garbage

NewWood – A Revolutionary Idea

May 14, 2011

As a stark contrast to the Numi toilet I recently panned, I’m totally excited about the concept behind NewWood. Starting with a nuclear power plant in Washington that was never completed or brought online, some very resourceful entrepreneurs have come up with what just could be one of the most revolutionary ideas to come along [...]

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Zero Waste and the Johnsons

March 19, 2011

I came across this video at JetsonGreen and just had to share it. I first heard of the Johnsons via a friend sharing the link to her zero waste home blog and was intrigued by Bea’s take on the three Rs. Before you ever get to reduce, reuse or recycle, you should refuse, refuse, refuse. [...]

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Project Homeless Connect and Perspective

March 17, 2011

Saint Patrick’s Day, 2011. The day of the fifth annual Project Homeless Connect (PHC) in Lane County, Oregon. Simply “ordinary people finding extraordinary solutions to end homelessness.” If you’re wondering here what aspect of living a simple, sustainable lifestyle this addresses, it falls squarely into the triple bottom line leg of social equity. This was [...]

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Compromise or Consensus: The Heart or the Mind?

March 5, 2011

I’ve had some conversations recently related to compromise and consensus. Just like many people think compostable and biodegradable are one-in-the-same, many also think compromise and consensus are synonyms; but they aren’t. COMPROMISE Compromise is defined by Webster as “settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions.” In plain English, this means [...]

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The Seven Sins of Greenwashing – Sin #2

December 6, 2010

Today we’ll dive into Sin #2, The Sin of No Proof. But first, as a reminder, here’s a definition of Greenwashing: GREENWASH Greenwashing is “the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.” SIN #2 – THE SIN OF NO PROOF The Sin [...]

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The Seven Sins of Greenwashing – Sin #1

December 4, 2010

In 2007, 2009 and 2010, a company called terrachoice published a report titled “The Seven Sins of Greenwashing”. And although they found that 95% of “green” consumer products they surveyed were found to be guilty of one of the seven sins, things do seem to be improving. More manufacturers are really living it, not just [...]

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Hannah’s House Freedom Walk

September 12, 2010

Hannah’s House, a local faith-based recovery program had their Freedom Walk yesterday to help raise money for their very effective program. You can visit their website to learn more about the work they do, but I just wanted to post how I’m personally glad they also care about our environment. The walk ended with food [...]

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Junk Mail

January 26, 2010

So last time I talked about phone books. Today I’d like to talk about junk mail. No one gets junk mail do we? Oh, really? You do? Our recycle bin at home is dominated by the junk mail that comes to us in the snail mail. I think that’s the dominant form of paper we [...]

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Paper or Plastic? Neither!

December 26, 2009

I remember when I would go to the grocery store and the clerk would ask “paper or plastic?” We typically would say “paper” because it was easier to recycle. Our garbage company picks up recycles, but doesn’t do plastic bags. And we’d always forget to take our plastic bags back to the store. So they’d [...]

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Recycling, Compost and Waste

December 19, 2009

One other way to “halve it all” is to reduce the amount of garbage we generate. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is more commonly known as garbage or trash. This is the stuff and junk that ends up in our landfills. Or, in some areas, it’s incinerated. My wife and I have been working to reduce [...]

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