Tag: package

Living Without Plastic

  • Cheryl Lohrman victorious after finding a specialty deli that would sell her cheese and put it, plastic free, in her steel tin. (Photo courtesy of Sadie Babits)

We use a lot of plastic. Every year some 30 million tons of plastic in the U.S. from diapers to bottles get tossed in landfills. One woman wants to change those numbers. She’s trying to live her life without plastic. Sadie Babits caught up with her to find out if that’s really possible.

Transcript

We use a lot of plastic. Every year some 30 million tons of plastic in the U.S. from diapers to bottles get tossed in landfills. One woman wants to change those numbers. She’s trying to live her life without plastic. Sadie Babits caught up with her to find out if that’s really possible.

When Cheryl Lohrmann comes to the grocery store all she sees is plastic. Plastic yogurt containers, cheese wrapped in plastic shrink-wrap, juice bottles, plastic bags. She doesn’t want this stuff in her life. So Lohrmann decided she’d vote with her wallet by refusing to buy anything with plastic.

“We’re at cherry sprouts grocery store in Portland, OR where I’m going to purchase some cheese and some eggs.”

Eggs are no problem. She just puts them in her used egg carton. But cheese is a different story. She has a small steel tin that looks like it belongs with her camping gear – not the grocery store. And Lohrmann has a special request for the guy behind the counter.

“And that is if I get the cheese not wrapped up in plastic but just in this container or maybe you could put this on paper.”

“Aahhh. I don’t think we can do that because it needs to be wrapped up.”

Lohrmann gets that reaction a lot. So she won’t buy cheese here. It means a trip to another shop – this time a high-end specialty deli.

LouAnne Schooler owns this store. She explains to Lohrmann why they use plastic.

“Plastic, it’s the unfortunately simplest choice because we wrap and re-wrap continuously throughout the day and it can’t be left unwrapped and people need to see the cheese so that precludes it from being wrapped in most papers.”

But Schooler says she’s only too happy to help people like Lohrmann who don’t want their cheese shrink- wraped. So she drops the cheese –plastic free – into Lohrmann’s tin.

“That’s a good chunk of cheese. Magical moment here–thanks for letting me do that”

“Sure.”

Lohrmann started going plastic free a couple of years ago after reading Elizabeth Royte’s book Garbageland. The author tracked her trash to find out where it ended up. The chapter on plastic struck a nerve with Lohrmann.

“I think it’s been taken too far when you have toothpicks individually wrapped in plastic. You know you just start to think is that really necessary given the fact that this is such a toxic material that doesn’t have high enough recycling rights to really justify having it.”

Lohrmann also gets miffed that you end up paying for plastic three times. You pay for it at the grocery store and again to have it hauled to the landfill. Finally, she says we pay for it environmentally – plastic doesn’t disappear. So you might think it’s a little nuts to even think about living a life free of plastic. Lohrmann gets that.

“It is hard right now to feel like you can maneuver to get whatever you want without plastic.”

“Ok, so on a scale of one to ten–ten being plastic free–where are you?”

“I would say probably a nine.”

That’s a nine when it comes to buying groceries. Because let’s face it. Plastic is everywhere even in Lohrmann’s home. There’s her computer, picture frames, even the parts on her bike. She realizes going plastic free is nearly impossible but she’s willing to try to send a message especially to businesses that we need to reduce the amount of plastic in our lives.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Reducing Gift Wrap Waste

  • According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American uses two pounds of wrapping paper a year. (Photo source: 5ko at Wikimedia Commons)

There may be nothing prettier than
beautifully wrapped gifts under the
Christmas tree. But some environmentalists
say the cost of that beauty is too
high – and they want people to stop
wasting so much paper on gift-wrapping.
Julie Grant has more:

Transcript

There may be nothing prettier than
beautifully wrapped gifts under the
Christmas tree. But some environmentalists
say the cost of that beauty is too
high – and they want people to stop
wasting so much paper on gift-wrapping.
Julie Grant has more:

Americans produce 6 million extra tons of waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

All that trash is enough to make Bob Lilienfeld cringe. He runs what’s called The Use Less Stuff Report. Lilienfeld says, one way people can reduce all the holiday waste is to stop wrapping presents.

