Opt Out of the Yellow Page's Yellowed Pages!

After years of complaining about phone book litter by tree huggers and building owners alike, it seems as if Yellow Pages is finally getting the message that millions of Americans would like to see printed phone books disappear! I'd be willing to bet that it's been quite a while since most Americans turned, rather than scrolled, through the Yellow Pages. Yet it seems like another stack of these monstrous directories appears outside the front door of my building every few months or so.

Fortunately, the City of Chicago accepts phone books for recycling, but many towns and municipalities do not. Nor do many of Chicago's phone books find their way into a blue cart; most wind up rotting on the front steps or entry way, in the same place they were dropped off.

Late last year, cities began taking the matter into their own hands. It was Seattle, not a California city, who led the way in banning unsolicited phone book deliveries last fall, although a similar proposal found its way onto lawmakers' desks in San Francisco shortly thereafter. I rejoiced when I saw a posting last month on Tree Hugger that Yellow Pages has created a site for residents to opt out of receiving phone directories!

In Tree Hugger's interview with Neg Norton, president of the Yellow Pages Association, Norton said the company created the opt-out site because, "it doesn't make any sense for us to deliver phone books to people who don't want them." Amen! He also went on to predict that a very small amount of people would actually sign up to decline directory deliveries, as the company's surveys and studies show that 75% of households still use printed phone books.

Seventy-five percent seems awfully high to me; do 75% of households even have a land line anymore? At any rate, I went immediately to the opt-out site and entered my zip code. It showed that I was signed up to receive eight (eight!) directories a year, including the Guia Telefonica and the Russian Yellow Pages. Huh? I refused delivery of all of them. So if you're as sick of phone book litter as I am, take a minute to opt out, and pass this information along to any and every one you know who might like to opt out, too!

In Lieu of Roses...

... give your Valentine some fair-trade chocolate! Or plan an activity together; depending on how much you're willing to invest in this Hallmark holiday, you could go ice skating, make reservations at a nice restaurant, see a museum, volunteer, or even cook together. Whatever. Just no roses. Especially cheap roses. I'm serious-- do or give anything but roses!

Not only are roses cliche, they're also ruining the already fragile ecosystems of some of the developing countries from which our supermarket bouquets are exported. In Kenya, for example, the cultivation of Valentine's Day roses is draining (and polluting) Lake Naivasha, a precious and crucial source of water for the region. And in Colombia, the roses they export have been sprayed liberally with highly toxic pesticides and dipped in a myriad of chemicals by the time they hit store shelves. In addition to ruining their soil, surface water and groundwater, the workers who are repeatedly exposed to these chemicals (many of whom are single mothers) are at higher risk for health problems. Many children whose mothers came into contact with these pesticides and preservatives during their pregnancies showed signs--both physical and mental-- of developmental disabilities or delays.

So next year, consider starting a new tradition. Guys, I speak from experience when I say that, while flowers are nice, I'm much more impressed by a gift or a gesture that was well thought out and came from the heart. It doesn't have to cost a lot; in fact, I usually prefer that it doesn't! It just has to show that you care.

However, if you (and/or your Valentine) is/are dead-set on giving/receiving a colorful bouquet, consider buying organic. OrganicBouquet.com offers a variety of Earth-friendly options, including some rose alternatives that are grown a little closer to home. Potted plants are also nice (I like orchids!); they generally don't wither in a week and, when watered, can be enjoyed year round. So get creative, guys-- you can thank me later!

The Greening of Brownfields

photo via Exelon Corporation site

Stop the presses! Chicago is the Second City no longer! At least not in the realm of environmental initiatives, that is. I personally thought the segment on this Brightfields Initiative that has come to fruition in the West Pullman neighborhood on Chicago's far south side was more of a headline story than an end-of-broadcast blurb, but these days, I'll take my good news any way I can get it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the EPA's Brownfields Initiative, Brownfields sites are perhaps better known as former Superfund sites. These sites, even after successful cleanup and remediation, are ill suited for most types of developments. For example, no one would want to purchase a Brownfields site and build a subdivision or an elementary school, or cultivate a community garden because -- despite even the most successful cleanups -- these sites are still heavily contaminated, it's just that the amount of contamination has been reduced to acceptable EPA levels. So the Brownfields Initiative exists to find viable uses for this spoiled land, such as turning it into a parking lot, or building a big-box warehouse or retail location (with provisions made, of course, for importing potable water).

The Brownfields to Brightfields Initiative takes this task one step further and put solar panels on these undesirable pieces of real estate, which brings clean energy, jobs, and (eventually) power savings to the surrounding communities. And in this, Chicago is leading the nation! Not only is Exelon City Solar the largest urban solar power plant in the country, it's also the first of its kind!

