Sustainability In Your Ear

Project Repat, founded by Ross Lohr and Nathan Rothstein, has prevented more than 11 million t-shirts from landfills while bringing some sewing work back to the United States. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Rothstein about the inspiration behind Project Repat and the massive changes in U.S. t-shirt manufacturing over the past 30 years. After migrating to Mexico, t-shirt printing jobs have gone overseas and few American companies still make them.Project Repat has a better idea: turn old shirts into keepsake quilts hand-sewn using t-shirts sent by customers. Instead of tossing a t-shirt in the donation bin, it can be turned into a part of a memorable and snug quilt. Love a sports team? Make a quilt of the team t-shirts and jerseys you've purchased over the years. Want to remember a school or a company where you worked? In all likelihood, you have the makings of a Project Repat quilt. Reasonably priced  based on the size, Project Repat takes your order and receives your shirts by mail, then turns them into fleece-backed quilt. Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

A spooky Halloween doesn't have to be a horror show for the planet. Join the Earth911 team as we talk through how to reduce the waste and garbage produced by the scariest holiday of the year. First off, a green Halloween can be a budget Halloween with these ideas about making, renting, and recycling costumes for kids and adults. Cosplay enthusiasts out there can bring the environmental ideal to your fun, too. Making your own Halloween decorations is another way to take the old and make it new this year. We share ideas about how to reuse household items as All Hallow's Eve decorations.Torn over the prospect of handing out processed sugar packaged in single-use bags and boxes? We've got some suggestions for greener alternatives to candy and their wrappers.We also answer your Earthling Questions, too. This week we address how to recycle the #7 plastic bags for birdseed, the best way to replace a private-labeled battery -- many companies, such as ADT provide their own batteries with its products -- and the challenge of recycling pens and markers. Terracycle has a convenient, but somewhat expensive, office zero waste box that can help with marker and pen recycling.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

The Earth911 gang is back at the microphone to talk about hydroflourocarbon 152A, the supergreenhouse gas in many U.S. aerosol products (it's banned elsewhere in the world), how to identify and deal with contaminated tap water, and the preparations  and plantings you can make now to a healthy garden in 2020. Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe for a conversation that can help you prevent climate change and protect your family from lead and other widespread contaminants in the U.S. water infrastructure -- more than 63 million Americans are at risk from contaminated water. As always, we answer your Earthling Questions, too. This week we address how to recycle plastic gift cards, perfumes and beauty products, as well as what to do with 600 lb. of hybrid car batteries that need to be recycled.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

