In the coming weeks, I will introduce you to Mr. Justin Sutton, inventor of the Interstate Traveler, the hydrogen superhighway of the new millennium. His technology is revolutionary and that’s no hyperbole. As amazing as it is, though, Justin is firm in his assertion that he is out to supplement the asphalt motorways of North America with new avenues, not replace them.

I have seen Justin give his hydrogen superhighway presentation many times and he emphasizes the fact that shutting down petroleum companies is not among his goals. It is mine but not his. Justin does aspire, though, to help America’s domestic oil industry return to profitability by redirecting their material into the production of durable plastic rather than fuel and soft plastic.

In my October 15th thread, I raved about the ecological impact of drinking water from Fiji which is shipped to North America. I do not wish to target a particular brand because it is part of a much larger (and very global) problem. We, humanity, must break the bad habit of using the world’s transportation system to move water over great distances as part of consumer marketing.

Billions of people around the world do not have regular or easy access to potable water. As an environmentalist, I dislike the international bottled water market on account of its great contribution to air and water pollution. As a person who cares about the suffering of others, I dislike it even more because of the great inequity it emphasizes.

One of the most underreported news stories of 2007 regarded the immense heaps of electronic waste which the western world (especially the United States) exports to countries with lax environmental laws and/or enforcement for "disposal". There are dumping firms in China and elsewhere which are more than happy to take our discarded cell phones, computers, MP3 players and television sets to be strewn along the countryside with little or no regard to people or wildlife. Of course, when they operate, such devices consume large amounts of electricity so we also must seek ways to stop global warming which allow us the amenities of modern electronic equipment.

On our great quest for ways to stop global warming, the question of carbon credits arises frequently. Now, there is an opportunity to achieve carbon credits as we engage in cell phone recycling. Who could argue with that, right? Certainly not I! Before we strike at the heart of the matter, though, we should begin with a refresher on my carbon credit definition.

Simply put, a carbon credit is a glorified accounting maneuver in which greenhouse gas emissions which are not supposed to be allowed at a particular location or in a specific region are permitted because emissions which permissibly would occur elsewhere do not happen. If one lives in the fallout zone of those emissions, such a person’s disfavor with the arrangement would be understandable. Measured on a planetary scale, though, a carbon credit can be an important interim point along the journey for a clean future.

Measured against inflation, the price of consumer electronics and information technology hardware has fallen precipitously over the last ten years. In fact, I remember when a decent large-screen television cost 3 months’ salary. Since I am a movie buff, the fact that I can watch a pristine DVD reproduction of my favorite filmed entertainment on a screen which fills my family room all for under $1,000 is exciting to say the least.

The down side, and it’s a big one, is that our move to high-definition, cutting-edge technology means that we will cast off (literally) tons of old equipment which has to go somewhere. Unlike some other types of trash, dumping or incinerating electronic waste should not be done because of toxic side effects such as dioxin. Land pollution facts tell us that burning hazardous waste can leave entire regions contaminated and uninhabitable for decades or centuries.

Where does that leave us? Since I am an environmentalist, it should come as no surprise that I advocate recycling electronic waste. However, that’s not always a practical option for folks. The good news is that government entities have begun to partner with manufacturers to provide collection points. An example of such collaborations is the Plug-In To eCycling initiative from the Environmental Protection Agency.

You can read more at

In some parts of the world, the Christmas season only now is in full swing. At Chez Kroehler, the gifts under the sustainable Christmas tree were unwrapped before Catrin and I were tucked snug in our bed on Christmas Eve and the decorations all were stowed before we opened the egg nog on December 31st.

I wish to begin the new year with an examination of a very important issue and statement of my formal position on the topic of working forests and sustainable commercial forestry. There is no lack of controversy on these marks but achieving consensus is vital if we are to embrace the full panoply of ways to stop global warming with the zeal they deserve.

One firm intimately involved in commercial forestry is Weyerhaeuser. I will make few friends in the inner circle of the environmental community by stating this but Weyerhaeuser must be treated as an ally if we are to progress toward a truly sustainable and environmentally just future. Indeed, Weyerhaeuser reforestation projects are the first aspect of the larger issue of working forests which I would like to engage.