The 32,000 solar panels, which were sourced and manufactured from south side companies, are equipped to follow the rays of the sun as it makes its way across the sky, and will generate enough power to power 1,500 homes. Exelon has leased the 40-acre Brownfield site from the City of Chicago in a long-term deal, and according to the EPA:

"The City of Chicago and Commonwealth Edison have jointly committed $8 million to purchase solar systems in the next five years. The solar systems will be installed on other [B]rownfield sites as well as schools, office buildings, transportation routes, and municipal and commercial properties."

Exelon City Solar will also serve as a demonstration and educational site for other cities that want to harness the power of the sun. So let's hear it for Chicago, solar energy's First City!

Dawn Saves Wildlife

Reason #37492751 to read the fine print: buying Dawn dish washing liquid in and of itself does not save wildlife like the cute little otter pictured on the front of these bottles. Consumers have to enter the long numerical code (printed in white on the lower back side of each bottle) and place of purchase at the web site listed in microscopic lettering underneath the claim that $1.00 from each purchase will go toward saving wildlife.

Once I finally sat down to claim my $2.00 in donations to this timely and worthwhile cause, it only took a minute, but it made me wonder how many people take even that much time to follow through on this extra step, or if they read the fine print at all.

I've been fighting an overwhelming urge to take my Dawn dish washing liquid, along with my pink-and-brown plaid Wellies, yellow rubber gloves, and an animal carrier down to the Gulf shores, and to just start catching and cleaning oil-covered animals. As much as I would like to be fighting the good fight on the front lines-- from the marshlands of Louisiana to the once-white, sandy beaches of Florida-- it's simply not a feasible option at this time. Entering a product code into a web site, however, is.

Brita Filter Recycling Now Available!

I learned something today... and on Facebook, of all places! This program started a year ago today, so I can't believe that this is the first I've heard about it... but it is now possible to recycle Brita filters in the U.S.! This has long been available in Europe, and now Brita has teamed up with Preserve, a company that manufactures household items out of 100% recycled materials, to separate the plastic from the carbon particles and find new uses for both. The program is called Gimme 5, in reference to the #5 (polypropylene) plastic that is used to make Brita filters. Although Chicago does accept polypropylene plastics in their single-stream recycling bins, many cities do not.

To recycle these filters, Preserve asks that we set the spent filters aside and let them dry for a minimum of three days, then wrap them in a plastic grocery bag (don't worry, they'll recycle that, too!). From there, consumers can either take the filters to a designated drop-off location (the link is down at the moment, but I know many Whole Food stores in the area will accept these filters), or-- if there isn't a drop-off location nearby-- save up a few filters, pack them in a (recyclable) box, and mail them into the company at:

Preserve Gimme 5
823 NYS Rte 13
Cortland, NY 13045

The only downfall is that the customer is responsible for the shipping costs. However, John Lively, director of environment and material science for Preserve, assures skeptics that, "we calculated that the benefits of keeping Brita filters out of landfills outweigh the impact of shipping them for recycling through this program." Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club applaud Brita's efforts to expand on their "Filter for Good" campaign, which launched in 2007, and encourages people to ditch bottled water and drink filtered tap water instead. So I'll give three cheers to Clorox (the parent company of Brita) for setting an example for other large corporations by putting a portion of their profits toward fighting the good fight. Hip, hip, HOORAY!

Aveda "Kicks the Cap" out of Plastic!

On my way to a matinee at the Landmark Century Theater, I stopped by the Aveda Institute with a bag full of plastic bottle caps. I know what you're thinking, but let me assure you that they were in fact happy to see me! You see, the Aveda company is leading the way in the area of "producer responsibility", a novel concept that I hope catches on soon with companies large and small, far and wide. In addition to using wind power to generate energy at their manufacturing plants, they have begun recycling plastic bottle caps into bottles and containers for their many products.

Why is this such a brilliant idea, you ask? Well, the caps on most plastic bottles are made from a different (and much harder to recycle) plastic than the bottles themselves, and few local recycling companies can process them. What Aveda has done is to find a use for these caps (all the recycling in the world won't do us any good unless someone finds a way to repurpose these recycled products!) and what better way to reuse old packaging than to turn it into new packaging?

Their "responsible packaging" has long been made from easy to recycle plastics, glass, and even cardboard cartons, and the Caps Recycling Program is their latest effort to keep these little plastic bits from littering our parks, beaches, and oceans. They are looking to partner with schools, to educate students who will then aid in their collection efforts. The company provides a specific description of the type of "rigid plastic" they seek; the lids I had saved from countless gallons of milk did not make the cut, because I could bend them with my bare hand. Some of these rigid plastic caps are marked with the number 5. This sounds like an easy way for students to learn about the "cradle-to-grave" life cycle of a product, and the caps are easy to collect.

