Reduction 101

Recy­cling has become a cen­ter­piece of the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment, and it should be.  As a pro­fes­sional in this field over the past 15 years, I have had count­less peo­ple approach me about their recy­cling habits – excited to share the lat­est item they have added to the recy­cling stream, or how much they have reduced their waste stream, etc.

The gen­eral pub­lic has come a long way since the first Earth Day almost 42 years ago.  The vast major­ity of res­i­dents in Howard County are now con­scious of the waste and recy­cling being gen­er­ated in their homes.  From my per­spec­tive, how­ever, the empha­sis often seems to be on reduc­ing waste that exits the home, as opposed to mak­ing attempts to reduce waste on the front end.  What are you talk­ing about, Laura?

An easy go-to exam­ple would be some­thing like juices or other drinks that come in both con­cen­trated and ready-to-drink pack­ages.   When we pack lunch for our daugh­ter, I get out one of her four cups and fill it with juice (admit­tedly half water and half juice).   This was actu­ally some­thing that I started just because we had cups in the house and juice in the house and I had to send *some­thing* for her to drink.  We have been doing this for years, but it was only the other night that I really rec­og­nized how much waste we were reduc­ing by not send­ing indi­vid­ual serv­ing juice boxes for her lunch.

Maybe the reduc­tion mes­sage isn’t com­ing across strongly enough?  It seems that recy­cling is so much at the fore­front of everyone’s minds that it is almost sec­ond nature, but reduc­ing waste at the source involves a bit more brain power.

Are you ready Howard County?  Are you ready to take the next step and think about your pur­chas­ing prac­tices and how that impacts your waste and recy­cling generation?

The options are (excuse the pun) at your dis­posal… it is up to you to decide how you can reduce the waste that comes in to your home.  Here, I’ll help you a little:

• Buy prod­ucts made with recy­cled con­tent.
• Rent, share or bor­row items not used fre­quently.
• Buy con­cen­trates or items in bulk.
• Obtain gen­tly used items on Craigslist and Freecy­cle, or at a sec­ond­hand shop.
• Buy durable and reusable prod­ucts. Try to stay away from dis­pos­able items.
• Buy food and other items with as lit­tle as pack­ag­ing as pos­si­ble; request that retail­ers stock items with less pack­ag­ing.
• When shop­ping, bring reusable bags.

Be the pio­neer and spread the reduc­tion mes­sage (at the same time you reuse and recy­cle every­thing you can )!

Laura A.T. Miller

Sus­tain­abil­ity Coordinator

Envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, edu­ca­tion, cam­paign­ing, pro­mo­tion, mar­ket­ing, blah blah blah.

Here we are doing all of this work, and Dr. Seuss had it fig­ured out all along!

The Lorax is a book I read from time to time to my four-year-old daugh­ter.  What?  You have never read The Lorax?  It is the quin­tes­sen­tial story of char­ac­ter v. nature, and though this part may not sound good, it does end with char­ac­ter very much still in the lead.

While read­ing it the other night it occurred to me that it would make an excel­lent blog topic.  But of course Hol­ly­wood had to come along and trump my idea and cre­ate a feature-length film based on the book (in the­aters March 2nd).

In a nut­shell, The Lorax is the story of a char­ac­ter who dis­cov­ers that Truf­fula trees are great for mak­ing thneeds – things that every­one needs!   Well, the more he makes (reads cuts down the trees), the more he sells (reads pro­duces in pollution-creating fac­to­ries).   In no time at all the land around the fac­tory is dec­i­mated, the wildlife gone, and all the Truf­fula trees cut down.  The illus­tra­tions resem­ble images of the moon – gray and lifeless.

But wait!  While it ends with a bleak land­scape, we do learn that there is one Truf­fula seed remain­ing - one that could be planted and cared for to bring back the Truf­fula trees.  So there is hope…

It is at this point that Dr. Seuss man­ages to encap­su­late the green mes­sage in the sim­plest of terms:

“Unless some­one like you cares a whole awful lot,
noth­ing is going to get bet­ter. It’s not. ”

Unless some­one like you:

Con­serves water by using a rain bar­rel;
Com­posts food scraps in a com­post bin from the County;
Recy­cles as much as pos­si­ble at your curb, and at the Con­ve­nience Cen­ter;
Vol­un­teers to clean up lit­ter in your neigh­bor­hood;
Reduces your energy use;
Edu­cates them­selves by attend­ing Green­Fest;
Plants a tree along a stream;
Reduces your waste;
Or even just fol­lows the sim­plest of tips;

“Noth­ing is going to get bet­ter.  It’s not.”

Laura A.T. Miller
Sus­tain­abil­ity Coordinator

The home energy audit pro­gram is still accept­ing appli­ca­tions — but is look­ing to wrap up the pro­gram at the end of Jan­u­ary.  Have you been con­sid­er­ing apply­ing for the pro­gram but did not have enough details about the actual audit?  Well, I present to you my expe­ri­ence observ­ing a home energy audit:

It was a dreary and cold Tues­day after­noon in Novem­ber – what bet­ter day to fol­low an audi­tor around a friend’s house as they per­form a free home energy audit.  Free?  Wait, there must be a catch!

