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plastic 
Tue Sep 29, 2009 at 13:14:37 PM PDT
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Miss America is going to be the new face of "biodegradable" plastic. Now, this isn't something that Miss America herself decided after seeing the technology and deeming it sustainable. The Miss America Organization made the decision to partner with Nature's Bottles, a company that makes "bioplastic" bottles out of polylactic acid. Polylactic acid, or PLA, comes from corn. Which opens up a bit of a question: Does it require less petroleum to produce plastic, or to produce corn to produce plastic? And is it better to use petroleum-based plastic that you can recycle, or to use corn-based plastic that can be composted? (It seems that there is very limited ability for composting PLA cups and most community recycling facilities do not do it.)
These are good questions to ask, but let's start with a little bit of honesty. PLA can't be composted by your average composter. A friend sent me the following email about attempts for composting PLA:
[A friend] and I have talked about the issues with PLA and other "compostable" or "biodegradable" quite a bit. Beyond the initial problem with most of them being made from commercially grown corn or other vegetables, they rarely live up to their claims. Even the ones that I have seen that are made from organic corn (usually from China) don't seem to break down well at all. None of this takes into account the fact that we live next to the ocean and none of these products break down in water. I ran a test on the potato based cutlery and after one year in ocean water they had barely changed. If these get into the water, they are just one more part of the Pacific Gyre.
My friend sent me this picture of an attempt to compost a PLA cup:
As you see, it didn't work out so well. Better stick to drinking out of reusable cups and water bottles.
UPDATE: About the picture, the person who sent it to me said this:
That picture is from a commercial compost pile that was using the latest in composting technology. The temperature and oxygen levels were constantly monitored to maintain peak efficiency.
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Tue Aug 25, 2009 at 08:12:55 AM PDT
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One of the easiest ways to up your locavore score is to drink tap water and home-brewed tea instead of bottled or canned drinks of any kind. You'll save lots of money, reduce your carbon footprint, and probably do your health a lot of good too.
Ironically for me, several major brands of bottled water are made from my local tap water. That means if I choose the right brand, I am still drinking local ... just at an outrageously high price. But you may be drinking my city's water hundreds of miles away.
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Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 15:21:01 PM PDT
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Most concerned citizens find that it is increasingly hard to argue against the fact that waste management has become a gigantic problem in the world, with landfills growing to the size of small counties, oceans being used as dumps and recycling habits remaining dismally low on the radar. The number of plastic bottles produced by the bottled water industry and subsequently discarded by careless consumers has not just exacerbated this problem but added on extra detritus to an already polluted planet, the majority of which is not bio-degradable.
The pic above is from environmental artist and photographer Chris Jordan, check his website for reality checks on pollution, it is mind-boggling. And extremely depressing.
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Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 13:59:55 PM PDT
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I feel like I'm on AAF's turf here, but I've found quite a few fish & water related articles over the past few days that deserve a mention here...
- The American pharmaceutical industry is still dumping hundreds of millions of pounds of drug residues into our water supplies.
- Two California-based environmentalists and researchers are cycling 2,000 miles down the Pacific Coast to raise awareness about the massive plastic soup in the North Pacific. I can't even come up with the words to describe how angry the picture with this article makes me - an adult turtle who was grossly deformed by crawling into a plastic ring while young, and whose body grew around it.
- And also (we all saw this one coming), the plastic-bag industry and the American Chemistry Council are kicking up the greenwashing a few notches.
- An article from Canada looks at the ongoing attempts at sustainability in sushi restaurants.
- A commonly used home garden pesticide, carbaryl, which is sold under the brand name "Sevin" (which has also been classified by EPA as a likely human carcinogen and is banned in the UK, Germany and several other countries...), has been identified as a threat to salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Northwest.
- The National Marine Fisheries Service is seeking our input as to how to form the rules protecting the now-endangered Cook Inlet (Alaska) beluga whales.
- A new study finds that the world's major rivers are drying up, and the Christian Science Monitor takes a look at how things might play out along the Colorado River for the Southwestern United States and Mexico.
- The European Union on Wednesday called for major cuts in the European commercial fishing fleet, and is cracking down on illegal fishing, to help overfished stocks recover. 88% of EU stocks are overfished, according to the commission.
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