Stop Junk Mail. Be Eco Friendly. Do Good. The GreenDimes Blog

Saving the Rainforest for the Trees

Scientists keep finding more great stuff in rainforests—whole new species of frogs and bugs and other life. It’s estimated that two thirds of the life on Earth lives in rainforests. The good news these days is that places with lots of rainforests like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei are joining forces to save some of the rainforests on their islands. Fighting to Save Borneo's Last Rainforests - International Herald Tribune

According to the article, burning is the easiest, cheapest, fastest way to clear rainforests for land development. A little burning now and then is natural and is sometimes even healthy for the forest. But too much burning means we lose the forest and all the things that live in it, and we get more global warming, erosion and useless land. So saving them is not just good for the critters, its good for everybody.

Our 10 cents:

Rainforests seem far away for most of us, so sometimes we don’t think they’re important or affected by what we do at home. But we know that global warming affects everybody everywhere and a tree on the other side of the world does makes a difference. That’s why at greendimes we can plant trees in places like Haiti or Senegal where they help all of us with global warming and help local villages at the same time.

What We Can Do:

One of the easiest things we can do is buy “sustainable” when we buy products from the tropics, like soy products (and meat from animals fed on soy), palm oil (used as cooking oil and in soap), coffee, bananas and rice. Most of that stuff is available from sustainable producers and is tagged with “sustainable” and “shade-grown”, which mean that the crops are growing near the forests, not replacing the forests.

These forest also gives us the wood products we use everyday. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) runs a voluntary labeling program where companies can get their products certified for sustainability. In other words, the wood is harvested from a forest in a way that keeps the forest healthy. FSC-certified wood products are available in many places major stores like Home Depot and IKEA.

Another happy alternative we looked into is not to buy wood. There are a few exciting technologies available, such as lumber made from recycled milk jugs. Milk jug lumber is gorgeous, zero maintenance and worth checking out if you’re building a deck. “Agriboard” is another sustainable wood alternative. It’s made from compressed wheat straw and can be used instead of particle board.

So we don’t need to paddle to Borneo to help save the rainforests – we can buy responsibly right here at home and the more we do, the more sustainable product choices there will be.

From your accountant: a tale of hope and inspiration

Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) is one of the largest accounting companies in the world. They handle big companies like Bank of America and ExxonMobil, they count the votes for the Academy Awards, and now they’ve come up with a number we can all cheer about – 1 trillion dollars to address global warming.

Why are we cheering? Because its actually just a trillion dollars over the next forty years to stall global warming at an ok level.  The World in 2050

And its not that we have to go raise this huge amount of money. Its actually about spending less money. We spend less money on economic activity that causes global warming and PwC says we can prevent warming the planet beyond another two degrees Fahrenheit.

Our Ten Cents

Sign us up. A trillion dollars sounds big, but with it spread out over billions of people and 40 years, we don’t think it’ll be all that noticeable. With this report, we think PwC gave us some good news showing that it’s not too late or too expensive to fix the environment.

What We Can Do:

We looked into what one of the PwC recommendations would mean:

Between now and 2050, make ourselves more energy efficient by 2.6% each year.

• Buy Energy Star light fixtures and appliances for a 40% reduction at home.
• Turn down the heat or the air conditioning when you leave the house and reduce emissions by 5%.
• Buy a hybrid and get 40 mpg, or a motorcycle and get 90.

The Big and Small Numbers:

For the 6.5 billion people on Earth to raise a trillion bucks, we’d each have to give about $155.
Over 40 years, that’s about the price of one cup of coffee for each of us every year.

Dude. Dell Recycles

Dell’s got a cure for what ails us—free e-waste recycling.

They’ve got a new program for picking up and recycling all their computers and accessories, plus some non-Dell computer equipment too.

