Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/recycling/page/4/)
Success means reducing waste and dumping fees while creating a new revenue stream.
The research is also spurred by consumers who value alternatives to petroleum-based building blocks of other products.
Every day thousands of pounds of food are wasted at Michigan State University. But campus farms and cafeterias are starting to put the waste to work with worms and digesters.
Imagine if you could cause no environmental impact. I’m not talking about recycling a few bottles here and there. I’m talking about no transportation, no plastic, no trash, no meat, no new things, no take-out food and no electricity. Colin Beavan imagined what it would be like as well, and along with his wife Michelle and 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, he turned it into reality. In the 2009 documentary “No Impact Man,” Beavan and his family lived a “no impact” lifestyle in New York City for a year.
In his spare time Chicago resident Joe Miller runs what may be the coolest eco-friendly company with the coolest name ever. Print-A-Forest makes a free computer software that turns your routine printing projects into a plant-a-tree fundraiser. By getting a small message from plant-a-tree sponsors across the bottom of your printed pages, you pay for planting trees. An example: “Powered by State Farm” could appear on the bottom of the page if the insurance company sponsored the planting. Pretty simple.
Last week Echo reported that a new event, “Recycle Rama,” recycled thousands of pounds of material in Michigan’s Ingham County. David Smith, an environmental specialist with the city of East Lansing, let us know the event’s finals counts excluding things like mercury thermostats, CFL light bulbs and fluorescent tubes that haven’t yet been weighed. Items recycled (in pounds):
Electronic waste: 78,000
Scrap metal: 5,000
Appliances: 16,700
Bikes: 1,400
Books: 9,400
Miscellaneous re-sale items: 4,200
Clothing: 2,500
Shoes: 1,000
Air conditioners: 2,280
Dehumidifiers: 3,780
Unwanted medications: 548
Cooking oil: 414
Miscellaneous recyclables (mainly cardboard): 440
Holiday lights: 550
That’s 126,212 pounds (about 63 tons) of materials total. That’s about 1,262 Asian carp, assuming they are on the heftier end. If only those could be recycled in mass too.
Lansing, Mich. recently hosted a recycled art exhibit and fashion show. Purses created from recycled plastic bags and can tabs, sculptures made from chip bags and fast food cups, and a motorcycle created from washing machine parts lined the lobby of city hall. Watch the video
If you’re sick and tired of coming home to a fresh phone book lying on your doorstep, you can avoid driving it to the recycling center or just chucking it in the trash bin.
(MI) Detroit Free Press – The stunning 16% drop in trash going into Michigan landfills for the year ending last Sept. 30 is as good a barometer as any of how poorly the state fared during that time. Michigan trash alone dropped 13%; waste from outside the state, including Canadian trash, failed to materialize by an even wider margin. And here’s another way to look at the numbers: Michigan’s household trash dropped 11%; the other categories, mostly industrial and construction waste, dropped 19%. Maybe some people are recycling more, but more likely everyone’s simply producing less trash — nowhere as obviously as at factories and construction sites.
(MI) Lansing State Journal – Lansing’s curbside recycling dropped in 2009, but the city’s attempt to collect recyclables should become more efficient, convenient and bountiful in 2010, officials say. After introducing plans more than a year ago to start single-stream recycling, which minimizes the need for separating materials, Lansing plans to debut key aspects of its program next summer. More
(MI) Grand Rapids Press – For those resolving to do better by the environment in 2010, one way to do so is by taking a class such as “Global Warming: Changing Course” starting Jan. 6 at the Grand Rapids Public Library. The discussion course will examine the history and science of global warming, and how individuals can change their personal habits to reduce their impact on the environment. “With a new year a lot of people are looking to make a fresh start and make some changes in their lives,” said Kristen Krueger-Corrado, library spokeswoman. “We thought this course dovetailed nicely with looking at their lifestyle differently.” More