This is causing a real hoopla at Etsy, one of the coolest online shops we can find overseas. Lena, a potter, had the idea to create this truly sustainable t-shirt.
The “I’m Compostable” design was created in honor of several friends of hers who are turning 40. It made everybody laugh and talk “trash”. She did it in an attempt to inspire other people to think about the environmental benefits of composting.
Lena wanted to inspire people to think about the benefits of composting so she made a small print run of these truly biodegradable t-shirts. Instead of using plastisol inks—used in regular prints—the letters were printed with water based ink. The cotton is 100% organic cotton from North Caroline.
Use it until it is worn out. Then, cut the t-shirt to shreds and feed them to the worms, which will turn them into a nice fertilizer for your garden.
The women style t-shirts are available in small, medium and large sizes. The men style t-shirts come in medium, large and extra-large sizes. This cute invention is on sale at her store on Etsy and can be ordered from Brazil—by those who have an international credit card, of course.
Also, the sustainability doesn’t stop on the shirt. The product is wrapped in a biodegradable cellophane bag with twine and the boxes are reused shipping boxes or Lena’s neighbors’ shoe boxes. Shipping: $8.00 USD; t-shirt: $20.00 USD
Via the Ecotece Blog
Photo: publicity
“Bags are a drag. For us, for the city, for the planet and for the future.” This is the slogan for the national campaign launched in Sao Paulo by Carlos Minc, Minister of Environment, on Tuesday (June 23), with the support of Wal-Mart, a supermarket chain. This initiative seeks to raise people’s awareness to say no to plastic bags, whenever possible, and to adopt alternative ways of transporting their groceries and packing their waste.
“Today is a happy day and may everybody follow this good example. Let’s reduce the use of plastic bags, reuse them and say no to them whenever possible so that soon, just as it happened with the aluminum cans, the plastic industry will find itself closing the entire circuit, either by generating energy, another plastic or construction materials,” pointed out Minc, during the launch.
To reach the population, two 30-second videos were produced for the campaign and presented during the launch. One of them shows a relaxed and humorous speech by the campaign spokesperson, Jose Lima, founder of the AfroReggae group, in which he encourages citizens to refuse, reduce and reuse plastic bags. Print materials, such as ads, brochures, posters and stickers where also produced to promote the campaign. In addition, the campaign has a blog that provides information and tips on conscious consumption, as well as on alternative ways to replace plastic bags in our daily activities.
Every year, Brazil consumes 12 billion plastic bags and each Brazilian uses approximately 66 bags per month. The data provided by the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (Abras) and other data by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) shows that the negative effects of these “harmless” plastic bags are already reaching distant locations, considered true tourist and ecologic paradises. Also, 500 billion bags are out there, clogging rivers, lakes and sewers, polluting the ocean, killing fish, turtles and other animals.
Crass mistakes? They forgot to post the videos on YouTube and the blog is not working properly. It seems that now we have some heavy-weigh allies in our fight against plastic bags.
Via the Ministry of Environment website; tip by Lu Monte
Photo: Plastic Bags waiting for Recycling, by evelinshere, at Flickr under CC
This piece of news published by Setor Reciclagem called my attention. The battery industry hasn’t organized a collection system yet. What do you mean, Bial? I searched for more information on this and, as always, found some great material on How Stuff Works (and terrible links that took me nowhere). Straight from the source.
Every year, 1.2 billion batteries and 400 million cell phone batteries are sold in Brazil, says the data from the Brazilian Electrical and Electronics Industry Association (Abinee). This gigantic amount of batteries that goes to the market also has a limited lifetime and usually ends up in the regular garbage. Since 2000, all batteries produced in Brazil have very low or near zero levels of heavy and pollutant metals such as cadmium, mercury and zinc, as establishes directive number 257 issued in 1999 by the National Council of Environment (Conama). Because of this law, the heavy metals present in batteries and cell phone batteries offer a low risk of pollution, which could lead people to agree with the industry executives’ claims that their batteries can be disposed into the garbage.
The point is that the Brazilian reality doesn’t help. The disposal of ordinary batteries as regular garbage requires a good sanitary landfill management system, found only in 10% of the Brazilian landfills, according to estimates by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Renewable Resources (Ibama). Also, not every battery in the market meets the standard—there are “illegal batteries.”