Before I do so, however, I ask that you indulge me in a brief, interrogatory digression:

Was your 2007 Christmas tree paper or plastic?

In my previous post, I assigned a brief online quiz about forestry. Did you take it?

If not, here is the URL once again:

http://www.abundantforests.org/eiq_quiz.html

The first of seven lessons taught by this important online tool is that natural Christmas trees are replaced with saplings when they are harvested. Oftentimes, this is the case. Why is it, then, that pictures of reforestation projects seldom include Christmas trees? How should the answer affect one's decision to buy a natural or plastic tree next Christmas?

If you plan to purchase an artificial tree and store it for repeated use for at least ten years, the environmental impact works out about the same when compared with a natural tree harvested from a sustainable forest which is recycled (made into mulch and other forest products) when you are done with it.

If you purchased a real tree this holiday season and haven't discarded it yet, consider recycling it.

For a list of treecycling services in the United States, visit

Last week, I told you about the need to shift some of our attention toward reforestation projects in California now that recovery from the devastating series of brush, forest and wild fires has begun. This moment also presents an excellent opportunity to explore the practicality of green building vs. traditional building in California and elsewhere.

The conversations I have had with builders and people engaged in the green building movement have led to a single answer to the question of practicality: done wisely, the price differential of green building vs. traditional building need be only about 10%. Of course, that statistic only indicates raw construction cost and in no way reflects the immediate savings in energy expenses which will result as soon as occupancy begins.

If the difference in cost of green building vs. traditional building is so narrow, why has it not become more prevalent? The reasons are varied. Some development companies claim that their customers seldom ask about green building practices and options. In other places, there is a lack of experienced civil engineers who can guide the process of building structures to green standards such as L.E.E.D.

I’d like to remain with the California theme which I have embraced this month and give you a bit of follow-up coverage at the same time. Electronic waste is a serious problem and one which must be tackled by the business community and government in tandem. I recently shared with you a handy website maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency for recycling of electronic waste through the Plug-In To eCycling program. The URL is:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/plugin/partners.htm

Apple is not one of the companies listed. I found that surprising since it has a comprehensive program for recycling electronic waste as part of its larger environmental efforts. For that, Steve Jobs is to be commended, although there is almost always room to do more.

One example is in the design phase. At the risk of allowing this thread to become a commercial advertisement (I do not own Apple products), I would like to turn your attention to the recent announcement by Steve Jobs of the new MacBook Air.

Yesterday, I made my usual weekly pilgrimage to Publix, Catrin’s and my local supermarket. During our 16+ years of wedded bliss, we have alternated between competing grocery chains. Because of its distance from us, we seldom shop at Whole Foods Market. However, a recent policy change on the part of this national grocer may well compel us to modify our buying pattern.

As I have written in recent months, shopping bags used in supermarkets count for a very large chunk of the air pollution which the United States generates each year. Whether you choose paper or plastic, many natural resources are consumed to create the bag and pollution spewed into the air in the process. That’s why I advocate so strongly for using canvas bags or, even better, no bags at all whenever possible, just as I do.

Tom Szaky, cofounder and CEO of Recycle Inc., is an environmental pioneer and inspiring success story. As a promising student at Ivy League Princeton University a few short years ago, Mr. Szaky saw the great potential of a tried-and-true environmental technology, vermiculture (the science of worms and their role in our biome) and, much like Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates did several years earlier, promptly dropped out of school to pursue his dream.

Fast forward to the present day and his company, TerraCycle, plays a vital role in a program worthy of everyone’s attention, the Retote recycled plastic shopping bag from Target Corporation.

“This is a one-of-a-kind promotion that lets everyone who gets the magazine take part in an environmental program ... Target shoppers will recycle their shopping bags and, in return, get a practical bag that can be used all the time.”

- Newsweek President Greg Osberg

While much of the mainstream press in the United States and around the world does at least a competent job reporting on environmental issues, especially global warming, Newsweek magazine set the bar very high in its special April 14, 2008 issue, Environment & Leadership: Who’s the Greenest of Them All? How? Newsweek magazine collaborated with Target Corporation and TerraCycle Inc. to help promote Target Corporation’s Retote recycled plastic shopping bag in a unique way.

