Earth911.com's Sustainability In Your Ear

The Earth911 team is back at the microphone to talk about plastic, sustainability, and the actions we can all take around the house to reduce, reuse, and recycle. This week, learn how to recycle disposable contact lenses and how to create a zero-waste kitchen. We also talk through the many problems with bottled water in plastic packaging, from the reliance on virgin petroleum resources to micro-plastics in bottled and tap water. Finally, you have probably purchased a dozen things this year that came with a silica gel pack to prevent moisture damage -- did you know you can use them to create a potpourri, prevent jewelry from tarnishing, and to protect personal documents from aging? We've got the whole silica gel reuse lowdown.In Earthling Questions this week, you asked and we answered: What to do with 1,300 DVD cases? Does Earth911 recommend any office paper and forms or checks companies? And, can VHS tape cases be recycled?Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Dvele's Brandon Weiss has a vision for durable Net-zero housing. As Chief Innovation Officer at Dvele, a San Diego-based manufacturer of sustainably made passive homes, Weiss is creating an array of home styles that buyers can customize and see built within six months. The company is working in Ventura and Sonoma Counties in California to help provide new homes for wildfire victims. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Weiss about the future of housing, Dvele's hardy construction standards, and sustainability features.If you are going to build a home in the next few years, prefab houses offer several advantages over traditional houses and older prefab homes. Because they are built in factories and assembled on-site, Dvele passive home designs provide a secure envelope inside the home, integrated fire and earthquake resistance, and style built using new materials that can last "for centuries," according to Weiss. Dvele homes are completely electric -- no natural gas or propane appliances -- and incorporate solar panels in the roof to provide reliable power year-round with battery backup.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Happy New Year, Earthlings! Join the Earth911 team as they talk about the green choices and important trends of 2020. Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe are on the air to discuss minimalist living and how it fits with frugal choices, the important trends in solar power and environmentally friendly living that we expect to see take hold in 202o, as well as the growing range of choices of electric vehicles and charging options for green travel. Our Earthling Questions answered this week include: How to recycle padded envelopes, changing glass recycling access in the U.S., and what to do with well-loved stuffed toys.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Serenbe is an ecologically responsible 1,000-acre community in the Chattahoochee Hill Country just outside Atlanta. With more than 700 residents living around four village centers, Serenbe maintains more than 70 percent of its land as green space, offering a lovely combination of environmental living with culture, food, and shopping designed for local consumption. Former restauranteur Steve Nygren, the founder of Serenbe, joins Earth911 to discuss his vision and progress toward a new model for communities. He shares how his love of the hill country started with a weekend retreat that has led three generations of his family to live in Serenbe.Nygren sold dozens of restaurants around the country to pour his attention into building Serenbe, which won the Urban Land Institute's inaugural Sustainability Award. Bringing a lifetime of hospitality experience to the project, Nygren and his company have assembled stores, restaurants, and a variety of home designs that range from large single-family houses to small studio flats that allow for all incomes to live and work in Serenbe. The community also provides theater, art programs, and other programs for residents. Since it is so near Atlanta, Serenbe blends rural life with the convenience of a nearby urban center.We discuss who finds Serenbe to be an ideal home, the challenges of building a town from scratch to coexist with nature, and how Serenbe supports small businesses that locate in the community. Nygren also shares how the construction of homes in Serenbe lowers power and heating requirements by 30 percent or more. You can visit Serenbe to see for yourself what natural living can look like.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

