32 Surprising Things That You Can Compost

Posted on January 9, 2015 by robbie

Chances are, even if you’re a recycling-all-star, you’re probably new to the wild world of composting. This practice, which turns common household items into all-natural, nutrient-rich mulch, is beneficial to the environment in countless ways: from reducing the need for fertilizer to fighting climate change. While many surprising things can be tossed directly into a compost heap (old latex party balloons, for one), some items might only decompose when placed in advanced composters, and others will cause more harm than good.
Since it’s the new year, and you’re all about making resolutions to better yourself (that is, to eat more whole grains, hit up the gym), why not resolve to improve the health of the earth, too? This tip sheet will help you determine what items can stay out of your trash and become composting treasure.

Compost this

Balloons, as long as they are latex, are fully compostable.

Fruit and vegetable scraps (including banana peels, citrus rinds, moldy lettuce and even jack-o’-lanterns). Tip: Breaking things down in a blender first can speed up the composting process.
Stale or moldy bread, crackers and cereal. Tip: These items can attract unwanted pets, so bury them deep in your pile or use a composter with a lid.
Wine, beer and liquor.
The liquid from canned fruits and vegetables.
Old herbs and spices.
Coffee grounds and paper coffee filters.
Tea and teabags.
Jam, jelly and other fruit preserves.
Balloons, gloves and condoms made from latex.
Hair and nail clippings.
Feathers and fur from pets.
Old ropes and ripped up cloth made of natural fibers, such as wool or cotton.
Cotton balls and swabs made from 100 percent cotton.
Natural corks from wine bottles.
Plant trimmings and clipped grass that’s free from toxins like pesticides or weed killer.
Unwanted potting soil.
Finely chopped wood chips and bark.
Leaves, twigs, pine cones and evergreen needles. (Your Christmas tree can also be composted — provided that you can break it down in a wood chipper first.)
Hay and straw.
Matches, toothpicks and bamboo skewers.
Compostable utensils and dishware. Tip: Break these up into pieces.
Shredded plain paper (think: bills and credit-card-statements), notebook paper written on with pencil or pens with soy- or vegetable-based inks, cardboard and newspaper.
Used paper towels, napkins and tissues, as long as they haven’t been used during an illness, such as the flu or a cold, or used to clean up chemicals.
Dry pet food.
Hamster bedding.
Dead plants and flowers.
Nuts and their shells (except walnut shells, which can be toxic to some plants).
Algae, seaweed and kelp.
White glue (such as Elmer’s), papier-mâché and masking tape.
Cellophane, but make sure it’s the real plant-based variety and not plastic wrap.
Natural loofahs and sea sponges.
Wood ash from your fireplace.

Skip this

Meats can cause bad odor and pest problems in a compost bin.

Meat, fish and bones, which produce foul odors and attract rodents and bugs. Tip: Your local recycling or composting facility, however, might accept them.
Eggs and dairy products such as cheese, butter and yogurt, which also attract pests.
Oils, grease, salad dressing and peanut butter. These items don’t break down easily and could upset the liquid balance of your compost.
Cigarette butts that are made of plastic.
Store-bought soaps and shampoos, which contain dyes, perfumes and chemicals that will contaminate your pile.
Black-walnut tree leaves or twigs and oleander leaves, which are toxic to plants.
Pet waste or cat litter, which may contain disease or parasites that could be passed on to humans.
Diseased or insect-ridden plants. They can regrow in your compost pile and be transferred back into your garden.
Weed seeds and invasive weeds, which can sprout in your compost pile.
Glossy magazines, colored paper, wrapping paper that may be coated in wax or other synthetic materials and paper that’s covered with inks or dyes (for instance, the ink from Rollerball pens and Sharpies are toxic). Recycle these items instead.
Used personal products such as diapers, tampons and feminine napkins.
Coated cardboard, paper cups, milk cartons and juice boxes, since they’re often lined with wax, plastic or other synthetic chemicals.
Leather goods, including belts and gloves. In theory, they’ll decompose, but it will take many, many years.
Charcoal ash from your grill, which could contain chemicals.
Baked goods, cooked grains, rice and pasta, which can be a breeding ground for bacteria and attract pests.
Dryer lint or vacuum cleaner contents. The tiny plastic or synthetic fibers shed from clothing or carpets could contaminate your compost.

