Showing posts with label recycling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycling. Show all posts
Monday, June 13, 2011
Friday, December 11, 2009
Taiwan firm recycling newspapers into fashion.
Taiwanese fashion designer Colin Lin is environmentally conscious as well as fashionably forward-thinking.
NPR has the story here.
NPR has the story here.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Green Scenics
From Eva Radke of Film Biz Recycling, an organization that reuses set pieces, costumes and everything else in new productions, sells to collectors or gives to charity rather than needlessly using landfills for things that are often near new.
"I just caught up with Marshall Carbee - he has developed some amazing techniques and products - check out his soy gesso and low VOC paints.....made for scenics by a scenic.
Go here to see the products
And here to see his beautiful low-impact art
Here's how he paints these days in his studio in New Hampshire.
1. Wood stretcher bars for stretching the canvas are milled locally with locally grown wood.Our NH forests were cut down 100 years ago, local wood is sustainable.
I have stopped using stretchers for all the Flatbread type paintings.
2. I am using wood scraps from a local lumber yard for small painting panels. There are also composite wood panels that are green. (not made with formaldehyde!)
3. Canvas? I'm using an 18.5 oz. 100% hemp canvas and a certified organic cotton/hemp blend that is 12.5oz.
4. Acrylic or oil based gesso? I've replaced gesso with a soy based product.
5. Commercial paint? Now I make my own paints with low impact earth pigments. No cadmiums, flake white, or other toxic pigments or additives. No petroleum products. Earth pigments rock!
6. Binders? Now using cold-pressed linseed oil, organic linseed oil, walnut oil and a little beeswax.
.
7. Mineral spirits, turpentine? Don't use them anymore, using an eco-friendly citrus oil thinner with food grade terpenes.
8. No Frames (Unless you want them!) Now, we hang the paintings like banner she studio like we do at all the Flatbreads on harvested saplings, driftwood, or train stricken saplings from behind the studio. Charles is our a framer right here in the factory. Charles is the best framer around and he's right downstairs!
9. Hanging wire Don't use wire anymore, we use hemp chord now.
10. Carbon Footprint? I'm paying down our carbon footprint at Native Energy. Our goal is to get an accurate measurement of the studio footprint and neutralize it with investment in wind energy.
11. I'm making these paintings to help connect us to nature through natural color, nature images, organic forms, patterns and textures.
12. My 100% cotton rags (I use a lot of rags) are refuse from a local custom dying facility. The rags are given to me, they are the company's reject color tests.
And there you go...way to go Marshall - what an inspiration."
"I just caught up with Marshall Carbee - he has developed some amazing techniques and products - check out his soy gesso and low VOC paints.....made for scenics by a scenic.
Go here to see the products
And here to see his beautiful low-impact art
Here's how he paints these days in his studio in New Hampshire.
1. Wood stretcher bars for stretching the canvas are milled locally with locally grown wood.Our NH forests were cut down 100 years ago, local wood is sustainable.
I have stopped using stretchers for all the Flatbread type paintings.
2. I am using wood scraps from a local lumber yard for small painting panels. There are also composite wood panels that are green. (not made with formaldehyde!)
3. Canvas? I'm using an 18.5 oz. 100% hemp canvas and a certified organic cotton/hemp blend that is 12.5oz.
4. Acrylic or oil based gesso? I've replaced gesso with a soy based product.
5. Commercial paint? Now I make my own paints with low impact earth pigments. No cadmiums, flake white, or other toxic pigments or additives. No petroleum products. Earth pigments rock!
6. Binders? Now using cold-pressed linseed oil, organic linseed oil, walnut oil and a little beeswax.
.
7. Mineral spirits, turpentine? Don't use them anymore, using an eco-friendly citrus oil thinner with food grade terpenes.
8. No Frames (Unless you want them!) Now, we hang the paintings like banner she studio like we do at all the Flatbreads on harvested saplings, driftwood, or train stricken saplings from behind the studio. Charles is our a framer right here in the factory. Charles is the best framer around and he's right downstairs!
9. Hanging wire Don't use wire anymore, we use hemp chord now.
10. Carbon Footprint? I'm paying down our carbon footprint at Native Energy. Our goal is to get an accurate measurement of the studio footprint and neutralize it with investment in wind energy.
11. I'm making these paintings to help connect us to nature through natural color, nature images, organic forms, patterns and textures.
12. My 100% cotton rags (I use a lot of rags) are refuse from a local custom dying facility. The rags are given to me, they are the company's reject color tests.
And there you go...way to go Marshall - what an inspiration."
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Delivery companies doing their part
From Environmental News:
FedEx increased its North America hybrid truck fleet by 50 percent with today’s announcement of 92 additional retrofitted delivery trucks.
The shipping giant now boasts 264 hybrid trucks, which it says is the largest hybrid package delivery fleet in North America. The repurposed vehicles are 44 percent more fuel-efficient that standard FedEx delivery trucks and produce 96 percent fewer particulates and 75 percent fewer smog-causing emissions.
The company turned to Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. and Eaton Corp. for the delivery truck retrofits performed on 2000 and 2001 model year delivery trucks, which had been driven between 300,000 and 500,000 miles. The retrofitted trucks will be largely deployed in the Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco metropolitan areas.
