Sustainability In Your Ear

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Earth911 Podcast, Sept. 23, 2019: CBD Sustainability, Solar Installation Contracts, and Indoor Vertical Gardens Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

Following the rapid rise of CBD-based products, Earth911 looks at the environmental footprint of the non-psychoactive product of hemp and cannabis plants. We also walk the steps to a successful home solar installation contract and explore the opportunity to green your interior with vertical gardens. Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe for this week's sustainable living and recycling discussion.
Products containing CBD are promoted as cures of pain, anxiety, and animal health, but is the production of CBD sustainable? We explore how CBD is grown and packaged to discover if your cannabis-based skin regime and sleep aide is good for the planet. Most CBD comes from industrial hemp farms, which use the spent plant material to make textiles and rope, among a variety of things this ancient plant supplies. We also answer a related Earthling Question about how to determine the quality and dosage in CBD products.
If you are planning to install solar panels before the next annual reduction in government subsidies, check out Sarah's guide to finding the right contractor and negotiating a good deal.
As we head into Fall, it's a good time to look indoors for vegetative inspiration. Vertical gardens can make your home more beautiful while freshening the air and supplying herbs for your Winter meals. Another good source of projects for the longer nights ahead is the shipping pallet, which can be broken down and reused as furniture, kitchen racks, and make your home more attractive. We cover how to choose the right pallets, the tools you'll need, and point to some great DIY projects.
This week's Earthling Questions are about how to recycle the interior of a vehicle and whether alkaline batteries need to be bagged recycling. Be sure to keep your guides to recycling single-use batteries and rechargeable batteries handy.
Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Earth911 Podcast: Global Thermostat's Graciela Chichilnisky on Distributed Carbon Capture Economies Sep 20, 2019

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Dr. Graciela Chichilnisky, co-founder and CEO of Global Thermostat, pioneered climate change policy and sustainable development planning, participating in the development of the Kyoto Protocol and as lead U.S. author for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and guidelines. An economist and mathematician, she recognized early the looming climate impact of CO2 in the atmosphere and has been recognized by Time, The Washington Post, and other publications as a leader in environmental innovation. Dr. Chichilnisky talks with Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe about the economic and climate-saving potential of Global Thermostat's carbon capture technology.
Global Thermostat uses a CO2 capture method based on amine, a compound of ammonia, to bond to CO2 in the air. Using less energy than many other carbon capture technologies, the Global Thermostat process uses steam to liberate the captured CO2, producing 99 percent pure CO2 for industrial uses. That CO2 can be made into fuel, turned into biodegradable plastic, used in greenhouses to accelerate plant growth, and manufactured into carbon fiber, among many uses. The units are small and because they are co-located with industrial facilities, inexpensive to operate using waste heat from the factory whose emission it cleans. Chichilnisky, whose company is backed by long-term environmental investor Edgar Bronfman, says even an oil refinery can be made carbon neutral using Global Thermostat technology. She discusses the $1-trillion-plus economic opportunities for the system, including the kinds of workers who will be needed by the carbon removal industry as it matures.
We start the conversation with a basic answer to the questions we all want to understand: What makes CO2 heat the atmosphere and can emissions reductions alone resolve the problem? Dr. Chichilnisky explains the physics of CO2 and offers that, without carbon removal technology, current atmospheric CO2 levels will warm the planet more than our society can withstand. The time for change is here, and an industry with massive job opportunities can deliver the raw materials for making essential products we rely on in modern life. From start to finish, you'll find this innovator interview a mine of useful ideas and insight.
Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Innovator Interview: Dr. Paul Zeitz on Waging Justice and the UN Climate Restoration Forum Sep 16, 2019

Show notes

Meet Dr. Paul Zeitz, an organizer of the UN Global Climate Restoration Forum this week in New York. A veteran of the AIDS crisis, during which he led the Global AIDS Alliance, he has joined the Healthy Climate Alliance to drive awareness and adoption of carbon removal technologies that can create a new trillion-dollar industry. He sees the rising incidence of extreme weather bringing people together to find a solution and recently published a hopeful and helpful memoir, Waging Justice: A Doctor's Journey To Speak Truth And Be Bold.
Dr. Paul Zeitz, Build A Movement 2020 and the Healthy Climate Alliance.
You can listen in and watch the UN event on September 17th. Register to watch from home or your office. And after the event, follow along at BAM2020, Zeitz's campaign to bring make next year's UN event the biggest climate restoration movement. There are actions you can take to make legislators aware of your priorities and learn about climate change and restoration. Share Dr. Zeitz's optimism that people are coming together, and join the movement.
Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Earth911 Innovator Interview: World Centric's Mark Marrinozi on the Battle to End Polystyrene Sep 13, 2019

