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If you’re a frequent visitor to this site, you know that plastic bags are the bane of our collective existence. And you know you should bring your own shopping bags to the grocery store. But what about those little plastic bags in the produce department? Refuse/Re-use. You can buy reusable produce bags online at places like reusablebags.com or you can even learn to make your own at motherearthnews.com.
Superuse is an online community of designers, architects and others who’re interested in inventive ways of recycling, from bottle-cap festooned guitars to tables made of discarded cassette tapes. At Superuse, everything old is new again.
We’re all about saving water by using less, but you might also think about saving more. HarvestH2o.com is dedicated to the advancement of sustainable water management practices – including “rainwater harvesting.” Depending on where you live, it might be hard to harvest enough rainwater to truly live “off the grid,” but chances are you can at least save a little on your utility bills.
Green Field is all about the paper- tree free paper. While they offer a range of handmade papers and machine made hemp paper, they are best known for their Seed Embedded Wedding Invites. The beautiful paper is embedded with wildflower seeds so you can plant it instead of recycling. (Also check out their 100% Junk Mail® papers – made from their own junk mai!)
Trash for Teaching is a non-profit organization that collects (clean and safe) cast-off materials from manufacturing processes (that would otherwise become trash) and repurposes them as educational resources. This innovative program helps bridge the gap between the excess of waste created in manufacturing processes and the lack of materials in public education. Crafty!
This Friday’s Focus is Recycling. It begins with a demonstration of wearable art created from plastic bags:
So not true, Mr. Gallagher. Reverse vending machines automate beverage container recycling by “re-consuming” cans and bottles and refunding the deposit to the consumer – instantly. They’ve been around for years overseas… let’s hope we start seeing more of them pop up in the U.S.
Ma Yanjun, a farmer living in the Chinese village of Oigiao in Shaanxi Province, is the creator of a solar-powered water heater made out of 66 beer bottles. The bottles are connected to each other so that water –heated by the sun – flows through them. “I invented this for my mother,” explains Ma. “I wanted her to shower comfortably.” More than ten families in Oigiao have installed versions of Ma’s device.
HAT TIP: weirdasianews.com
When and if you’re confronted with the question, “paper or plastic,” the best choice is neither. Which is to say, BYOB – bring your own reusable bag. According to MSNBC.com, manufacturing all the bags Americans use each year takes 14 million trees (for paper) and 12 million barrels of oil (for plastic). Making paper bags creates 70 percent more air pollution than plastic, but plastic bags create four times the solid waste. And they can last up to a thousand years. The most compelling reason to reject plastic bags can be seen in our next post.
Preserve® plastic products are made from benign #5 polypropylene plastic that is collected from reputable sources and transformed into new products. Among their many innovate and eco-friendly products is the “mail back” toothbrush, which comes in packaging that doubles as a return envelope – so you can send it back for recycling!
Red Bull energy drink is encouraging the recycling of their cans… into artwork. The Red Bull Art of Can competition and exhibition has been going on for years now. Some of the entrants are beautiful, some whimsical, even bizarre… and always interesting. Got an idea? Get it together now – entries close May 15th].
One for the innovative use of trash files: UK artist Nick Gentry is creating one-of-a-kind portraits using recycling floppy disks. According to Nick, his work “represents the increasing pace of the modern life cycle, where objects are created, used and disposed of quicker than ever. To challenge this notion, as these personal artifacts of life are cast aside, the obsolete are now given new life and a renewed purpose by using them as a medium for art.” Mr. Gentry’s website is just a click away: www.nickgentry.co.uk.
Taking place in New York at the end of the month, the Greener Gadgets Conference tackles all of the issues surrounding energy efficiency and sustainable design, from innovative advances in packaging and product manufacturing to end-of-life recycling solutions. Save the date: February 25th.
Electronic waste, or e-waste, refers to the mountains of broken or obsolete computers, printers, televisions, stereos, and telephones that have entered the world’s waste stream over the past couple of decades. In fact, Greenpeace International estimates that up to 50 million tons of e-waste is generated globally each year. Bringing the e-recycling message to the streets, Best Buy gets kudos for a very clever billboard.
HAT TIP: scoutingny.com.