The link above has suggestions for parents and teachers who are interested in getting their students involved in this noble effort, and it seems like most of their cap collectors are in fact children; the woman who took my caps kept asking if I was a teacher or had neices and nephews who had asked me to drop the caps off for them, and whether they were excited to be taking part in their program. So I told her that, yes, this was an exciting program, and that I hoped to recruit and excite more people to assist in their efforts to reduce their impact on the environment. And that, my dear readers, is where you come in. The caps can be dropped off at any Aveda salon; the company also provides special shipping labels to schools who enroll in their program so they can mail the caps instead. The process couldn't be easier, and I encourage you to encourage the little people in your lives to start collecting caps today, and let them see that they, too, can make a difference!

Abt Electronics-- Pleasing the Planet...Since 2006

Earlier this spring, I spent a blustery Saturday morning searching the Internet for a place to recycle the small pile of broken electronics and appliances that had been accumulating in my dining room all winter. I had a toaster, a cell phone, two cameras, a tuner, and a handful of batteries that didn't qualify for Walgreen's recycling program. Nothing big, but nothing I wanted to trash, either. I found places that recycled computer parts, and others that accepted obsolete (but still functional) electronics, and even a site that charged exorbitant amounts of money for me to pack my e-waste in their special box and ship it to some recycling company in another state.

Frustrated, I was about to give up when I stumbled across this small, inconspicuous link on the Abt Electronics web site. Their flagship store in Glenview has a stand-alone recycling center, located on the southwest side of their lot, slightly behind their main building. Not only would they accept all the odds and ends in my bag of miscellaneous electronics, all but a select few appliances (such as TVs, computers, air conditioners, and refrigerators) are recycled free of charge. They are also one of 75 drop off centers for Sony-- meaning that all Sony products may be dropped off for "e-cycling" at no cost to the consumer.

According to their web site (and some related links), they also accept cell phones, cardboard, and styrofoam-- STYROFOAM!-- and recycle "...five tractor-trailor loads of appliances each day". Much of this volume includes the old appliances they haul away when new ones are delivered, but word is spreading and the public is catching on fast. They also recycle much of the packaging the new appliances arrive in, as well as the wooden pallets on which they are delivered. The company has implemented an impressive number of other green initiatives, but I'll try and limit my focus here, so I don't get all giggly about solar panels and green fleets. You can read a number of articles on their environmental prowess, linked from their site, provided you can find it!

The recycling center opened in 2006, and-- according to the guy who helped me recycle my sad old TV, a styrofoam cooler, and a friend's broken printer last week-- "e-cycling" was made available to the public late last year. From 2:00-7:00, Thursday through Saturday, people can just drive up and drop off whatever they want to recycle. The only complaint I have with this program is that the information isn't posted more prominently on their home page, and that they don't really advertise these services. If it were me, I'd be shouting it from the roof tops!

While I try to avoid a trip to the North Shore as much as the next city dweller, I have yet to find a place in the city that accepts such a wide range of appliances. Some chain retailers of electronics and office supplies do accept a few of these items for recycling, but the fee they charge is pretty steep by comparison. So, in my mind, the remarkable environmental service that Abt Electronics provides to the Chicagoland area at little to no cost to the public makes it well worth the drive.

IKEA that's brilliant!

IKEA, the faux-Swedish furniture chain, is one of many retailers leading the way in large-scale recycling efforts. Not only do they have color-coded, source-separated trash and recycling receptacles prominently placed throughout the store, they also have recycling stations near the entrances that accept plastic bags, household batteries, and CFL (and incandescent!) light bulbs. Store patrons can bring their spent batteries and light bulbs to the nearest location for recycling instead of tossing them in the trash, where they would inevitably leak toxic chemicals and heavy metals into the soil and groundwater.

IKEA also began charging for plastic bags back in 2006, and has since reduced the number of bags handed out each year by 90%. By design, the minimal packaging of the largely unassembled furniture they sell allows for easy stacking and less expensive shipping, which leads to less waste all around. Although the do-it-yourself aspect of assembling their furniture can be frustrating (the instructions are kept to a minimum as well), theirs is a novel concept indeed. The latest catalogs also advertise certain items made from recycled materials, yet another way the retailer is trying to minimize their environmental impact.

According to their Web site, many IKEA stores also have stand-alone recycling centers, and a simple phone call to the "environmental specialist" can arrange educational tours for school children and scout troops. By educating the public in addition to taking back hazardous products and creating a market for recycled materials, IKEA has hit upon the triumverate of actions necessary for a highly effective recycling program. IKEA is a model for other retailers of how to manage their business in the twenty-first century. They are taking greater responsibility of more stages in the life cycles of the products they sell-- from product design to end-of-life management. And like their stores-- those enormous blue and yellow beacons alongside the nation's highways-- the overwhelming benefits of their trailblazing recycling program are hard to miss.