Not to be outdone, UPS has made similar strides (also from Environmental News):
Did you know that UPS trucks have a “No Left Turn”� policy on deliveries? The company has taken another step toward energy conservation by ordering 500 more hybrid and compressed natural gas (CNG) delivery vehicles.
UPS calls its trucks the Green Fleet, and is expanding from 50 hybrid electric trucks to 250 (the largest commercial order of such trucks by any company). The CNG-run fleet will increase from 800 to 1,100 as well.
The purchase means the largest private alternative fuel fleet in the U.S. will grow 30 percent more in 2009. This will save 176,000 gallons of fuel annually and 1,786 metric tons of carbon emissions each year—the equivalent of removing almost 100 conventional UPS trucks from the road for a year.
Many UPS stores also offer reuse/recycling for shipping products, including packing peanuts and cardboard boxes. Use Earth 911’s recycling locator to see if your local store participates.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Onion Power: Tops, Tails and Skins Become Electricity
An onion processor in Oxnard, Ca has turned the waste from the onions he sells into energy:
From Reuters:
By Matthew Wheeland
Tops and tails are becoming much more than garbage at Gills Onions, an onion processor in Oxnard, Calif. Today marks the unveiling of the company's onion-powered electrical system, a first-of-its-kind initiative to turn onion waste into energy.
"This whole project is about eliminating our onion waste," explained Steven Gill, an owner/partner of Gills Onions. "This has been a long-term project for us for the last 10 years."
The anaerobic digester.
Every day, Gills Onions -- which sells diced, sliced, slivered and puréed onions to wholesale and retail customers -- generates about 300,000 pounds of onion waste -- the company loses about 35 percent of the onion to "tops, tails and skins," Gill said.
In the past, the company has dealt with the waste by sending it out to fields, spreading it out to decompose and return to the soil naturally. But that method eventually became too much of a problem: The cost and effort involved in finding enough fields to spread the onion discards on, and the insect life that was attracted to the waste, became more hassle than it was worth.
Enter "the AERS." Gills' Advanced Energy Recovery System takes all that waste and turns it into two kinds of energy: electricity and calories (in the form of cattle feed. Depending on how thinly you slice it, the project, which was unveiled today at Gills facility in Oxnard, Calif., is likely the first such project in the world (although if you know of any other onion-waste-to-energy projects, I'd love to hear about them).
How Gills Onions' waste-to-power process works.
Here's how AERS works: the onion waste goes in, it's shredded and pressed to squeeze all the juice out of the onions, which reduces the solid waste by 75 percent. The juice goes into the anaerobic digester, where microbes turn the juice into methane gas. The gas then goes to fuel cells, which is converted into electricity.
And 300,000 pounds of onions makes a lot of electricity: 600 kilowatts per day, enough to run 35 to 40 percent of the electricity used by Gills' facility.
The remaining 25 percent of the onion waste after the juice is squeezed is pulp, which is used as cattle feed. Steven Gill said the daily diet of cattle feed sells on the market for about enough to cover the cost of delivery.
But the juice-to-energy system saves much more; Gills expects to save $700,000 worth of electricity a year, and $400,000 a year in waste disposal costs.
In all, the project cost $9.5 million to implement, but Gills received $2.7 million in incentives for the project from Southern California Gas Company, as part of California's Self-Generation Incentive Program. As a result, the project will pay for itself in an estimated six years, although Gill himself said he expects it will pay for itself in less time.
Although the initiative was led by Gills, SoCal Gas has been involved from the beginning, and has worked with Gills on other projects dating back 12 years. Raul Gordillo, a SoCal Gas spokesman, said that part of the utility's role in the onion-power project include helping Gills receive the incentive money for the project.
"We were also called upon to assist in obtaining Research & Development to help develop and design a biogas conditioning system that can remove the high levels of sulfur that are present in onion generated biogas," Gordillo said in an email.
Once this project is underway -- and Gill said it hasn't been much of a challenge to learn how to turn onion juice into energy -- the company has more plans. The next step is to explore ways that the water can be recycled after the onion juice has gone through the anaerobic digester, instead of being discharged into city sewers.
And Gill said some of his neighbors have also expressed interest in this kind of project; a carrot producer and a winery were two examples he offered.
From Reuters:
By Matthew Wheeland
Tops and tails are becoming much more than garbage at Gills Onions, an onion processor in Oxnard, Calif. Today marks the unveiling of the company's onion-powered electrical system, a first-of-its-kind initiative to turn onion waste into energy.
"This whole project is about eliminating our onion waste," explained Steven Gill, an owner/partner of Gills Onions. "This has been a long-term project for us for the last 10 years."
The anaerobic digester.
Every day, Gills Onions -- which sells diced, sliced, slivered and puréed onions to wholesale and retail customers -- generates about 300,000 pounds of onion waste -- the company loses about 35 percent of the onion to "tops, tails and skins," Gill said.
In the past, the company has dealt with the waste by sending it out to fields, spreading it out to decompose and return to the soil naturally. But that method eventually became too much of a problem: The cost and effort involved in finding enough fields to spread the onion discards on, and the insect life that was attracted to the waste, became more hassle than it was worth.
