A Spoon Full of....

Well, pig urine may not help the medicine go down as they say, but according to Agroplast, a Denmark based company that boasts creative technological advancements for a cleaner and efficient environment, it could be the next big ingredient in creating plastic cutlery.

Agroplast specializes in transforming animal manure into a valuable product, eliminating the potential environmental problems. Their closed loop system processes urea, an organic compound made carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen for a wide range of uses.

Agroplast uses urea in the following ways:
-to manufacture plastic (as an alternative to fossil products)
-animal fertilizer/compost
-to de-ice roads and airplanes
-flavor enhancer in cigarettes (!! you're smoking pig urine!!)
-as an ingredient in hair conditioners, lotions and raw glue material
-AgroBlue/AdGreen diesel engine exhaust cleaner

EPA's CLIMATE PROTECTION AWARD WINNERS 1998-2007

2007

Corporate Award Winners
Entergy Corporation
HSBC Holdings, plc
Mitsubishi Motors Corporation & Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Red Dot Corporation
Staples, Inc.
The Yalumba Wine Company

Team & NGO Award Winners
Arkema Climate Protection Team
Climate Protection Campaign
Improved Mobile Air Conditioning Servicing Emissions Reduction Team
Joint Strike Fighter Emissions Test Development Team
Natural Resources Council of Maine

Individual Award Winners
Reverend Sally Bingham
Robert Parkhurst
Robert Redford
Auden Schendler
Ron Sims
Dadi Zhou

2006

Corporate, Government & Military Awards
Arizona Public Service Company
Baxter Healthcare Corporation
DENSO Corporation (Japan)
IBM Corporation
Johnson & Johnson
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The United States Air Force
Yokota Tohoku (Japan)

Individuals
Susan J. Brown, California Energy Commission
Gregory J. Nickels, City of Seattle, Washington
Barry G. Rabe, University of Michigan

Organizations/Teams
Mobile Air Conditioning Society Worldwide
Refrigerant Reclaim Australia (Australia)

2005

Corporate and Governmental Awards
American Electric Power
City of Boulder, Colorado
The California Energy Commission
Cinergy Corp.
Connecticut Governor's Steering Committee
Johnson Controls
3M
McDonald's, Coca-Cola, & Unilever Refrigerants Naturally Partnership (UK and USA)
Rhode Island Greenhouse Gas Stakeholders
City of Syracuse, New York
United Technologies Corporation
York International

Individuals
Mr. Sandeep Ganesh, Winrock International (India)
Ms. Sonia Hamel, Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development
Dr. Hideki Nishida, Hitachi Displays (Japan)

Organizations/Teams
Improved Mobile Air Conditioning Organizing Team
Tufts Climate Initiative

2004

Corporate and Governmental Awards
Interface, Inc.
Turbocor, Inc. (Canada)
China Certification Center for Energy Conservation Products (China)
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)
City of San Diego, California
City and County of San Francisco, California
European Commission Fluorinated GasTeam (Belgium)

Individuals
Mayor David B. Cohen of Newton, Massachusetts
Harry Kauffman, HK Energy Consulting Inc.
Julia Martinez, Instituto Nacional de Ecología (Mexico)

Organizations/Teams
Electrical Inverter Air Conditioning System Team (Japan)
SF6 Emission Reduction Partnership for theMagnesium Industry and The International Magnesium Association

2003

Corporate and Governmental Awards
Center for Power Efficiency and Environmental Protection (India)
Chicago Department of Environment
China National Institute of Standardization (China)
City of Chula Vista, California
Emerald Homes
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
City of Seattle, Washington

Individuals
Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson of Salt Lake City, Utah
Dr. Seunghun Joh, Korea Environment Institute (South Korea)
David Konkle, Ann Arbor Energy Office

Association and Organization Awards
Green House Network
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
The Society of Automotive Engineers
Interior Climate Control Standards Committee

2002

Corporate & Governmental Awards
Air Products and Chemicals
City of Portland, Oregon
C2D, US Army CECOM RD&E Center
CONSOL Energy
DuPont
Hitachi (Japan) and Hitachi America
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection /DSRT Office of Innovative Technology
Ontario Power Generation’s Energy Efficiency Program (Canada)
Shaklee Corporation
Verizon Communications