“When you think about, wrapping paper is one of the most disposable items we have. It doesn’t provide any real functional value. And it’s used for basically a minute. And then it’s torn off and thrown away. So, from the environmental perspective, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Based on the last available data by the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American uses two pounds of wrapping paper a year. Lilienfeld says about half of that is used during the holiday season.

“If you cut that in half, down to a pound, that would save, what are there, about 300-million people in the country? We’re talking 300 million pounds. That’s a lot of paper.”

But it’s so pretty. And some people say that paper does serve a good purpose. Besides being pretty, it also helps to hide the gift.

Lizzie Post is the great, great-granddaughter of Emily Post – famous for her etiquette advice. Post says a wrapped gift is part of holiday decorum.

“You don’t want to just plunk down a box, straight from the store, and say, ‘here you go.’ That sort of has a lackluster feel to it.”

And it’s a tradition. Gift wrapping has been around for a long time – maybe as far back as 105 A.D. and the invention of paper. They started selling mass produced wrapping paper in the U.S. somewhere around1920.

Post says it looks nice, it shows care, and it’s fun.

“I think we’ve gotten used to the idea of unwrapping something or unfolding it and having that element of surprise there. And I think we wouldn’t want to lose that. That’s a nice tradition that we’ve all gotten used to.”

But Post says there are lots of creative ways to wrap gifts that aren’t wasteful. She suggests using cloth, reusing wrapping paper, or buying gift wrap made from recycled paper.

And after talking with a few shoppers, you can see how tough it would be to get people to stop wrapping gifts altogether. Here’s what a few had to say.

Shopper 1: “It would be hard for me to imagine that we would get to a point that we would say, ‘gee it’s pretty wasteful, so we won’t wrap any presents this year.’ I doubt that that would cross our minds.”

Shopper 2: “Why are they telling me to ruin a Christmas tradition? I mean, as if I didn’t already feel guilty enough about the mass consumerism that is Christmas. Now I’m being told not to wrap gifts. No, I’m certain they’re right about the mass of waste it’s going to create.”

The environmentalists who want us to use less paper don’t want to ruin the holidays. Bob Lilienfeld just wants people to look around for new ways to make gifts surprising – without piling up the trash.

“Go down to your basement, open your closets, go up to your attic and look at the paper that you already have on hand. And odds are you already have enough wrapping paper to make it through.”

At least for this year. At his house, Lilienfeld says he’s buying concert tickets for his teenagers, so they don’t need wrapping. And he’s hiding the gifts for his 3-year old – a scavenger hunt can be so much fun!

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Postal Service Delivers Data

  • The Postal Service is getting no stimulus money for making its federal buildings more energy efficient. It’s all going to be done with the revenue it makes when you buy a postage stamp. (Photo courtesy of the US Postal Service)

The US Postal Service is the first
government agency to report how much
of the greenhouse gases it emits.
Five-point-three metric tons a year.
Lester Graham reports on how it plans
to reduce its emissions:

Transcript

The US Postal Service is the first
government agency to report how much
of the greenhouse gases it emits.
Five-point-three metric tons a year.
Lester Graham reports on how it plans
to reduce its emissions:

The post office goal is to reduce emissions 20% by the year 2020.

Sam Pulcrano is the Vice President of Sustainability at the Postal Service. He says, over the next six years, they’ll cut fuel consumption by 20% and energy use by 30%. They’re already doing energy audits of the 500 largest postal facilities.

“And where it makes business sense, we’re replacing things like roofs, the HVAC systems, replacing windows with more energy efficient windows and lighting with high-efficiency lighting.”

Graham: “There’s been some consideration of eliminating Saturday delivery. Is that figured into your calculations on reducing greenhouse gases?”

“It will if and when Congress gives us the ability to do so.”

The Postal Service is getting no stimulus money for making its federal buildings more energy efficient. It’s all going to be done with the revenue it makes when you buy a postage stamp.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Bike Shop in a Box

  • A mechanic works on the bikes to make them as compact as possible - removing pedals, kickstands, and turning the handlebars (Photo by Karen Kelly)

So many of us have an old bike collecting
dust in the garage. More often than not,
they end up in the garbage. But, as Karen
Kelly reports, one group has found a unique
way to recycle them:

Transcript

So many of us have an old bike collecting
dust in the garage. More often than not,
they end up in the garbage. But, as Karen
Kelly reports, one group has found a unique
way to recycle them:

(sound of banging)

“That’s a sweet ride!”