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World Centric, a 15-year-old sustainability advocacy and compostable food packaging Benefit corporation, is calling for the end of polystyrene use in food packaging. Mark Marrinozi, vice president of marketing at World Centric, joins Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss the use of polystyrene, how World Centric's line of compostable alternatives behave when composted, and the evolution of a unique company that gives 25 percent of its profits to startup sustainability efforts around the world. Learn to identify polystyrene when shopping and dining out, find out what to tell local businesses that still use polystyrene, and help make the change happen.
From the clamshell foam dinner tray to the many hard plastic #6 food containers used in restaurants and grocery stores, polystyrene carries health and environmental risks. Since food waste in the containers prevents easy recycling and the material is mostly air and not economically viable to recycle, it is time to retire polystyrene in our food stream.

Earth911 Podcast, Sept. 9, 2019: Lighting, Satellite Dishes, and Vampire Electronics Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

Thinking of replacing your lightbulbs, upgrading to a satellite TV for the football season, or saving on home electricity spending? The Earth911 team has recycling and savings tips for the Fall when school and planning for next year begins. Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe for a discussion about sustainable living and recycling.
We start with President Trump's recent decision to reverse a ban on incandescent lights that would have taken effect in 2020 to "will ensure that the choice of how to light homes and businesses is left to the American people." Unfortunately, the policy is a decision that will cost Americans far more, for electricity used and CO2 emitted than LEDs. U.S. Department of Energy data proves that Americans will save up to 75 percent on electricity with LEDs, but the DOE went along with the policy change. What are we to do? Choose LEDs and put the Edisonian incandescent in the past. Choose the planet, not ideology.
The Fall is a time for change, preparing for what's ahead, including the school year. If you are considering dish television, be prepared for recycling the antennae and receiver because the networks will not provide end-of-life removal and recycling. Here is Earth911's guide to satellite dish recycling. And if you're looking around the house for electric savings, consider identifying the vampire electronics that suck small amounts of power all day. The gang also talks through compostable and plastic-free water filters for the home.
In Earthling Questions, we cover recycling laminated posters and cards for schools, how to start a battery recycling business, and what you can do to start a community recycling program.

Earth911 Podcast, Sept. 3, 2019: Lawn Alternatives & Summer Allergies Sep 02, 2019

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The Earth911 team gathers round the microphone to talk about the terrible cost of those pretty green lawns and natural allergy treatment options. As Labor Day passes and our water bills continue to climb, it's time to consider other ways to bring nature into your yard than the traditional grass lawn. A Victorian idea, the lawn may have been fit for a turn-of-the-20th Century home in England or France, but it is out of place in the water-limited world. Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe as they talk about their lawn options and share ways to reduce and treat with natural alternative all those child and adult Summer allergies. We also explore how to recycle inhalers, one of the most widespread allergy treatments and a bane for recycling enthusiasts.
And, as always, we answer Earthling Questions from our audience. This week, where to recycle #5 plastic after Whole Foods discontinued its program, how business can select sustainable alternatives cups, coffee lids, and straws, as well as what to do with electroplated plastic utensils that pass for flatware and contain metal/plastic composites.
Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