Incipient in Brazil, the level of recycling or reuse of batteries is very low. Suzaquim is the only company that does it, recycling approximately 6 million batteries per year—less than 1% of what is sold. Manufacturers of cell phone batteries, for instance, collect and ship them to recyclers outside Brazil.
“We do have the appropriate technology to handle used batteries in the Brazil; what we don’t have is enough raw material [used batteries],” said Professor Marcelo Mansur, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (DEMET), Federal University of Minas Gerais (on the article reproduced by Setor Reciclagem). To sum up: by throwing our batteries into the regular garbage we are turning their recycling into something unfeasible. This is exactly what the industry is doing: hindering a process that could generate profits and eliminate risks to our health. These companies should do as TetraPak, who invented the Recycling Route just to help in the collection of their packages. Morons!
The leading battery brands—Duracell (click on disposal; watch out, the website is poorly organized), Rayovac and Panasonic—include this message in their labels: dispose of as regular garbage. Note: together, these brands account for over 50% of the battery market. Although it is not illegal to dispose of batteries as household waste when they are in compliance with the maximum levels of heavy metals—cadmium, zinc, lead, manganese and mercury—the fact remains that only 35% of the approximately 5,000 cities in Brazil have sanitary landfills. Most of the cities still use open landfills with poor environmental quality control.
Also, it is estimated that 40% of the batteries found in the market are smuggled into the country and do not meet the environmental safety standards. These batteries are usually manufactured in Asia, especially in China, and have high concentration of cadmium and lead, sometimes in levels 10 times above those established by the Conama directive number 257/1998. Meanwhile, their zinc and manganese levels—active elements in batteries—are lower than the minimum threshold established by said directive, which decreases the lifetime of the product and therefore increases the amount of disposed of products and also the level of pollution.
The website of the Ministry of Environment has a list of collection stations hidden somewhere there. I tried every kind of search and didn’t find it! I went to the main page, but didn’t find any useful information there.
One of the answers of the oracle: contact your local Secretariat of Environment. I went to the portal of the Government of the City of Sao Paulo, which is very good. One piece of news: Cantinho Ecológico protects the environment in the Sao Mateus area. Surely, there are some banks (Real, for example) and cell phone companies (unwillingly, by the way) that are doing their part. In a country where not even the street garbage bins manage to survive the population’s actions, what else can we expect?
Just wait because I’m going to approach this issue again.
In time: some Posts for Volunteer Waste Collection (PEV) do have a container for batteries and cell phone batteries. Remember to sort them out…
Photo: Old Batteries, Eva The Weaver, at Flickr under CC
I was asked to write about this subject by @dasilvaorg two weeks ago. Before it disappears in the pile of “to do things”, here is a post that focuses on what to do with energy-efficient lights—they sure are an environmental issue, since they contain mercury, a metal that is highly harmful to our health and to the environment.
The major concern regarding mercury pollution is the health effects of our exposure to mercury (methylate, methylmercury) found in water and aquatic food. Methylmercury targets mainly the central nervous system. This metal is also a well-known teratogenic agent. Yet, their genotoxic effects (action on DNA) are hard to interpret and contradictory.
Source: The biologic effects of mercury and their byproducts on human beings—a bibliographic review
Where are the burnt and/or broken fluorescent lights discarded in Brazil? In the regular waste, most of them—only 6% of the lights are recycled nowadays. And that’s the worst place for them.
The benefits
This “novelty” arrived in Brazil in 2001 due to a power shortage—and our need to save LOTS of electricity. For obvious reasons (they lower the energy bill), these energy-efficient lights made their way into our hearts and market. Their sales have grown 20% per year, for the last four years!!! Lighting accounts for 20% of a household’s energy consumption. Each 15W compact light—which provides as much lighting as a 60w incandescent light—saves R$2 per month on the electricity bill. On a medium class household, with an average of ten lights, the monthly savings can reach up to R$20.
Note: they are imported. In 2007 we imported approximately 80 million units, mostly from China—the leading producer of this product. According to a research conducted by Procel (National Energy Conservation Program), 96% of the interviewed are familiar with fluorescent lights; 14% of them use the compact version and 30% use the tubular version.
In 2008, INMETRO (National Institute of Metrology, Standardization, and Industrial Quality) put into effect a legislation that provides for fluorescent lights (compact or otherwise) and mandates the display of an Energy Conservation Label on the product, proving their compliance with the performance and the one-year warranty requirements. Most of the manufacturers, however, are able to guarantee the product for two years.
