Potato Forks Better Than Plastic?

  • Companies are making disposable utensils from things like corn, potatoes, and sugarcane (Photo by Jessi Ziegler)

Biodegradable silverware has
popped-up in local coffee shops, fast
food joints, and even the Olympics.
But how eco-friendly are biodegradable
utensils? Kyle Norris has this report:

Transcript

Biodegradable silverware has
popped-up in local coffee shops, fast
food joints, and even the Olympics.
But how eco-friendly are biodegradable
utensils? Kyle Norris has this report:

Companies are making disposable utensils from things like corn,
potatoes, and sugarcane. And many brands label their silverware as
biodegradable.

Sarah Burkhalter is a news producer with the environmental
journalism website, Grist.org. She says making silverware from
materials other than plastic is a step in the right direction.

“But I think that the encouragement should not be for people to feel
like they can use a fork for three minutes then toss it in the compost
and be done with it. I think the emphasis needs to be on reusing your
silverware. Whether that be metal or plastic or corn.”

Burkhalter says the other tricky part is that you need to read the
manufacturer’s instructions. She says many of these utensils are only
biodegradable in special composting facilities.

Which means the utensils will not biodegrade if you toss them into a
backyard composting bin.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Winter’s Chill to Bring Bigger Bill

  • Due to the price of natural gas and crude oil, it is predicted that it will cost you much more to heat your home this winter (Photo by John Ferguson, courtesy of FEMA)

As summer winds down, you’re
probably not thinking about your
heating bill. But that’s something
market analysts are thinking about
right now. And reporter Kyle Norris
finds the predictions of what it will
cost to heat your home are going up
in a big way:

Transcript

As summer winds down, you’re
probably not thinking about your
heating bill. But that’s something
market analysts are thinking about
right now. And reporter Kyle Norris
finds the predictions of what it will
cost to heat your home are going up
in a big way:


This year the average cost of heating your home is going to cost a good
chunk more than what it did last year.

Doug MacIntyre is an analyst with the US Energy Information
Administration.

“We’re estimating that, on average, the household using natural gas to
heat their home will be spending 24% more than last year. For heating
oil we think the increase will be even higher with house holds spending
about 36% more than they did last year.”

Those predications are made by looking at the cost of things like natural
gas and crude oil. And by analyzing the weather forecast for the up-
coming winter.

MacIntyre says he does not expect these expensive heating costs to go
away anytime in the next few years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

The Cleaner Dry-Cleaner

  • Jim Gilligan, president of Snedicor’s Cleaners, made the big switch to liquid silicone (Photo by Kyle Norris)

There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:

Transcript

There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:

Jim Gilligan is president of Snedicor’s Cleaners.

And for years, his business has used a chemical called perchloroethylene to
clean clothes. Actually, let’s just call it ‘perc’ which is what everyone calls
it. But Gilligan says he did not like perc, for lots of reasons. For one thing,
he had to store the chemical in these big tanks.

“It was hard to deal with, it was heavily regulated, there was potential for
spills and other types of disasters.”

Perc is a toxic air contaminant. There’s evidence it can cause cancer, as well
as liver and kidney damage. Contact with perc can cause lots of problems
like nausea, dizziness, skin irritation, loss of consciousness, and even death.
If perc leaks into the soil or ground water it can be a disaster. Partly because
perc is hard to extract from water.

Perc was the industry standard for years. And today about 70% of American
dry cleaners still use it. But there’s a growing movement to stop using it and
embrace greener techniques.

Gilligan had heard about some of these newer, eco-crunchier techniques. But
he’d also heard that they did not work as well as perc.

Then he visited another dry cleaning plant. Its owner had switched from
using perc to using liquid silicone. Which is basically liquefied sand.

“That gave me a confidence, right. That was, because we’d been hearing
from the industry as whole that it didn’t clean as well. And of course it’s
great moving into a green technology but if your customers wind up
dissatisfied and you go out of business, that would sort of defeat the
purpose.”

Gilligan says he was impressed with how well liquid silicone cleaned
garments. So he made the big switch. He got rid of his perc machines. And
he bought a new machine that used liquid silicone. To the tune of $80,000
bucks.

And as he gathered his employees to show them the new machine, he did
something kind of kooky.

“I actually took a little cup and I drank it.”

The liquid silicone. The stuff that cleans the clothes. Dude drank it! Says it
tasted like salty vegetable oil.

