Sustainability In Your Ear

Launching a community garden is a rewarding experience that can change your neighborhood and city by uniting people to grow and care for a plot of land together. Mary K. Hughkull, founder of Community Garden Magazine and the Community Garden Revolution podcast joins Mitch Ratcliffe to talk about the ins and outs of local horticultural collaboration!

Join the Earth911 team to hear about the rapidly changing recycling landscape in the U.S. in the wake of China's waste import ban. We also explore the top solar-using retailers, GMO food labeling, making coffee the Earth-friendly way, and refilling or recycling printer cartridges. Also, Earthly questions about encyclopedia recycling and whether we should call our listeners Earthlings or Earthers. Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Sarah Lozanova, Trey Granger, and Mitch Ratcliffe gather around the microphones for another Sustainability In Your Ear.

Solar water heating systems have matured and offer a reliable alternative to gas or electric water heaters. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Ray Lam, founder and president of Silk Road Solar, a Chehalis, Wash.-based provider of solar heating systems across the United States. There's no more cold water at night and on cloudy days with the advanced thermal fluid systems available today.

It's sustainable living time, again! Join the Earth911 team and host Evelyn Lopez for Sustainability In Your Ear. We'll cover the best solar ovens for cooking at home and in nature, planet-friendlier fashion, the growing zero-waste grocery movement, and the hidden costs of wildlife-sourced souvenirs -- you could go to jail, just for starters. In Earthling Questions, we look at recycling shampoo and conditioner tubes and what to do with old film negatives.

Peter Fiekowsky, founder and president of The Health Climate Alliance, returns for part two of a discussion about carbon capture and sequestration technologies that mine the air to remove excess CO2. The Health Climate Alliance's goal is to return the atmosphere to the CO2 levels our great-grandparents lived in, with normal weather patterns and a robust Arctic ice sheet.

Join the Earth911 gang to talk through how to recycle a whole building, which online services are most sustainable, and whether your favorite sunscreen has been banned in Hawaii. We also discuss adventure camping upcycling projects, the introduction of Stuffstr's resale service with British retailer John Lewis, and answer reader questions: Is recycling a myth? (no, but it can be much better) and whether used coloring books are recyclable.

Terry Lehmann, founder and CEO of True Green Enterprises, talks with Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe about her company's new biodegradable hot cup and bamboo straws. True Green is based in West Palm Beach, Florida, and has a growing range of sustainably made recyclable paper products. We'll also hear from Lehmann about the challenges and opportunities in green products for women entrepreneurs.

This week, the Earth911.com team dives into keeping honeybees at home, as well as what to do when visited by an unwanted swarm. Learn which five jobs are ideal for recent environmental and sustainability grads and how to build a regular recycling routine into your day. In reader questions, find out what to do when you discover an abandoned tank of freon. It's a banned chemical, but the large white cylinders freon came in before it was discontinued are still lurking out there.

Feeding America, the largest food collection and distribution network in the United States, is tackling food waste in a new campaign to get restaurants and grocers to donate food rather than send it to landfills. The MealConnect program seeks to reduce the nearly 50 percent of food wasted between the field and the home. You can encourage local business to participate, as well as volunteer to work in the community. Liz Baldridge, director of Sustainability and Food Waste Initiatives, and Zuani Villareal, director of Communication, at FeedingAmerica.org join us to discuss food waste.

The Earth911 team talks IKEA's new commitment to sustainable products and removing single-use utensils from its stores, as well as how the United States will upgrade its power grid for renewable energy and the recycling secrets of stealth electronics. We'll also talk through natural alternatives to allergy medicines, the growing awareness that plastic straws are a major form of pollution, and how to recycle mattresses.