The light broke? Be careful! Hazardous material.
Be very careful when handling and using fluorescent lights because they release mercury when they break. Check out ABilumi’s recommendations:
* Do use a vacuum cleaner to clean the shards;
* Soon after breaking a light, ventilate the room—open doors and windows;
* Stay away from the room for at least 15 minutes;
* To clean the shards, wear gloves and an apron. Avoid contact between the material and your skin. Place everything into a plastic bag;
* Use some wet paper to collect any remaining shards (do not take off your gloves…);
* Place the wet paper inside that same plastic bag and tie it well;
* Place this material inside a second plastic bag. Seal the plastic bag to prevent the mercury fumes from escaping;
* After finishing cleaning, wash your hands with running water and soap.
I like some (some) of the Boticario’s products. I’ve known the Boticario Foundation since its creation—they have some nice conservation projects in Paraná and have grown a lot. But the nicest initiative I saw today, during my visit to their store on Augusta Street. A small basket, used to collect cosmetic packages for recycling.
You know those product boxes? Mine never made it home with me. I brought only the make-up remover bottle, with the expiration date, batch number, and usage instructions clearly printed on it. The product box didn’t leave the store. As for the shopping bag, you know that I never accept it, right? In addition to this initiative, I’m going to act as an eco-zealot: since those boxes can and should be recycled, why don’t they take two steps back and come up with a way of marketing their products without them? Nature is even more grateful when we simply reduce, isn’t it? 
In a little while, David de Rothschild, one of the world’s most desirable eco-warriors, will set sail across the Pacific Ocean on a plastic catamaran, called the Plastiki. He will be headed towards the Pacific’s largest waste dump–an area of the ocean, several thousands of kilometers wide, where the waste has literally “docked”.
He is doing this, along with a crew of six, to alert the world to this “natural” phenomenon that has been killing seabirds and fish in that area.
De Rothschild will be taking samples, photos and videos of the area to highlight the ocean’s plastic pollution issue. This landfill was created by sea currents, which take waste from California and Asia and keep them trapped in a vortex. Fish and seabirds mistake the plastic for food and choke. The albatross population has disappeared, with their stomachs full of all types of plastic waste―from toothbrushes to bottle caps, needles and syringes.
The boat, called the Plastiki―after Kon Tiki―is being built at Pier 31, in San Francisco. It will have a hull made of wooden frames and filled with 12,000 recycled plastic bottles. The cabin and sails will be made out of recycled PET. Two wind turbines and a number of solar panels will charge the 12-volt batteries that will power the onboard laptop computers, GPS and satellite phone. To build this 20-meter boat, millions of dollars have been spent. The vessel has been under construction for three years.
Although the departure has been delayed (it was supposed to coincide with Thor Heyerdahl’s), this voyage is still quite dangerous. There will be no accompanying boats–just a support team at each port of call. They will be travelling 10,500 miles from San Francisco to Hawaii, Bikini Atoll, and landing at Sydney. How will it go? As David says: “These are just unknowns. This is an adventure. If it was planned and everyone knew, no one would be interested.”
Someone needs to hurry up and introduce this cutie to our dear Amyr Klink.
De Rothschild is an interesting activist. He is rich, gorgeous and single, and uses his inherited wealth to promote environmental causes. He owns an organic farm in New Zealand and founded Adventure Ecology to encourage children’s interest in the topic.
On National Geographic’s page (in which he participates), De Rothschild says: “There is a risk in everything. But really, how hard can it be?” It can be hard, no doubt. De Rothschild is many things–heir to one of the world’s greatest fortunes, intrepid polar explorer, children’s book author, celebrity. But sailing isn’t one of his skills, a point he freely admits: “I get seasick in the bathtub.”
There are videos on YouTube and CNET, which has interviewed him. I’ve posted some on DotSub and I’m trying to get it subtitled but since today is Earth Day I’ll leave them as a complement for those who understand English.
Via National Geographic Adventure, TreeHugger, CNET
Images: David de Rothschild, on David Sifry’s Flickr, in CC; Plastiki, publicity; Pacific landfill, on TreeHugger, via nakedmaninthetree.wordpress.com
Here are some precious tips to keep your kitchen, the heart of your home, ecologic and sustainable.