“Everyone was shocked to see that, but I just wanted to show them that how
confident I was that this was a safe technology.”

And since that shot of liquid silicone, Gilligan hasn’t had any issues. His
customers tell him they’re happy with the results. And financially he’s done
really well this year.

But not all dry cleaners are ready or willing to take this kind of risk. Dry
cleaning is a tough business to make a profit in. So plenty of cleaners want
to stick with what they know works—which for a lot of them, is using perc.

In fact, there’s a tension in the industry these days. Between the old
schoolers—cleaners who use perc. And the new schoolers—people trying
out newer, greener methods.

Chris Allsbrooks is with the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute.

“And right now our mix is changing because there’s
more people coming into the industry as some of the people with the older
views are leaving the industry.”

And the laws are changing, too. California has said that perc can no longer
be used by that state’s dry cleaners by the year 2023. And New Jersey is
considering following in California’s footsteps.

For Jim Gilligan, the switch was the just right thing to do: as a business
owner and as someone who cares about the environment. He says now, he
breathes easier. And so do his employees. And his customers say a green dry
cleaner works for them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Teacher Brings Adventures to the Classroom

  • Fourth-grade teacher Robin Frisch-Gleason on a research trip to Antarctica (Photo courtesy of Robin Frisch-Gleason)

Kids can watch all kinds of TV shows, movies,
and DVDs about science and nature. But it’s not the
same as talking to a researcher who’s actually been
to remote places in the world. Kyle Norris reports
when that researcher is your fourth-grade teacher it
makes everything very real:

Transcript

Kids can watch all kinds of TV shows, movies,
and DVDs about science and nature. But it’s not the
same as talking to a researcher who’s actually been
to remote places in the world. Kyle Norris reports
when that researcher is your fourth-grade teacher it
makes everything very real:

Okay, so guess where we are.

“Good morning, Slausson School. Good morning.”

It’s a school assembly.

So the woman talking is Robin Frisch-Gleason. She’s a fourth grade teacher. And before
that she was a geologist. And she loves polar regions. She says she loves their vastness
and their emptiness.

A couple months ago she went to Antarctica to study the rocks. And to learn more about
how to teach kids about polar regions.

Now that’s she’s back, she does stuff like this assembly, and tells kids about her trip.
This is her explaining how geologists drill the ice and then pull-up core samples of rock.

“I explain it by saying think about putting a straw in milkshake. You put a straw down.
The very top of the milkshake is the top of the seafloor. And then you press down, maybe
to bottom of cup, and when you cover the straw with your finger and pull it back up, you
have a core of milkshake. And that’s just like we take up a core of rock.”

She says the rocks are like a book, and they tell a story about the past. The scientists in
Antarctica are actually reading the rocks. And they’re trying to find out if the ice melted
when the climate got warmer in the past. So that they can predict what will happen to the
ice as the climate continues to warm in the future.

Robin Frisch-Gleason wants to kids to know that polar regions are vulnerable to climate change.

“And they should be aware of it, and as they grow up it should influence their decisions, their
voting, their career choices, and their own personal behaviors.”

But ultimately she wants to make learning fun. And like alive. Back in her fourth-grade
classroom, the kids do a lot of hands-on activities.

(clapping)

Like imitating the way penguins communicate through penguin calls. But in this case, by
clapping their hands in a certain pattern, and trying to find other kids who have their
same pattern.

In another activity, they wear different types of insulated gloves – like a glove lined with
cotton, or a glove lined with fat – and they stick it into icy water, to see which is warmer.

“It’s fun to stick your hand in things. It’s hands-on like he said, it’s fun doing hands-on
stuff, it’s fun trying out different things. And it’s fun because you’re really trying to
experiment on stuff. You’re experimenting with science and it’s really fun at the same
time.”

Plus the kids say that it’s cool having a teacher go to Antarctica and come back and teach
everybody all these cool things. They say it’s even given them some street-cred amongst other kids at
other schools.

Here’s 4th grader Cole Magoon:

“And it’s kind of like have a famous person be your teacher.”

The kids say that doing fun, hands-on activities actually makes them want to pay more
attention. And this kind of learning not only sparks their critical thinking and problem-
solving skills, but it’s also a great way to get kids psyched about science and math. And
learning from a person who’s actually been in the field seems to amplify all this.