Apparently, Michael Dell, Dell's chairman, is touting the idea of producer responsibility.  Quote from him:

"We have a responsibility to our customers to recycle the products we make and sell.” - Ars Technica (June 2006) -  Dell introduces worldwide recycling program 

Quote from Dell's press release:

"Dell supports a policy that would make all producers responsible for offering recovery and recycling services for their own brand products from consumers at no charge.”
- Dell to Launch Free Recycling for U.S. Customers

Our Ten Cents:
Producer responsibility sounds great to us - now we're looking for dead Dell equipment so we can try this out. Thinking about waste and landfills, there’s really no such thing as throwing something “away”.   And it's a shame to landfill all that valuable gold, copper, plastic, glass, and other computer components. 'Cause if no one else wants it, we'll take it.

What We Can Do:
Simply click this link and your Dell waste will disappear: Dell Recycling
(Compaq and some other computer companies have recycling set up too.)

Or donate salvageable electronics to local community centers or the good causes listed here at UsedComputer.com

The Big Numbers:
Of course, we can still recycle our computers at community electronics recycling centers. If we all recycled old computers instead of trashing them, we could divert more than 6 million tons of waste this year.  That's like eliminating 400,000 trips to the landfill for your neighborhood garbage truck.

Wind Energy—Blustering Towards Progress

“Wind power may still have an image as something of a plaything of environmentalists more concerned with clean energy than saving money. But it is quickly emerging as a serious alternative not just in affluent areas of the world but in fast-growing countries like India and China that are avidly seeking new energy sources” – New York Times - The Ascent of Wind Power

Rising natural gas prices have made wind energy a real choice, and wind turbines are blooming all over the world, including in India and China, whose increasing demands are a big factor in the push for clean energy. Last year wind turbine installations grew 48% in India and 65% in China. This is good news, even though their demands for coal are still growing faster, causing acid rain, noxious pollution and global warming.

Our Ten Cents:

It shouldn’t be a problem for us in the U.S. either. Today, 6.5% of our electricity is green-powered, mostly from hydropower, so we looked into how much trouble it would be to up that figure. Happily, not too much.

You can see your green power percentage and learn how to raise it with this very cool and handy gizmo at the EPA website: http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/powerprofiler.htm

You just type in your zip code, choose your power provider and voila—it takes you to a page called “How Does the Electricity I Use Compare to the National Average?” which features a fuel mix comparison chart, an emissions rate comparison chart and a Make a Difference section that links to all the green power providers in the country. You browse by state and compare prices and see what works for you.

We ran five zip codes through to see how it worked and how much it would cost. We’ve posted partial findings here (the energy source percents aren’t complete because we didn’t list every source of power for every community):

• 92814, in Anaheim, CA, runs on 45% gas, 12% coal, and 26% hydro or non-hydro renewables. Switching to the municipal Green Power for the Grid program would only cost an additional $1.50 per 100 kilowatt block, or 1.5 cents per kilowatt.
• 65802 in Springfield, MO, runs on 30% gas, 65% coal and 5% Hydro or non-hydro renewables. Green energy costs five cents a kilowatt. The average home uses about 800 kilowatts a month, so the electric bill would be about $40.
• 07821, in Andover, NJ, runs on 9% gas, 45% coal, and 2% hydro or renewable energy. Residents there can choose between four different clean electric plans—different combinations of clean sources (low-impact hydro, solar, wind or bioenergy) at different prices per Kilowatt, ranging from 0.9 cents to 5.5 cents.
• 53744, in Madison, WI, runs on 4% gas, 70% coal and 5% hydro or non-hydro renewables. Madison Gas and Electric offers wind energy for 3.3 cents per kilowatt over the standard rate.
• 30037, in Decatur, GA, runs on 5% gas, 69% coal and 6% hydro or non-hydro renewables. Residents can purchase electricity converted from landfill gas at a 5.5 cents a Kilowatt.

So tada. While green energy still isn’t available everywhere, making a difference is getting easier all the time.

P.S. Some environmentalists have expressed concern about the wind turbines because they have been known to kill birds. greendimes’ solution: 20-story scarecrows.

Do you give a dime?  We do.  www.greendimes.com