Step 1: Reduce your water consumption
Use flow reducers in your faucets to cut down your water consumption.
Step 2: dishwashers can save water
If you fully load your dishwasher (the same applies to washing machines) and select the appropriate washing and drying cycle, you can actually save water. Tests conducted in the United States show that rinsing plates before putting them in the dishwasher wastes up to 75 liters of water. And we all know that we can reuse the water used by the machine to wash our kitchen and/or courtyard…
Step 3: biodegradable soap, please.
Make an effort to use biodegradable soap everywhere: in the dishwasher (as far as I know, we don’t have any biodegradable dishwashing soap in Brazil), washing machine, and the rest of the house. Unfortunately, there isn’t any study— let alone any unbiased evidence—that shows us which soap is really biodegradable. However, we do have a recipe for a home-made ecologic soap…
Step 4: Use organic waste to make organic compounds
You can get free fertilizers out of food-wastes. I’ve already showed the solution here: Terra Boa composter. You can also have your own home-made composter—no matter if you live in an apartment or a house.
Step 5: Reduce the amount of packaging
At the grocery store, avoid buying those (organic) lettuce heads that come in a polystyrene tray and wrapped in a plastic film. Stay away from things that use too much packaging. Buy larger beverage and yogurt bottles or cartons (which, by the way, are easier to recycle). At home, forget plastic films and aluminum foil; use bowls with lids instead (read the next step, please).
Step 6: Trade plastic for glass
Instead of using plastic products to preserve your leftovers (Ziploc bags or plastic containers) use the newest glass or stainless steel sets (with lids). Ok, many types of plastic can be recycled but they all come from oil, remember?
Step 7: heat just the amount you need
This is a sensational tip. If you are going to heat a small portion of food or some leftover, then your microwave oven or toaster will consume less energy than a conventional oven or stove. Personally, I’ve been heating only the exact amount of tea, coffee or water (mate!) that I’m going to drink…
Step 8: energy-efficient appliances
Always choose energy-efficient appliances when buying them.
Step 9: Small potted plants for freshing-up
Potted herbs not only make your kitchen look prettier but also absorb CO2 and release oxygen… Easy and simple.
Step 10: reduce, reduce, reduce
None of this matters if we don’t change our consumption habits and start consuming less. This is fundamental.
Inspired on tips available at the Better Home and Gardens website; tip by LuMonte
Photo: Green Your Home, Kimberly Faye’s Flickr
Sustainability
We, self-confessed chocoholics, are concerned too about the impact that this type of crop has on the environment. It’s important to remember that these concerns are shared by some cocoa farms as well: reforestation, development of productive and sustainable forests, recovering forests by planting cocoa and other native trees, such as the jacaranda tree.
Some cocoa forests are centuries old and, since the quality of the trees influences the quality of the final product, one could say that a good chocolate is the result of a preserved forest. This is good news for the fans of this delicacy fit for the gods, isn’t it? Cocoa is naturally sustainable.
The Chocolate Farm project—developed in the State of Bahia by the Free University of the Atlantic Forest (UMA) in association with the Worldwatch Institute—was adopted by the United Nations Development Programme as part of the Millennium Goals, and shows how the power of the chocolate-based economy can help saving the Atlantic Forest.
It would be nice if every cocoa farm did their part and observed the standards for sustainable agriculture, for soil and watercourse protection, and for the protection of the animals that live in the forest. Chocolate, this wonderful delicacy, can certainly be sustainable. And chocolate made of certified cocoa tastes as good as a clean conscience.
Chocolate farming
Straight from the Official Google Blog… The company owned by Pinky and the Brain swears that they only think green, that they will be a “carbon neutral” company and that they have a public plan that everybody can follow. I couldn’t resist so I went there to do some digging…
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Hundreds of millions of users access their services every day, and handling this traffic (many terabytes of data transfers) requires many computers. It’s not an easy equation: making the best use of energy and providing a good service to everybody. They began their efforts to make this structure as sustainable as possible ten years ago. Today they believe that their data centers are the most sustainable in the world—and this is what they will state at CeBit, in Hannover, Germany, at the beginning of March.
Take a look at the graph that they present
Their history is based on five main points:
1. Minimize electricity used by servers
How? (Free translation of the site content) We took away all of the unnecessary parts, such as the graphic chips. We also optimized our rack servers to use coolers (fans) as little as possible. In addition, they are set to rotate only as fast as necessary to maintain a stable server temperature. We encourage all of our suppliers (all of them) to produce components that operate efficiently, whether they are idle or operating at full or minimum capacity.
