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Apple today announced the release of the new iPod Nano and iPod Touch. Among other design and feature updates came a status report on how these products were designed to align with Apple’s commitment to reducing their environmental impact. Both the iPod Nano and the iPod Touch have been redesigned with arsenic-free glass, a highly-recycleable aluminum or stainless steel enclosure, and are free of mercury, PVC and BFR (brominated flame retardant) – all severely toxic materials that were once industry standard in electronics’ design.
A summary of Apple’s environmental commitment can be found at http://www.apple.com/environment/ and stems in large part from a Greenpeace initiative from a few years ago called Green My Apple. Greenpeace called for the complete phase-out of toxins such as BFR and PVC, as well as a global take-back recycling program for all of it’s products. Apple answered with their revamped environmental policy and it seems that through the iPod Nano and iPod Touch updates that Apple is keeping up with part of the challenge that was put forth, though they do still have a ways to go, especially with their recycling program.
It is important, too, for consumers, not just manufacturers, to be aware of the environmental impact of products they use. Consumers can cast a vote with their dollars by purchasing and investing in products and companies that have a clear and successful commitment to the environment. However, just because one product is not as bad for the environment as another, it is important that consumers first evaluate whether a new product is something they need, and take a step to reduce their negative environmental impact by not purchasing those things that they do not need.
Less-harmful resources may be used in these new models of iPod, but I encourage you to first decide whether an iPod will be a useful item in your life, to decide if you already have something that fills the same role, and only then deciding to purchase an iPod and congratulating Apple for taking steps to reduce their negative environmental impact in these products.
We all know the slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle”, but it seems that there are some items that are painfully not a part of that equation, and are the reason that trash-collection is still a part of our weekly lives. One example of a seemingly cradle-to-grave product is the toothbrush; it’s something that most of us use on a day-to-day basis, but which, every few months, gets tossed into the garbage and replaced. Though small, these plastic sticks can add up, and it’s worth examining some cradle-to-cradle alternatives to this part of our daily routine.
The toothbrush I use is the Preserve Toothbrush from Recycline. Everything is the same as with a standard toothbrush, but the Preserve toothbrush is made from 100% recycled plastic, packaged in a petroleum-free plastic container that doubles as a travel case, and the entire thing can be sent back to Recycline via their postage-paid mailers where the plastics are again recycled and made into other useful products.
Another more environmentally-friendly toothbrush option, this one taking advantage of the ‘reduce’ and ‘reuse’ parts of the equation, is the Source Toothbrush from Radius. Radius designed a unique toothbrush that helps people to brush teeth more effectively, and with their Source toothbrush they combined this unique design with a natural and reusable base, reducing the waste of the toothbrush head to just 7% of the entire toothbrush.
Combine either of these toothbrushes with a small amount of naturally-derived toothpaste or a simple baking soda paste, keep the water turned off except to wet the toothbrush before use and to rinse after, and you’ve successfully started or ended your day with a lowered negative impact on the planet. Another great way give toothbrushes a little more life before trashing them (or sending them for recycling) is to keep a few around for small-scale scrubbing of laundry stains, bathroom fixtures, etc.
From the Chicago Reader this past weekend was an article entitled “The Recyclable House” about house “deconstructionists” (as opposed to “demolitionists”) who carefully take apart structures so that most of the materials can be salvaged and reused instead of simply demolishing and sending the whole heap to a landfill. I found the practice to be exactly the type of cradle-to-cradle forward-thinking of which society needs much more in order to sustain our existence on the planet. You can read the article here, or just move on to my further discussion:
When a house or other building is demolished, the life of the materials that were used to build that structure often end, as they are trucked away to a landfill where the structural integrity of the materials is ruined. A correlation might be drawn between demolition and throwing away a piece of paper instead of turning it over for re-use and then finally recycling it. People like Ken Ortiz, however, see that the materials used in the construction (like the used paper) still have life left in them, even if the original intent of the material does not (take a vacant building that has gone into disrepair, for example). Taking this into consideration, then, the building is deconstructed and the materials re-used for other purposes. The procedure might be initially more time-consuming and costly, but the sale of the salvaged materials often makes up for the added cost, and the invisible benefit of keeping trees growing and other resources in the earth more than makes up for the extra time.
A potential downfall of deconstruction comes if it is used as an excuse to expend additional energy to take apart still-sound buildings at whim simply because that type of demolition has become a more environmentally-friendly option. I would hope, instead, that buildings are only deconstructed when the integrity of the building makes it unsafe for inhabitance, and that as the practice of deconstruction gains popularity that the construction of each building would make more use of salvaged rather than virgin materials, that structures would be built to last as long as possible with repair rather than replacement coming first, and that new buildings are built in such a way that deconstruction would be a readily available option should the time eventually come that a building is beyond repair.
This past Saturday I attended Pitchfork Music Festival here in Chicago where I hung out with friends and heard some great new and favorite bands. The day got to a wet start, but the rain ended in the early afternoon and the overcast provided a welcome retreat from the exceedingly hot, muggy days we’d been having. Summer festivals are a great way to get outside and spend time enjoying the wonderful warm weather that can seem so fleeting come winter in the midwest. But at the same time as providing a backdrop for enjoying the outdoors and building community, these festivals often seem to walk a fine line between providing patrons with the commodities they expect and producing as little waste as possible.
The Pitchfork event planners seem to be a rather environmentally thoughtful bunch. The website includes a page outlining their commitment to taking their responsibility to the environment seriously, which included bio-diesel powered generators, visible single-stream recycling bins throughout Union Park, multiple vegetarian and vegan food options available from local vendors, encouragement for car-free transportation to the event, and Goose Island having provided corn-based, biodegradable cups that could be redeemed for festival-related goods.
As a festival-goer, I greatly appreciated seeing these strong attempts at waste-reduction, and was especially pleased to see the note on my Goose Island cup about it being compostable. After finishing my first beer, however, I found only large garbage bins next to each (much smaller) recycling bin, and no compost collection for my cup. It wasn’t until finishing my second beer while still holding onto the first cup that I caught wind of a recycling store where I could trade-in the used cups. While I continued holding the cups searching for the “store”, however, I was dismayed at how many cups I saw in recycling bins with “no cups” notes on them, and disappointedly watched as someone threw his cup into one of the garbage bins, explaining to his companions that it was compostable, so “okay” to put in the trash. Other cups littered the ground, perhaps out of carelessness, or perhaps out of ignorance that the corn-based plastic requires an industrial compost system that will reach higher temperatures than needed for other compostable materials. While I wasn’t able to find the recycling store that would take my cups, I did eventually hear that the drink-tents would take back the cups, and sure enough found stacks of used cups to which I added my own.
I fear that for some, the note on the Goose Island cups about them having been produced from corn-based, compostable plastic was enough to make it an environmentally-friendly solution to the waste problem that comes with single-use cups. This corn-based plastic, however, has problems of its own (see this comprehensive article from the Smithsonian Magazine), and does very little to reduce our negative impact on the earth when treated the same as the petroleum-based plastics it is supposed to replace instead of the cradle-to-cradle product it was designed to be. The production and use of these cups (as well as other corn-based plastic containers) can also be used as an excuse to side-step the question of how many of these single-use containers could instead be replaced with reusable items, reducing the need for energy-intensive production, shipping, collection, etc.
I have little doubt that a spirit of environmental stewardship was worked into the planning of Pitchfork Music Festival, but I do wonder what more might be done to insure the least degree of negative environmental impact caused through this and other events, and what might be done to insure that these thoughtful plans are executed and realized to their full extent.
