Nature Valley bike race in Uptown had NO recycling!

At the Nature Valley bike race in Uptown, there were thousands of spectators and racers, hundreds of bottles of water handed out, hundreds of cans sold and not a recycling bin in sight except for what Sarah Sponheim and I set up. Hello, Uptown Business Association, city of Minneapolis and race organizers!! We ended up diverting from the trash:

1 1/2 96-gallon carts of bottles and cans
1 64-gallon cart of organics
lots of cardboard and boxboard
lots of plastic bags and packaging
lots of granola bar wrappers to go to TerraCycle
and just over 200 plastic cups from the Lucia's beer garden, which I'll recycle at either Eastside Food Co-op or the Coon Rapids Recycling Center

(rinsed beer cups air-drying)


Doesn't anyone care except for two Minneapolis greenies who came with their cart, bins, signs and masking tape in tow?

Making signs for Southwest High

Sarah Sponheim, recycling/composting spearhead at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, and I breathed some paint fumes for the benefit of the planet (ironic, isn't it).

Rock the Garden's going zero-waste

My friends are going to Rock the Garden on Saturday, so I was checking out the details online, and I saw there's going to be a lot of food and drink for sale, and I of course wondered about composting and recycling. So a smile came to my face when I read this:

Rock the Garden is proud to be a zero-waste event in partnership with Eureka Recycling.

Awesome!!

Looks like plastic but isn't

Keep an eye out for containers, cups and lids marked NatureWorks or Ingeo PLA #7 compostable. They look like they're made of plastic, but they're actually plant-based and compostable. Some known users: Mill City Farmer's Market vendors and Lunds for some deli items. If you know of more, please let me know.

Genesis Poly plastics recycler now open for business

Genesis Poly is positioned to make an enormous dent in the amount of plastics -- agricultural, industrial, food, packaging and post-consumer -- that are sent to landfills or incinerators. Check out this list of the types of packaging they accept for recycling!

Shrink wrap
Bubble wrap
DVD / CD cases & towers
Pill bottles
Recycling & garbage bins
Clamshell packaging
Stock trays
Cosmetic / beauty bottles
Chemical containers
Spurs
Runners
Bags
Boat and car wrap
Construction film
Cooking oil bottles
Boil in bag pouches
Microwave trays
Margarine tubs
Straws
Bags - Shopping, grocery, bread, produce
Beverage bottles
Dairy containers (yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese)
Cheese wrap
Milk jugs
Cutlery


And packaging really represents just a fraction of all the plastics that are typically burned or sent to a landfill. All those Midwest farmers typically can't do anything with their plastics except trash them. But no more! Genesis specializes in recycling manufactured plastics into flakes and pellets that are then used to make new products. Dee DePass wrote an extensive story about the owners of Genesis Poly in the Star Tribune in January, and I learned Thursday at the Association of Recycling Managers workshop that Genesis is now open for business! The Mankato Free Press also wrote a story. Go, Genesis!

Buy some of these! Stick 'em around town!

I went to a workshop of the Association of Recycling Managers yesterday and got a lot of good info. Here's the first bit I'm sharing with you: These Come From Trees stickers help save about a tree's worth of paper every year! One little sticker! The idea is to stick them on paper-towel dispensers, so they remind people to use fewer paper towels. I just ordered 200 of them.



Some other cool facts from their blog:
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A single "These Come From Trees" sticker can save around a tree's worth of paper, every year
More than 50,000 stickers distributed since March '07
A typical fast food restaurant with two bathrooms can use up to 2,000 pounds of paper towels a year
The average coffee shop uses 1,000 pounds of paper towels a year
A single tree produces around 100 pounds of paper
Roughly 50,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S.
200,000 gas stations in the U.S.
14,000 McDonalds' in the U.S.
10,000 Starbucks in the U.S.

This could be MY motto!

Just found this awesome, useful website! Love Food Hate Waste! Check it out!