2. Reduce the energy used by the data-center facilities as a whole.
Data-center is a fancy name for a warehouse-like building that holds thousands of servers. Since these machines consume loads of electricity, they require a great deal of electrical equipment to power the servers, including power generators to supply energy in case of a power failure. Typically, 10 to 20 percent of this energy is wasted. Our first goal is to eliminate this loss.
All of the energy that goes into a data-center ends up as heat, that’s why there are fans, pumps and lots of air-conditioners to eliminate all of this heat. In many data centers, cooling alone is responsible for 20 to 70 percent of the energy consumption. Fortunately, there is an easier way to solve this problem: let water evaporate.
This is how our body maintains its temperature when the outside temperature exceeds 36 degrees Celsius. How? Energy changes water into vapor. This energy is heat, which removed from the surroundings causes a cooling effect. This is how Google’s data centers work. Below is a simple representation of their cooling towers:
Cooling towers
When this set-up isn’t enough, chillers go into action—and they consume much more energy—not to mention water… With these towers, Google’s data centers spend most of their time running in a mode called “free cooling.” This means the chillers are off. Of course, free cooling isn’t technically “free,” but it is much less expensive and more efficient.
This is why their data centers consume (at least this is my understanding… you might want to check) 16% energy, while the EPA can use up to 96%… This meant a lot of work, but they were able to reduce their environmental footprint—while lowering their costs.
Note from Ladybug: Why was it again that I didn’t buy their stocks when I could have?
3. Conserve water by using recycled water for refrigeration.
In the United States, this energy savings has a counterpart: for every kW saved, two gallons of water are also saved. This means that those guys were also able to save a lot of drinking water. And more: by the end of 2008, two facilities were already running on 100 percent recycled water. Their new goal is to have 80% of their total water consumption made up of recycled water in ALL of their data centers by 2010 (next year). To get there, anything goes: industrial sewage, rainwater, city sewage. They treat it and dump it in the cooling towers… Just a small detail: the location of the Belgian data center was chosen due to the possibility of using recycled water…
Note from Ladybug: aren’t these guys smart?
4. Reuse or recycle all electronic equipment that leaves the data centers.
Wow, they reuse or recycle 100% (everything) that leaves the data centers. According to the EPA in the United States, the average is only 18%. Everything else goes to landfills… (good heavens!) According to them, 68% of the material is reused right there. The rest is sent to institutions that need computing equipment. Some parts, however, can’t be reused. What now, uncle Google? They are sent to resellers. Note: these companies must sign a document promising to adopt fair and socially responsible labor practices and a zero tolerance policy for e-waste, landfills, incineration, or export to developing countries.   Their commitment is to the sustainable management of their computing infrastructure during the entire lifecycle of each machine.
5. Engage our peers in the use of smarter energy practices.
To do this, Google has adopted the Climate Savers Smart Computing initiative—created by the company and Intel in 2007—which started in the spirit of WWF climate savers and led dozens of business to reduce their carbon emissions by showing them that this is a great business.  The goal of CSSC is to promote the development and the adoption of technologies that are able to increase computers’ energy efficiency and reduce their energy consumption while they are idle. Is their mission possible? Reduce their computers’ energy consumption in 50% by 2010 (next year…)
And it gets better: They encourage the use of renewable energies (which are a minority in the US, let’s not forget this), have a guide to help we poor mortal consumers to select efficient machines, and have a whole lot of other cool campaigns, such as Power Down the Planet, which invites college students to reduce their energy consumption…
Tip from Nospheratt.
Read this post at the Ladybug Brasil Blog: Google swears that it is green
The gang is excited about tomorrow’s party at Twestival SP. (Remember that other cities in Brazil and around the world are also involved.) The girly girls are already in top shape, getting organized with food donations. To add to the festivities, RedCube has produced this great looking t-shirt that is worth your donation.
The R$ 15 you pay for the t-shirts will be donated in full to charity:water. Show up at Espaço Gafanhoto/Pix tomorrow, after 7pm, and guarantee your contribution to the “waterless,” and enjoy a kick-ass party—which will be going on around the world…
Read this post at the Ladybug Brasil blog: Twestival has a t-shirt that is worth a donation
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