A volunteer drops a bike into a pile at the back of a huge shipping container in Ottawa, Canada.
The bikes are stacked one on top of the other.

(sound of tools)

Just outside, a mechanic is stripping the bikes down to make them as compact as possible.

“If it has a kickstand, we have to remove it. We take the pedals off and turn the handlebars.”

In a few hours, this cargo container will be jammed with hundreds of donated bicycles, bike parts, and backpacks.

The gear is collected by a group called Bicycles for Humanity.
They have 20 chapters, most of them in North America.

Each chapter raises a couple of thousand dollars to buy a shipping container.
They pack it full of donated gear, and send it off to a community in Namibia, Africa. The shipping cost – another several thousand dollars – is also raised by the group.

A volunteer group there turns the container itself into a locally-run bike shop that provides jobs and transportation.

Some of the bikes are donated to health care workers who use them to pull patients on a stretcher.

Others are piled high with stacks of food and household items that defy gravity.

Martin Sullivan points to some of the pictures on display.

“These are the bakers who are able to sell their bread. And also wood, you can stack wood. It’s just amazing what they do, how they make use of these bikes that we take for granted. We throw them out, and they can do so much with them.”

(sound of traffic)

In Namibia, cars – and even bicycles – are scarce. Sullivan says these bikes make life easier for people who are used to walking miles to get to school, work, or to find the basic necessities.

Seb Oran is the co-founder of Bicycles for Humanity in Ottawa.

This is the fourth container of bikes that she’s sent to Africa.
Each one supports a local community group.
Sometimes its a hospital, sometimes an orphanage, sometimes a women’s empowerment group.
She remembers one run by former prostitutes.

“Six of them became bicycle mechanics now. And now, they don’t have to sell their bodies to put food on their plate.”

But there are some challenges.

Michael Linke runs the Bicycle Empowerment Network.
He helps the Nambians set up the bicycle shops.

“Because this is the first time a lot of these people have had formal ongoing work, it’s often difficult to get people to understand a long-term ongoing business.”

But with some mentoring, they’ve been able to make it work.
There are now 13 successful projects, with more containers filled with bikes on the way.

The group estimates that these bikes will last another 20 or 30 years in Africa. They might be junk to us, but in Namibia, they’re a precious resource.

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Saving Energy: Simple Changes, Big Impact

  • Jack Brown is an Outreach Technician for Community Resource Project, helping to spread the word about weatherization services that families may be eligible for. In his 23 years at Community Resource, Brown says he’s assessed about 5,000 homes. (Photo by Amy Standen)

Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:

Transcript

Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save
energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining
a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:

Sure, I’ve thought about buying solar panels to put on my roof. There’s a perfect spot on
the south-facing slope – maybe we could power the whole house. But there are some
easier things we could do first – like insulate the attic or weather strip the doors. And yet,
somehow I never quite get around to them.

Why is that? Well James Sweeney directs the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at
Stanford, and he has a theory.

“Energy efficiency turns out to have low salience to people.”

Which is to say, it’s maybe… a little bit boring?

“It’s very boring.”

But if your eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word “efficiency,” consider
the compact fluorescent light bulb.

“The easiest thing everyone can do is change their lighting.”

If everyone in the U.S. traded in their old incandescent light bulbs for compact
fluorescents, we’d cut electricity use by about 2%.

Which, maybe, doesn’t sound so impressive – until you consider the fact that all the solar
and all the wind power combined in the entire country amounts to point .4% of our total
energy use. That’s 0.4.

“The cleanest energy is the energy you don’t need in the first place.”

That fact has not been lost on the Obama White House. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is pouring approximately 20 billion dollars into efficiency projects.

Five billion of that will fund what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, which
helps low-income families weatherproof their homes. To qualify, a family of four must
make less than $44 thousand dollars a year.

(sound of someone giving directions – “Take 25 and go to El Paso Road”)

That stimulus cash funds local non-profits like Community Resource Project, in
Sacramento, California. Since January, Community Resource’s budget has tripled, from
1.3 to 4.5 million dollars a year. They’re buying new trucks, hiring at all levels, and
going to more and more homes.

