Sustainability In Your Ear

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.

The Earth911 team gathers round the microphone to talk about the terrible cost of those pretty green lawns and natural allergy treatment options. As Labor Day passes and our water bills continue to climb, it's time to consider other ways to bring nature into your yard than the traditional grass lawn. A Victorian idea, the lawn may have been fit for a turn-of-the-20th Century home in England or France, but it is out of place in the water-limited world. Join Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe as they talk about their lawn options and share ways to reduce and treat with natural alternative all those child and adult Summer allergies. We also explore how to recycle inhalers, one of the most widespread allergy treatments and a bane for recycling enthusiasts.And, as always, we answer Earthling Questions from our audience. This week, where to recycle #5 plastic after Whole Foods discontinued its program, how business can select sustainable alternatives cups, coffee lids, and straws, as well as what to do with electroplated plastic utensils that pass for flatware and contain metal/plastic composites.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Summer break is over and the Earth911 podcast gang is back! In today's conversation, we introduce our new iRecycle 3.0 app and talk through how to build a better recycling information system. It's also time to talk Summer sustainability, including how to keep bugs out of the house and yard naturally, the best ideas for successful composting, how composting toilets can add flexibility to our infrastructure, and our recent guide to natural personal care products. And, as always, Earthling questions about recycling.Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe kick off this week's show with iRecycle 3.0, the newly released recycling search app from Earth911.com. Available for iOS and Android, iRecycle lets you quickly find local recycling options for more than 350 materials. With a few taps, you can find and map your route to a nearby recycler. The new iRecycle is the first step in a broad set of improvements we will be making to the database and our efforts to make recycling easier and more convenient. Mitch shares a few details about our early experiments with on-demand recycling coaching and takeaway services.We turn from technology to Summer sustainability tips, starting with eight DIY natural bug repellent recipes to drive off or kill roaches, ants, bedbugs, and more pests. Next, personal care products don't have to be bad for the planet. Find out about hygiene alternatives including toothpaste without a tube, silk dental floss, and bamboo-based toilet paper and swabs, as well as how to shave like a planet-friendly expert. You'll also get two takes on composting, in the yard and the bathroom. Sarah shares composting tips to help you get the right soil mix for a great garden and everyone had an opinion about the new generation of composting toilets.Our Earthling Questions this week: Can I put my plastic flossers in my plastic bottles to get them recycled? The perennial question of recycling VHS tapes is on the rise as people move on to new media. Finally, how to recycle molded plastic and paper egg cartons and meat trays.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

The carbon emissions generated since the Industrial Revolution wrap the Earth in a heat sponge of one trillion tons of excess CO2 and that extra heat will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years after we achieve a net-Zero economy. Brett Kugelmass, managing director of the Washington, D.C.-based Energy Impact Center recently presented a vision for a prosperous post-carbon world that achieves net-Zero emissions and widespread prosperity in a speech to the American Climate Leadership Conference. The power source he advocates is a challenging one: thousands of small nuclear fission reactors. While the power source he advocates is controversial, Kugelmass' idea of millions of new jobs in the atmospheric cleanup industry is a stark alternative to the idea that a post-carbon world must be a less prosperous one. It's a view that we share at Earth911.com because the solution to environmental indifference must provide a positive alternative. We need to use less, reuse more, and collaborate to recycle everything at the same time that we pull the excess trillion tons of CO2 out of the air, hopefully by 2050. We can have restored polar ice. We can enjoy the kind of climate in which our species thrived.Nuclear power is problematic, but the energy levels required to extract CO2 can be provided by a combination of solar, wind, and, as in France and at 100 nuclear plants in the United States today, fission reactors. With a long terrible history that started with weapons, nuclear power is the least attractive option, an assumption that Kugelmass argues is built on out-dated ideas. Earth911.com's Mitch Ratcliffe discusses the issue with Kubelmass on this episode of Sustainability In Your Ear.

Kroger has updated its pollinator policy after pressure from the Friends of the Earth (FoE). FoE's Tiffany Finck-Haynes joins Earth911 to talk about what the decision means for bees and other pollinating species, as well as the additional progress and transparency needed for customers who want to spend in support of sustainable food sources. Learn what chlorpyrifos, glyhosates, and neonicotinids to do pollinating insects and the human body. We dig into whether Kroger's decision can be enforced (it can't) and how the company, just one of many grocers who need to update their supply chains to eliminate pollinator-damaging pesticides and preservatives in our food supply. Tiffany also shares information about FoE's 2018 retailer scorecard, how to get involved to support the campaign for grocery changes, and the other "steps in the right direction" that Kroger, WalMart, and others, including Whole Foods, to improve their sustainability scores.