From their website: Every year in the UK we throw away £12 billion worth of food that could have been eaten. Love Food Hate Waste is a campaign from WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) that shows that by doing easy, practical, everyday things in the home we can all waste less food, which ultimately benefits our purses and the environment, too. If we all stopped wasting food that could have been eaten, it would have the same environmental impact as taking 1 in 4 cars off UK roads. lovefoodhatewaste.com has lots of delicious recipes to use up leftovers, handy hints and tips for storing food to make it last longer, a portion calculator to help you cook the right amount, and information on what food date labels mean. There is something for everyone, whether you are a keen cook, or simply want to reduce the amount of food you throw away.

Wish we could recycle polystyrene cups, plates, etc. here

Wrote this letter to Dart Container Corporation:

Dear Dart,

I think it's absolutely fantastic that you've opened polystyrene foam
recycling drop-off facilities in the United States and Canada! Please
consider opening one in Minnesota, and all 50 states and Canadian
provinces for that matter. There is a definite need for such
facilities everywhere because so many businesses and consumers use
Dart's products. Please give this some serious consideration as a
product stewardship initiative.

Thank you,

Nancy Lo
Minneapolis MN

and I got a speedy response back saying thanks, but we can't open drop-off sites where we don't have a physical presence because monitoring and collecting the material is too difficult. Oh well, I had to try. I did find out they have 2 portable recycling programs, CARE (Cups Are REcylable) and Recycla-Pak. Some videos are available for watching, too (a little heavy on the self-promotional angle).

Who thinks it's nuts that I'm contemplating driving to Illinois to recycle about 10 garbage bags full of polystyrene foam cups, plates, containers and trays? They're threatening to topple over in the garage.

Totally green, totally adorable and functional

I got the cutest, greenest handmade felted potholders at the Edina Art Fair today. They're made by Fat Tomato Designs, aka Julie Case of Madison, Wis., ENTIRELY out of recycled and/or repurposed materials: wool, liners and even the thread. Julie's husband, Krome, told me how the family scours Goodwill and secondhand stores for the right sweaters. She also sells purses, oven mitts and stockings. If you like what you see, they'll be at the Uptown Art Fair Aug 6-8.

Plastic garden pots recycling

A neighbor asked me about this yesterday, so I thought I'd write a post. Plastic pots, polystyrene trays and hanging pots that you buy plants in can be recycled at many garden centers through the Minnesota Nursery & Landscape Association's Garden Plastic Recycling Program. I've noticed that a few places have either dropped out of the program or decided to participate in just the twice-offered collection times, so check the list to make sure the place near you still takes pots. Full details here.

Volunteer #138, disposal monitor

The waste-diversion effort Sunday at the Linden Hills Festival was a smashing success.
4,000 attendees
448 lbs of compostables
39 lbs of trash
Gail Rosenblum wrote about it for Tuesday's Star Tribune.

Here I am manning my post



Ten carts full of organics


ONE bag of trash, three-quarters full


Keiko Veasey, organizer of the festival's 'zero waste' effort

Exciting news! Eastside now accepting #3 and 7 plastics!

I just got rid of at least a year and a half's worth of PVC (#3), most in the form of Lactated Ringer's solution bags that I collect from our vet clinic! So exciting!! Eastside Food Co-op is in northeast Minneapolis at 2551 Central Ave. NE

Derby Day party goes low-waste

My friend Nan let me make her annual Derby Day party a low-waste event. We used real plates, utensils and glasses, and encouraged people to bring their potluck contributions in reusable dishes.

At the end of the night, we'd collected 13.2 pounds of compostables and 6 ounces of trash. Yes, ounces. The trash consisted of about 20 straws, a few single-serving butter wrappers and a diaper (thanks, Bodhi!). We also collected 30.2 pounds of glass bottles, aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Nan knew there wouldn't be much trash after all the food and paper waste were collected, but she was amazed at just how little we ended up with.