Depave – a project of Portland Oregon’s non-profit City Repair – is an organization dedicated to inspiring and promoting “the removal of unnecessary concrete and asphalt from urban areas.”
Their objectives are to:
• Provide information, inspiration, and technical assistance to those wishing to remove concrete and asphalt
• Educate the public about the benefits of pavement removal
• Advocate to minimize and/or reduce the amount of impervious pavement in public construction and repair projects.
• Promote responsible and creative reuse and recycling of concrete and asphalt
• Provide an opportunity for greater connection with the natural world
For more information, visit http://depave.org/.
Schmidt Beer Wedding Cans, originally uploaded by broox
Andrea Parrish and Peter Geyer of Spokane, Washington, are a young couple whose idea of marriage is downright trashy. The enterprising and eco-conscious duo are determined to pay for their wedding by recycling 400,000 aluminum cans. The wedding date is July 31st and they’ve amassed over 25,000 aluminum cans so far. Details at weddingcans.com.
Last week Greenpeace issued its 14th quarterly “Guide to Greener Electronics,” which rates hardware makers on chemical waste, e-waste, and recycling efforts. This quarter the guide also assesses each company’s public efforts on environmental issues – revealing companies that actively lobby for industry-wide laws that would prevent use of environmentally damaging materials. Download the PDF here.
Lorenzo Gets “The Gas Face” (Alternatively Titled: “Lorenzo Has Gas Pains”), originally uploaded by lorenzodom
The Army has come up with a idea that could reduce the number of dangerous and expensive convoy missions to remote base camps in Iraq, AND reduce the amount trash at those bases. Covanta Energy Corp. is using a $1.5 million boost from the Army Corps of Engineers to develop technology that converts garbage into diesel that would be indistinguishable from oil-based diesel fuel, for use in military vehicles and generators.
Hat Tip: scientificamerican.com.
Adam Gardner of the band, Guster, speaks about what he and the band are doing to do their part to help the environment, and about REVERB, the company he created to help other musicians go green.
What do you do with your old newspapers? Well, you could be making newspaper yarn – as much as 20 yards from a single sheet. Grab a scissors and a spindle and before you know it, you’ll be weaving everything from rugs to curtains and upholstery. For instructions, visit greenupgrader.
originally uploaded by estherase
If you despise one-use plastic bags as much as we do, here’s some news that’s totally, like, nano-tubular. A chemist has created an “upcycling” method of turning the disposable bags into carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes technology is pretty new, but Stanford University researchers recently coated copier paper in ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires to create bendable, highly conductive storage devices. Nanotubes could also become self-repair tools for electronic circuits in our smart phones and laptops. Here’s the scoop.
This bus shelter made of buses is a work by Christopher Fennell & Doug Makemson, two local Atlanta artists. The seat is made from a decommissioned city bus. HAT TIP: superuse.org.
Pennsylvania’s Woodloch Pines Resort was honored by the Global Renewable Energy Expo Networking Summit April 16, 2009 for demonstrating ingenuity, creativity and perseverance in the pursuit of pioneering green goals. Their “Green Team” meets regularly to implement eco-friendly solutions for the resort. Here is just some of what they offer:
• Environmental programs for class trips, corporate groups & scouting programs.
• Use of bio-degradable disposable plates, flatware, cups and to-go containers.
• Energy-Saver faucets and shower heads as well as faucets with infrared sensors to limit water waste.
• Energy saving compact fluorescent lighting
• Tree replacement program through their landscaping department.
• Use of recycled paper whenever possible for promotional materials.
• Recycling of economy-sized cans and packaging in their kitchens.
• Installation of an energy management system, which controls the air conditioning/heating and lighting of public areas through the use of infrared sensors.
• Co-mingled recycling bins throughout the grounds of the resort for guest and employee use.
• Bat Boxes throughout the resort – a natural way to control insects
Silvana. A Table. Date of birth: 2002 Previous occupation: Washing Machine Drum.
Reestore takes everyday waste objects and “cheekily turns them into charming yet functional pieces of furniture and accessories.” Their most popular product is silvana, a table “producing a beautiful ambient glow and casting beams of light from her polished stainless steel body. Finished with a frosted glass surface for mug resting heaven.” About $600 USD at reestore.com.