The Earth911 team has a lot to celebrate this year. We're live on Google Assistant, where you can now ask how and where to recycle materials with a simple "Hey, Google!" Evelyn Fielding-Lopez and Mitch Ratcliffe sit down to talk about the last year and where sustainability is going. Learn how to be environmentally friendly at college -- the lessons there will affect a lifetime and can be applied by anyone. We have a lot of confidence that youth will live in greater harmony with the planet. Check out Seattle-based Ridwell, which provides home pickup of batteries, textiles, and plastic film. Adding flexibility to the single-stream waste system is the best hope for increased recycling success.We also take a look a the sustainability of cannabis farming. As the fast-growing industry evolves, will it embrace sustainability information for consumers? We'd like to see information about recycling on cannabis packaging. For those looking for a natural remedy, we also discuss the benefits of sleep, hydration, and natural medicine to staying healthy.Of course, we also answer your Earthling Questions: How to organize community action to get recycling services -- one of our listeners just lost local recycling and wants to bring it back. What is working with Terracycle like? Jessica, a listener on Facebook wants to partner with Terracycle to address mixed materials, such as composite packaging. And what do you do with used antifreeze? Can it be filtered and reused at home?Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Jason Pelz, vice president of the Carton Council, joins Earth911 to talk about progress in beverage carton recycling, which is up more than 280 percent over the last decade. Founded in 2009, when carton recycling rates were stuck at six percent, the Carton Council is an alliance of beverage packaging manufacturing companies. Pelz, who is also the director of circular economy projects at TetraPak, shares the group's goals for 2025 and beyond. He also takes a pop-quiz on how cartons can be recycled with flying colors.Carton packaging is made from paper fiber and other materials, it is a composite that was not accepted by most recycling programs in 2009. As new technology improves the ability to break down composite materials, more programs have added cartons to their accepted materials list. Today, 61 percent of homes in the United States have curbside access to carton recycling.By passing more than 60 percent of homes with carton recycling, carton manufacturers now can place the recyclable label on their products. We discuss the three major carton recycling operations in the U.S. and the Carton Council's plans to reach 75 percent of homes by 2025.Do you know whether a milk carton should be put in the blue bin with the cap or off? This podcast answers that question and many more.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Tony Juniper spent a lifetime traveling the world’s rainforests and raising awareness about environmental threats. Now, he chairman of the United Kingdom’s Natural England, the national conservation agency — by contrast the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is headed by a former coal industry lobbyist. He joins Earth911 to talk about his new book, Rainforest: Dispatches From the Earth’s Most Vital Frontlines. It is an exploration of the role rainforests play in the global environment and Juniper’s many activist accomplishments. We particularly recalled the Mahogony is Murder campaign that dramatically reduced illegal logging in the Amazon basin. Juniper has been at the forefront of environmental movements since they first began.The rainforests are “Earth’s lungs,” Juniper explains. They help to exchange water between the soil and atmosphere, as well as host the widest range of species on the planet. The loss of rainforests threatens humanity’s ability to discover and learn from nature’s mechanism through “biomimicry.” He shares how the planet will suffer from systemic illness in the planet’s body — as ice collapses in the South, oceans will rise on all continents, for example. We can learn from Juniper, who has the ear of Britain’s Prince Charles, a leader of efforts to preserve rainforests in South America and the Asia-Pacific region. His experience can teach people everywhere how to get involved and make a positive impact for the Earth.All is not lost, Juniper counsels, but the hour for action is passing. He sees governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations working together to reduce the carbon emissions and believes humanity may have awakened to climate threats. Join the conversation to learn what you can do to help.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Humans began their journey on this planet by learning to survive, then to steward the Earth, but they have forgotten that they live in a great system. Author Tom Brown Jr., renowned tracker, and teacher talks with Earth911 about his latest book, Tom Brown's Guide to Healing the Earth. Brown, who was taught by an Apache elder he met as a boy to live in harmony with nature, shares how small steps taken each day can create vast change in the world. He and co-author Randy Walker Jr. recently shared a summary of his ideas in an article for Earth911.Tom shares how he met Stalking Wolf, the Apache who mentored him in exploring and appreciating the interconnectedness of nature and humanity. By pausing and stepping back to take in a meadow or clearing, his tracking students learn to recognize what should be and how natural patterns have been interrupted, pointing the way to a lost child, a fleeing criminal, or a friend in need. It's a fascinating half-hour with a thoughtful teacher and explorer who has trained people around the world to survive in the wilderness.

Wishcycling, tossing something that can't be recycled into the blue bin, is the bane of recycling programs because it can contaminate other materials in the system. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Lauren Olson, Zero Waste Manager at compostable tableware maker World Centric in Rohnert Park, California, about building simple habits that prevent wishcycling. Simply keeping up with your local recycling program's rules is the best step you can take, but with rules changing so often consumers need to build a habit of checking with their recycler's website frequently.Wishcycled materials, which can include many types of plastic, glass, and electronics, among other materials, can lead to injuries in the materials recovery facility (MRF, or "Murph") where recyclables are sorted. Machines can be jammed by styrofoam and plastic film, for example, and when workers try to pull the jam out they can be injured. Lauren also discusses how compostable and recyclable products companies like World Centric must engage with local solid waste authorities to get new materials included in the recycling stream. Without a national standard for recycling, it's tough for everyone, from product makers to citizens who buy those products, to successfully recycle materials. If you'd like to see local restaurants and grocers using compostable plastic and fiber containers for to-go food and other packaging, tell them about World Centric's wide range of Earth-friendly packaging.

The Earth911 gang gathers at the microphone to talk about how to lower CO2 emissions and save money in your commute and heating bills. We start with the savings from switching to an electric vehicle. Earth911 recently published an EV article and worksheet that helps you understand the potential CO2 reductions and cash savings an EV delivers by state. Because different states generate more or less electricity from fossil fuels, your results will vary. If you have already installed solar on your home to power your car, the savings can be almost 100% of your commuting carbon footprint. Sarah Lozanova shares how the real estate industry is upgrading its building standards and her experience living in a passive house. Commercial buildings account for 39 percent of global carbon emissions, which can be lowered by introducing more efficient construction and technology that are part of the LEED standards from the U.S. Green Building Council. The Urban Land Institute's Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance has introduced the Greenprint program to help drive improved standards and reporting about sustainable building practices. Members lowered power consumption in their buildings by 3.3 percent between 2016 and 2017. Sarah's home in a community of passive houses in Maine has provided consistently warm winters using very little energy while staying cool in the Summer. We walk through how a passive home works and the potential to reach net-zero emissions with solar panels.And don't forget our furry friends. We discuss how to make dog toys from reused fabric (the hide-a-treat dog mat is our favorite), including puzzle toys that help improve your dog's thinking skills. Yes, dogs have thinking skills, even if Cat People don't agree! In Earthling Questions, we explain how to recycle or donate a used bed frame. Also on tap: what the best Christmas tree for the planet and the truth about Best Buy's excellent free recycling program -- it's not necessary to buy something to recycle.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.