(sound of knocking at a door)

Like this one – a five-bedroom stucco ranch house in a newer suburban development
outside of Sacramento.

(sound of door opening)

“Hello, how are you doing?”

At the door is TinaMarie Dunn, a family friend who’s showing us around today. She
gives a squeeze to two-year old Anaya, one of ten children who live here.

“Look Anaya, say cheese!” (Anaya: Cheese!)

Dunn says utility bills here can hit $500 dollars a month. She says the house just doesn’t
work right.

“When the heat is on, downstairs is hot, downstairs is cold. When the air’s on, the
upstairs is cold, the downstairs is hot.”

Community Resource’s Dana Gonzalez walks into the kitchen, and pauses to take a look
around.

Standen: “So when you walked in, what was the first thing you saw?”

Gonzalez: “It’s funny. You see this door shoe and you see, actually the bottom rubber
is gone.”

He points to a two-inch gap under the front door.

“And if you put your hand here, you can actually feel the air. Anytime they kick on
their heat and cool, that’s definitely affecting their house, and in the long run, affects
their bill.”

Community Resource will spend about $1500 here, aiming to cut monthly utility bills by
as much as 20%.

They’ll weather strip the doors, patch up holes in the walls, install CFL bulbs. We’re not
talking solar panels or radiant heating – just small, mostly inexpensive adjustments that
cumulatively, have a huge impact.

The White House says these efficiency projects will create thousands of jobs, but there’s
also concern that the huge cash infusion is a recipe for fraud and mismanagement.

Department of Energy officials have called for extra vigilance in the disbursement of
weatherization cash. But, they say, the benefits, both environmental and economic, far
outweigh the risks.

For The Environment Report, I’m Amy Standen.

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Zapping Germs Off Your Food

  • Researcher Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Researchers are working overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:

Transcript

Researchers are working
overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:

Food processors expose produce like lettuce to ozone for a few seconds or minutes to kill bacteria.

Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone.

Keener is a food process engineer at Purdue University.

He attaches the device to the outside of food packages – like a bag of lettuce – and applies electrodes that send high voltage through the bag.

“Visually it’s very Frankenstein-ish. It’s a safe process, there is a high voltage, but it’s similar to a spark you’d get with an electric fence.”

Keener says the ozone spends more time with the food so it kills more bacteria.

There’s a problem though – in some of their tests the device turned green spinach white.

So there are a few kinks to work out. But food companies are interested and we might see this commercialized in a year or two.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Farmers to Help With Flooding

  • Farmers have until the end of this week to apply for a program that would pay them to let in more flood water (Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)

Some federal stimulus money will be used to help reduce reduce flooding problems. Chuck Quirmbach reports the government wants farmers to store more water in floodplains:

Transcript

Some federal stimulus money will be used to help reduce flooding problems. Chuck Quirmbach reports that the government wants farmers to store more water in floodplains:

The federal stimulus package has 145-million dollars to buy easements on farmland.

Farmers have until the end of this week to apply for a program that would pay them to let in more flood water.

Land that’s flooded within the last year or twice in the last decade is eligible.

Don Baloun is with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. He says farmers would eventually stop growing some crops and instead allow the planting of water-absorbing trees or grasses.

“If it has been obstructed and farmed let’s say with a dike or levee, we would breach that dike or levee and open up the floodplain, the field in particular, to store floodwaters and relieve the downstream damages.”

Baloun says allowing more water back into floodplains might reduce the threat of flooding to towns and cities along rivers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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A New Clean Energy Corps?

Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:

Transcript

Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:

Some cities and states have programs that work on making older buildings more energy efficient.

Now, progressive think tanks have joined unions and alternative energy groups to ask for a national program.

Bracken Hendricks is with the Center for American Progress. He says it’s critical for the federal government to help pay to make older structures more efficient.

“For a long time, we’ve made great inroads on improving the energy efficiency and the performance of new buildings with tools like green building standards. But we really haven’t had a way to go and systematically block by block retrofit and weatherize homes.”

Hendricks says the clean energy corps would help the umemployed find work in the building and construction trades.

