Recycle Bank has so much potential

This year single stream recycling was introduced in Ann Arbor. I believe the single stream does make recycling easier, my husband loves that he does not have to divide up the recycling into separate containers. Ask the drivers and they say it is a mess back at the MURF or at least it was a lot cleaner when separated. I'm neither for or against, it is just a change. If this increases recycling and removes greater volume from the landfills, excellent.

The same time single stream came in so did the recycling bank. I was asked if I knew about it. This was my response,

Yes, I have heard of the RecycleBank, we have it in Ann Arbor, and I have some issues with it. While it does encourage more household recycling and seems to make a difference in numbers of recycling materials collected it also encourages buying more stuff with little consideration to the end of life of the new stuff. It also relies on local vendors to provide all the incentives, which some of them seem to like but in my neighborhood case, if we all don’t spend our points and reach the level that we can earn enough points to get a big screen TV, I’m not sure how the vendor could handle that demand. You can also contribute to charities if you don't want to get stuff with your points.

I don’t like the approach Ann Arbor is taking because they don’t weigh each bin collected. Ann Arbor takes the number of bins lifted for recycling and divides the total weight evenly among the registered users in that neighborhood and distributes points evenly. It is known among the drivers that people are putting out the recycling bin with nothing in it, just so it registers and they can get free stuff.

I would be ecstatic if the recycle bank : 

1. The bins were randomly monitored to be sure people are not tossing in landfill items and removed from the program if they are unless they want to attend an educational session. Two strikes and are removed for a determined amount of time.
2. The prizes were limited to:
• Local social charitable gifts.
• High post consumer recycle content items.
• Minimally packaged grocery items.
• Car share memberships or trips.
• Bus passes and bicycles.
• Farmers market coupons.
• Local vendor services such as legal advice, tax assistance, teeth cleaning, eye doctor…
• YMCA or community athletic club memberships.
• Inhouse coffee or foods only – no take out or delivery.
• No tv’s or single use disposables or unnecessary packaging in goods such as CD’s.
3. Rewarded each home by the weight/volume of the actual recycling vs the weight/volume of their trash. Lots of recyclables in the trash get deducted.
4. Zero waste should be the focus and the educational emphasis  – reduced recycling and no or almost no landfillable items. People are instead being rewarded for enhanced recycling and to keep growing the recycling weight annually they will need to buy more.

Because recycling is big business I doubt any of this will happen in Michigan but without purchasing of post consumer recyclable goods being emphasized to close the loop what is the point?

My two cents.

Find out what pesticides are on your dinner plate

 

Companies want sustainable business but finding it hard to implement.

The sustainability learning center in Toronto, Ontario has a vested interest in advancing businesses and organizations implementation of sustainable applications and the feedback they are getting is positive but a new approach needs to be taken to be fully embraced. This article was posted on Sustainability Learning Center blog by Kathryn Cooper.

Global CEOs say “complexity of implementation” is greatest barrier to business sustainability

Posted on August 23, 2010 by kathryncooper

Global CEOs report that greatest barrier to business sustainability is the complexity of implementation.

In the New Era of Sustainability study, released June, 2010, 93 percent of 766 global CEOs agreed that sustainability is critical to the future success of their companies. In fact, 80 percent of them reported the global economic downturn accelerated their conviction to embrace sustainability practices. But they also lamented that “complexity of implementation across functions” was their most significant barrier to implementing an integrated, company-wide approach to Sustainability. Of particular issue was the challenge of establishing a consistent, companywide approach across large and increasingly complex supply chains and subsidiaries. Clearly, the journey from sustainability strategy to implementation is not all that easy. Fast forward to August, 2010, another study, Demand for ISO 14001 adoption in the global supply chain notes that environmental preferences and pressures of customers in environmentally conscious markets are more likely to encourage domestic and foreign suppliers to adopt ISO 14001.
To read full article click on link above.

History of Thrift Week

Thrift Week sounds great to me and I believe we need to get back to the hard core basics of living within our means and community.

I decided to look into Thrift Week and find out what happened to it and led to it's demise.
Here's what I found.

Thrift week began pre World War 1 in 1961
"National Thrift Week" and sponsored primarily by the Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.), the campaign became an annual celebration. National thrift Week began each year on January 17 the American apostle of thrifts' birthday, Benjamin Franklin. Expanding in the 1920's Thrift week gained supporters from over 50 groups including the Boy and Girl Scouts, Bankers, Farm Mortgage groups, Advertising Clubs, The US Postal Service and The Red Cross.

National Thrift Week was celebrated daily by specific principles and encouraged action each day.
Slogan, "For Success and Happiness."  

