Revisiting the disposable coffee cup

58 billion non-recyclable coffee cups are used and thrown away each year.  BetaCup aims to fund a design contest geared toward reducing or eliminating that waste.  Ideas and donations for sustainable alternatives are accepted.

Matching recyclables producers and collectors

e-cycler connects people who want to collect recyclables for cash with people who need recyclables picked up, often in areas that lack municipal curbside recycling service.  Providers of recyclables can request a 40% cut of the collector’s profit or can allow collectors to receive the full rebate at recycling centers (though e-cycler takes a small cut, regardless).  The service allows users who have or anticipate generation of recyclable material to search by state for collectors of that material; it also allows collectors to search by state or pick-up radius.

(via Treehugger)

This Sunday is America Recycles Day

In honor of America Recycles Day this Sunday, Brokelyn offers a Brooklynite’s guide to responsibly ridding yourself of stuff–through swaps, donations and recycling.  Lots of New York City-wide non-landfill options in the other boroughs here, too; this is a rich, comprehensive resource.  Some highlights and additions:

• The NYC Stuff Exchange, run by the NYC Department of Sanitation, offers a borough-by-borough directory of places where you can buy and sell used or second-hand items, large and small; they also have a list of other sites you can use to sell or exchange specific types of items.
• Materials for the Arts collects surplus or used material from a variety of commercial and non-profit organizations for free distribution to non-profit arts groups and schools.
• The Department of Sanitation offers a list of electronic recyclers and dismantlers that do business in New York State.  The Lower East Side Ecology Center also e-cycling drop-off days with some frequency.
• You can  drop off up to four car tires at any nearby NYC Department of Sanitation garage between 8 am and 4 pm, Monday through Saturday.
• Clothes and textiles can be donated, to Goodwill or Salvation Army, for example, but they can also be recycled.  The Council on the Environment of New York City, for one, hosts clothing and textile recycling events, including this Saturday, the 14th, from 8am-4pm at the Staten Island Mall.

Zero waste strategies are catching on

Waste sorting in Nantucket, a model for zero waste, has reduced the amount of waste sent to landfill to 8%, compared with 66% in Massachusetts as a whole. The island has accomplished this through diligent sorting, an expansion of mandated recycling, industrial composting and a community swap shop.

The New York Times surveys the growth of “zero waste” strategies in the US among private companies, institutions and entire municipalities.  “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” are really coming of age: biodegradable utensils, large-scale composting and citywide, warehouse-like free swap shops.  And it’s not just hippies and treehuggers participating anymore.

Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere.

The municipal programs are the most inspiring.  The story notes that Nantucket only sends 8% of its waste to landfills now–its landfill is actually shrinking, thanks to an entity that searches the landfill for materials it can resell like sand and aluminum.  (The slide show about Nantucket is really worth checking out).

While not as comprehensive, it’s still impressive that San Francisco has successfully outlawed landfill-bound disposal of food waste.  Ottawa has also recently joined that cause.

Recycling, composting and worms, this Saturday

The Council on the Environment of New York City and the Staten Island Compost Project will be co-hosting a recycling and home composting workshop this Saturday afternoon at the St. George Library on Staten Island.  Tin can tricks and live worm bins, fun for all ages.  October 24th, 1-3pm, 5 Central Avenue, Staten Island, just a block from the ferry terminal.

Solar-Powered Film Festival

GreenEdge NYC and Solar One’s free, seven-evening Solar-Powered Film Festival begins tonight on the East River.  A series of environmental documentaries will screen in Solar One’s outdoor eco-theater, with projector and sound system powered by solar energy captured nearby.

Thursday, September 10 – Addicted to Plastic (2007, 85 mins)
Friday, September 11 – Who Killed the Electric Car (2006, 93 mins)
Saturday, September 12 – Flow: For the Love of Water (2008, 93 mins)
Sunday, September 13 – [Rain Date for any of above]

Thursday, September 17 – A Sea Change (2008, 85 mins)
Friday, September 18 – The Garden (2008, 80 mins)
Saturday, September 19 – Burning in the Sun (2009, 65 mins)
Sunday, September 20 – [Rain Date for any of above]

September 25 at 7 PM [Rain Date September 26] – What’s On Your Plate? Screening accompanied by kid-friendly activities.

7 pm every night @ Solar One,
Stuyvesant Cove Park, East River just south of 23rd St.  FREE.

Low-income housing from cast-offs

Phillips' company built this ceiling for a low-income house in Huntsville, Texas out of thousands of picture frame corners.

The New York Times features Dan Phillips and his construction company, Phoenix Commotion, which builds housing for low-income families out of discarded materials that would otherwise be sent to landfills.

So far, he has built 14 homes in Huntsville, which is his hometown, on lots either purchased or received as a donation. A self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber, Mr. Phillips said 80 percent of the materials are salvaged from other construction projects, hauled out of trash heaps or just picked up from the side of the road.

Energy efficiency, durability and capacity for homeowner repair are other strong factors influencing the design.  The Times has also put together a slideshow of some of the beautiful details of these homes.

Solar trash compactors

GOOD’s series The Road Map to Harmony features BigBelly’s wireless, solar-powered trash compactors, installed on various streets in Philadelphia.  The receptacles reduce sanitation pickup requirements from 17 times per week to 5 and send sanitation management a text message when they get full and ready to be emptied.  Big savings on costs, fuel and emissions.  Impressive.

Big Belly also has a pilot machine installed in New York City’s Union Square.

(via Urban Omnibus)

“Songs About Packaging” packaging

Randy Ludacer has unveiled the design scheme for the “Songs About Packaging” CD he will be giving away during his Saturday, September 26th performance at the Freshkills Park site.  Each package is a miniature pop-art homage to items found in his recycling bin, paying respect to the product’s original design while commenting on its disposable nature.

Randy is a package designer and a musician who has combined these two interests in a set of songs based around consumer packaging, specifically written to be performed at Freshkills Park.  Made possible by a Department of Cultural Affairs Premiere Grant from the Council for the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island, the project is a way for him to “serenade the decades of discarded packaging buried beneath.”  This is going to be a weird and fun event.

This performance is free, but space is limited.  To RSVP, email Doug at doug.elliott@parks.nyc.gov with the subject line “Randy Ludacer” or call (212) 788-8277.

Plastic bag breakthrough?

Plastic bags are an environmental bane: they take a really, really long time to decompose in landfills, they’re the largest pollutant in the world’s oceans, and the general the accumulation of plastics is “one of the most ubiquitous and long-lasting recent changes to the surface of our planet.”

Enter Daniel Burd.  The 16-year-old winner of the 2008 Canada-Wide Science Fair has deduced a way to make plastic bags decompose in a matter of months.  Burd mixed together ordinary household chemicals, yeast and water, then added the mixture to ground-up polyethlene plastic bags and dirt.  After three months of bacterial culture growth and further tests on full polyethlene strips, he identified two types of bacteria which, at the right concentration and temperature, can produce 43% degradation of plastic within six weeks.  The byproducts of the process were water and a small amount of carbon dioxide.  He now looks forward to trying the process at an industrial level.

(via WebEcoist)