This Southern City Is Looking to Trees as a Way to Beat the Heat

Posted on January 9, 2015 by robbie

You probably don’t know this, but Louisville, Ky., is an island. Yes, you read that correctly.
Granted, Louisville is not a real island, but it’s an urban heat island — a phenomenon where a city’s center is much hotter than its surrounding areas. Due to the abundance of darkly paved areas, the heat is stored and released throughout the day and night, which prevents the area from cooling down after sunset. While this doesn’t cause pollution, it does heighten the effects.
“Cities essentially create their own climates,” urban heat expert Brian Stone Jr. explains to Politico. “And the urban heat island effect is one way to measure that. There’s a heat island effect, really, in every large city.”
With an urban core that’s 20 degrees warmer than the surrounding area, Louisville ranks as the number one heat island in the nation — resulting in higher electric bills for residents, more coal burned, disruptions in the city’s ecosystem because of hotter storm water and even death by heat. And while this designation isn’t something to be proud of, the city’s effort to reverse it is.
In 2012, there were 39 heat-related deaths, which spurred the city into action. Louisville created a tree commission to assess and revive trees that were damaged by natural disasters because it believes that it’s imperative to maintain and replace existing trees in addition to planting new trees. Plus, it has spent $115,000 on tree assessments, received $135,000 in grants to study the urban heat island (the first ever in its kind) and planted over 12,000 trees since 2011.
Louisville has also hired a director of sustainability and an urban forester to address the present and the future. Local nonprofits are also getting involved in the solution. Louisville Grows holds volunteer planting days where the group plants trees across the downtown. And the nonprofit American Forests assessed the approximate percentage of trees needed to combat the urban heat island, which stands at about 20 percent in the downtown area, but Louisville only has about eight percent, reports Politico.
“It’s really important to us that while we’re planting the trees,” Louisville Grows executive director Valerie Magnuson says. “We’re thinking in terms of a tree that’s going to be living for 100 years or much longer, and is going to carry on after we’re all gone.”
MORE: Why a New Start-Up Is Paying Customers to Save Water

This City Is Reducing Cancer Risk, One Laundromat at a Time

Posted on January 8, 2015 by robbie

The dilemma: The chemical that gives your clothing that “fresh-from-the-dry-cleaner” look is toxic. But even though it poses a risk to employees’ health and pollutes the neighborhood, many mom-and-pop operations don’t have the money to do anything about it.
About 75 percent of the nation’s 37,500 dry cleaners and laundromats rely on perchloroethylene — or “perc,” for short — a chemical that dissolves oil-based stains but is an air pollutant and suspected carcinogen.
One laundromat in Boston, owned by a family of Latin American immigrants, is demonstrating how communities can come together to fund “greener” business models that don’t depend on cancer-causing chemicals. It’s a way to benefit local patrons with safer practices and strengthen existing stores against waves of gentrification.
“The chemicals we used — we knew they were not healthy,” says Myra Vargas, a Guatemalan immigrant who purchased J&P Cleaners with her husband in 1996. When she was pregnant with her second child, she was so worried about the off-putting smell that stayed away from the store.
Breathing perc — even for a short time — can harm the nervous system, overwhelming a person with dizziness, fatigue, headaches and even fainting spells. (California is in the process of outlawing it, and other states are looking at voluntary incentives.) The colorless liquid evaporates when exposed to air, so cleaners working near it on a daily basis will inhale the chemical, putting them at risk of kidney and liver damage or cancer. The Vargas family didn’t like using perc, but without $80,000 to buy new machines, they were stuck with it. “We went 17 years using something that was dangerous for everybody,” she tells the Boston Globe.
As their neighborhood transformed — blocks of vacant storefronts in Jamaica Plain were revitalized into a hip area known for its arts and sustainable dining — the Vargas family sought a way to renew their decades-old business. The Jamaica Plain New Economy Transition (JPNET) was there to help, aiming to eliminate cancer-causing chemicals at the source (i.e. dry cleaners, beauty salons, car mechanics and retail stores).
“Not enough effort, not enough research, not enough funds have been directed toward upstream efforts to prevent carcinogens from getting into the human environment in the first place,” says Richard Clapp, an epidemiologist who partnered with the group. “How do we get to the point where we don’t pour this fire hydrant of carcinogenic chemicals into the environment?”
JPNET’s answer is to be “proactive” and “help existing businesses adopt healthier and safer processes, attract more customers and thrive financially,” Carlos Espinoza-Toro, JPNET’s lead organizer, tells Yes! Magazine. Rather than boycotting offenders, they ask the community to invest in scrubbing the neighborhood of toxic fumes. “In a gentrifying urban neighborhood, we want to ensure that the benefits of ‘going green’ are not limited to affluent households,” he adds.
In less than a year, with JPNET’s support, J&P Cleaners crowdsourced $18,000 from 160 donors and won a $15,000 state grant. The Vargas family now practices a technique called “wet cleaning,” which launders clothes in a computer-controlled wash of water, soaps and conditioners (that sometimes spins as slowly as six revolutions a minute) and then reshapes the garment under tension. Although the process produces some wastewater, the final product is spot-free clothing that doesn’t reek of chemicals.
Joined by local politicians, Vargas beamed at a ribbon-cutting ceremony late last year where she successfully opened the only wet cleaner in the neighborhood and one of a dozen in Massachusetts. “I’m thrilled with our wet cleaning,” she says. “The whites are whiter. We use less energy and water. I don’t have to pay to have toxic chemicals hauled away. There is no chemical smell in the store. What’s not to love?”