RightWater, a mineral water distributor, is setting a new standard in sustainability. The company has abandoned all the plastic it used and replaced bottles with 100-percent recycled aluminum cans. Jono Wylie, head of sustainability at RightWater, joins Earth911 to talk about why RightWater made the decision to go Earth-friendly. The water, available in cases online, comes with two reusable aluminum straws and a zero-carbon footprint. The benefits extend to people around the world who don't have clean drinking water through RightWater contributions to DROP4DROP, a charity that provides sustainable water supplies to water-stressed communities.Wylie explains why there are no half-measures when the Earth is in the balance. In addition to switching to aluminum, RightWater stopped using BPA, a plastic liner injected into aluminum cans to protect against metallic taste and removed all non-compostable plastic from its production and distribution process. Sourced from a California spring is a "premium water" currently served in gyms and hotels. Consumers can order online, get delicious water and help the 800 million humans without access to clean drinking water eliminate water-borne disease.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Explore the state of U.S. recycling with Joe Pickard, Chief Economist and Director of Commodities at the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). He joins Earth911 to talk about the recently released ISRI 2019 Economic Impact Study. Despite massive change after China refused to accept U.S. recyclables in early 2018, the U.S. recycling industry grew last year to $110 billion in economic activity and added jobs. More than 531,510 people work in recycling-related jobs and direct employment in recycling increased by about 5 percent since 2017.Joe and Mitch Ratcliffe discuss the changing landscape in U.S. recycling. New players and new technology are improving recycling efficiency, yet the progress is not always visible to consumers who are still seeing declines in glass, plastic, and paper acceptance at their municipal recycling programs. ISRI conducts ongoing work to provide new guidelines for recycled materials. Joe explains how the recently announced ISRI Scrap Specifications Working Group is helping to introduce new recycling practices that will expand the recycling of plastics, paper, and new materials appearing in the market. At the end of the day, recycling must be economically sustainable and these new guidelines will help improve the overall U.S. recycling rate.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Following the rapid rise of CBD-based products, Earth911 looks at the environmental footprint of the non-psychoactive product of hemp and cannabis plants. We also walk the steps to a successful home solar installation contract and explore the opportunity to green your interior with vertical gardens.   Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe for this week's sustainable living and recycling discussion.Products containing CBD are promoted as cures of pain, anxiety, and animal health, but is the production of CBD sustainable? We explore how CBD is grown and packaged to discover if your cannabis-based skin regime and sleep aide is good for the planet. Most CBD comes from industrial hemp farms, which use the spent plant material to make textiles and rope, among a variety of things this ancient plant supplies. We also answer a related Earthling Question about how to determine the quality and dosage in CBD products.If you are planning to install solar panels before the next annual reduction in government subsidies, check out Sarah's guide to finding the right contractor and negotiating a good deal.As we head into Fall, it's a good time to look indoors for vegetative inspiration. Vertical gardens can make your home more beautiful while freshening the air and supplying herbs for your Winter meals. Another good source of projects for the longer nights ahead is the shipping pallet, which can be broken down and reused as furniture, kitchen racks, and make your home more attractive. We cover how to choose the right pallets, the tools you'll need, and point to some great DIY projects.This week's Earthling Questions are about how to recycle the interior of a vehicle and whether alkaline batteries need to be bagged recycling. Be sure to keep your guides to recycling single-use batteries and rechargeable batteries handy.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Dr. Graciela Chichilnisky, co-founder and CEO of Global Thermostat, pioneered climate change policy and sustainable development planning, participating in the development of the Kyoto Protocol and as lead U.S. author for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and guidelines. An economist and mathematician, she recognized early the looming climate impact of CO2 in the atmosphere and has been recognized by Time, The Washington Post, and other publications as a leader in environmental innovation. Dr. Chichilnisky talks with Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe about the economic and climate-saving potential of Global Thermostat's carbon capture technology.Global Thermostat uses a CO2 capture method based on amine, a compound of ammonia, to bond to CO2 in the air. Using less energy than many other carbon capture technologies, the Global Thermostat process uses steam to liberate the captured CO2, producing 99 percent pure CO2 for industrial uses. That CO2 can be made into fuel, turned into biodegradable plastic, used in greenhouses to accelerate plant growth, and manufactured into carbon fiber, among many uses. The units are small and because they are co-located with industrial facilities, inexpensive to operate using waste heat from the factory whose emission it cleans. Chichilnisky, whose company is backed by long-term environmental investor Edgar Bronfman, says even an oil refinery can be made carbon neutral using Global Thermostat technology. She discusses the $1-trillion-plus economic opportunities for the system, including the kinds of workers who will be needed by the carbon removal industry as it matures.We start the conversation with a basic answer to the questions we all want to understand: What makes CO2 heat the atmosphere and can emissions reductions alone resolve the problem? Dr. Chichilnisky explains the physics of CO2 and offers that, without carbon removal technology, current atmospheric CO2 levels will warm the planet more than our society can withstand. The time for change is here, and an industry with massive job opportunities can deliver the raw materials for making essential products we rely on in modern life. From start to finish, you'll find this innovator interview a mine of useful ideas and insight.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Meet Dr. Paul Zeitz, an organizer of the UN Global Climate Restoration Forum this week in New York. A veteran of the AIDS crisis, during which he led the Global AIDS Alliance, he has joined the Healthy Climate Alliance to drive awareness and adoption of carbon removal technologies that can create a new trillion-dollar industry. He sees the rising incidence of extreme weather bringing people together to find a solution and recently published a hopeful and helpful memoir, Waging Justice: A Doctor's Journey To Speak Truth And Be Bold. Dr. Paul Zeitz, Build A Movement 2020 and the Healthy Climate Alliance.You can listen in and watch the UN event on September 17th. Register to watch from home or your office. And after the event, follow along at BAM2020, Zeitz's campaign to bring make next year's UN event the biggest climate restoration movement. There are actions you can take to make legislators aware of your priorities and learn about climate change and restoration. Share Dr. Zeitz's optimism that people are coming together, and join the movement.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

World Centric, a 15-year-old sustainability advocacy and compostable food packaging Benefit corporation, is calling for the end of polystyrene use in food packaging. Mark Marrinozi, vice president of marketing at World Centric, joins Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss the use of polystyrene, how World Centric's line of compostable alternatives behave when composted, and the evolution of a unique company that gives 25 percent of its profits to startup sustainability efforts around the world. Learn to identify polystyrene when shopping and dining out, find out what to tell local businesses that still use polystyrene, and help make the change happen.From the clamshell foam dinner tray to the many hard plastic #6 food containers used in restaurants and grocery stores, polystyrene carries health and environmental risks. Since food waste in the containers prevents easy recycling and the material is mostly air and not economically viable to recycle, it is time to retire polystyrene in our food stream.

Thinking of replacing your lightbulbs, upgrading to a satellite TV for the football season, or saving on home electricity spending? The Earth911 team has recycling and savings tips for the Fall when school and planning for next year begins. Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe for a discussion about sustainable living and recycling.We start with President Trump's recent decision to reverse a ban on incandescent lights that would have taken effect in 2020 to "will ensure that the choice of how to light homes and businesses is left to the American people." Unfortunately, the policy is a decision that will cost Americans far more, for electricity used and CO2 emitted than LEDs. U.S. Department of Energy data proves that Americans will save up to 75 percent on electricity with LEDs, but the DOE went along with the policy change. What are we to do? Choose LEDs and put the Edisonian incandescent in the past. Choose the planet, not ideology.The Fall is a time for change, preparing for what's ahead, including the school year. If you are considering dish television, be prepared for recycling the antennae and receiver because the networks will not provide end-of-life removal and recycling. Here is Earth911's guide to satellite dish recycling. And if you're looking around the house for electric savings, consider identifying the vampire electronics that suck small amounts of power all day. The gang also talks through compostable and plastic-free water filters for the home. In Earthling Questions, we cover recycling laminated posters and cards for schools, how to start a battery recycling business, and what you can do to start a community recycling program.