Tag: packages

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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Businesses Going Lean and Green

  • Marco's Pizza changed the size of its boxes to fit more on distribution trucks. It's also switching to recyclable plastics for chicken wings. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Times are tough for the economy,
so lots of headlines tell us that the
end is near for the burgeoning green
market. But some analysts say the
economic downturn could encourage more
companies to be environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Times are tough for the economy,
so lots of headlines tell us that the
end is near for the burgeoning green
market. But some analysts say the
economic downturn could encourage more
companies to be environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant reports:

When stock prices plummeted this year for Whole Foods
Market, a lot of people saw that as a sign that green
companies were wilting during this dark time in the economy.

Whole Foods has one of the best known names for natural
and sustainably made products and caters to people who
are willing to pay more for them.

“You know, it’s really easy to look at stores like Whole
Foods, or companies selling green products, and see that
they’re not doing as well as last year and saying, ‘oh, the
green economy is tanking.’”

Author Joel Makower has chronicled the rise of the green
movement in corporate America through many articles, and
in his recently published book “Strategies for the Green
Economy.”

“The fact is that no retailer, except for Wal-Mart, is doing
better than last year. They’re all doing much, much worse.
So green products sink and swim along with the overall
economy. The economy is really bad right now, so a lot of
these products aren’t doing as well.”

But Makower says the green movement has a leg up on the
rest of the economy – because what consumers are buying
is only part of the story.

(sound of Marco’s Pizza Shop)

The smell of garlic and cheese and dough baking at Marco’s
Pizza is enough to make anyone hungry when they walk in.
While some of the biggest names in the pizza biz are closing
down stores, this relatively small Ohio-based chain is
growing like gang-busters, tripling the number of stores and
franchising in 14 states.

Purchasing manager Don Vlcek says, earlier this year,
prices of everything from the mozzarella to the plastic cups
were on the rise.

“When all of the costs going into restaurants started going
up, like I’ve never seen, and I’ve been in this industry since I
was 17 years old, we wanted to keep our prices the same to
our customers. So we looked at cost cutting – mainly at the
packaging end.”

Vlcek stresses: they’re not skimping on the pizza.
Marco’s has started doing things like using paper cups
instead of plastic. The new ones are cheaper and
biodegradable. Their pizza boxes used to be colorful,
glossy, and not very recyclable.

“Now our boxes, which the industry has said is the most
impressive and highest cost box in the industry, we’ve taken
that and we’ve put new messages on it, with a non-
varnished look.”

Marco’s also slightly reduced the size of its pizza boxes, so
more fit on its distribution trucks. That’s saved transportation
costs – and lots of polluting truck travel. None of this sounds
too sexy. But these efficiencies have saved Marco’s 2.5
million dollars this year.

The cuts they made have been good for the bottom line –
and for the environment.

Industry strategist Joel Makower says there are thousands of
stories like this.

“Once companies squeeze out the waste and inefficiency
and the water, carbon, and energy intensity and the toxicity
of their products, that’s not going to come back as soon as
oil prices drop, as we’ve seen them do, or when the
economy goes bad, as it has. This is a fundamental change
in how business is being done, and this is just the
beginning.”

Makower predicts that companies will continue to innovate
new ways to save money, and that is going to benefit the
environment.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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A Stamp of Approval

  • The 2008 Nature of America issuance, Great Lakes Dunes, is the tenth stamp pane in an educational series that features the beauty and complexity of major plant and animal communities in the United States. A description of the dunes and a numbered key to the artwork appear on the back of the stamp pane, along with a corresponding list of common and scientific names for 27 selected species. (Photo courtesy of the USPS)

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

The new sheet of stamps is the latest in the Postal Service’s “Nature
in America” series.

John Dawson created the painting depicted on the sheet of stamps. It
features 27 different kinds of plants and animals found in the Great
Lakes Dunes.

Dawson says he hopes the stamps will make people more aware of the
beauty of the dunes, and the need to save the whole environment.

“The animals, the plants, the flowers, the bugs, it’s all inter-related.
That’s what’s important about showing this stuff – that it’s important to
keep the environment intact, because there’s so many things that
depend on each other.”

Dawson has designed all ten of the Nature of America series. But this
one is special to him because he started his career living in the Great
Lakes region.

For The Environment Report, this is Heidi Chang.

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Usps Earth-Friendly Packaging

  • The Postal Service is launching a program to use more recycled and environmentally-friendly materials in its packaging. (photo by Lester Graham)

The US Postal Service says it has made its packaging materials more
environmentally friendly. Rebecca Williams reports the Post Office
says the packaging uses fewer resources and is more easily recyclable:

Transcript

The US Postal Service says it has made its packaging materials more
environmentally friendly. Rebecca Williams reports the Post Office
says the packaging uses fewer resources and is more easily recyclable:


The Postal Service delivers hundreds of millions of boxes and envelopes
a year. The Service worked with a consulting firm to redesign the
packages, down to the inks and adhesives.


Anita Bizzotto is the chief marketing officer for the Postal Service:


“It was actually quite a big undertaking – we worked with 10 vendors,
200 suppliers and we evaluated 1400 individual ingredients and all
component materials of packaging products.”


But some critics of the Postal Service say the agency still has a way
to go. They want the Postal Service to stop promoting advertising
mail… you might call it junk mail. All those flyers and catalogs are
the Service’s second largest source of revenue.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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