Why Are Goats Snacking on Discarded Christmas Decorations?

Posted on January 8, 2015 by robbie

What happens to all those Christmas trees once the holiday is over?
When most of us take down our decorations, that once well-loved tree gets deposited at the end of the driveway awaiting pickup by the trash man. Until this year, that is.
That’s because a group in Truckee, Calif., found a way to recycle them: Goats.
Although it sounds a little strange, the Truckee Meadows Fire Prevention District has enlisted these animals to help dispose of the trees to make the district a little safer. Provided by Goat Grazers (a family-owned goat herding business), 40 goats will eat the needles off the trees, leaving only the valuable bark.
“All the trees will be taken to the Truckee Meadows fire station in Washoe Valley, which has a lot more room for all them,” Truckee Meadows Fire Prevention volunteer fireman Vince Thomas explains to the Reno-Gazette Journal. “Then, we’ll toss them over the fence and let the goats have at them.”
Christmas tree pine needs are highly flammable and, when left in landfills or used as mulch in parks or in the forests of California, there’s an increased risk of forest fires. But, with the assistance of the goats, the pine needles are disposed of and then the bark can be mulched and safely used in parks.
J.Merriam is the communications manager for Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful. Her group also runs a tree-recycling program and notes how important it is to properly dispose of trees.
“A lot of people dump it out on the desert and that’s really a problem because people think it’s a natural thing and it will decompose,” Merriman says. “But because we’re out in the desert, they don’t decompose, it will just get drier and drier and it really becomes a serious fire hazard.”
This isn’t a one-way relationship, though, as the goats receive benefits as well. First, pine needles are a natural de-wormer, which will help with the goats’ digestion. Additionally, needles are packed with vitamin C.
The program began on December 26 and continues through January 11 with multiple drop-off sites in the area.
Maybe Santa should think of trading in his reindeer for some goats?
MORE: 5 Ways Californians Have Changed Their Behavior Because of Drought