Get into the spirit of the holidays and the spirits of sustainability with 360 Vodka. Billed as the “world’s first eco-friendly vodka,” it’s filtered five times and produced at a facility that takes great strides to make the production process as eco-friendly as possible. Packaging is created from 100% recycled content, bottles are created from 85% recycled glass, and the 360 factory even has an on-site recycling center.
If you’re wondering about how to replace the plastic containers you use for food storage, here’s a tip: recycle and use glass bottles or jars (a single one can save enough energy to light a 100 watt light bulb for about 4 hours). Or buy a SLOM JAR with lid for just $2.99 at Ikea (see photo).
Hat Tip: www.brighthub.com
A company called, Evocative Design, has developed a substitute for Styrofoam. Their packaging material (called, Greensulate) is made from seed husks and the roots of a mushroom called mycelium. It’s durable and biodegradable. For more information, visit .core77.com/blog.
We’ve been featuring a lot of high-concept, renewable building ideas lately but the idea of repurposing materials for building is hardly a new one. In fact, one of the most interesting examples of resourceful construction has been around for over a century. Given the lack of lumber in Death Valley, a Rhyolite, Nevada resident named Tom Kelly used over 40,000 bottles to construct his home in 1906. It still stands today – a monument to environmental ingenuity. Learn about other bottle houses at agilitynut.com.
Newsflash: 60% of American hotels are trashy. A recent study shows the average hotel guest throws away about two pounds of garbage every day and only about 40% of hotels offer a recycling program of any kind. Fortunately, more and more hotel and resort operators are getting the wake-up call. Details at travel.nytimes.com.
On October 11, Cirque du Soleil founder, Guy Laliberte, returned from a trip to space during which he presided over an earthbound, 14-city media event designed to draw attention to the issue of water conservation. The spectacle featured U2’s Bono, actress Salma Hayek, and former Vice President Al Gore. For details, visit news.yahoo.com.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of upcycling, it basically means repurposing something into something else rather than disposing of it. We’ve heard of lots of great upcycling ideas for trash – fashion, household goods, art – but we haven’t come across ideas for an actual trash container – until now. Some very clever city-dwellers have repurposed dumpsters into gardens, skate ramps, and even swimming pools.
Hat Tip: dornob.com and weburbanist.com
Fashions may fade, but plastics last forever. Fortunately, the designers at Bagir are picking up disposable plastic bottles (soooo last season) and transforming them into some of today’s hottest fashions.
For everything from washable clothing made from 55% recycled PET bottles to the transparent suit that turned a few heads at last month’s New York Fashion Week, click on over to bagir.com.
These shoes were made out of recycled plastic bags by Childean design student Camila Labra. The bags were fused together and the result is a material that is flexible, light, and non-toxic. They can be bought for about $45 USD. For more information, visit botasdacca.blogspot.com and if necessary, bring a translator.
SEAPLEX scientist Chelsea Rochman talks about the impacts plastics have on the ocean from the point of view of chemicals and pollutants. She specifically talks about Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) how they accumulate up the food chain, and how they affect us.
Hat Tip: Peligro
Very impressive indeed. Loll Designs have figured out a way to take used plastic milk jugs and transform them into some of the most imaginative and stylish outdoor furniture we’ve ever seen.
What did you think we were talking about? Check ‘em out here.
The Polymer Energy company has been working hard for years and claims to have struck oil in a most unexpected place – your local landfill. Using a process called “catalytic pyrolysis,” the company claims to have developed a viable way to turn plastic waste (including disposable shopping bags and household cleaner containers) into crude oil. Finally – a domestic energy source we can all get behind. Learn more here.
In the not-too-distant future, “vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.”
Some of the advantages of vertical farming:
* Year-round crop production
* 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
* No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
* All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
* VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
* VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
Hat Tip & More Info: verticalfarm.com/
Plastic bags can be fused to make reusable grocery bags, wallets, and more. For instructions, visit etsylabs.blogspot.com.
Hat Tip: thegivinghands.org
What’s the matter, Bizarro? Can’t even punch your way out of a plastic bag? ~ Batman in “Challenge of the Superfriends” (1978)
An organization called, Matter of Trust, is collaborating with thousands of hair salons around the globe who donate hair clippings for use in soaking up oil spills. The effort was inspired by hair stylist Phil McCrory who began testing the oil-absorbing potential of hair after noticing the oil-soaked fur on Alaskan otters after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. For details, click www.matteroftrust.org.