Theresa Carter launched an online petition calling on Target Stores to eliminate single-use plastic bags that has gathered more than 310,000 signatures. She talks with Earth911 about how she got the petition started. Beginning with her choice to put the petition on Change.org and sharing her call to action with friends on Facebook and her local physical community, Carter's story is a roadmap for customers who care to begin their own campaigns for changes in retail sustainability. You can sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/target-stop-filling-the-world-with-plastic-bags.Target is already the leading retailer using solar in its stores but has not addressed the impact of its single-use plastic shopping bags. Carter's positive approach toward Target, based on the idea that she and other environmentally aware customers will love shopping the stores more if they get rid the plastic bag, has resulted in positive responses to the campaign by company executives. Theresa Carter also shared her approach to customer activism in a posting we published today to accompany this podcast.

It's time to eat sustainably in the sun. The Earth911 team sits down to talk about Summer eating. It is a perfect time to try some new foods and food-related activities. Maybe you have a garden or just a pot of herbs. Maybe you would like to try a new ingredient or make a vegan meal. No matter what your goal might be, we are going to talk about how to find great food, make great food, and avoid food waste. We talk about Earth Day Network's new Foodprints program, which will help you find low-impact alternative ingredients and recipes. We're also looking forward to Earth Day 2020, the 5oth Anniversary of the first Earth Day, when more than a billion people around the world are expected to participate in marches, clean-ups, and ongoing changes in their eating and waste-disposal habits.If you are thinking about growing your own food, we talk about what we find are the easiest crops to grow, including tomatoes, herbs, and fruit trees. Buying natural foods is another alternative, including joining a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program and buying directly from local farmers at weekly markets or by subscribing to food deliveries. Start with a conversation with the produce manager at a local store, they have a wealth of information to share.Ready for new foods? Here are 10 delicious vegan slow-cooker meals, 10 sustainable snack recipes, and the many plant-based milk options for baking. Finally, we cover food waste. We discard almost half our food each year before it is spoiled. Finding new ways to distribute food and reducing waste overall can help to feed everyone at lower costs. One of our favorite finds is a list of small-space composting systems.And this week we answer Earthling questions about how to dump your garbage service, the challenges of a 55-gallon barrel of chlorine pool shock, and best way to move non-friable asbestos.Join the conversation and share your thoughts with the community in our Earthling Forum.

Earth911 is getting ready for Summer! Join Evelyn, Sarah, and Mitch to talk about preparations for a more sustainable summer. We can all make improvements in how we garden, cook, travel, and make changes in energy use. We start off in the garden with ideas about how to build DIY birdbaths, as well as how to use combinations of feeders and nativar plants to fill your yard with wild birds. While you're enjoying new feathery friends, turn down the air condition with these ideas: window treatments; using fans for real cooling effects (don't leave them on when you leave a room), and lower energy costs. We can also reduce our watering in the yard by embracing vertical gardening and arbors. Keep household and garden pests in check with natural repellents and remedies, including our list of natural oils and herbs that help prevent infestations.Entertaining is always a big part of Summer and we've got ideas to help. First, take a look at these easy-to-build patio tables with built-in drink coolers. We talk through cooking and sustainable recipes, including solar ovens and solar cooking recipes, and how, when it's too hot to cook outside you can use a crockpot or instapot to keep the temperature down inside. Finally, we look at vacation options and talk about the carbon impact of travel. Choose where you must go and learn to travel safely and naturally to reduce illness and stay full of energy.The team also answers your Earthling Questions. Can store gift cards be recycled? How can I get a 55-gallon barrel of motor oil hauled away and recycled? Can old coaxial cables and wires be recycled?

Recycling safety is the topic of Earth911's interview with Scott Wiggins, vice president of Environmental Health & Safety at the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). On June 12th, most recycling programs and scrap yards will close down for an hour each shift to focus on workplace safety as part of Safety Stand Down Day, and you can help protect recycling workers by making smart choices. Wiggins shares stories about injuries caused by the usual workplace culprits, such as slips, falls, and impacts, as well as how medical sharps and lithium-ion batteries. He shares how to prepare sharps and batteries for recycling, noting that both need special handling and do not belong in your blue bin.Learn about the busy environment where recycling workers process materials. One surprising fact: A major source of injuries is distracted driving by collection drivers, who have run over scrap yard workers. Progress in recycling must be accompanied by improved safety so that everyone, including the workers who handle your recycling, gets home safe each day.