This Professional League’s Goal: Be Carbon Neutral

Posted on December 31, 2014 by robbie

Ice, sticks, screaming fans and the occasional fist fight may be what comes to mind when most of us hear about the National Hockey League (NHL). In between all that, though, the NHL has been focused on reducing its environmental skate print on the world.
Working with the energy-services firm Constellation, the NHL has developed a plan to cut its carbon emissions for all 30 teams and its main office. Starting the 2014-2015 season, Constellation will provide Renewable Energy Certificates to offset emissions and promote clean energy projects, which will total about 530,000 metric tons of carbon, an amount that’s equivalent to 50,182 homes and eliminating 115,000 cars.
According to the National Journal, the league’s emissions come from the upkeep of arenas and offices, the 2 million miles of airspace traversed by the teams, concessions, light and video displays, among many others. To reduce the NHL’s dependency on electricity, Constellation has developed a plan to target areas needing improvement, reports CleanTechnica.
Every year, the NHL files energy audits for every team and the main office, which Constellation will now review. Furthermore, the firm will look for ways to improve facility operations and create a streamlined, efficient energy plan. Acting as a consultant, Constellation will also advise the NHL on alternative transportation and eco-friendly materials and equipment.
Education and promotion is also a goal, and Constellation will work to spread the word about recycling and waste reduction.
“Our sport was born on frozen ponds and relies on winter weather,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman tells National Journal. “Everyone who loves our game will benefit by taking an active role in preserving the environment and the roots of the game.”
This isn’t the NHL’s first environmentally-friendly move. A sustainability report (the first ever by a sports’ league) was released in July outlining each team’s sustainable behavior and ways that the practices could be improved. All of these efforts are a continuation of the NHL’s Green Program which was launched back in 2010 promoting environmental awareness.
For president of Green Sports Alliance Allen Hershkowitz, it’s the sports world responsibility to use its influence to dive into green issues.
“Thirteen percent of the public follows science,” Hershkowitz tells The Guardian. “Seventy-one percent follow sports. It’s an enormously visible part of our society.”
MORE: Introducing the Country’s First Hospital System to Achieve Energy Independence

The 10 Most Inspiring Books of 2014

Posted on December 29, 2014 by robbie

In a year where our country witnessed a widening gap between rich and poor, a toxic chemical leak, long delays for veterans at hospitals and clinics, botched lethal injections, racially-charged protests, record low voter turnout and stunning Congressional dysfunction, we at NationSwell turned to these ten books for stories of hope. Confronted by complex issues, these authors never flinched. Instead, they brought us creative solutions and unwavering heroics. Read on for our top ten books of 2014 (alphabetized by author):

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Are there any inspiring books we missed? Let us know in the comments below.

How Deep-Fried Food Can Reduce Our Fossil Fuel Addiction

Posted on December 26, 2014 by robbie

You’d expect that oils from McDonald’s deep-fryer traps, fat from slaughtered pigs and cattle and the grease caught in city sewer traps would be pretty much useless, right? But two researchers are investigating how to recycle all those leftover oils and fats into biodiesel motor fuel, an alternative that can reduce our dependence on oil.
After a decade in the lab, two Minnesota chemical engineers are designing a plant that will convert yellow and brown grease into fuel. With so many experiments, they’ve found a way that’s cheaper and more energy-efficient than the alternatives, like soybean-based biodiesel. Kirk Cobb and Joe Valdespino, the brains behind Superior Process Technologies, a little-known chemical company in Minneapolis, will soon have their ideas put into practice at a full-scale refinery near downtown Los Angeles that can churn out 20 million gallons of biodiesel annually.
“Our process is superior to the traditional method,” Valdespino tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It saves energy. It increases yield. It enables you to use cheaper feedstocks,” he says, referring to the raw material inputted to machines.
Biodiesel took off after major environmental legislation in 2005 and 2007 and a farm bill in 2008 that contained several incentives. At the last count by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the country has roughly 100 producers, with most output clustered in the Midwestern states of Texas, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Most of them rely on soybean, canola and corn oils for their raw material — about 2.2 billion pounds worth just in the first half of this year. Animal fats (403 million pounds) and other recycled grease (535 million pounds), on the other hand, lag behind in the industry.
Cobb and Valdespino are hoping greater efficiency will change that. The pair became friends fifteen years ago while working for a paper company in Savannah, Ga., where they converted resin from the pulp of pine trees into profitable adhesives, plastics and inks. After 24 years on the job, Cobb left to work on biodiesel at Superior Process Technologies in 2004 and hired Valdespino in 2007.
Since then, they’ve been laying the groundwork for a tactic that diverges from the rest of the field. Other refiners add sulfuric acid to remove fat, but that reaction creates water which contaminates other key compounds like methanol and must be removed — a “really messy” and “very limited” business, Valdespino says. Their company adds glycerol at around 450 degrees, enough heat to evaporate the water and skip the extra step of eliminating impurities.
“People misconstrue higher temperatures with higher energy use,” says Cobb. “That is not the case.” Cobb says the plant will be able to do the job better — using six times less energy than the standard method — and provide diesel to large customers like airliners and the Navy at lower prices.
Almost all the industry’s innovation had been fueled by hefty support from the federal government, but most of those tax credits, loans and grants recently expired. Cobb and Valdespino are hoping the incentives return, so that for once, greasy fat can actually do something good for America.