Using soft rubber from recycled flip flops, Karin Wittmann Wilsmann’s MISS RIO OTTOMAN was a finalist in the 2003/2004 Ecodesign Award competition for environmentally responsible products.
Hat Tip: www.dwr.com
In anticipation of World Environment Day 2005, a rockstar team of San Francisco architects, artists, contractors, city officials, and engineers was challenged to construct a house using only scrap and salvaged materials.
You’re looking at the result.
Hat Tip: www.scraphouse.org
TerraCycle was the brainchild of Tom Szaky when he was a student at Princeton University in 2001. The company has grown from being a purveyor of worm poop fertilizer to a developer of products created from up-cycled waste. For more details, visit terracycle.
At Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport, a device called the Eco-box is being used to capture human breath exhaled by travelers and convert it into fuel for the airport’s diesel vehicles and heating system. If the project is successful, the airport plans to expand the carbon recycling system to collect 289,000 gallons of fuel. But why waste our breath. Read more here.
Hat Tip: livescience.com.
Several times a month, Food Forward – an all-volunteer, grassroots group of Angelenos – convenes at a private property (by invitation) and glean the excess fruit on its trees, donating 100% to local food pantries. For more information – or to join them – visit foodforward.org. You can also read more about the Food Forward movement here.
Hat Tip: Kiko and latimes.com.
Andrej Blazon’s “Charity Chair,” represents a unique approach for green products: design globally, manufacture locally. A finalist in the One Good Chair competition, it can be cut from a single sheet of recycled material (from hard rubber to plastic or metal sheets), then bent into shape using slits and flaps. Pretty much anyone can make the chair, which means there’s no manufacturing or transport involved.
Hat Tip: Peligro Films & www.fastcompany.com.
A group of Italian researchers are testing a robot that can collect trash on demand. The robot is called, DustCart, and he/she has been zipping through the streets of the city of Peccioli in the Tuscany region of Italy. The WALL-E clone not only collects trash but also gathers data regarding atmospheric pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide. Hat Tip: inhabitat.com.
SOME FACTS ABOUT BOTTLED WATER:
90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the bottle itself.
Well over 20 billion single-serving plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water (not including soda).
Bottling and shipping water are the least energy efficient methods ever used to supply water.
Although it can be easy and convenient to pick up bottled beverage products, the end cost to the environment is staggering.
Namaste: greenupgrader.com
Sewer pipes have been recycled for use as hotel rooms at the Das Park Hotel in Ottensheim, Austria. Hat Tip: Superuse.org*
* Superuse.org is an online community of designers, architects and everybody else who is interested in inventive ways of recycling. The site allows you to post items at various scales within the reuse-topic. All examples of small commodities, furniture, interiors, buildings and reuse on urban scale are welcomed.
Remember the eco-project that used old subway cars to create habitats for marine life (greenlandoceanblue, July 20th)? Well, it’s run into some difficulty. Of the 48 cars that found a new home off the coast of Delaware, only two are upright and intact. Most of the others quickly disintegrated. The EPA has said that the cars would last 25 years. Ah, interesting.
Hat Tip: earthfirst.com
The world’s first Plastic Bag Free Day will be on the 12th September 2009. Leave plastic bags at the checkout, help to make your town Plastic Bag Free or join in the celebrations at town’s that have already stopped using plastic bags. You could also write to shops and supermarkets asking them to support the day. For more information, visit adoptabeach.org.uk.
The Haute Trash Fashion troupe is a group of progressive fashion designers who have put on over 100 shows all over the Western U.S. Their fashions are made from a variety of salvaged materials, from construction fencing to inner tubes and plastic containers.
