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Artist Katie Holten’s Tree Museum is comprised of 100 specially-chosen trees between 138th Street and Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx, each of which has a story to tell if you dial the number at its base. Tree No. 45, a Little Leaf Linden, has a story told by Patricia Foody, a 95-year-old Bronxite, who remembers her dad bringing her for a walk to the Concourse to visit his brother’s tree in just this location—it was one of the original maples, and many of them had plaques for soldiers who had died in World War I.
You can view each of the tree locations here at Google Maps.
Hat Tip: bldgblog.blogspot.com.
NoPark returns “no parking zones” — mostly those associated fire hydrant placement — to low growth mosses and grasses. These microparks prevent storm water run off, use foliage to stabilize the soil, and to provide a durable low maintenance surface cover. They continue to provide emergency parking space for fire trucks but the other 99.9% of the time they capture more water than green roofs, capture the oily runoff from the road before it runs into the river, recharge and replenish soil moisture reduce the number of standing water pools that are left for days, which are the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.
NOTE: The Environmental Health Clinic develops and prescribes locally optimized and often playful strategies to effect remediation of environmental systems, producing measurable and mediagenic evidence and coordinating diverse projects to effective material change. Okay, ignore what you’ve just read and just click HERE to visit their site. You won’t regret it.
* Elliot DiMauro was a character in the 1997 television series, “Just Shoot Me.”
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
It may take 1,000 years for plastic to decompose but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there doing the decomposing. Could they be bred to do the job faster? The question was recently answered by 16 year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, who immersed ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth, and then isolated the most productive organisms. He kept at it, selecting the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures, Burd achieved a 43 % degradation of plastic in six weeks, an almost inconceivable accomplishment. More of the story 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.
Engineer James Peret’s Vegawatt is the first all-in-one device that processes grease to continuously provide a building with electricity and hot water. The Vegawatt can process about 80 gallons of grease a week (standard for large restaurants) and produces five kilowatts of energy an hour, which could translate to monthly savings of $1,000. Last December, after a year of 80-hour weeks on the development, Peret, 33, installed the first Vegawatt at Finz, a restaurant in Dedham, Massachusetts, that specializes in fried seafood.
Hat Tip: popsci.com and more about the Vegawatt at vegawatt.com.
Since the age of 10, Tayler McGillis has collected and recycled more than 23,000 pounds of aluminum from roadside trash, old homes and other sources. The Toluca, Illinois resident has thus been able to raise more than $18,000 for local charities including Habitat for Humanity. Tayler has also turned an abandoned coal mine into a wildlife preserve and designed and built a project to stop lake erosion. What’s more, he and a team of volunteers have walked and cleaned up more than 400 miles of local highways.
Hat Tip: epa.state.il.us
Crocodile fish tangled in discarded net, originally uploaded by Debby Ng, Hantu Blogger.
Ghost fishing is the term for abandoned or lost fishing gear that keeps killing marine life for days, months, or even years after it vanishes.
A new United Nations report calls for more attention to the source. Most of the gear is made of plastic, and most of it comes from ships. And it is, of course, against the law to dump plastic at sea—specifically, it violates the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).
The report recommends solutions aimed at prevention, mitigation and cure.
That translates to 1) reducing the likelihood of fishing gear being lost or dumped at sea 2) promoting biodegradability to make plastics less of a problem and 3) making it easier to track and recover lost gear. For details, click here.
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.
unisex toilet, originally uploaded by Illuminated.
American actress Cameron Diaz recently revealed on the Tonight Show that she’s doing her part in helping the environment by not flushing the toilet. “I do follow the rule: If it’s yellow, keep it mellow and if it is brown, flush it down,” she told host Jay Leno.
16 year-old Linus Wafula lives in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, with his mother. Unable to afford school, Linus has spent much of his youth addressing the impact of uncollected waste in his neighborhood. In one instance, he created a volunteer youth club that cleaned up dumpsites and drained stagnant water, provided residents with garbage bags, and educated them about waste management efforts. The club also started a tree planting campaign to beautify the neighborhood. Linus is a recent winner of an Action For Nature International Young Eco-Hero Award. Click here to read his blog.
Hat Tip: world-wire.com
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Consumerism, originally uploaded by jefftolentino.
Biodegradability may not be a worthy goal at all. Most landfills are tomb-like and, in the absence of oxygen, the process produces methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. But all’s not lost. In answer to the problem, companies like the UK’s Symphony Environmental Technologies have developed a special formulation called d2w, which makes plastic self-destruct in the presence of oxygen on land or water. While normal plastic may emit methane while decomposing, oxo-biodegradable plastics are made to degrade leaving no fragments and emitting no methane. So, do we have future or don’t we? You can begin to find the answers here. And here.
Related article: Breakthrough In Methane Research (popularlogistics.com)
When he was nine, Alex Lin had co-created a community service team called Westerly Innovations Network (WIN) and it seemed fitting to motivate his team to tackle E-Waste. Alex’s leadership and dedication contributed to a slew of amazing accomplishments including a recycling drive which collected 21,000 pounds of E-Waste and the creation of a permanent E-Waste receptacle in town, which has collected more than 60,000 pounds of waste. Alex recently helped build an Internet café in Cameroon, and is now setting up a pilot system for providing refurbished computers to international youth through the United Nation’s Environment Program and launching a Bridging Divides program with U.S. businesses and schools.
When he was nine, Alex had co-created a community service team called Westerly Innovations Network (WIN) and it seemed fitting to motivate his team to tackle E-Waste. Thus, Project WIN ’05 was born. Alex’s leadership and dedication contributed to a slew of amazing accomplishments including a recycling drive which collected 21,000 pounds of E-Waste and the creation of a permanent E-Waste receptacle in town, which has collected more than 60,000 pounds of waste.
Leatherback turtle at sunrise, originally uploaded by SEE Turtles.
Leatherback turtles, the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth, may have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but today they’re threatened with extinction themselves, in large part due to the carelessness of humans. Since jellyfish and marine debris concentrate where ocean water masses meet, the turtles feeding in these areas are vulnerable to ingesting plastic. Once leatherbacks ingest plastic, thousands of spines lining the throat and esophagus make it nearly impossible to regurgitate. The plastic can lead to partial or even complete obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in decreased digestive efficiency, energetic and reproductive costs and, for some, starvation. “The frustrating, yet hopeful aspect is that humans can easily begin addressing the solution, without major lifestyle changes”, says Dalhousie University professor Mike James. “It’s as simple as reducing packaging and moving towards alternative, biodegradable materials and recycling.”