Association, Partnership, and Team Awards
CO2 Hot Water Supply Unit
Design Team (Japan)
International SEMATECH’s PFC Emission
Reduction Working Group
Land and Water Fund of the Rockies
Voluntary Aluminum Industrial Partnership for PFC Reductions

Individuals
Dr. Fabio R. Borri, ST Microelectronics (Italy)
Dr. Luis Abdón Cifuentes, Pontifica Universidad Catolica (Chile)
Yoshinobu Hayakawa, NEC Corporation (Japan)
Rev. Richard L. Killmer, National Council of the Churches of Christ
Robert L. Markle, U.S. Coast Guard
Robert T. Wickham, Delegate, UN International Maritime Organization

2001

No awards were given in 2001 due to a scheduling change.

2000

Corporate & Governmental Awards
Alcan Aluminum Sebree Ingot Plant
Architectural Services Department, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
The AT&T Employee Telework Program
Honda Motor Company
ICE Klea (UK)
Intel Corporation
International Fuel Cells
Novellus Systems
Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council and Oregon Office of Energy
Visteon Corporation

Individuals
Ms. Sherri W. Goodman, U.S. Department of Defense
Dr. Jerry Mahlman, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Mayor Marc H. Morial, New Orleans
Ms. Tia Nelson, The Nature Conservancy
Mr. Nobuo Odubo, Nissan Motor Company
Dr. Robert T. Watson, The World Bank

Association Awards
American Portland Cement Alliance
The Real Estate Roundtable
University of Colorado Environmental Center

1999

Corporate & Military Awards
Annapolis Detachment of the Carderock Division, U.S. Navy
Applied Materials
Motorola
Nissan (Japan)
ST Microelectronics (Switzerland)
Texas Industries

Individuals
Rosina M. Bierbaum, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Dr. Mack McFarland, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Eugene L. Smithart, The Trane Company

Association Awards
The Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association

1998

Corporate & Military Awards
British Petroleum (UK)
Centro Nacional de Referencia em Biomassa (Brazil)
Compaq Computer Corporation
Enron
IBM Corporation
McDonald’s Corporation
NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory Climate Team
Royal Philips Electronics (Netherlands)
Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Australia)
Toyota Motor Corporation(Japan)
The Trane Company
Trigen Energy Corporation
DD 963/CG 47 Stern Flap R&D Team, NSWCCD, U.S. Navy
The Walt Disney Company
Whirlpool Corporation

Individuals
Bert Bolin, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Sweden)
John Browne, British Petroleum (UK)

Association Awards
China Energy Efficiency Project (China)
World Semiconductor Council (Global)

It's Only Fair

Fair Trade Coffee has created quite the buzz recently. A number of small privately owned coffee shops have sprung up boasting fair trade only brews while Starbucks also leads the march with an entire line of shade grown and fair trade beans for your skinny latte. It’s clear that coffee, the largest food import in the U.S. comes at a high price for both the consumer and the coffee farmers.

Coffee and I have been best friends for many years now. He comforts me in the morning, warms my soul during the winter months and cools me down with ice and milk in the summer. One morning I woke up and realized that like millions of other Americans and pretty much everyone in Manhattan, I was addicted to coffee. I decided to kick the daily coffee habit and switch to tea. I recently noticed that while there was a good deal of fair trade coffee buzz, people we’re blindly buying tea from mass producers who may be severely underpaying their workers while they toil for long hours in the sun.

According to the Rainforest Alliance, India, China, Kenya Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil and other countries export large volumes of the dried and shredded leaf. Globally, about six million acres are planted in tea, most often in large plantations. The Rainforest Alliance certifies tea farms by making sure the farms take certain measures to protect the environment by practicing sustainable farming practices. One of the main concerns of tea crops is that they often take over as a monoculture replacing a biodiversity rich environment. Another similar company that certifies fair trade and organic products is Equal Exchange, the oldest and largest for profit Fair Trade Company in the US.

The primary reason the Fair Trade regulations were set up is to ensure that tea and coffee farmers receive a fair price and a decent living wage. According to globalexchange.org, Guatemalan coffee pickers receive a minimum wage of less than three dollars a day only after reaching a one hundred pound quota. To fill these quotas, a report by ABC-affiliate KGO television in San Francisco recorded children as young as 6 years old working in the fields. The Fair Trade trend has caught on. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, nearly sixty-five million pounds of fair-trade coffee were imported into the U.S. in 2006; up 45% from the year before.