Let’s face it. Reducing your carbon footprint, buying recycled products, riding the bus to work and all the other ways to fight global warming can be a pain. The good news is that just about every method available of doing your part to fight global warming has an ancillary benefit, usually humanitarian. You enjoy helping your neighbor, RIGHT?

Well, allow me to guide you. Here are 7 categories which can help you live greener and help humanity at the same time. In subsequent posts, I will give you an appropriate remedy which fits your selfish lifestyle.

1) Get a cause

2) Get a clue

It’s time for me to hop on my virtual soap box, so to say. Plastic beverage containers are an environmental menace. Once quite rare, they have become so commonplace that millions of them are used once and then discarded every single day. The illogic of waste!

Recycling helps and the Cindy Crawford video excerpt which I would like you to watch explains that recycling is a very good thing. I have purchased a reusable water bottle much like the one in the Cindy Crawford video excerpt and encourage you to do likewise. However, the real solution is quite different and more difficult to achieve. What we ought to do is understand the role which water quality plays in the life of every living thing on earth. First, though, the video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7wEiuaSbmo

The quest for clean, potable water is an understandable one. All mammals (and many other forms of life on this planet) need water to sustain them. It is elemental. Sadly, clean drinking water and tasty drinking water are not always synonyms. What’s more, since global populations have exploded without a corresponding increase in municipal infrastructure, many locations around the world now have sour water as the standard at the tap.

This avoidable situation is the reason bottled water has become a huge growth industry, leaving environmental devastation in its wake, in my home state of Florida and around the world. We need to move away from the status quo and earlier this month, I shared with you the fact that the I Am Not Plastic SIGG aluminum water bottle from StopGlobalWarming.org represents a workable solution.

I am the first to admit that bottled water can be a comforting luxury. Dasani is my favorite brand but as I have traveled the world, I have encountered several brands of water which go down great by themselves or with a meal. The problem? Huge consumption of natural resources!

The term carbon-neutral has become something of a buzz word. Through a combination of conservation efforts and offsets, my wife Catrin and I have lived carbon-neutral since the year 2004. Carbon-neutral simply means to live as if there were no industrialization, producing only as much pollution as is necessary for a basic existence.

Sadly, if the entire world became carbon-neutral overnight, if we parked every car, decommissioned every fossil-fueled power plant and extinguished every forest fire, we could not save the Greenland ice shelf from melting into the North Atlantic.

Put another way, if we want to save ourselves from the ravages of global warming and reverse the crisis, we must become carbon-negative. We must return our planet’s atmosphere to its cleaner, earlier state while expanding the global economy at the same time.

It’s a tall order but it can be done. Fiji Artesian Water claims to be a carbon-negative company. I have reviewed the assertions of its FijiGreen.com website. There is much to admire about what Fiji Artesian Water is doing to expand its business, protect biodiversity in Fiji and reverse global warming. However, despite its commendable alliance with Conservation International and other environmental organizations, Fiji Artesian Water sends a bad environmental message because it encourages people to drink water from the other side of the world.

Hot Buttered Fun

As a movie buff, the title Battlefield Earth means only one thing: a middling John Travolta science fiction film from the year 2000. Here in the summer of 2008, it has taken on an entirely new meaning on the wonderful new cable television channel, Planet Green. It is a reality show.

I used to follow contemporary music as much as I do modern cinema but have drifted toward movies a bit in recent years. Nevertheless, Heavy Metal and Rap are two types of music which I enjoy thoroughly. Really! Since Aerosmith and Run DMC created the first melding of the two styles in the mid-1980’s, I have enjoyed them in equal quantities.

Sadly, though, neither Heavy Metal nor Rap music is known for promoting environmental messages such as the importance of recycling and sustainability. Now, according to Eileen O’Neill, Planet Green has. Good for them!

Luda the Polluta vs. Toxic Tommy

Long before traveling to Australia for the third International Solar Cities Congress this past February, I knew that water swirls counterclockwise from a sink south of the equator, versus clockwise in Florida (and everywhere in the United States). I knew that it is caused by the Earth’s rotation and recently learned the name of the cause, the Coriolis Effect. When I finally drained a sink in the lovely seaside city of Sydney, I grinned.