Enter "the AERS." Gills' Advanced Energy Recovery System takes all that waste and turns it into two kinds of energy: electricity and calories (in the form of cattle feed. Depending on how thinly you slice it, the project, which was unveiled today at Gills facility in Oxnard, Calif., is likely the first such project in the world (although if you know of any other onion-waste-to-energy projects, I'd love to hear about them).
How Gills Onions' waste-to-power process works.
Here's how AERS works: the onion waste goes in, it's shredded and pressed to squeeze all the juice out of the onions, which reduces the solid waste by 75 percent. The juice goes into the anaerobic digester, where microbes turn the juice into methane gas. The gas then goes to fuel cells, which is converted into electricity.
And 300,000 pounds of onions makes a lot of electricity: 600 kilowatts per day, enough to run 35 to 40 percent of the electricity used by Gills' facility.
The remaining 25 percent of the onion waste after the juice is squeezed is pulp, which is used as cattle feed. Steven Gill said the daily diet of cattle feed sells on the market for about enough to cover the cost of delivery.
But the juice-to-energy system saves much more; Gills expects to save $700,000 worth of electricity a year, and $400,000 a year in waste disposal costs.
In all, the project cost $9.5 million to implement, but Gills received $2.7 million in incentives for the project from Southern California Gas Company, as part of California's Self-Generation Incentive Program. As a result, the project will pay for itself in an estimated six years, although Gill himself said he expects it will pay for itself in less time.
Although the initiative was led by Gills, SoCal Gas has been involved from the beginning, and has worked with Gills on other projects dating back 12 years. Raul Gordillo, a SoCal Gas spokesman, said that part of the utility's role in the onion-power project include helping Gills receive the incentive money for the project.
"We were also called upon to assist in obtaining Research & Development to help develop and design a biogas conditioning system that can remove the high levels of sulfur that are present in onion generated biogas," Gordillo said in an email.
Once this project is underway -- and Gill said it hasn't been much of a challenge to learn how to turn onion juice into energy -- the company has more plans. The next step is to explore ways that the water can be recycled after the onion juice has gone through the anaerobic digester, instead of being discharged into city sewers.
And Gill said some of his neighbors have also expressed interest in this kind of project; a carrot producer and a winery were two examples he offered.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Toyota Center goes green thanks to Rice student
Carin Giga, a Rice MBA grad student, is interning at the Toyota Center this summer as part of the Environmental Defense Fund's 10-week Climate Corps program. Not only is this good for the environment but for the companies as well, saving $40,000 per 50,000 square feet of office space annually.
The Houston Chronicle ran an interview with Ms. Giga Saturday.
Among some of the strategies:
- Reuse water for mechanical equipment that uses it or use it for irrigation
- Encourage employees to turn off computers and lights when leaving for the day.
- Make use of daylight rather than artificial illumination.
- Make use of occupancy sensors so lights are only on when someone is present and turn themselves off immediately upon exit.
- Kick the thermostat up a mere one or two degrees (or down in colder weather).
- Turn climate control off in unoccupied areas.
Much of this seems like common sense but apparently it takes an MBA candidate to implement such policies.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Houston recycling...
Is practically non-existent as far as the municipality goes. There are plenty of places to take recyclable materials (most schools have dumpster-sized paper recycling bins and private establishments exist) but there is no curbside service.
According to an article last year in the New York Times, Houston ranks last among the nation's largest cities in recycling, reprocessing only 2.6% of waste. San Francisco and New York (New York!) recycle 69 and 34 percent respectively.
While certain sections of Houston have been provided with bins, most have not and the outlying suburbs (where I currently reside) don't even seem to know what recycling is.
Houston has long been considered the "world's energy capital" (let not the ghost of Enron malinger too long in our memories) yet creates an abominable amount of waste. This is a city of culture - of museums, music, theatre and big business - yet still has the mentality of an over-consuming America of the '50s.
C'mon, people now!!!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Yet another way to recycle
Many cities have recycling programs for glass, plastic, paper and cardboard. But what about things like batteries, CDs and old shoes?
Yahoo! News recently spotlighted some companies that you can mail your used bric-a-brac to, content that they will be disposed of responsibly.
For example, since 1990, Nike has collected some 22 million used athletic shoes. They are ground up and used to make athletic fields. Pretty cool, huh? I wonder how many trees were cut down to make room for said athletic field.
Any recycling is a good thing, but if this takes off, won't the fuel needed to transport all this one-man's-waste-another's-treasure offset the benefits?
Always a Catch-22 no matter where you look.
Yahoo! News recently spotlighted some companies that you can mail your used bric-a-brac to, content that they will be disposed of responsibly.
For example, since 1990, Nike has collected some 22 million used athletic shoes. They are ground up and used to make athletic fields. Pretty cool, huh? I wonder how many trees were cut down to make room for said athletic field.
Any recycling is a good thing, but if this takes off, won't the fuel needed to transport all this one-man's-waste-another's-treasure offset the benefits?
Always a Catch-22 no matter where you look.
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