New Year · Eco-Chick

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Party Pooper

firework

Biking to work on the morning of July 5^th I noticed scattered remnants of brightly colored paper. In some places boxes were piled and charred remains of something were close by. Fireworks. There was litter from exploded fireworks everywhere. The night before, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, it sounded like a warzone…not unfitting for this present moment! And it was not easy to catch some rest through that noise which raged into the night.

In Chinatown in NYC one year I attended a day of the Chinese New Year celebration and it began to rain. The water that snaked along the edges of the streets to the gutters was a kaleidoscope of color from the confetti filled explosive sticks you can buy at any small Chinese store. The confetti, once exploded (really impressive site), littered the street.

So then I thought, things that blow up for our entertainment, are they super damaging one or two or three days in a year? I looked up news reports and found that indeed, fireworks are bad for the environment. But the articles I found suggested rather than the actual visual litter or noise levels being a problem, fireworks caused other concerns for the environment: they increase ambient temperatures (where ignited), deposit perchlorate in water resources (perchlorate, yes the carcinogen, but, not to worry, the amount reduces back to background levels within 3 to 12 weeks), and compound air pollution levels (there were actual warnings for people with allergies and respiratory problems about going outside during the firework display period).

No kidding. Even fireworks, such beautiful and awe-inspiring displays, have a negative environmental impact. Good to keep in mind on our next firework-filled holiday…

Here are some news reports from around the country:

water

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/science/03obse1.html?ref=science

air

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6310145

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/jul/06/guess-what-fireworks-pollute/

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=local&id=5447560

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070704/NEWS01/707040332

heat

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_6296507

allergies, car, Entertainment, holiday, local, mom, New Year, News, NYC, NYTimes, paper, party, Pollution, reduce, resources, water

New Year's GreenSolutions

8 Comments

by Starre Vartan · 12/29/06

Right after Christmas I always start thinking about how I need a serious cleanse from all the holiday eating and drinking, not to mention all the junk clogging up my brain from seeing people I haven’t seen in so long, travelling all over the East Coast and generally ignoring healthy routines and work. Unlike many Hipper Than Thou writers and other media folks, I love me some good New Year’s resolutions. The cold bare branches of January offer a clean slate- one that I’m in dire need of! Every year I try to lower my impact on the environment, so here is the section of the resolutions to do with the beautiful Earth I so love:

90% of my clothing purchases must be reduced, reused, and/or recycled.
-I love clothes, and before 2006, (and before Jill Danyelle’s amazing blog fiftyRX3, which enlightened me tremendously) I figured that I would just ignore the environmental impact of my clothes, since so much of my life was eco-friendly. Now I have no excuse, with whole brick-and-mortar and online stores dedicated to ecofashion, crafting, and vintage clothes.

Offset CO2 from travelling; make carbon credit purchases part of travel budget.
-Last year I barely travelled at all (for me); this year I will be spending around 2 months on the road, and I will be taking some long flights. I want to visit my Dad in Australia, for example. I can’t NOT fly, but I can buy some credits for my journeys. Credits can be bought from sites like Uniglobe or Carbon Planet, which support alternative energy sources like wind power. Or you could pay to have a tree planted for every flight at Treeflights.

Line dry my washing as often as humanly possible.
-A few months ago I wrote this article for E Magazine about line drying clothes instead of using the dryer. In it, I wrote:

“Six to 10 percent of residential energy use goes towards the electric dryer. If Americans, or even just New Englanders, would use the clothesline or wooden drying racks, the savings would be enough to close several power plants.”

Put ALL my electronic devices on a power strip so I can shut them off and stop energy vampires from wasting electricity.
-OK, the last time I wrote about this, I put power strips in about half the places in my house where it is applicable. This month I’m going to finish the job!

Volunteer somewhere on a regular basis.
-I’ve mostly worked for non-profits, so I figured I didn’t need to also do volunteer work. Now that I’m a full-time student again, I need to do something to give back concretely. I’m not sure what I’ll do yet, but I’ll report back on what I find. I’ll probably start with Volunteer Match, which Ann wrote about back in June.

A HAPPY (AND GREEN) NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

Australia, budget, car, carbon, Christmas, clothes, clothing, eating, Eco-Chick, ecofashion, electric, electricity, Energy, farm, Fashion, Greensolutions, health, holiday, Home, junk, magazine, media, New Year, New Year's, Plants, recycle, recycled, reduce, reuse, solutions, Tea, travel, vintage, wind power, wood

ENN: Environmental News Network

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 12/28/06

For the last few years I have received a daily newsletter from ENN, the Environmental News Network. It is a great resource for those seeking environmentally oriented news, without the slant of corporate media. Covering everything eco-related, from an international perspective, ENN features daily news as well as updates and commentary from activists, journalists, scientists, politicians et al. There is also a quick and easy Ecobyte link that adds abbreviated headline ENN news to your windows desktop here. This is a great source of eco-news to keep you updated for the new year!

environmental news, farm, media, New Year, News

Thank You for Not Smoking

1 Comment

by Starre Vartan · 12/22/06

While, admittedly, there was a brief time I smoked cigarettes regularly (hey, I was living in Spain, give me a break), I’ve always found it EXTREMELY maddening that not only do smokers foul the air, but they toss their butts all over the damn place. I live next to the Long Island Sound, and there’s nothing more disgusting than digging a hole with your feet in the sun-warmed beach sand and finding a cache of used butts.

Hey, I understand, you smokers are addicted. Fine, I know you can barely smoke anywhere now anyway, and I feel for you, or I would if you weren’t such damn slobs about the whole thing. My good friend Danielle loves her a cig, but never litters them – she keeps a small portable ashtray (check this one out from Butts and Gum) or finds a trash can. I applaud her, and all the smokers who roll their own or dispose of their butts in a way that keeps birds and marine mammals from eating them, or going into the sewer, or polluting the Earth (cigararettes, we all know, have a host of toxic chemicals in them. Not so good for your body, but also, those chemicals get concentrated in the butts, and when you litter them, that nastiness gets in the soil and water-ugh!)

Horrifyingly enough, since everyone is smoking outside now, the environmental toll of smoking has increased, because people are throwing more butts around the streets and outdoor areas, instead of ashtrays, according to this commentary on E Magazine’s weekly newsletter. Here’s the disturbing info:

The paper and tobacco of cigarette butts may be biodegradable, but the filters are not, and persist in the environment as long as other forms of plastic. These filters are composed of a bundle of 12,000 cellulose acetate fibers and are reported to take between 18 months and 10 years to decompose, depending on the environment they’re in. Once decomposed, they remain chemically present in the environment, as they contain up to 4,000 chemicals including hydrogen, cyanide and arsenic. Toxological data has shown that chemicals from discarded cigarette butts are capable of leaching into surrounding waterways. One particular problem is that these leached chemicals are deadly to the water flea Daphnia magna, a small crustacean at the lower end of, but crucial to, the aquatic food chain.
The saddest environmental impact of cigarette butts is their role in the deaths of thousands of marine mammals and birds every year. These wild creatures mistake the butts for food. Once ingested, the butts can lead to starvation or malnutrition if they block the intestinal track, and can also prevent breathing by blocking vital air passages. In 2003, the United Nations International Maritime Organization reported that cigarette litter adversely affected 177 species of marine animals and 111 species of seabirds through ingestion.

If you smoke, please consider giving it up for New Year’s! And if you must smoke, try rolling your own- you’ll smoke less and without a filter there’s not so much waste.