In terms of tea farms, the best tea company I found was PG Tips. On their website, here, http://www.pgtips.co.uk/sustainability/, they claim that by 2010 all of their farms will be certified by the Rainforest Alliance. Their biggest farm, located in Kenya, is the Rainforest Alliance’s first sustainable tea farm. To combat Kenya’s present state of violence Unilever, PG Tip’s owner, has donated one million dollars as food relief for those suffering in Kenya.

Thirsty?

Buy a Nalgene

•More than 25.5 billion plastic water bottles are sold each year in the US.•

•More than 17 million barrels of oil (not including fuel for transportation) were used in plastic bottle production.

•Bottling water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.

•It takes approximately 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water.

•The total amount of energy used to produce, transport, refrigerate, and dispose of a plastic bottle of water may be as high as the equivalent of filling a 1 liter bottle one-quarter full of oil.

Source: Waste Management World, The Pacific Institute

If you don't like Nalgenes then check out these cool waterbottles from the http://www.lazyenvironmentalist.com/pages/recycling/index.php

Be Mine: Be Green

Happy Green Valentine's Day!

This year instead of eating at high class restaurants, showering her in expensive pesticide ridden roses, and adorning her in superficial, overvalued rocks brought to you by African slave labor....

Be creative. Be unique. Be in love.

Dinner: Going out to dinner is expensive, time consuming, and can be a bit stifling in comparison to a romantic evening at home cooking dinner together over one or a few bottles of organic red wine.

For one of the best websites for a complete green and sustainable meal, check out Sustainable Table.Com

For organic products Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are great places to start shopping. And for dessert, check out this yummy looking recipe:

Vegan Amaretto-spiked chocolate mousse

1/2 cup organic chocolate soy milk
9 or 10 ounce bag of semisweet vegan chocolate chips (Try Tropical Source or Sunspire Brand all-natural brands, NOT carob chips)
12 ounces silken tofu
1/4 cup Amaretto or almond-flavored liquor
1/4 teaspoon natural pure almond extract
Pour the chocolate milk into a small pot and bring to a simmer. Remove the milk from heat and let cool a bit while you melt down the chocolate chips. You can melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or if you don't own a double-boiler, you can cobble one together using a tiny saucepan set under a larger mixing bowl. Fill the tiny saucepan with an inch or two of water and bring barely to a simmer. Place the big mixing bowl with the chocolate chips on top of the tiny saucepan and let the heat come up and gently warm the chips while you stir occasionally until completely melted. Remove from heat.
Add the soy milk and silken tofu to the melted chocolate chips. Process with a hand or regular blender until completely smooth. Stir in the Amaretto and almond extract. Taste and adjust for flavor, adding a bit more extract if needed.
Chill in the big bowl (or in individual bowls) for at least 1 1/2 hours, the longer the better. The pudding will set up nicely as it cools.
Makes 6 decadent servings.

Flowers: According to the Sierra Club, seventy percent of flowers sold in the United States are imported. How do you think they get the flowers to stay so fresh? "In a 1995 report, Bittersweet Harvests for Global Supermarkets, the World Resources Institute found that rose and carnation producers in Ecuador use an average of six fungicides, four insecticides, and several herbicides. The situation is worse in Colombia, where flower-plantation workers near Bogotá are exposed to 127 types of pesticides. Nearly two-thirds of the Colombian workers suffer from headaches, nausea, rashes, asthma, and other symptoms of pesticide-related illnesses. (Such severe health effects are unlikely to plague consumers, though pesticide residues may aggravate existing allergies or chemical sensitivities.) In addition to the human toll, flower farms--20 percent of which are owned by Los Angeles–based Dole Food--have polluted and depleted Bogotá’s streams and groundwater."

Best Bet: Opt for locally grown organic flowers which can be found at your local supermarket or organic florist. Also, potted plants are always a better present than cut flowers, they last longer! The benefits of having potted plants around include increased happiness and better air quality.