Before I had the chance, though, I sat on the longest airline flight of my life, Honolulu to Sydney. I stared out the window for much of the journey and, oddly, the Pacific Ocean didn’t seem so deep from cruising altitude. The Pacific Ocean is big! My five-hour flight from California to Hawaii, the day before I flew to Sydney, proved that!

Because of this, of course, the Pacific Ocean has immense currents. One of the largest is known as the North Pacific Gyre. It, too, is caused by the Coriolis Effect and originates from the same Latin root which gives us the word gyrate. The North Pacific Gyre spans thousands of miles. Imagine a slow-moving undercurrent from the Aleutian Islands to Hawaii. Yes, it’s that big and it is in constant motion, just as the whole planet is.

In May of this year, I shared with you the very exciting story of the Retote recycled shopping bag from Target and TerraCycle. The vision underlying this innovative product and cultural catalyst inspired me for many reasons. Now, as I’ve been in possession of the bag for some time and had a chance to use it, I’d like to report to you from the perspective of a consumer.

The nifty, red Retote bag is the fifth in my collection of alternative sacks for groceries. I continue my practice of refusing bags altogether during better than 90% of my visits to the supermarket and other retail establishments but find myself in need of a secure carrying environment from time to time. I like the Retote the best and not just because it is made from recycled bags. The Retote is very sturdy and sends a loud message: recycling works!

I had to wait more than 3 months to receive my voucher for the free bag in response to the promotion in Newsweek Magazine but the delay lost its bitterness as soon as I took possession of my Retote. It is sturdy and downright fun to use. Best of all, the red handles fit in my clenched fist very comfortably.

Can I, in all candor, tell you that the Retote is better than every other reusable cloth or plastic sack on the market? No but it makes the loudest statement. In fact, the tag on the inside explains the mission of the Retote very nicely.

It took a combination of ingenuity and technology to create the Retote bag. By collecting your used Target plastic bags, we can fuse them together to produce these innovative, reusable totes. Target and Terracycle are teaming up on ways everyone can renew, reinvent and recycle. That's Design For All!

The promotion for free Retote bags is long since passed but the bags themselves remain for sale at your local Target store. The style bag which I received sells for $6. I highly recommend it. The capacity of the bag is about 15% larger than other bags sold at such places as supermarkets and drug stores but somewhat smaller than the reusable bags at Whole Foods (which also make a nice statement). Still, the Retote is my favorite and I hope that you will join me in creating a new craze.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

As you stow your holiday decorations and resume normal life for the new year, have you considered recycling your greeting cards? Year after year, the ability of the recycling industry to convert the assorted materials which we discard into useful alternatives grows.

They have a fairly good handle on most types of metal in the waste stream as well as polystyrene, paperboard, moderate to heavy plastic and newsprint. One area which remains largely unaddressed is writing paper and its cousin, long-grain paper for printers. Indeed, each year billions of tons of such products enter the waste stream as single-use garbage and end up in landfills.

Correcting this deficiency is a big job and many players in the recycling industry make great strides on a regular basis. Even if they perfect the technology, though, gaining broad consumer participation will be a task equal to or greater than solving the technical issues. A key way of accomplishing this task, though, will be to focus people on the pounds of paper they receive every week in the mail.

As the world moves closer and closer to a paperless existence, it’s easy for us to forget that millions upon millions of trees are felled each year in order to provide fiber for paper production. Those trees will do us much more good remaining in the ground where they can sequester carbon, regulate local temperatures, reduce atmospheric wind sheer, purify water and house wildlife.

The good news is that most of us now receive less mail so it’s easier for us to think about recycling it and Earth Class Mail is a novel service for American addresses which can help us do just that. For roughly the same cost as renting a conventional box at your local post office, Earth Class mail will scan all of your inbound post and make it available to you via the Internet. And then recycle it. Nifty, huh?

Because Earth Class Mail charges by the piece, it will be important for you to reduce the volume of junk mail which you receive. There are several services which will contact advertisers for you directly and place your address on the do not mail list which they are required by federal law to maintain and I recommend GreenDimes.com as a convenient option with a low annual fee of just $20.

