satellite TV will keep a TV useful for years. But if TVs are discarded, the federal agency wants to make sure the materials in them are recycled.

The problem, according to a Government Accountability Office report last year, is that the EPA's "enforcement is lacking." That has left most of the regulatory work up to the states, only some of which license and audit recycling companies.

The GAO report found that although some electronics are handled responsibly, "a substantial quantity ends up in countries where disposal practices are unsafe to workers and dangerous to the environment." Barbara Kyle of the San Francisco-based Electronics TakeBack Coalition puts that quantity at close to 90%.

EPA environmental scientist Robert Tonetti says it's not that bad: "There are hundreds of honorable recyclers in the United States, and some scoundrels."

Taking the set apart

Under EPA rules, cathode-ray tube TVs — anything that's not flat screen — aren't supposed to be put into landfills, but households are exempt. It's also illegal to export them for recycling unless the destination country agrees and the EPA has been notified. But the GAO found that recycling companies routinely circumvent the rule.

Six states have passed laws making it illegal to throw a TV away, and another five are expected to do so in 2010, Kyle says. Eighteen states, as well as New York City, have ordered electronic recycling programs. But "not all the laws include televisions, which in the year of digital conversion is unfortunate," Kyle says.

Jacob Cherry, a third-generation recycler and CEO of Universal Waste Management, the Oakland company that organized the collection event, says he has seen "people just putting their television in a big black plastic bag so they wouldn't get caught."

Emperor Penguins at Risk

Emperor penguins at risk as ice melts


By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Emperor penguins, the waddling stars of the 2005 movie March of the Penguins, could face extinction by 2100 as Antarctic sea ice melts because of global warming, a study reported Monday.

The study, the first to link climate change with this penguin species, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Antarctic sea ice is projected to melt as greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels warms the atmosphere. "Sea ice is essential to the emperor penguin life cycle, as the animals use it to breed, feed, and molt," the authors write in the study.

The scientists, led by Stephanie Jenouvrier and Hal Caswell of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, based their sea-ice projections on 10 computer models used by the 2007 United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

If sea ice shrinks in Antarctica as the models predict, authors say an emperor penguin colony in Terre Adélie, Antarctica, would decline from its peak of 6,000 breeding pairs in the 1960s to about 400 by 2100. Study co-author Caswell, a Woods Hole biologist, says researchers believe that would qualify as a "quasi-extinction," based on the 95% or more population decline.

A Cold Welcome Home

I went to Louisville for two days last week to attend the State Tech Prep Conference. My son Logan was here at home when I left. He was heading back to Murray State. I left him with the usual hug and kiss and "Be careful driving back." Not realizing that when I got home from L'ville that my house would be like a huge chunk of ice. Logan had decided to shut the heat off to save me some money!!!! Needless to say the 39 degree temp was not what I had hoped for especially with single digit temps overnight. He just wanted to save me some money!!!! I try to live Green as best I can but that is taking it to an extreme!

Free Counter

School Districts encouraged to take advantage of E-scrap recycling

In this months Kentucky Teacher magazine there is an article about a new contract that has been awarded to Creative Recycling Inc of Tampa, Florida to recycle more than five million pounds of electronic scrap that is generated by government agencies and educational institutions in Kentucky.
For more information you can check out waste.ky.gov

New Year's Resolutions

If you haven't made a committment to any particular New Year's Resolution maybe consider making a Green Resolution. Even if it's just a small step toward living greener in 2009 that's a step in the right direction. Maybe resolve to begin recycling paper and plastic, switch out some of your old light bulbs and use energy efficient florescent bulbs, decide that in 2009 you will shop less at Wal Mart and support local growers. Check out what they have at the Farmers Markets near you. Whatever you do just keep in mind that we have to do something to save this planet and every tiny step we take is a step toward change!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!!!!!!