And it gets kids thinking about the world they live in, and the world they’ll have to take
care of.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Healthy Employees, Lower Costs

  • The "Great Plate" - a 10-inch plate: half non-starchy vegetables, a quarter lean protein, a quarter starchy vegetable or whole grains (Photo courtesy of the University of Michigan)

Lots of companies are starting new programs
that teach their employees how to eat healthier.
Because healthier employees can save companies loads
of cash. Kyle Norris has more:

Transcript

Lots of companies are starting new programs
that teach their employees how to eat healthier.
Because healthier employees can save companies loads
of cash. Kyle Norris has more:

So, Stacy Witthoff is teaching people about healthy snacks.

“We have some 100 calorie packs. We have fresh fruit like bananas, peaches, pears,
apples, any kind of canned fruit is good too.”

Witthoff is a dietician with the Michigan Healthy Community – basically it’s a group that
does health education for University of Michigan employees.

The people at this expo are learning about how to eat healthier, and the idea is that they’ll
share this info with their co-workers.

Witthoff stands in front of a little booth and she’s all friendly. She snags people as they
walk by.

She’s just caught Jason Maynard. He’s a nursing administrator. And he goes to a lot of
meetings where there are a lot of snacks.

“So at meetings it’s probably donuts or bagels, cookies.”

But he thinks people would go for fresh fruit like raspberries or strawberries, if they were
offered.

Stacy Witthoff is promoting a guide that helps people make better food choices.

It’s called the Great Plate. It’s a picture of a plate that’s divided into different sections.

“Basically you take a 10-inch plate and half of it should be non-starchy vegetables, a
quarter of it lean protein, and a quarter of it starchy vegetable or whole grains. So it’s just
an easier way to eat healthy without having to think about portions.”

Ok let’s recap.

Divide your plate in-half and fill that half with non-starchy veggies – carrots, broccoli,
cauliflower, green beans, asparagus and peppers. And aim for a variety of colors.

Then divide the other half of the plate into quarters. Fill one-quarter with grains &
starchy veggies – that’s things like brown rice and whole-wheat pastas and whole-wheat
bread. And starchy veggies are things like potatoes, corn, peas, and squash.

Then the last quarter of the plate should have meats and proteins. Things like grilled
or baked chicken, fish, turkey, lean cuts of meat. And non-meat options like tofu, beans,
and eggs.

And the Great Plate says go for way smaller serving sizes.

The Great Plate encourages people to eat what they call “whole
foods.” That means eat the food in its raw form and not it’s processed equivalent. So
like eat the apple – as opposed to apple juice. Or as opposed to the apple-flavored gummi
worms, if you were someone like me.

Steve Aldana helps companies start employee healthcare programs. He says that
culturally we eat pretty bad stuff. And that we’re way stressed-out.

And all that can affect an employer’s pocketbook, for real.

“So 2 things: poor behaviors are leading to onset of chronic diseases. And those chronic
diseases are costing an inordinate amount in health care. And it’s that cost alone that’s
driving most companies to start to look very, very intently at worksite wellness
programs.”

Businesses are starting to see healthy employees as a smart investment. Companies like
Johnson & Johnson, IBM, and Dow Chemical have all taken note.

They hope programs like this one will help shave-off millions of dollars from their
employee health care costs.

And these programs can also help save money in the long run – by boosting employee
morale and leading to fewer employee absences.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Driving Down Road Noise

  • Heavy traffic on a Houston freeway. (Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)

Whizzing tires, whining engines and booming car
stereos are just about everywhere. Those sounds are a
form of pollution, and can affect the way we feel. Kyle
Norris has this story:

Transcript

Whizzing tires, whining engines and booming car
stereos are just about everywhere. Those sounds are a
form of pollution, and can affect the way we feel. Kyle
Norris has this story:

The engineers at Chrysler are hard-core about noise.

Right now they’re inside a high-tech studio.
And there’s a car on rollers.
The engineers are trying to pinpoint the noises that a driver would hear.

Inside the cabin it’s pretty quiet (quiet sound inside cabin).
But outside, well… Engineer Taner Onsay explains.

(yelling over whirr of tires) “This is how it sounds outside. See, I cannot
communicate with you, with this sound. Inside this would be totally unacceptable.”

Cars that are quiet are the inside are a huge selling point in the auto biz.
But what about the sounds that a vehicle puts into the world?

Like road noise.
What are people doing about that?

Not a whole lot.

Story goes, there used to be a federal office that dealt with noise.
It was the EPA’s Office of Noise Abatement and Control.