The coalition backing the corps says the money for the program could come from the stimulus package or other upcoming legislation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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The Mass Transit Paradox

  • Because of the down economy, ridership is up. But with the economy flagging, transit companies are having to cut routes and raise fares. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

So with the government’s 787 billion dollar stimulus plan now approved, a lot of folks in state and local government are thinking about the federal dollars that’ll float their way soon. Some mayors are especially eyeing the 8.4 billion for public transit. Rene Gutel looks at who wants to spend what:

Transcript

So with the government’s 787 billion dollar stimulus plan now approved, a lot of folks in state and local government are thinking about the federal dollars that’ll float their way soon. Some mayors are especially eyeing the 8.4 billion for public transit. Rene Gutel looks at who wants to spend what:


Mayors from coast to coast see the stimulus package as one big pot of gold. Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon knows exactly how he’d like transit money spent in his city.


“First and foremost, Light rail.”


(sound of a train)


It’s all about light rail. Phoenix is notorious for its car-culture, freeways and gridlock; Residents worry it’s turning into the next L.A., but a brand new twenty-mile light rail line launched in December.


Trouble is, it’s only one line. It goes from the suburb of Mesa and ends in downtown Phoenix.

Mayor Gordon wants to use federal stimulus money to add a three-mile extension. Gordon says it’s the ultimate shovel-ready project. All planned, just add 250-million dollars and it’s ready to go.


“We could sign a contract with America, with the federal government, that we will turn dirt by March 31st, and we’ll create 7,000 new jobs.”


Those new jobs will be around long enough at least to get the rail extension built. But getting a light rail line is not the same as keeping it running.

Look at San Francisco that has a well developed transit system. They have a different kind of wish list that centers on maintaining the system they already have.

Judson True is a spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.


“We want to repair light rail vehicles that have been damaged in collisions, we have some cable car kiosks that we’d like to replace, we have change machines we’d like to replace in our metro subway stations.”


And it keeps on going. The American Public Transportation Association has identified nearly 800 public transit projects nationwide ready-to-go within 90 days.

APTA says the projects will not only create hundreds of thousands of jobs, but reduce fuel consumption and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

But San Francisco’s Judson True says, while he’s grateful for funding for capitol projects…


“Systems like ours in San Francisco also need help on the operating side, and you see that all over the country.”


People are calling it the transit paradox and it’s hit cities like Denver, St. Louis and New York City.

Because of the down economy, ridership is up. And yet most transit systems rely on local and state money to subsidize operations. But with the economy flagging, cities and states are struggling too – and transit companies are having to cut routes and raise fares.


“You have a catch 22, more riders and you have to make service cuts.”


That’s Aaron Golub, an assistant professor in the School of Planning at Arizona State University. Mass transit’s his specialty. He’s worried about transit systems getting gleaming new buses, and kiosks, and buildings but then not having the means to operate them.


“It would be quite ironic if, for example, Phoenix were able to afford a light rail extension while cutting back on light rail service at the same time. Or the worst case, opening a light rail extension and not being able to operate it at all.”


Golub points to studies that say you create more jobs by investing in current transit operations – not capitol projects.

But many mayors across the nation feel light rail and other mass transit is an investment in their future. They’re ready to take on those shovel ready projects now with the hope that it’ll kick start the economy now and by the time the routes are finished, we’ll be out of the recession.


For The Environment Report, I’m Rene Gutel.

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Green Projects and Stimulus Bill

  • At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package are for green investments (Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)

The stimulus package before Congress spends an unprecedented amount of money on issues important to environmentalists. Lester Graham reports it looks like the interests of the environment and the economy are aligning:

Transcript

The stimulus package before Congress spends an unprecedented amount of money on issues important to environmentalists. Lester Graham reports it looks like the interests of the environment and the economy are aligning:

The stimulus package is packed with things that make environmentalists smile.

There are billions for renewable energy and research for alternative energy sources. There are billions for making federal buildings and homes more energy efficient. There are billions for mass transit and Amtrak, and a half-a-billion to training workers for green collar jobs.

Melinda Pierce is with the Sierra Club.

“Well, I tell you, what has struck me is the ‘billion’ word instead of ‘million’. So many of these projects – in terms of weatherization, energy efficiency, high-speed rail – have suffered from a lack of funding for the last eight years. This package will funnel literally billions of dollars into the programs that we think are America’s clean energy future.”

So, how many billions total in green investments? At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package.

And many environmentalists, some economists and business leaders, and, apparently, a good number of the Members of Congress think the growth sector of the economy is going to be the green sector.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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