Archive for the 'recycling' Category

Best Buy should be ashamed of itself

Published
by
greenhl
on July 10, 2008
in corporate, pollution, recycling, retail and waste
. 1 Comment

worst_best_buy_logo

How many of you shop at Best Buy? When I’ve gone, I’ve been disappointed by their usually high prices and unhelpful staff. That said, I will start going there less than I even do currently.

Best Buy should be ashamed of their recycling program and efforts they speak so proudly of. Best Buy is probably one of the largest retailers of electronics if not the largest. In essence, Best Buy is one of the worst contributors to the tons of electronics thrown into our landfills each year.

Best Buy can mitigate a lot of this buy offering recycling at its stores, but unfortunately, it doesn’t choose to do so. It only offers the recycling of some appliances and home electronics if you purchase something from them AND get it professionally delivered or installed through a service you purchase through them. In essence, they are really trying to up sell additional services and make even more money, while masking this as some type of great recycling program and environmental benefit they are offering.

To Best Buy’s credit, they do offer cell phone, battery, and ink cartridge recycling. However, given Best Buy’s huge contribution to electronic waste in our landfills, they should be ashamed of their paltry efforts. They don’t even offer an on-going free recycling program for old computers, printers, CD / DVD players, fax machines or other common electronics. They do have special weekend events which appear to be one-time events in certain cities. Let’s be realistic though. Recycling should be a year round event, not a one-time marketing and promotional event. In addition, Best Buy doesn’t even accept appliances, microwaves, smoke detectors, or air conditioners during these events. Why even bother having these events, lest its for a corporate dog and pony show? Best Buy definitely pales in comparison to Costco’s efforts, which offers free recycling, complete with free shipping and packaging materials.

If someone knows of a great effort Best Buy is doing to combat this problem, let me know. I couldn’t find it on their website, and I would definitely love to be proven wrong in this case.

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There may be no water in your next Coke

Published
by
greenhl
on July 7, 2008
in conservation, corporate, recycling, reuse and waste
. 0 Comments

coca_cola_classic

While many companies are striving to become carbon neutral, Coca-Cola is seeking to become water neutral, meaning all the water used to produce its line of beverages will either be returned directly to the earth or reclaimed through recycling and conservation. This is a lofty goal, and Coca-Cola hasn’t actually set a timeframe. However, the company is aware that water is a precious resource which it needs to make beverages and which it needs for the company’s survival. For Coca-Cola, increasing population numbers and increasing demands on water make their goal more critical than ever.

For each liter of beverage bottled, Coca-Cola uses approximately two and a half liters of water. This amounts to nearly 100 billion gallons of water used annually, equivalent to about 20 percent of total U.S. water consumption. The water used includes water that goes directly into its beverages as well as water that is used for cleaning, lubricating machines, and growing sugar and corn (for corn syrup).

Recently, Coca-Cola has been an environmental target. In 2002, a Southern Indian village accused a Coca-Cola bottling facility of polluting and depleting groundwater, leading not only to a PR mess, but also forcing the bottler to shut down and leave the village. The last thing Coca-Cola wants is poor press, especially as corporate environmental responsibility is become more critical than ever. Also, imagine if Coca-Cola is banned from all or parts of burgeoning countries such as India or China. Being shut off from huge populations and areas for growth would be disastrous for the company.

Coca-Cola has taken some steps as it recognizes the potential PR mess that may be caused by a lack of significant proactive corporate responsibility. In some facilities, waste water is captured, treated, and used for street cleaning and car washing. Coca-Cola is also taking simple steps such as fixing leaking pipes and using less water intensive lubricants for its machines. Coca-Cola can probably take a chapter out of Wal-Mart’s book and create low-water consumption facilities with devices such as waterless urinals. Coca-Cola realizes the importance of water in its supply chain and the need to preserve as much of this natural resource as possible. If real water shortages come about, forcing bottling facilities to shut down will be the least of Coca-Cola’s worries.

