Archive for the "Cradle to Cradle" Category

  • Taboo Talk in Business: Buy Less Stuff

    Talking to consumers about buying less stuff just might be the third rail of green marketing. Reducing or limiting consumption is antithetical to marketing, or at least it has been so far. Practically no one seems to want to go there. I'll accept my portion of responsibility. In the late 1980s, when I penned The Green Consumer, I helped advance the notion of solving our planet's environmental ills by making good purchasing choices -- that we could, in other words, shop our way to environmental health. "By choosing carefully, you can have a positive impact on the environment without significantly

  • Floating Garbage Patch ‘bigger than US’

    I heard in some towns in Germany they started charging people substantial amounts to haul away their garbage. People just started unpacking the items they bought with a lot of packing material right at the cash register. Manufactuers reacted quickly by reducing packing material for German businesses. Meanwhile, the Plastic Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre continues to

  • The Sun is Growing Jobs

    In California the Green Energy Market is booming, and setting a course for us to recapture the solar market. And set an example for other states to follow. A profile in the NY

  • Finally Some Traction on the Plastics Issue

      AUSTRALIA has followed China in announcing it plans to end plastic bag use in supermarkets, with its new environment minister saying last Thursday he wants a phase-out to start by the end of this year. Story

  • Two Weeks of Garbage….

    Mountains of garbage accumulation in just two weeks of a garbage strike in Italy. Read a news brief from USA Today here. Interesting to see how quickly it all piles up. Pics are from other sources.

  • Really Great Web Video

    I haven't seen such a well put together explanation of how our lifestyles are screwed-up in a long time. Furthermore, is has very good animation. Check the link:

  • Algilita Research Crew has Publicized New Findings

    Alex Scholz Marcus Eriksen of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation has now gone public with the findings of their last voyage, what before was only mentioned in conference. In 1999, they found that the weight of plastic was six times greater than that of all marine life on the ocean surface. What's the news for 2007? After processing a handful of samples from this recent voyage, the estimates are 30 to 1. That's a five-fold increase in less than a decade, and for those of you who may have already appreciated the

  • Our Synthetic Seas II

    Alex Scholz Conserving the Environment by Recycling Plastic into Toxic Children's Toys Following the work presented by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation pointing to a massive buildup of plastics in the sea, one has to wonder at the latest series of stories about children's toys from China being recalled. Many of these toys were made from recycled plastics shipped from the United States. The last recall was for toys that contained something similar in chemical composition to a date rape drug that was released when children put them in their mouths. You might say that this plastic consumption isn't so

  • Watch This – No Don’t

    Alex Scholz Our Synthetic Sea One reason people avoid reading sites too focused on the environment is that they tend to go heavy on the bad news. When I saw the video that follows I almost had to laugh at the immensity of it. Another problem - almost worse than the other ones. Funny if you enjoy black humor. Maybe not, if you don't. Researchers at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation trawled large swaths of the North Pacific Gyre with fine nets to discover that they were pulling up 6 pounds of plastic for every pound of bio-matter. The

  • Getting Lethal Chemicals Out of the Funeral Industry

    GREEN FUNERALS: Putting aside embalming and tombs some believe that services at home and simple caskets gradually will change how society deals with death. Read more