The Plan to Save Louisiana’s Wetlands

Posted on December 12, 2014 by robbie

Southeastern Louisiana is vanishing.
Two thousand square miles of wetlands have already been submerged in the Gulf of Mexico, and the state’s shoreline is receding quicker than anywhere else on Earth. A chunk of marshland as big as a football field washes away every hour — meaning that 16 square miles are erased from the map every year. Much depends on the Bayou State’s changing contours not only for the 1.2 million residents of greater New Orleans, threatened by violent storm surges, but for the entire country: half of the nation’s oil refineries, the mainland’s largest commercial fishery and the Western Hemisphere’s largest port all hinge on the region’s viability.
In response, Louisiana is implementing a $50 billion plan to save its coastline over the next half-century. Some call it ambitious; the rest say it’s a “moon shot.” But it’s the state’s only chance to reverse a manmade environmental catastrophe before it’s too late, says a two–part series by ProPublica and The Lens.
“What we had here was a paradise — a natural paradise,” Lloyd Sergine remembers. He’s describing the swamp village of fishermen, trappers and farmers where he grew up, just a couple dozen miles south of the Big Easy. “But when I try to tell the young people about this, they just stare at me like I’m crazy. They just can’t imagine what was here such a short time ago. And now it’s gone. Just gone.” When Sergine looks out onto the fields of his childhood, he sees only saltwater drowning the landscape. Derelict boats and ice chests float in on a high tide that soon washes over concrete foundations and wooden pilings where his neighborhood once thrived. “Everything we had was based on the wetlands,” he says. “When the wetlands started going, we were done for.”
At the heart of Louisiana’s Master Plan for the Coast is the restoration of the Mississippi Rivers’s natural process of depositing sand and mud along the delta, sediment that built up extensive wetlands over several thousand years. The mighty river once picked up 400 million metric tons of sediment before spitting the brown water into an ecosystem that depended on silt to avoid sinking into the ocean.
But after engineers attempted to limit the river’s devastating floods by constructing a network of dams, levees and dikes, annual sediment deposit dropped by 60 percent. Around the same time, in the 1930s, oil drilling and dredging of canals cut into the swamps. Deterioration accelerated as saltwater intrusion choked freshwater plants that had held the ground together and powerful hurricanes battered the vulnerable clumps of land.
Louisiana’s short-term fix is pumping sediment back into the crumbling marshes. Pipelines collect sand and mud from the riverbed and from offshore to add to flooded basins and to create new barrier islands. So far, at a cost of $105 million, two projects have restored 1,600 acres. But those gains are small compared to rapid loss: the same amount is being swept away every two months.
A long-term solution will require mimicking the Mississippi’s historical flow by diverting water in controlled surges. In an unprecedented experiment, the plan suggests building a system of gates that will open when the river runs high, flooding the area and restoring much-needed silt. “The one advantage this delta has over the many others that are in trouble is that we still have a river delivering the material to help get us out of trouble,” Denise Reed, chief scientist at the Water Institute of the Gulf, explains. “As long as that river is bringing the sediments to us, we have a chance.”
There’s still many unanswered questions for the project’s researchers and engineers. “Their solutions must fit within constraints imposed by how much sediment the river can deliver and must anticipate future sea-level rise and land subsidence. Somehow, they must balance the need for restoration with the needs of the shipping, energy and fishing industries,” Bob Marshall, of The Lens, writes.
Replicating North America’s largest drainage system will be no easy task, but the state thinks they can catch up by 2042.
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Across Southern California, This Woman Is Bringing Green

