Recycling in DeKalb County

DeKalb County, Georgia, offers curbside recycling, though you pay a bit extra for it. But that's not the end of the recycling opportunities in the area. Decatur has an annual electronic recycling.

And there's more. The Keep DeKalb Beautiful organization has partnered with DeKalb County Sanitation and offers year-round electronics recycling.

Here are links to recycling information for our area:

• DeKalb County curbside recycling
• Electronics recycling, year-round
• Mobile phone recycling
• Recycling drop-off locations
• Seminole landfill has a recycling area

Print nature calendars

HP offers some free templates to print calendars with varied eco-friendly themes:

• Flowers (use your own photo image files)
• Eco-tips (images provided)
• World of Nature (use your own photo image files)

So ... have you taken photos of flowers, trees, landscapes, or animals? Locate the electronic files and create a printable calendar.

You can use photos from a source such as Flickr.com but only if the creator has given permission for that -- check the creative commons license for the photos you like.  Tip: You can do an "Advanced search" and select photos and only ones that allow any use.

Get eco alerts by cell phone

You can get the latest conservation news, action alerts, event info, and more from the World Wildlife Federation by cell phone.

Just text
PANDA
to 69866

Your normal text messaging charges apply, of course.

10 simple steps to help protect the earth

A flyer from the World Wildlife Federation lists 10 simple things you can do to help protect God's earth:

1. Drive less; walk more.
2. Go for second. Reuse when possible.
3. Three-peat. Recycle what you can.
4. Bag it. Use your own bag, not a plastic or paper one.
5. BYOB ... your own water bottle, that is.
6. Flip 'em. Turn off lights.
7. Get in touch with your roots. Plant trees.
8. Get off it. Stop getting catalogs you don't want.
9. Put on a sweater [in winter, that is!]
10. Support pro-earth organizations.

Future postings will expand on each of these steps separately.

Cycling in our area

Specialized Google maps are popping up everwhere, it seems.

If you enjoy cycling, check out the map of cycling in our area. Cycling is a great way to leisurely appreciate our surroundings.

Bananas bad for the environment?

Historically, growing the world’s most popular fruit has caused massive degradation of rainforest land across the tropics, spread noxious chemicals throughout formerly pristine watersheds, and poisoned and exploited farm workers.

The Rainforest Alliance is helping with this problem. The organization certifies as sustainable those banana farms and plantations that meet certain criteria for responsible farm management set by the Sustainable Agriculture Network, a coalition of non-profits striving to improve commodity production in the tropics. As a result of the program, some 15 percent of all bananas sold internationally now come from farms certified by the Rainforest Alliance. The group is especially proud of its agreements with two of the largest growers, Favorita and Chiquita. All of Favorita’s farms in Ecuador and all of Chiquita’s farms in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama are certified sustainable under the program.

But other groups bemoan the fact that even certified plantations are on land that was once tropical rainforest. According to Rainforest Relief, Americans should still avoid purchasing bananas altogether and instead opt for fruit grown locally, such as apples, peaches, cherries or pears. The group is hopeful, though, that its work with farm cooperatives growing organic bananas under the shade of a diverse forest canopy in Costa Rica can eventually drive the larger international banana market toward better land use and worker safety standards.

[Source: EarthTalk, from e-magazine, 28 Knight Street, Norwalk, CT 06851. Phone: (203) 854-5559/x106 - FAX: (203) 866-0602, earthtalkcolumn@emagazine.com]

Related links

• Chiquita Corp.
• Favorita
• Rainforest Alliance
• Rainforest Relief
• Sustainable Agriculture Network

Eco Tidbit

"According to the U.S. Geological Survey, greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes make up less than one percent of those generated by human endeavors."
-- from an Earthtalk newsletter, from E - the environmental magazine

Decatur Electronics Recycling - March 27

Recycle your old electronics at Decatur High School on Saturday, March 27, from 9:00 am - 1:00 pm.

The items you drop off will be dismantled for parts, which will either be reused or recycled by a private company. The following will not be accepted: vacuum cleaners, microwaves, light fixtures, lamps and household appliances.

Household batteries as well as clean styrofoam blocks and peanuts will also be accepted.

TVs will be accepted, but require payment of $10 cash (exact change).

• More about the spring electronics recycling in Decatur 
• Map to the recycling event

Eco-friendly umbrellas

While reading E-Magazine online, I noticed a short piece on umbrellas mostly made from recycled items. One is the Coby Eco Umbrella, available from Crate and Barrel online.

Even better is that if you have installed the GoodSearch toolbar and have specified Decatur Cooperative Ministries as the charitable organization that your searches support, DCM will get 2.5% of your purchase cost donated to them.

It's a nice Win-Win situation.

Greener bulletins

Starting today, Avondale Pattillo UMC is using recycled paper for our Sunday Worship bulletins. Onward!

The Greening of Businesses

The more consumers and groups (such as churches) ask for products that help protect the environment, the more businesses will respond. A case in point is office product businesses. While searching online today, I noticed that both OfficeMax and Office Depot ffer 100% recycled paper that is acid free and produced without using chlorine bleaching.

But businesses are starting to do more...

• Office Depot now even has a "Buy Green" section of its web site.
• Staples has a EcoEasy page about its recycling programs.

As a bonus, I also noticed that my GoodSearch toolbar informed me that the local DCM charity gets 2-3% donation for sales through them!

So ask for what you'd really like from businesses. Email them about eco-friendly products that you don't see offered by them. Be part of the solution to waste and pollution.

Humor with layers like an onion

"The Onion" is online fake news done in a slick, professional style. The humor can be biting at times. take the [fake] Taco Bell Green Menu "story" ...
(Tip: The Onion videos look quite good even at full screen view) ...

Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Below are a couple other ones related to care of creation.
LANGUAGE CAUTION: Some of videos and articles (but not these) at The Onion site contain course language.

• Should animals be doing more for animal rights?
• China celebrates #1 status as top world polluter

New blog header graphic

We "enhanced" the header area of this blog, but then I didn't specifically address the concept of the  new design. So here it is.

• The new design is one large graphic. That let us add some photos plus put a shadow on the title letters.
• The first three "tall" photos on the left represent air, land, and water.
• The fourth photo area (on the right) stacks three "wide" photos of creatures that inhabit the air, land, and water. They appear in order from top to bottom to parallel the environment photos at left (from left to right).
• The color scheme uses hues from God's world -- primarily greens and blues, but the right sidebar area has sandy-colored title backgrounds. The position of the green and blue backgrounds remind us of the green grass of the land and the blue skies above. I guess you could even say that each posting's (article's) background color draws inspiration from the White Sands National Monument area.
• The top (mandatory) Google Blogger bar uses a dark blue that's close to the page background in that area so that it does not "stick out" too much.

In an unrelated tidbit, I am also trying to use a photo for each blog posting, though for some it's tricky getting a decent one.

GE's green packaging not so green

Trying to be better stewards of God's earth, we have changed to CFL lights in our home and CFL floodlights for the yard. That was step 1. Then we signed up for the county's recycling program. (Yes, it's very irritating that it's not a normal county service instead of an extra fee-based one!). OK, step 2 -- done. And we have been recycling all sorts of stuff, including yogurt containers. So far, so good.

But while taking apart packaging for a GE "energy smart" CFL floodlight, I was irked to discover that the plastic container had no recycle logo -- it appears to not be recyclable! Energy saving floodlight; energy wasting packaging!

I didn't just gripe about it or figure it was "lost cause" and do nothing. I emailed GE. I mean -- come on!  The bulb is being marketed to the public in green packaging. So why isn't GE going "all the way" and making the plastic container one that can be recycled and clearly marked?

I may be just one voice, but if more people join the chorus for more issues like this, companies will listen. Do your part. Speak out. Email companies that need a little prodding. Put your typing where your mouth is!

DeKalb Curbside Recycling

DeKalb County, Georgia, has drastically changed their public web site. Though the overall look is attractive, they unfortunately did not leave in place "referral" pages. So if you try to get to the formerly advertised web page for Curbside Recycling, for instance, all you get as a "page not found" error. Grrr.

For those interested in residential curbside recycling in DeKalb County, I finally located the new web address for that page:

• Residential Curbside Recycling in DeKalb County

Cups from corn?

As stewards of God's earth, we can likely find many areas of our lives in which to reduce our human impact on the environment. Most churches have gatherings at which food or beverages are served. So why not switch to using cups, plates, and other food service items made from renewable resources or recycled content?

At the 2009 Dekalb Book Festival, I noticed that at least one food vendor was using compostable eco-friendly cups made from corn. These "CornCups" intrigued me. I kept one around and finally took a photo plus looked up the company online. They sell cold cups and hot cups made from corn and disposable plates and bowls made from renewable sugar cane.

You can buy their items with or without a "green stripe" near the base that lets people know the cup is made from renewalble resources and is compostable. The green stripe versions are slightly more expensive but may better announce a group's stewardship of the earth.

Whether organizations buy from this company or a similar one, changing from plastic products to ones like these would better help protect and renew God's earth.

• Learn more about the use of PLA, sugar cane and other materials

Environmental concerns after Haiti earthquake

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the biggest issue is the building waste; some 40 to 50 percent of the buildings fell in Port-au-Prince and nearby towns. “Thousands of buildings suddenly become debris and this overwhelms the capacity of waste management,” says UNEP’s Muralee Thummarukudy, who is directing efforts to collect the waste for use in reconstruction projects.

Even before the quake Haiti had major environmental problems. Intensive logging beginning in the 1950s reduced Haiti’s forest cover from 60 percent to less than two percent today. This lack of trees causes huge soil erosion problems, threatening both food and clean water sources for throngs of hungry and thirsty people. “If you have forest cover, when heavy rain takes place it doesn’t erode the land,” UNEP’s Asif Zaidi reports. “It doesn’t result in flash floods.” He adds that, due to its lack of forest cover, Haiti suffers much more during hurricanes than does the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Compounding these ecological insults is Haiti’s fast growing population, now 9.7 million and growing by 2.5 percent per year. This has pushed millions of Haitians into marginal areas like floodplains and on land that could otherwise be used profitably. “Most fertile land areas are often used for slums, while hillsides and steep landscapes are used for agriculture,” reports USAID’s Beth Cypser. The resulting sanitation problems have stepped up cases of dysentery, malaria and drug-resistant tuberculosis among Haiti’s poverty-stricken population.

[Source: EarthTalk, from e-magazine, 28 Knight Street, Norwalk, CT 06851. Phone: (203) 854-5559/x106 - FAX: (203) 866-0602, earthtalkcolumn@emagazine.com]

Related links

• Haiti's environment needs long-term help (Reuters UK)
• UN environmental agency aids Haiti recovery
• Human trafficking, Haiti, and the environment

Cool Georgia conservation site

After saving a posting for the Creation Care Team blog, I noticed a "Google Ad" (of all things) for the Conserve Georgia site. It's a cool, interactive Flash-driven site including some sounds of nature. Click on the left and/or right VCR-style "arrows" to the left and right of the main page screen to see difference "scapes".

The only thing that irritated me about the site was the mandatory "intro" page. Like splash pages, these just hamper a person from getting into the "good stuff". Explore. Have fun. Pass the http://conservegeorgia.org/ URL on to others.