Working directly with a local recycling center which can process the weights and colors typical of documents which travel by post, Earth Class Mail ranks high on my list of firms which are part of the solution.

To learn more, visit

EarthClassMail.com

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Electronic waste is a blight on the reputation of humanity and a stain on the great progress of industrialization. Since I advocate the carbon-neutral lifestyle, it may seem a contradiction for this author to extol industrialization. Certainly, it must be embraced with caution and the blind optimism that we can invent our way out of every problem is dangerous. Furthermore, when industrialization is allowed to expand unchecked, environmental devastation often is the result.

Nevertheless, our ability to achieve great things often has its base in technological innovation, such as this high-traffic blog. In this case, the environmental devastation to which I refer includes electronic waste, the haphazard and indiscriminate dumping of electronic devices which no longer function or have been discarded.

It must stop and doing so will require a full-on effort, at the individual, local, regional, national, international, continental and global level. One way in which manufacturing can help is to use fewer dangerous components in the creation of the devices we use. Of course, the fight against global warming must be included, too. For this reason, I am delighted to tell you about the W233 Renew mobile phone from Motorola, known as the Eco-Moto. The W233 Renew is the world’s first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottles.

The commendable attributes of the Eco-Moto continue, too. Motorola has partnered with CarbonFund.org through its Certified carbonfree program. Yes, by purchasing carbon credits, Motorola truly can claim that the Eco-Moto is the world’s first carbon-free mobile phone, a tremendous milestone both from the environmental and social perspective.

Of course, no matter what model mobile phone you may use, there’s a good chance that you can make use of the wonderful software from CarbonDiem.com to be aware of just how much carbon is involved in your daily existence.

In the end, then, even though we have a very long way to go before we turn the tide in our fight against global warming, leaders in the business community have begun to take notice of the need for urgent change and, in some cases, take appropriately decisive action.

I’ve been telling you about the need to make cultural changes in order to fight climate change and global warming. I am firm in my resolve on this matter. No matter what I think, though (and no matter how many brilliant cultural campaigns are launched to make the change happen), humanity will need at least a decade in order to do away with its dirtier habits.

The single-use (one-way) beverage container is a prime example. Whether made from aluminum, plastic or steel, literally billions of single-use beverage containers are discarded every hour of every day around the world. This is a shockingly immense statistic. What is to be done? Yes, we most certainly must recycle but even in a utopian scenario, never will we capture 100% of the discarded containers.

Hence, the next best choice is to ramp up the quantity of recycled material used to create the beverage containers in the first place. With its 360° Paper Water Bottle, brandimage has done just that and then some.

The 360° Paper Water Bottle is made from recycled paperboard, not unlike that used to sell eggs in supermarkets. The top is torn off in order to access the liquid within and when empty, the container may be discarded with significantly less environmental impact than aluminum, plastic or steel. While no beverages sold in the 360° Paper Water Bottle have found their way to store shelves just yet, that will change in the coming months and I encourage you to keep a vigilant eye. The 360° Paper Water Bottle could well change the recycling industry for the better.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

With 2010 well underway and the attention of people in most every nation slowly turning from the global economic recession to building toward a cleaner, greener future, I have a simple question: do you still need a resolution for the new year? If so, I urge to you resolve for the climate with 3 easy steps.

As I shared in one of my very first blog posts way back in 2007, you should institute a personal ban on incandescent light bulbs. CFLs and LEDs are vastly superior for a variety of reasons and all of us should embrace them zealously.

It is equally important that we ban the use of plastics in our lives wherever possible. One quick example is plastic shopping bags. They are an ecological menace with superior alternatives now offered in many retail establishments. As I shared with you this time last year, my favorite is the Retote recycled shopping bag from Target. However, most any bag made of canvas or recycled fibers, which is designed for an extended life span of reuse, will do.

Then, we have the other noxiously common use of plastics, the one-way beverage container. In the decade which just ended, we saw an explosion in the use of plastic bottles, especially for water. I have railed against them and told you about the enormous damage they inflict on sea life when they are not discarded properly.

What can you do? Embrace one of the superior alternatives to plastic water bottles such as the I Am Not Plastic aluminum water bottle. I have owned this fabulous product for over a year and simply love it.