Robin Worley (aka Rayona Visqueen), an original member of Haute Trash, explains that their fashion shows help break down “the boundaries of stereotypical beauty and fashion by celebrating bodies of all sizes, shapes and ages through humor and satire. We might change the way you see the world. “
Hat Tip: re-store.org
Morris Architects’ visionary Oil Rig Platform Resort & Spa was the grand prize winner in the Radical Innovation in Hospitality design competition. The creators propose transforming an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico by turning it into an eco-haven surrounded by the sea. Hat Tip: www.inhabitat.com
Studio Gorm’s Flow and the Kitchen of terrestrial Mechanics is a living kitchen where nature and technology are integrated in a symbiotic relationship. The water from the dish rack drips on the herbs and edible plants, which are grown in the planter boxes places below the rack. The counter top features a built in waste bowl, which can be utilized to dump the scraps while preparing the food. Once the bowl is full, it needs only to be tipped to transfer the waste into the worm bin composter, which lies beneath the counter top. As the waste is lowered into the composter, the worms convert it into nutrient rich fertilizer, which can be put back into the plants.
Hat Tip: Peligro Pictures and Fast Company
Rubbersidewalks are made of 100% California tire rubber. Each square foot uses the rubber of one entire passenger tire and 400 square feet keeps over two tons of waste tire rubber from going into landfill. Rubbersidewalks also reduce the number of tires piling up in dumps and, because they don’t crack, they reduce the cost of repairing sidewalks. Rubbersidewalks have been installed in 60 cities across the country and Canada.
Sea turtles can easily mistake floating plastic bags for jellyfish. As a result, they eat them and die from choking or simply from being unable to eat. A single dead turtle discovered near Hawaii had more than 1000 pieces of plastic in its stomach including a comb, a toy truck wheel, and nylon rope.
Learn why all of the world’s marine turtles are either endangered or threatened with extinction at panda.org.
Namaste: Bag Monster & seaturtle.org
In 1963, Heineken created a beer bottle that doubled as a building brick. The monks at Thailand’s Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew Buddhist temple had the identical insight when they built the structure from a million recycled beer bottles. Free building material, less litter – lifts the spirit, doesn’t it? More about the Heineken bottle here.
Albatross adults fly thousands of miles in search of food for their young and often bring back plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by mistake.
In this inset photo you can see what was found in the stomach of just one dead Laysan albatross chick (photographers: David Liittschwager & Susan Middleton).
Namaste: dailymail.co.uk
Learn more about the world’s biggest garbage dump here. Coming soon: details about our own journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
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- Researchers Head to Great Pacific Garbage Patch (blippitt.com)
The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.
Flow is a 2008 documentary film directed by Irena Salina. It examines the global water crisis and presents a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply.
Throwplace.com® – the internet’s landfill alternative – is a web site where global users can list goods they wish to give away. Charities, businesses or individuals registered with the site are able to search it and make requests for items of interest.
Shuhei Ogawara, a resident of Koriyama, Japan, built his 13 foot-long canoe out of thousands of used, disposable chopsticks recovered from the city hall cafeteria. The chopsticks were collected over a 2-year span and Ogawara spent over 3 months gluing 7,282 of them into strips to form the canoe shell.
Namaste: pinktentacle.com.
Visit ecofoot.org and use their Footprint Calculator to find out your biggest areas of resource consumption and learn what you can do to tread more lightly on the earth. It’s easy, it’s fast, it’s fun, and it might make a difference.
Over 650 retired New York City subway cars have so far found a second home – 80 feet underwater and 16 nautical miles off the coast of Delaware – where they’re helping to transform “a barren stretch of ocean floor into a bountiful oasis, carpeted in sea grasses, walled thick with blue mussels and sponges, and teeming with black sea bass and tautog.” The result: “a 400-fold increase in the amount of marine food per square foot in the last seven years.” You can read more of the story at treehugger.com.
IC:Earth Prize – October 08 – Original Art from ETSY artist, ART ON THE MENU, originally uploaded by mkecupcakequeen
Artist Patianne Stevenson creates the ultimate, all-natural foods – completely free of calories – from recycled cardboard. If you’re hungry for me, visit Patianne at her shop on Etsy.
Namaste: inhabitat.com
A decade of drought and rising temperatures have led to unprecedented bushfires, deaths, and property destruction in Australia. But the situation has led to transformational changes in Australian water policy–changes. Among other things, they have:
* Restructured their water rights
* Cut industrial water use by over 30%
* Imposed strict water rationing backed by real penalties
* Invested in infrastructure improvements and expansion, such as desalination
efficient irrigation systems, leak detection and elimination practices
As a result, water use in Sydney today is at the same level as it was in 1974, despite 1.2 million additional residents. And their use is far, far below water use in California. While a few of the measures used are extreme (they were in an extreme situation), many of these techniques are no-brainers and are long overdue for states like California.