But President Reagan shut that baby down in 1982.
Basically to save on cash.
The idea was that state and local governments could deal with noise.

The noise office did a lot of good things just to help protect our ears.
It had noise standards and regulations – on the books.
And the office was just a really good resource for state and local organizations, and also for people who were just having problems with road noise.

But since it’s been gone…

“Well a lot of the local noise-control programs at the city and county level just dried up
and blew away. It’s hurt the noise program tremendously throughout country.”

That’s Bill Bowlby.
He’s president of an engineering company that consults about road noise.
He’s also worked for state departments of transportation and for the Federal Highway
Administration.

He says that state departments of transportation are concerned about road noise.
And that they’re thinking about things like quieter tires and quieter pavements.
And about not building residential areas near highways.

But states are only required to do so much about road noise.

For example, when states are widening or building highways and using federal money –
which they almost always are – they’re required to study road noise and obey certain
standards.

But when it comes to road noise coming from an existing highway, it’s totally voluntary if
a state wants to deal with it.

So you get a range of how different states deal with it, which they call retrofitting.

Bill Bowlby that says although some states take the issue very seriously…

“…other states have had little interest in idea of retrofits usually because they’re looking
to spend their limited amount of money on highway related projects.”

And the kicker about road noise is that it can seriously, seriously affect people.
For people who live near noisy roads, it can make their lives miserable.
Plus it can make it hard to concentrate as a driver.
And to hear the vehicles around you, like motorcycles and other sounds, like sirens.

Dennis Weidemann is a guy who’s thought a lot about all this.
He wrote his thesis about road-noise.

He says that road noise isn’t dramatic or flashy.
So it doesn’t grab our attention.
And road noise does not have a villain, so we’re all responsible.

Weidemann says it can seem hopeless to people.

“They know they don’t like it but they don’t know how it effects them. And if you don’t
know that, you just get the impression, well, it just bothers me, I’m weird, I’ll let it go.”

Noise experts say we need to re-open the federal noise office.
Or something like it.
And we’ve got to figure-out how to make things quieter.

This is starting to become a hot topic in the pavement industry, where different
businesses are trying to one-up their competitors by making the quietest pavement.

But for car companies there’s really no incentive to make cars that are quieter on the outside.
And right now there are no regulations of how quiet a car needs to be when it comes off
the assembly line.

Although that’s not the case in Europe,
where vehicle noise regulations are much more strict.
And where the whole subject of road noise is taken a lot more seriously.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Man vs. Beast

  • Where is it?! Oh! There it is - up in the corner - eeek! (Photo by Tom Wojnowski)

More and more people are moving into areas that are natural habitats for animals. And a lot of people are finding that the animals don’t want to move out of the neighborhood. Kyle Norris reports that this can make for some interesting interactions:

Transcript

More and more people are moving into areas that are natural habitats for animals. And a lot of people are finding that the animals don’t want to move out of the neighborhood. Kyle Norris reports that this can make for some interesting interactions:


Get this: woodpeckers want to live inside Tom Wojnowski’s house.


“There’s a hole. And when you’re in house here’s what you hear, you hear this: (knocks) and you know you’re being attacked!”


Wojnowski is not so keen on sharing his house with the woodpeckers. He managed to scare that one away, but then another woodpecker made a pretty good-sized hole on the other side of the house.


Wojnowski put up one of those menacing plastic owls, you know, to scare the woodpecker away – and he thinks it’s working. He’ll probably even buy another plastic owl. You know, with those cute eyes, all wide.


Wojnowski lives in a suburb, but it’s sort of out in the country. There are dirt roads, and lots of trees. And lots of wildlife in the area.


Wojnowski started having problems with animals pretty much the day they moved into the house. Actually, he can list off his problems to the ABCs.


“Well let’s start with A. Ants haven’t been a big problem. There’s been a few but none in the house and they’re out there so I leave them alone. B. You have bees and bats.”

Ok, this could go on for a while… so I’m going to jump in here.

Bats were living in the attic. Carpenter bees chewed holes in the siding. So, for “D” you’ve got deer. The deer ate pretty much all the landscaped plants. Ok so now, let’s jump to “F.”


There was this fox. It had been living in Wojnowski’s drainage ditch. And it would bury its kill in the lawn—things like dead, smelly skunks. Yeah.

So, one day Wojnowski was getting his mail and the fox came strolling out of woods. And they locked eyes.