Posted on December 9, 2014 by robbie

Los Angeles is seeing green, and we’re not talking about not money or jealousy. Instead, we’re referring to grass, and it’s sprouting in unusual spots: vacant lots.
Across L.A. and southern California, From Lot to Spot is taking old abandoned lots and beautifying the space — turning it into community gardens and public parks.
Founder and Executive Director Viviana Franco started the nonprofit back in 2009 after witnessing the lack of public space and fresh, healthy food access in low-income communities. So, she decided to get to work turning old lots into green space and parkland.
“I founded From Lot to Spot seven years ago out of a need in my personal neighborhood Hawthorne and Inglewood ,” Franco tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “There was an abundance of vacant lots. So I went to school to learn.”
The group’s projects include the 118^th & Doty Pocket Park in Hawthorne, Larch Avenue Park in Lawndale and the Stanford/Avalon Community Garden in Los Angeles, as well as a mass projection in Riverside. Working with the community, From Lot to Spot helped Riverside improve already existing parks, such as the Tequesquite Community Garden, Arlanza Community Garden and East Side Community Garden at Emerson Elementary School. These are only a few of the many projects on which the group has worked.
From Lot to Spot’s target is low-income food deserts where fresh, local food is scarce and fast-food restaurants and liquor stores thrive. Historically, many of these areas also contain large populations of Hispanics and African Americans.
The hope is that the parks and gardens will reverse the current health trends in these areas of obesity and diabetes and encourage healthy lifestyles. Parks provide a comfortable place for walks and exercise, and community gardens not only offer fresh food, but also boost the local economy, as well.
Although From Lot to Spot has grown over the past eight years, Franco has high hopes for the future as there is still much more work to be done. Her goals include the creation of 20 more farms by 2020, more partnerships with local organizations and increased access to local food in Riverside and Southern California.
“From a health and sustainability standpoint, local food is intrinsic,” Franco says to Sustainable Cities Collective. “There are no geographical limits of low access to healthy foods.”
MORE: This Startup Uses Urban Relics to Serve Up Local Food

Why a New Start-Up Is Paying Customers to Save Water

Posted on December 2, 2014 by robbie

Do you delay opening your utility bills, dreading the monthly expenses? Are you baffled by exactly what all those gallons, kilowatt-hours or cubic feet actually mean?
A start-up called MeterHero wants to simplify all those numbers and encourage you to save by comparing your water, gas and electricity consumption against your neighbors, and then offering rebates to those who conserve more. Earlier this month, the company started returning $1 for every 100 gallons of water a customer saves below their two-year average, TakePart reports.
Although MeterHero’s new refunds may seem small at first glance, the Environmental Protection Agency says the average American family of four guzzles through 400 gallons of water every day. So cutting 40 minutes from your household’s daily shower time or doing larger (yet fewer) loads of laundry means an extra dollar in your bank account. And with 29 percent of the continental U.S. facing drought conditions, it also means huge benefits for the environment.
The idea for the company was sparked at Marquette University in Wisconsin when two dozen students brainstormed how to motivate people to save water. Testing a form of peer pressure, they developed an online platform to compare utility bills. Heavy users would be urged to reduce waste through “the force of friendly competition,” Nathan Conroy, a graduate student involved with the project, tells the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“As humans, how we compare to others informs our behavior,” Conroy says. “We don’t need everyone to become prophets of water scarcity; we just want people to be empowered to understand their water use and take action that works for them.”
McGee Young, a professor at Marquette, founded MeterHero this year after seeing huge demand for his former students’ work. He said the website is groundbreaking because utilities rarely offer incentives for water conservation since “their revenues depend on using water.”
One thousand users in the U.S. and Canada have registered so far. Anyone with a meter, old utility bills or willing landlord can sign up. MeterHero’s next challenge will be obtaining $100,000 in commitments by early next year — enough to fund rebates for 10 million gallons of water saved. They also have plans to launch a mobile app soon, GreenBiz reports.
“There’s going to be no greater public policy challenge we’ll face in our lifetime than managing increasingly scarce resources in a growing population,” Young says. “That’s why we’re doing this. We have no alternative but to think creatively and outside the box on how to manage our water supplies.”
Source: TakePart