If instituting a personal ban on incandescent light bulbs is step 1 in my recommended resolution for the climate for 2010 and rejecting plastic shopping bags and one-way beverage containers is step 2, what is step 3?

Tell your friends! Nothing will move us toward success in the battle to save our planet than cultural change. The average person is skeptical when it comes to deviating from the routine which propaganda from entrenched industries such as Big Oil and their friends tells us is part of modern living. However, your skeptical friends will believe you more than a television commercial. This simple fact gives you power.

Embrace it!

Disclosure of consideration: The opinions expressed in this blog post are my own. They were not influenced by any outside party. Moreover, I have no financial interest in any of the merchants or vendors mentioned herein.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

"The ocean is downhill from everywhere. Only we humans make waste that nature cannot digest.”

– Captain Charles Moore

Founder, Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Since most forms of plastic are manufactured from petroleum, it is easy to realize that recycling is an excellent way to fight global warming. However, there is another reason of equal environmental importance. Littering is very harmful to marine life and littering plastics is among the worst things we can do to the seas.

It is a normal part of the circle of life for creatures of the sea to feed upon other living things in their surroundings. Put another way, in nature, creatures do not import their food from distant places. Instead, they establish a natural equilibrium with their environment. They have one thing in common with humans, though. They are incapable of recognizing all forms of poison.

That’s why the damage to seas caused by littering plastics is so particularly insidious. As Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation explains in his brilliant documentaries, presentations and writings, the petroleum-derived plastics which are produced in the billions of tons every year to give us disposable bottles and shopping bags degrade neither graciously nor quickly in nature. Hence, when oceanic currents such as the [link1]North Pacific Gyre[/link1] concentrate our litter in otherwise pristine natural areas, environmental damage is amplified.

For this reason, I exhort you to reduce your consumption of plastic bottles and shopping bags, recycling what you can and disposing carefully what you cannot. Then, if you think that I’m exaggerating the effects on nature of our carelessness in the use and disposal of petroleum-derived plastics, subscribe to Captain Moore’s newsletter at

algalita.org

If you need additional encouragement to use less and recycle more, watch his stupefying video presentation to TED around this time last year.

ted.com/talks/view/id/470

It’s true that all living things, including people, are what they eat. Tragically, we are causing many forms of marine life to become the garbage we discard.

Disclosure of consideration: The opinions expressed in this blog post are my own. They were not influenced by any outside party. Moreover, I have no financial interest in Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

photo credit: Jonathan Alcorn/ Bloomberg News

credit: algalita.org]

As I have shared several times, one-way beverage containers, especially plastic water bottles, are very harmful for the environment. Perhaps their worst impact is from discarded bottles which often find their way into the open seas where they gather in one of several swirling garbage patches. In fact, it is difficult to argue that even the most effective recycling campaigns surrounding these poisonous containers can do much good since so much energy is required to convert PET, the most common type of plastic in such bottles, into a reusable alternative.

PET bottles aren’t all bad, though. They are much lighter than glass and can be much more convenient to carry than glass because they generally don’t shatter. Additionally, innovations in recycling have given us materials which are suitable for garments and other textile applications which are significantly softer than their natural counterparts.

For this reason, the Coca-Cola Company, through its partnership with Nike, has succeeded in selling millions of their recycled athletic garments since 2007 with such catchy slogans as Make Your Plastic Fantastic. Although I vehemently support the adoption of 100% organic materials in beverage containers, PET plastic bottles won’t vanish any time soon and it is important to applaud organizations which, finally, after years of prodding, have begun to innovate in their use of recycling.

In the case of the Coca-Cola/Nike garments, the new variation of recycling is called upcycling since the results are applied in more sophisticated or stringent uses than originally. In the case of another fine garment innovator, Patagonia, it is called downcycling because Patagonia also sells textiles made from 100% post consumer materials but PET bottles comprise only a small fraction of the final blend.

As we close the book on the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, just remember that many of the uniforms which took the field were made of 100% recycled fiber, much of it previously used as PET in one-way plastic beverage containers.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

jpg credit: Coca-Cola Company

jpg credit: Getty Images/Nike