Wojnowski noticed the fox was small and red… and beautiful.

But he was tired of dealing with it.


“So I took this rock and I put it in front of the drainage ditch hole. And he watched me do that and it was almost like ‘what are you doing to me here?’ So then he went next door and went to their drainage ditch.”

Wojnowski is not the only guy who’s battling it out with the wildlife.


As people keep moving into areas near wildlife, there are problems. I mean at a certain point it starts to feel like…(Boxing announcer: in this corner, with acres of ravaged lawns and gardens to their credit, we have the wildlife. (applause and boos) And in this corner, with a hoe, live traps, and a BB gun, we have the human homeowners…” (applause and boos and the ‘ding’ of the boxing bell)


But experts say it does not actually have to be ‘us’ versus ‘them’.

Jennifer Kleitch is a wildlife technician with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


She says people need to realize that they’re part of the problem.


Dog food outside is a free meal for coyotes. People who mow their lawns all the way to the edge of their pond create paradise for geese: short grass near water.


And then there’s this kind of thing which can happen with raccoons:


“If we leave out our garbage and they get into it, we get mad and they’re being a nuisance. But we are in essence responsible for them being there and being drawn to it.”


She says people tend look at it as if animals are the problem. But… the people moved into the animals’ neighborhood.


Stephen Vantassel says we’re conflicted about wildlife. He’s a wildlife damage educator with the University of Nebraska Lincoln Extension office.


“We tend to have the Disney effect with wildlife. We have these rather pastoral images of a person walking through a deep forest and seeing the deer in the distance. And then that attitude can change dramatically when they see that same deer ravaging a plant they paid $500 for to have put in their backyard.”


He says when people start thinking of wildlife as “evil” (As in, “that thing that tore up my flower bed is ‘evil’”) well, that can be bad.


The animals are not the enemy… they’re part of the environment… the same environment that people want to live in.


So… Tom Wojnowski? You know, the ABC guy?


Well, he says his perspective has changed a little over time. He still thinks if animals are destroying his property… yeah, well then they’ve got to go. But he’s starting to realize there are things he can do to discourage wildlife from damaging his property… without waging war.


He’s kind of getting into it actually. He’s started reading up on different animals. He says he likes and respects animals… even the mole tearing up his lawn. He thought it was a whole colony. Turned out… it was just one mole. But one heck of a hard-working mole.

Experts say there are plenty of cheap, simple things you can do just to prevent problems.

Like modify bird feeders to guard against squirrels. Chimney caps discourage uninvited guests from dropping in. And people can fill in the cracks and crevices around their home to stop things like bees and mice from sneaking in.

But the experts say that the best thing you can do is cool your jets. Stop viewing the animal as the problem. And realize that the animal is just trying to do its thing.

As for the wildlife around Tom Wojnowski’s place, well, they’re stalled at the letter W. Which is the first letter in his last name. The animals are still trying to learn to live with him.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

No Nature; I’ve Got Xbox

  • A recent study found that people are spending more time indoors with their video games and less time in the Great Outdoors. (Photo by Lester Graham)

People are spending less time in nature and more time plugged in. That’s what a new
study commissioned by The Nature Conservancy is showing. Kyle Norris has more:

Transcript

People are spending less time in nature and more time plugged in. That’s what a new study commissioned by the Nature Conservancy is showing. Kyle Norris has more:


People in the U.S. are spending less and less time outdoors. The study says they’re not visiting parks as often, and they’re not going hunting or camping as often. That’s because they’re spending more time online, watching TV, and playing video games.


Melissa Soule is with The Nature Conservancy. She says connecting with nature can change your life. That’s what happened to her while she was kayaking on Lake Superior and watching the sunrise:


“I thought about life. And I thought about how small that I am, and about how short of a time that we have here on this earth, and how I don’t want to see places destroyed. I want to see them protected.”


Soule says if people don’t connect with nature, they won’t care about protecting it. And that’s exactly what the study says will happen.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Noise Pollution: Shhhhhh!