Namaste: circleofblue.org
As people across the nation have become more in tune with impending environmental concerns, more are doing their part to lessen their impact. Many have decided to contribute by collecting rain water for everyday watering of plants and gardens around their homes with rain barrels. A rain barrel is a large container placed under a home’s gutter downspout to catch water that would otherwise run into a city’s drainage system or nearby streams. One 55-gallon barrel can fill completely in 10 minutes during a hard rain. One inch of rain on one square foot of rooftop will create 0.60 gallons of water. More information here.
Aluminum beverage cans:
* Are 100% recyclable.
* Can be recycled over and over and over again.
* Go from recycling bin to the retail shelf in as few as 60 days.
* Recycling one can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours or a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
* Recycling 40 cans conserves the same energy as one gallon of gasoline.
* Aluminum is the only packaging material that more than covers the cost of collection and reprocessing for itself, and subsidizes other containers, including PET and glass!
* Recyclers paid nearly $1 billion for aluminum beverage cans last year.
Namaste: Peligro Films
More about aluminum recycling here.
Popular clothing maker Billabong is using a new material called ECO Supreme Suede for some of its boardshorts and swim suits. The exclusive material is made from recycled textiles and plastic soda bottles.* The company says its cool new material doesn’t sacrifice on quality.
• Approximately 10 plastic bottles are used to create one pair of boardshorts.
You can see more eco-products from Billabong at billabong.com.
The Ecopod is an earth-friendly coffin made by hand from recycled newspapers and finished with paper made from recycled silk and mulberry leaves, It comes in a range of colors with and without screen-printed motifs. Each Ecopod is supplied with a calico mattress, straps and carrying handles. As an optional extra, the walls of the interior can also be lined with feathers in a choice of colors, including white, red, cream or pale blue.
ARKA Ecopod Limited is based in Brighton, East Sussex, in the United Kingdom. You can visit their website at ecopod.co.uk.
Also available:
The Acorn Urn, made from recycled silk and mulberry leaves. The stalk of the lid is made from a twist of recycled paper.
Join three urbanites (one American, one Finn, one dog of no fixed nationality), displaced to the Finnish countryside, as they explore the nature around them, attempt to grow their own vegetables on a steep, rocky hill in a northern climate, compost all of their organic waste, forage for mushrooms, berries and other wild foods in the Finnish forest, bake pies, and knit their own socks. Blog at ahousecallednut.com.
Recycled old folk this way (I like to think this is Martin Parr(ish), originally uploaded by Tony Worrall Foto.
A free iPhone app called iRecycle makes it easy to find recycling locations anywhere in the U.S. Find places to drop-off your old cell phone (or water bottle or motor oil or… well, you get the idea), get directions and find out what else they accept. You can get iRecycle at the iTunes store.
Hat tip: earth911.com
garbage on Mt Everest #8865, originally uploaded by Nemo’s great uncle.
A Sherpa from Nepal who holds the world’s record for scaling Mount Everest said Monday the planet’s highest peak was littered with trash and warned that its glaciers were melting because of global warming.
“We have only one Everest, we need to clean it, protect it,” said Appa, who flew back to Katmandu on Monday after reached the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) summit last Thursday for the 19th time. “The warming temperature is increasing the volume of glacial lakes.”
Appa, 48, placed a banner at the summitt last week that read, “Stop Climate Change _ Let the Himalayas live,” to urge the world to take action against global warming.
Read more at huffingtonpost.com.
Save the Earth, originally uploaded by Puhleebu.
These days, New Zealand students are busy cleaning up Mother Earth. Over 600 Kiwi schools are involved in a program called, Enviroschools, in which every classroom has compost and paper recycling bins. Classes sponsor dolphins, design eco buildings on computers, and stock bird feeders they’ve built. There are “wheels days” for bikes and scooters, designed to promote exercise and take more cars off the road. According to officials, Enviroschools students don’t just learn about the environment; they do something about it. Details here.