Gift: First of all, if you have a boyfriend who is cool enough to buy you vintage jewelry hang on to him. Not only is it environmentally friendly but the coolest jewelry I own is definitely from my mom and grandma or from vintage boutiques.
This jewelry made out of sea glass is beautiful for the beach bum in your life

If you don't feel like hunting for vintage jewelry, how about some cheap and very romantic gift ideas: poetry, art (paint him or her a picture!), a coupon book (get creative here), massage gift certificates, a planned trip together like a hike in the park or a bike ride along the Potomac river...

Simply walking into a Kay Jeweler's or scoping out the new Tiffany's catalog is boring.

Be sure to share that bath water & why not use romantic candles instead of electric lights!

Polar Bears

“Drink Responsibly” by GreenBean

With global warming affecting all corners of the Earth (tsunamis, Katrina, SoCal Fires, Polar Bears, and Coral Reefs), it’s scarcely alarming that its ever present threat has already taken its toll on the wine industry. We all know how to drink responsibly in regards to safe driving and behavioral practices. How about taking it a step further and indulging in a sip of environmental responsibility?

The global warming impact is taking its toll on several wine regions. As average temperatures increase wine growing conditions change, often for the worse. But what is the wine industry doing to combat these damages? Dr. Gregory Jones, a professor and research climatologist from the Geography Department at Southern Oregon University, has been working on this issue regarding the carbon footprints of vineyard operations. In a recent study Dr. Jones found the growing season temperatures to have increased by an average of 2 degrees Celsius, or 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past fifty years. This temperature change may benefit cooler regions allowing for different varieties of wine from England, Northern France, New England, and Northern California. However, this temperature change may have a very negative impact on warmer regions like California’s Napa and Sonoma valleys, Southern France, parts of South America, and South Africa.

While there is certainly no solution to global warming at this time, we can certainly do our best to choose organic wines that at least have a foot in the right direction when it comes to green practices.

So how does one determine the best “green” viticulture practice such as traditional, organic, biodynamic, etc? When asked about the best practices in the wine industry Dr. Jones answered, “My feeling is that most mid-size to small scale operations are "nearly" organic by nature, while larger operations are less organic. I also feel that practicing organic, sustainable production is "easier" on the environment as a whole, but because there are no universal definitions/standards of what organic means it’s very hard to define. However, do they do "enough" to combat climate change? I would say that being organic is a big effort at both on site and up/down stream carbon use, however its not likely a significant climate impact reducing mechanism but more like getting closer to neutral.” Perhaps in 2008, even Bacchus would’ve considered organic wine.

As environmentalism becomes trendy and “going green” is no longer a hippy’s pastime, several industries are taking necessary steps to become more eco-friendly. In his article for Wine Businesses Monthly, Dr. Gregory states, “Of all of the environmental factors, climate arguably exerts the most profound effect on the ability of a region or site to produce quality grapes and therefore wine.” So in order to continue enjoying your favorite white wine from the Napa Valley region, I’ve compiled several resources for enjoying organically grown wine.

There are several wine companies devoted to environmental stewardship. According to The Organic Wine Company, organic wines are free of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and other synthetic chemicals. Essential preservatives, such as sulfur dioxide or sulfites are kept to a minimum. Biodynamic farming keeps the Earth in mind and uses only herbal-based compost starters and field sprays. If you visit their website, theorganicwinecompany.com, they offer a full refund if you are not completely satisfied with your wine selection.

The Hardy Wine Company of Australia, a division of Constellation Brands, operates vineyards, wineries, packing and distribution facilities all ensure compliance with environmental legislation. The staff receives training in environmental responsibility and attends regular environmental reviews. Australia is well known for their environmentally responsible wine practices. This past August, Adelaide hosted the 4th Australian Wine Industry Environment Conference.

In the U.S., LIVE, a non profit organization standing for low input viticulture and enology educates and certifies vineyards on sustainable and green viticulture practices. LIVE aims to apply winemaking practices which to not depend on chemical fertilizers, which encourage natural maintenance of the land, and which promote sustainable farming practices. Visit http://www.liveinc.org/ for a list of vineyards that have earned this green certification.

Choosing organic wine that comes from vineyards which support green practices is one small and pleasurable way to combat our impact on the environment. I implore you dear oenophiliac, before you imbibe, please drink responsibly.

Biographical Information on Mr. Jones: www.sou.edu/Geography/JONES/jones.htm