The iRecyle App Is Back & Summer Sustainability Aug 12, 2019

Show notes

Summer break is over and the Earth911 podcast gang is back! In today's conversation, we introduce our new iRecycle 3.0 app and talk through how to build a better recycling information system. It's also time to talk Summer sustainability, including how to keep bugs out of the house and yard naturally, the best ideas for successful composting, how composting toilets can add flexibility to our infrastructure, and our recent guide to natural personal care products. And, as always, Earthling questions about recycling.
Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe kick off this week's show with iRecycle 3.0, the newly released recycling search app from Earth911.com. Available for iOS and Android, iRecycle lets you quickly find local recycling options for more than 350 materials. With a few taps, you can find and map your route to a nearby recycler. The new iRecycle is the first step in a broad set of improvements we will be making to the database and our efforts to make recycling easier and more convenient. Mitch shares a few details about our early experiments with on-demand recycling coaching and takeaway services.
We turn from technology to Summer sustainability tips, starting with eight DIY natural bug repellent recipes to drive off or kill roaches, ants, bedbugs, and more pests. Next, personal care products don't have to be bad for the planet. Find out about hygiene alternatives including toothpaste without a tube, silk dental floss, and bamboo-based toilet paper and swabs, as well as how to shave like a planet-friendly expert. You'll also get two takes on composting, in the yard and the bathroom. Sarah shares composting tips to help you get the right soil mix for a great garden and everyone had an opinion about the new generation of composting toilets.
Our Earthling Questions this week: Can I put my plastic flossers in my plastic bottles to get them recycled? The perennial question of recycling VHS tapes is on the rise as people move on to new media. Finally, how to recycle molded plastic and paper egg cartons and meat trays.
Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Earth911 Podcast, August 5, 2019: Carbon Removal With Nuclear Power? Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

The carbon emissions generated since the Industrial Revolution wrap the Earth in a heat sponge of one trillion tons of excess CO2 and that extra heat will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years after we achieve a net-Zero economy. Brett Kugelmass, managing director of the Washington, D.C.-based Energy Impact Center recently presented a vision for a prosperous post-carbon world that achieves net-Zero emissions and widespread prosperity in a speech to the American Climate Leadership Conference. The power source he advocates is a challenging one: thousands of small nuclear fission reactors.
While the power source he advocates is controversial, Kugelmass' idea of millions of new jobs in the atmospheric cleanup industry is a stark alternative to the idea that a post-carbon world must be a less prosperous one. It's a view that we share at Earth911.com because the solution to environmental indifference must provide a positive alternative. We need to use less, reuse more, and collaborate to recycle everything at the same time that we pull the excess trillion tons of CO2 out of the air, hopefully by 2050. We can have restored polar ice. We can enjoy the kind of climate in which our species thrived.
Nuclear power is problematic, but the energy levels required to extract CO2 can be provided by a combination of solar, wind, and, as in France and at 100 nuclear plants in the United States today, fission reactors. With a long terrible history that started with weapons, nuclear power is the least attractive option, an assumption that Kugelmass argues is built on out-dated ideas. Earth911.com's Mitch Ratcliffe discusses the issue with Kubelmass on this episode of Sustainability In Your Ear.

Earth911 Podcast, July 8, 2019: Friends of the Earth on Grocer Pollinator Policies Jul 08, 2019

Show notes

Kroger has updated its pollinator policy after pressure from the Friends of the Earth (FoE). FoE's Tiffany Finck-Haynes joins Earth911 to talk about what the decision means for bees and other pollinating species, as well as the additional progress and transparency needed for customers who want to spend in support of sustainable food sources.
Learn what chlorpyrifos, glyhosates, and neonicotinids to do pollinating insects and the human body. We dig into whether Kroger's decision can be enforced (it can't) and how the company, just one of many grocers who need to update their supply chains to eliminate pollinator-damaging pesticides and preservatives in our food supply.
Tiffany also shares information about FoE's 2018 retailer scorecard, how to get involved to support the campaign for grocery changes, and the other "steps in the right direction" that Kroger, WalMart, and others, including Whole Foods, to improve their sustainability scores.

Earth911 Podcast, July 1, 2019: Customers Targeting Single-Use Plastic Bags Jul 01, 2019

Show notes

Theresa Carter launched an online petition calling on Target Stores to eliminate single-use plastic bags that has gathered more than 310,000 signatures. She talks with Earth911 about how she got the petition started. Beginning with her choice to put the petition on Change.org and sharing her call to action with friends on Facebook and her local physical community, Carter's story is a roadmap for customers who care to begin their own campaigns for changes in retail sustainability. You can sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/target-stop-filling-the-world-with-plastic-bags.
Target is already the leading retailer using solar in its stores but has not addressed the impact of its single-use plastic shopping bags. Carter's positive approach toward Target, based on the idea that she and other environmentally aware customers will love shopping the stores more if they get rid the plastic bag, has resulted in positive responses to the campaign by company executives.
Theresa Carter also shared her approach to customer activism in a posting we published today to accompany this podcast.

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