The Green Apple

In honor of Earth Day

 

Image courtesy of Earth Day New York

When it comes to all things Earth Day, it’s safe to call Pamela Lippe an expert on the subject.

After all, it was Lippe who organized the 20th anniversary celebration of Earth Day in 1990 as close to two million people shot down a large chunk of Manhattan along Sixth Avenue from Times Square to 59th Street. Then there were the record approximately one million people who occupied Central Park at the same time. “It was quite a miracle,” Lippe said.

These days, Lippe, the executive director and president of the non-profit organization Earth Day New York, focuses not on the grandiose but the granular: the small things people can do a daily basis to keep the idea of Earth Day, which is on April 22, alive and well.

Full Circle, Part 5: WeRecycle!

This is the fifth entry in "Full Circle," a series that will be profiling companies and organizations that offer biodegradable and recyclable products or services -- both in the New York City area and beyond.

Pieces of gold shine through a sea of motherboards gathered as the result of several computers being run through a "shredder" at a WeRecycle! facility. The gold will later be collected and smelted to be used in other products. Photo courtesy of WeRecycle!.

So you have an old laptop that has essentially become a giant paperweight as you’ve moved onto a sleeker model. Such a device contains a.) many components that are hazardous to the environment (batteries, mercury lamps, etc.) and b.) personal information that could be revealed if in the wrong hands. So what do you do with it?

Well, one option is to visit the website of WeRecycle!, a company based out of Mount Vernon, N.Y., that specializes in e-waste disposal both at the private business and residential levels. The company’s site contains an area where a visitor can type in his or her zip code and find out about nearby collection events and locations. For example, those interested can drop off that old laptop at any New York City Goodwill store as part of an arrangement that WeRecycle! set up -- and take comfort in knowing that their data is being disposed off in a safe and secure manner.

Full Circle, Part 4: NLR

This is the fourth entry in "Full Circle," a series that will be profiling companies and organizations that offer biodegradable and recyclable products or services -- both in the New York City area and beyond.

This machine at the NLR plant in Connecticut, which has been in use for about one-and-a-half years, can recycle about 5,000 lamps an hour. Photo courtesy of NLR.

For whatever reason, the light bulb will not go off in the collective conscience of most American businesses when it comes to complying with the Universal Waste Rule.  

Even though the rule has been a part of a federal regulation of the Environment Protection Agency since 1990, Raymond Graczyk said that only about 30 percent of private businesses properly handle the removal of universal waste such as mercury-containing light bulbs, batteries and ballasts -- even though the numerous toxic effects of mercury poisoning has been well documented for years and years. Those effects include damage to the brain, kidney and lungs.

“What happens with mercury is that it accumulates in the environment, so when you’re getting hundreds and hundreds and millions of lamps being thrown out a year that  mercury is released to the environment and then it finds its way back into the food chain, especially in fish,” said Graczyk, who is the co-founder and president of NLR, a company based north of Hartford, Conn., that specializes in lamp and universal recycling services for mainly commercial businesses. “[Awareness] is increasing some but it’s not as rapidly as it should be. It’s hard to say and necessarily come up with a reason why… Whether people aren’t properly informed. Whether they don’t care. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t realize how really available and easy it is to recycle.”

Full Circle, Part 3: TerraCycle

This is the third entry in "Full Circle," a series that will be profiling companies and organizations that offer biodegradable and recyclable products or services -- both in the New York City area and beyond.

This "upcycled" backpack is made from Capri Sun drink containers. School supplies are the top-selling items for TerraCycle, accounting for close to 30 percent of its annual product sales. Photo courtesty of TerraCycle.

Albe Zakes will admit it. While in school at the University of Colorado, he was a “frustrated environmentalist.”

“I felt like too many environmental non-profits [organizations] refused to work with major companies,” he said. “It was always petition, letter-write, protest, and picket instead of coming to the board room table and trying to work with them.”

Luckily, Zakes found an upstart company that shared his passion of making mainstream big-box stores more eco-friendly: Trenton, N.J.-based TerraCycle. Since its founding in 2002, the company has been able to forge multi-faceted partnerships with major retailers and manufacturers through an innovative business model that interweaves making and selling of upcycled products, recycling and donating to non-profit organizations. At the time of this posting, the company had more than 26 million people collect more than 2.3 billion waste units and raise more than $3.4 million dollars for charities around the world.

#OWS Solution: Protect water quality and create green jobs

Photo courtesy of Matt and Kim Rudge on Flickr's Creative Commons.

I love water. I like to talk about it. I even made storm water my thesis in graduate school. And I recently read a new proposal about water and the creation of jobs. This new report suggests that finding new ways to preserve water quality might solve more than just clean water concerns. This proposal that suggests upgrading water infrastructure would keep be a green practice that protects water quality and creates jobs! 

Want to create 1.9 million American jobs and add $265 billion to the economy? Upgrade our water infrastructure. That's the message of Water Works: Rebuilding Infrastructure, Creating Jobs, Greening the Environment, a report by Green For All, in partnership with American Rivers, Pacific Institute, and the Economic Policy Institute. The report looks at an investment of $188.4 billion in water infrastructure -- the amount the EPA indicates would be required to manage stormwater and preserve water quality. That investment would inject a quarter of a trillion dollars into the economy, create nearly 1.3 million direct and indirect jobs and result in 568,000 additional jobs from increased spending.

Photo courtesy of bgottsab on Flickr's Creative Commons.

Basically we could resolve the complaints in Occupy Wall Street that there are no jobs available and at the same time, protect water quality. Who isn't pro-environment? These would be green jobs. We all want clean water. This would help water quality. Everyone agrees we need more jobs in American cities. But, even if it is green, environmentally friendly work, what kind of jobs are we willing to do?

It's an interesting proposal and I agree with the need for infrastructure. I really think it make sense. But I'm not convinced the people looking for jobs in Occupy Wall Street are interested in improving water infrastructure. What do you think?

To get information on my storm water alert research, emailme at amy.e.freeze at abc.com.