  • Everywhere you go, there's bound to be something making noise. (Photo by Lester Graham)

We live in a world that’s filled with noise. But when things get
too loud, the sounds can affect us in all kinds of ways. Kyle
Norris talks to one man who says that loud noises are a health,
ethical, spiritual, and environmental issue:

Transcript

We live in a world that’s filled with noise. But when things get
too loud, the sounds can affect us in all kinds of ways. Kyle
Norris talks to one man who says that loud noises are a health,
ethical, spiritual, and environmental issue:


For Les Blomberg, it all started with a sound like this:


(Sound of Blomberg imitating buzzing)


That’s Blomberg imitating the sound of the street sweeper. It
would clean his street at four in the morning. Blomberg says he
had never thought much about noise pollution…until this
happened, and it made him all tired and cranky. Eventually
Blomberg got the city to change the time of day when it cleaned
the street.


This experience got him interested in the topic of noise
pollution:


“To me kind of at the core, noise is an issue of civility. How
you treat your neighbor. It’s an environmental issue. Noise is a
pollutant that we’re casting out. It’s a waste product. It’s kind of
like second hand smoke. It’s the waste product of our activities
that we’re casting out into the environment.”


Blomberg’s passion for noise pollution grew as he learned more
about it, and he realized it’s an under-rated, under-appreciated
problem. Now he runs the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse. It’s
an organization that tries to keep the peace and quiet, the
organization connects people with noise experts and activists.
It fights for stronger noise regulations and standards, and it tests
consumer products to find out which are the quietest.


Blomberg says people usually contact him with one of three
kinds of noise problems. Jets and helicopters (sound of jet),
highway noise (sound of highway), and noises from electronic
amplification (sound of music) — like loud stereos. People tell
him these noises ruin their sleep, concentration, and quality of
life… and all those things put people in bad moods and can ruin
how they deal with other people.


Loud noises also trigger a physiological response in our bodies.
That’s what Les Blomberg says:


“When we were evolving, when things were noisy it was
usually a warning that something wrong was happening. If the
lion walk through camp and you didn’t hear it coming, you
would be breakfast for that critter. And so we evolved to deal
with that. Our hearing works twenty-four hours a day, it can
wake us up if we hear noises in our environment.”


As humans evolved, Blomberg says that loud noises would
trigger a quick little shot of adrenaline, leading to fight or flight.
He says we still go through this stress response today, when we
hear a loud noise, even though we know it’s only a siren or an
air conditioner and not a lion.


Loud, isolated noises like a street sweeper or a leaf-blower can
be temporarily problematic, but if you’re continuously exposed
to loud noises like these over time, they can lead to serious
damage. Each year in this country 30 million people suffer
from hearing losses.


Paul Kileny is the Director of Audiology & Electrophysiology
at the University of Michigan’s Health System. He says hearing
is the essence of human communication:


“People who have significant hearing loss they have a variety of
emotional problems. They withdraw. They isolate themselves
because they have trouble hearing. They don’t socialize.”


So loud noises aren’t just an inconvenience. They can bring
about real emotional problems. Les Blomberg with the Noise
Pollution Clearinghouse says we don’t have to live in a noisy
world. Technology has the ability to make things quieter.


Noise-cancellation systems and acoustic buffering can make
cars, appliances, and even lawn equipment quieter. Engineers
can make road surfaces quieter to drive on, but these changes
cost money and will have to come from the various industries
wanting to change.


Blomberg says that’s starting to happen, but slowly. He believes
loud noises are also an ethical issue. He says it’s like the golden
rule, of treating people the way you’d like to be treated and that
we can all do a “politeness check,” by making sure we’re not
imposing our sounds on our neighbors.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Cut Flowers Greener

Many store-bought flowers are not as rosy as they appear. They’re often grown in other
countries where the flowers are treated with pesticides that are banned in the US. Kyle
Norris reports on a new kind of flower-certification that’s trying to deal with this issue:

Transcript

Many store-bought flowers are not as rosy as they appear. They’re often grown in other
countries where the flowers are treated with pesticides that are banned in the US. Kyle
Norris reports on a new kind of flower-certification that’s trying to deal with this issue:


There’s a new certification for flowers called Florverde . It is not an organic certification.
But environmentalists say Florverde is a step in the right direction.


Craig Minowa is an environmental scientist with the Organic Consumers Association:


“It requires roughly half the pesticide use. You can only use the pesticides that are legal
here in the United States. And the farm workers need to be given a fare wage and worked
standard hours.”


Minowa says lots of companies are jumping on-board with the new certification. Dole,
the big pineapple and banana company, is the biggest importer of cut flowers in the
United States. The company recently announced their entire line of Columbian-grown
flowers will have the new certification.


Minowa says lots of flower stores and supermarkets will be carrying the Florverde-
certified flowers.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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