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T-9 days… and counting

Published
by
JB
on July 2, 2008
in Products, carbon, recycling, retail and waste
. 1 Comment

iphone.jpgJust out of curiosity, are any of you getting the new iphone when it comes out on July 11?  I am, but this is not why I’m writing the post.  Instead, I want to tell you about something cool Apple is doing…with the box.

Apparently, Apple’s iphone will offer packaging made of potato starch, and supplied by PaperFoam.  According to PaperFoam’s website, their packaging is carbon friendly, has low CO2 emissions, and 100% recyclable.

The company that I work for offers boxed software, so I often get pulled into meetings to talk about packaging.  It’s been a struggle for us to find an eco-friendly solution (it costs a lot), so I’m totally digging the fact that there are more and more eco-friendly alternatives out there.

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Are plastic bags the new green?

Published
by
greenhl
on June 19, 2008
in Products, action, conservation, global warming, recycling, retail and reuse
. 4 Comments

When someone asks paper or plastic, what’s the right answer? A couple months ago, I wrote about the evils of plastic bags and how many cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, have legislation in place or proposed to ban them. As it turns out, plastic bag bans may not be so great after all.

If plastic bags are banned, retailers will turn to their next best (economical) alternative, which are paper bags. As luck would have it, paper bags not only kill trees (although many are manufactured from recycled paper), but they cost more to transport due to their increase weight to volume ratio, require 40 percent more energy to manufacture, and take 91 percent more energy to recycle (pound for pound) when compared with plastic bags. Paper bags contribute more to global warming than plastic bags. It turns out plastic bag bans and paper bags aren’t so great after all. Boy, this environmental and global warming stuff sure can get complex with these second the third order effects.

Should we just throw up our arms in protest and give up? Of course not! Give up is never an option at TTMYGG. If you don’t know already, the answer to my question above turns out to be neither! What we all should do is carry reusable shopping bags. There are numerous places to buy them, and many only cost a few dollars (or less!). Some supermarkets such as Whole Foods even give you a credit for bringing your own bag, meaning you can recoup the cost of the bag fairly quickly. Trader Joe’s enters customers carrying reusable shopping bags into a monthly lottery to win $50 in free groceries.

If you’re feeling particularly flush with money and want to make a reusable bag fashion statement, don’t worry, there are many options. If you really don’t want to donate this money to a good cause, you can buy designer reusable bags. Castiglioni has a folding nylon bag which retailers for $843, while Stella McCartney has an organic canvas tote for $495. Not to be outdone, Hermes sells its Silky Pop grocery bag for a mere $960, but at least it collapses into a wallet-size pouch. Trader Joe’s bags come in at a whopping $3. Decisions, decisions,…

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My kind of town, Chicago is…

Published
by
JB
on June 15, 2008
in action, carbon, energy, global warming, pollution, recycling and solar
. 3 Comments

chicago-skyline.jpgI lived in Chicago circa 1993-2004, during which most of this time I lived near Lincoln Park (Lakeview to be exact). I worked in downtown Chicago and would hop on the 151 (bus) everyday. I had my ups and downs with the 151 - it safely brought me to 333 East Wacker and back without fail, but was crowded and downright gross in the heat of the summer (picture your face being smashed into someone’s armpit when the bus lurched to a stop.) Yum. Regardless, I loved the freedom public transportation afforded me. The fact that I only used my car on the weekends is a total 180 from my life today, where I basically drive everywhere and everyday (public transportation in Mountain View, CA is sorely lacking in comparison). Anyway, there are other things I miss about Chicago - the food, the summer festivals, Ravinia, etc. I can go on and on.

Well here’s one more reason why Chicago is a great city: Mayor Daley. Regardless of your political party affiliation, you have to admit that he’s doing a pretty good job of making Chicago one of, if not the greenest cities in the US today. Here are just a few examples:

  • Chicago’s City Hall is the country’s first rooftop garden on a municipal building - Check out the Featured Projects link on this website
  • The Green Alley Project where alleys are retrofitted with environmentally sustainable road-building materials (there’s a lot more interesting information about this project here)
  • Museums (all of them) have been converted to partially run on solar power
  • All new public buildings to achieve at least LEED Silver status

Check out this cool PDF which shares more info on some of the other big green projects Chicago has completed.

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