Actu­ally, the catch is that Howard County received a fed­eral gov­ern­ment stim­u­lus grant to per­form home energy audits at no cost to res­i­dents.  The hope is that by pro­vid­ing energy sav­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to res­i­dents, they will see an oppor­tu­nity to reduce their energy bills by reduc­ing their home energy usage.

George, the audi­tor from ecobeco, arrived promptly at the sched­uled time, and sat down with Lisa to go over a sur­vey regard­ing her home and energy usage, as well as types and ages of appli­ances.   He was very thor­ough and cov­ered top­ics rang­ing from which rooms are typ­i­cally “lived in” to how often kitchen appli­ances are used.

The audit began with a walk­through of each of the rooms, which included mea­sur­ing of all of the rooms and a visual sur­vey.   Areas around win­dows were exam­ined for drafts and doors were checked for weatherization.

A thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion of the attic was next.  George pointed out to Lisa var­i­ous places in the insu­la­tion layer where there appeared to be air leak­age; this was indi­cated by small black areas on the yel­low insu­la­tion.  There were also some obvi­ous places (specif­i­cally on a sloped ceil­ing that came up) where there was no insu­la­tion.  (See images in the Home Energy Audit Report.)

One of the next steps was an exam­i­na­tion of the nat­ural gas sys­tem – the water heater and fur­nace.  Through a series of steps, George checked on the draft to deter­mine if there is suf­fi­cient air­flow for the nat­ural gas sys­tem.  This included run­ning all of the upstairs fans under cer­tain con­di­tions; and then check­ing the draft with no fans running.

Upon the com­ple­tion of the audit, a Home Energy Audit Report was sent to Lisa that included options for improv­ing energy effi­ciency in her home, and the esti­mated pay­back peri­ods.  Lisa and her hus­band are cur­rently con­sid­er­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions, and decid­ing which to implement.

If you would like your home to be more energy effi­cient (and save money!), apply for a free home energy audit at http://livegreenhoward.com/energy-climate/home_energy_audit/.

Say what you want, but I have always loved garbage.  I worked in garbage for many years, but have made the tran­si­tion to Sus­tain­abil­ity Coor­di­na­tor for the Office of Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity.  I have not aban­doned my first love, but have sim­ply broad­ened my horizons.

Garbage, and by this I sac­ri­le­giously include recy­cling, still cap­ti­vates me.  I recently learned some inter­est­ing details about Howard County’s elec­tron­ics recy­cling pro­gram and now feel com­pelled to share them with a wider audience.

Approx­i­mately six months ago, the Recy­cling Divi­sion, located within the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works Bureau of Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices, started using a new con­trac­tor for the recy­cling of elec­tronic waste.  In the past, the County’s elec­tron­ics have gone to E-Structors; for every pound of elec­tronic waste the County was being charged $0.05.  Since May, the new con­trac­tor is called Cre­ative Recy­cling, and they are pay­ing the County $0.025 per pound. 

Does this sound like a big dif­fer­ence?  Maybe not at first glance, but if you’re talk­ing about approx­i­mately 65 tons per month, that fig­ure makes a dif­fer­ence of $117,000 annually. 

In addi­tion to the sav­ings, I am a big fan of the reports that are pro­vided.  It was very sur­pris­ing to learn that Cre­ative Recy­cling item­izes the elec­tron­ics that they recycle. 

Q: How many lap­tops were recy­cled in May?

A:  287 laptops

Q:  I would like to know the num­ber of CRT tele­vi­sions recy­cled in September.

A: 44,342 CRT televisions 

This infor­ma­tion pro­vides the County with a snap­shot of their elec­tron­ics recy­cling stream, which could assist with future plan­ning efforts.  It is also just fun to look at.

Inter­ested in another fun fact?  Elec­tron­ics con­tain gold, sil­ver, cop­per, and other pre­cious met­als that are in finite sup­ply, along with plas­tic, glass and other met­als.  Accord­ing to the EPA, reusing and recy­cling the raw mate­ri­als from end-of-life elec­tron­ics con­serves nat­ural resources and avoids the air and water pol­lu­tion, as well as green­house gas emis­sions, that are caused by man­u­fac­tur­ing new products.

And lastly, I would like to share the results of the e-cycling event ear­lier this month.  In one day, over 3 tons of mate­ri­als were col­lected.  Thanks to those who par­tic­i­pated by bring­ing elec­tron­ics to the event, and to all of those res­i­dents who use the recy­cling facil­ity at the Alpha Ridge Land­fill!  Your efforts make this pro­gram a success!

To learn more about Howard County’s elec­tron­ics recy­cling pro­gram, or any of Howard County’s recy­cling pro­grams, just go to www.howardcountyrecycles.org.