You’ve heard of paying it forward? This post is about sending it back. And no, I’m not talking about that mean thing that sport fishermen do. I’m referring to unwanted plastic that shows up my my doorstep unsolicited. I’ve decided that in addition to e-mailing or sending a letter to the company, I’m just going […]
Disclaimer: This post is NOT an endorsement of DuPont Tyvek. DuPont Tyvek is plastic. According to DuPont, it is “very fine fibers of 100 percent high-density polyethylene that are randomly distributed and nondirectional. These fibers are first flash spun, then laid as a web on a moving bed before being bonded together by heat and […]
I was there outside Oakland City Hall Wednesday morning to kick off the nationwide “Think Outside The Bottle” campaign. Similar press conferences were being held in other cities around the U.S. at the same time. Here are excerpts from the San Francisco Chronicle article that appeared today, supplemented with photos from my camera: Bay Area […]
My tour of Davis Street Transfer Center continued with a trip to the garbage transfer pit. This is where all of Oakland’s non-recycled garbage is dumped before being transferred in huge trucks to the Altamont Landfill. Just look at it all. You may not be able to tell from the photo how much recyclable material […]
It’s raining tonight. I know I was going to write more about my trip to the transfer center, but it’s raining tonight. Finally. The water is coming down in sheets and our poor thirsty plants are in shock, as are we. I was going to write about something else, but all I can think about […]
As I mentioned in my first post on the subject of recycling, “Wait! Are you sure that’s recyclable?” I’d scheduled a trip to the Davis Street Transfer Center today, the place where all of Oakland’s garbage and compost and much of its recycling is taken before moving on to its next use or final resting […]
You may recall the glass jar lid saga in which I recommended cleaning the tomato stains from pasta sauce jar lids with hydrogen peroxide, only to reverse that recommendation a week later after discovering that the peroxide ate away at the coating inside the lids. (And yes, as you will recall, I tried other options […]
As much as we try to avoid buying new things in order to “step lightly on the planet,” we can still be tempted by shiny, new gadgets. Especially when they are promoted by flashy eco web sites. We shouldn’t let go of our critical thinking skills just because we happen to be browsing a site […]
I tabled at Temescal again on Sunday, this time wearing a different shirt. A “Think Outside The Bottle” shirt, to be exact. And instead of tabling as me, an Oakland resident who simply wanted to encourage other Oakland residents to give up plastic bags, I represented an organization. Wow, was that a different experience. It […]
Wednesday, I had a phone interview with Tess Vigeland of NPR’s Marketplace. You know, Tess from the Trash Challenge. Today, her radio segment on the Trash Challenge included pieces from our interview. You can listen to it or read the transcript here: Lessons from the trash challenge The interview was quite a bit longer and […]