Archive for the ‘disposable’ Category

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — The home furnishings retailer Ikea says it will no longer offer disposable shopping bags at its North American stores.

In March 2007, the company said it would charge 5 cents per bag to discourage the use of disposable bags, with the proceeds going to an environmental charity. The company with U.S. headquarters in the Philadelphia suburb of Conshohocken says that cut bag use by 92 percent.

Starting Wednesday, Ikea won’t offer any disposable plastic or paper shopping bags. Sturdy, reusable shopping bags will still be available for 59 cents.

So, yeah, the folks at Larry’s Beans have a new bio bag. So how does it work?

Click here to find out.

This blog from The Daily Green tries to sum it up.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Fort Bragg has been chosen as one of six installations to participate in a Defense Energy Security Command (DESC) sponsored Biomass Waste-to-Fuel demonstration project, the Installation Management Command said Tuesday.

The two-year demonstration project will take biomass waste such as wood chips or cardboard and process it into diesel fuel and soil/compost. The purpose is to ascertain the technical feasibility of a mobile unit capable of being used in a field environment to support a unit’s fuel requirements.

 ”Fort Bragg is continuously looking for opportunities to reduce our waste streams,” said Dave Heins, chief, Environmental Division, Directorate of Public Works. “Through a demonstration project we will evaluate the ability to turn wood waste and cardboard into fuel for tactical vehicles.  The goal of the demonstration project is to develop a portable unit that could be used by deployed units to minimize their waste while producing vehicular fuel.”

Fort Bragg is scheduled to begin the project demonstration first quarter of fiscal year 2009. Other installations participating in this project include: Fort Drum, N.Y.; Fort AP Hill, Va.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; and Fort Benning, Ga.

Two men made a raft of plastic bottles and sailed from California to Hawaii in an effort to raise awarness of  the dangers of “single-use plastics.”

Full story

Check out this all-in-one resource guide for greening your home.

According to the DENR, composting really helps:

• About 12 to 15 percent of all the waste going into the landfill is food waste
• On average, food waste and yard waste can add up to one-third of a ton per household each year
• Junk mail/paper that can’t be recycled – could be compost in back yard (hand towels, napkins, paper plates, toilet paper tubes etc.)

Source: Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance

DURHAM, N.C. — Old, withered vegetables. Crinkled-up coffee filters. Fruit peelings that are days old. Most people think kitchen garbage is disgusting. But Richard Stenz has gotten used to the site of it all. 

“I’ve kind of got passed that,” he said laughing as he put two and five gallon buckets on his bicycle.

Read his story here. 

Raleigh’s Barefoot Press has been green for a while. But check out this accomplishment from the Raleigh Eco News.

Raleigh’s Sue Sturgis reminds everyone that a screening of ‘End Of Suburbia’ is planned for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Cameron Village library location.

Read more about it in her Raleigh Eco News blog here.