Monday: Have a Bank Account Day
Tuesday: Invest Safely Day
Wednesday; Carry Life Insurance Day 

Thursday: Keep a Budget Day
Friday: Pay Bills Promptly Day
Saturday: Own Your Home Day
Sunday: Share with Others Day.

Share with others Day was expanded into three pie charts:
“Mr. Tightwad’s Dollar,”
“Mr. Spendthrift’s Dollar,” 
“Mr. Thrifty’s Dollar.”
Mr. Tightwad and Mr. Spendthrift pie only allotted 1 percent to giving, Mr. Thrifty allotted 10 percent because he had more to give.

These principles were meant to cultivate responsible consumerism and civic progress. Rather than self-denial, the goal was self-control. The word, "thrift," finds its root in the phrase "to thrive".
Thrift is thriving because, in the end, the thrifty person will have more resources than the spendthrift—which thrift leaders believed was important not only for one’s personal flourishing, but for societal flourishing as well. 

Finally, thrift is thriving because thrift is not only wise use of money,  “intelligent use of health, time, and property of all kinds, including money.” In a school educational guide called "Thrift and Conservation"  thrift educators boasted that in 1917, schoolchildren in Los Angeles cultivated 90 vacant city lots, and more than 14,000 tended 900 acres of home gardens. As a result, they said, “Children are trained in habits of industry and thrift, and the spirit of cooperation is developed.” For these thrift educators, conserving natural resources was an intrinsic part of the thrift ethic: Because we hold all our resources in trust, the school guide noted, “it is our duty to guard our trust faithfully and to pass it on as little impaired by our use of it as possible.”

Special  events, parades, programs were the rage within budget but slowly fizzled out with more wars, economic downturns and cultural changes and lack of sponsorship until it completely disappeared in 1966. Arguably, thrift was replaced for the next forty years by consumerism and easy credit and our reversion back to thrift is one out of necessity.

How about starting our own thrift movement, emphasizing hard work, wise use of money, generosity, and conservation? As we work our way out of this Recession, the advice from nearly a century ago rings just as true for today: “Get the thrift habit.”Spending as we have seen does not necessarily stimulate the economy, as we are experiencing today.

Taking control back into our own hands and responsibility and out of investment bankers and speculation investors will go a long way to create sound communities and healthy solid/paid for homes and reduce waste everywhere.

Wasteful Numbers

What ever happened to Yankee frugality? Straightening bent nails, saving string.
Is Thrift Week, a holiday which began on Ben Franklin's birthday even on the calendar anymore? When did it disappear? 

"Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship," said he. That leak is not so small anymore.

We disapproved of frippery, definition according to answers.com

1. Pretentious, showy finery.
2. Pretentious elegance; ostentation.
3. Something trivial or nonessential.

We couldn't imagine wasting money on ourselves, made do or did without. It took a mighty effort to make us what we are today. 

Today in the USA:
Americans toss:

• 106,000 aluminum cans every 30 seconds. (Enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every three months—and aluminum represents less than 1 percent of our solid waste stream).
• 2 million plastic beverage bottles every 5 minutes
• 426,000 cell phones every day
• 14 % of the food we buy at the store

Americans use:

• 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags each hour
• 60,000 plastic bags we use every 5 seconds
• US airline flights distributed 1 million plastic cups every 6 hours
• 15 million sheets of office paper every 5 minutes
• 170,000 Energizer batteries produced every 15 minutes

Energy:
The average American uses more energy between the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve and dinner on January 2 than the average, Tanzanian consumes in a year.

Time to rethink hyper-consumerism and get back in touch with what really matters.

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff  The Book

Now Annie Leonard has a full explaination of her journey through "Stuff". An expanded version of much of the work that went on before her 20 minute video "The Story of Stuff" that has been viewed over 10 million times and is translated into multiple languages. Just as easy to read and understand as her videos, I recommend this book to everyone.

Zip Car - a great way to get around town

I've been a zip car user for two years now and it is a great way to get a car in a convenient location for a flat fee. If I just need a car for a few hours I walk book online to reserve the car, walk 10 minutes downtown or take the bus, pick up the car, drive and drop the car off when my time is up. Gas, insurance, it's all covered and my time driving the zip car also counts as a driver for insurance if I should ever decide to own my own.

I was also able to add visitors to town on my account so they could drive if they needed to. Visitor from Switzerland in town need to drive for only a few days, no problem with zip.

Looks like I can drive a zip car where-ever they are located so that next trip to Chicago or Toronto, no problem, they have even added London, England to the list. I recommend this company to anyone as a zero Waste alternative to car ownership that has zipcar in their area.