Environment Review - August 31, 2011

Welcome to the August 31, 2011 edition of environment review.

Green

Tony Bennett presents 25 Interesting Facts You May Not Know About Recycling » Masters in Public Policy posted at 25 Interesting Facts You May Not Know About Recycling, saying, "Recycling is one of the issues handled in the realm of public policy. While some of these policies are handed down on a national level, issues such as this are generally dealt with locally. These twenty five interesting facts offer insight and background information about recycling and its positive affects."

Dan German presents True Cost of Plastic Bags posted at Green Eco Tales. saying "Costs of plastic bags for the consumer and the environment. This should help stimulate discussion on reducing your reliance on them. "

Jonny presents 10 Materials you can recycle. posted at Smart blog, saying, "With so many things going to waste and how much we're polluting the environment, this post discusses 10 things that you can recycle, doing your little bit for the environment."

Dawn Gifford presents How to Beat the Banks and Save Some Green posted at Small Footprint Family, saying, "Is your money clean and green? Does it support your values? Here's how to make sure it does..."


RebeccaExpertmom presents Review of Earth Friendly Eco Baby Wipes » Expert Mom posted at Expertmom, saying, "Review of earth friendly baby wipes."


Greg Diaz presents Kindle 3 Covers posted at eBook Reader Geek, saying, "Seeking eco friendly protection for your Kindle? If so, have a look at our round up of the top animal-friendly covers and cases for the Kindle 3 ebook reader."


Jeff Barrett Design presents Make my toilet GREEN! posted at Home Green, saying, "I am dedicated to spread the sustainable word and utilize my 15 years of green design implementations to create change one small DIY project at a time."


Katherine Tworsey presents 10 Regular Products That Are More Environmental Friendly than Their So-called Green Counterparts posted at Compare Electricity Rates.


Katherine Tworsey presents 10 Things to Learn About Renewable Energy Credits posted at Compare Electricity Rates.

 

Environment

Scott Bartlett presents Don?t Let the World Make Its Problems Your Problems posted at BATSHITE, saying, "An article about distancing one's self from the behaviours contributing to the global environmental crises--thereby increasing personal security."


Sue Waters presents 10 Best Cars for the Planet posted at Car Insurance Blog News, Tips, and Quotes, saying, "Green has become the most important color of the decade."


Sue Waters presents 10 Worst Cars for the Environment posted at Car Insurance Blog News, Tips, and Quotes, saying, "As the car companies scramble to evolve fuel efficient technology for the betterment of the consumer and the environment, they continue to manufacture quite a few gas guzzlers that seem to counteract the strides they've made."


Bernice Frankel presents 50 Must-See YouTube Videos to Learn About the U.S. Environmental Policy posted at Public Policy Degree, saying, "Everything from climate change to global warming and the U.S. laws that pertain to them are constantly changing, and as a result can cause scrutiny. These fifty informative YouTube videos help explain the environment and U.S. Environmental Policy, so that you can be educated and have a better understanding of what's going on."


Coleen Torres presents 10 Comparisons Between The Jetsons and Modern Technology posted at phonetvinternet.com.

 

Renewable

David presents Vertical Wind Turbines for the Home posted at Wind Turbine Center, saying, "Thanks for including me. This is my brand new site about wind turbines, been a long time publisher of green info at thegoodhuman.com Thanks!"


Dan German presents Green Eco Tales: Rain Barrel posted at Green Eco Tales. saying "Find out how to make your own rain barrels and help save the environment."


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True Cost of Plastic Bags

I have always wondered how expensive plastic bags really are. The only problem is how to calculate this. I have read at more than a few sources that stores spend over $4 billion a year for these bags. That doesn’t include the full cost. These bags don’t biodegrade in landfills, and they are often littered away. In the USA getting rid of plastic bags would in theory save consumers about which is obviously not a ton of money but not inconsequential either. I wanted to take a look at the cost from another angle for this post. How much many plastic bags are needed to drive a car 1 mile. 

Green Taxis: Eco Taxi

One of the toughest parts of public transportation is that it is a point to point system and to go anywhere too far from stations or at odd hours can be very difficult. In DC public transportation only run till 3AM and bus service till around midnight. In New York City the Subway runs all the time but buses do stop overnight. Even in Europe I have run into some stations don’t have trains running to them after certain hours and needing to get a cab to safely and quickly get to where I needed to go. If you are looking for green way to travel in a city you don’t always have as many options as you would like. Some cities do now have hybrid taxis though that help give another alternative. In Berlin Eco Taxi is a great alternative for transportation, they have over 700 taxis on the road. Be warned most of their website is in German but I will highlight some of their green, forward thinking.

The city has over 4,500 cabs and EcoTaxi has a sizable portion of the cities total. The company currently dispatches up to 750,000 calls/month. The company also uses solar panels at their dispatch center and using electro docking stations for electronic vehicles.

Currently a large portion of their fleet is Hybrid cars like a Toyota Prius or vehicles using natural gas that have lower emissions.

Quote:
Our system is sustainable cause every car is controlled automatically with a Vodafone sim card (M2M)

This Video shows how Vodafone helps to dispatch taxis in Hanover, Germany. The same system is being used by Eco Taxi in Berlin and in other cities.

With Eco Taxi a customer gets the next available taxi. This system works best when there are lots of green taxis from one fleet to quickly get to the next customer. Eco Taxi customers have a few ways to get a taxi, they can call the taxi phone number or with the Berlin Taxi iPhone app. This app will be updated shortly for other types of smart phones.

In trying to find out how efficient public versus private transportation is I came across this post showing how various transportation's stack up in the USA.  While I am sure European transportation is slightly more efficient than in the USA, but the charts show that a hybrid car is more efficient than most forms of public transportation. There are still times when the cab will be driven to its next destination or idling, but this is still much more efficient than a regular a cab and is probably not much worse than some public transportation systems. Especially when you consider that it can bring you directly from point A to B.

Green Taxis are not overly popular yet but as time goes on they can give us another way to travel in a environmentally conscience way. Currently the Green taxis are gaining in usage but some places are still behind like, Canada, UK, or South America. Even New York City had plans to make every cab a hybrid or better got struck down by the Supreme Court. 

In Europe Munich and Zurich also have Eco Taxis bit only around 100 taxis, so there is a lot of room for growth. Eco Taxi promises to have more maps of all the towns it serves but right now they only serve 3 cities in Europe. This company has a good green business plan and is definitely worth trying out.

Other links:

http://www.taxi-berlin.de/taxibestellung/app/%20

http://www.taxi-berlin.de/

Large Trucks to Face Tougher MPG Standards

Just a few weeks after Obama administration announced tougher standards on cars and trucks they now have announced increased MPG standards for larger trucks as well. This will cover larger vehicles like dump trucks, tractor trailers, fire engine, etc. The amount of the cuts varies by types of vehicles from 9% up to 23% so this is not insignificant. Though with some older semi trucks only get 4-8 MPG even a 23% increase will only mean a 2 MPG increase. While that will save significant amounts of fuel it would still be much more efficient to transport this all by train. Overall it is a good start and important for all vehicles that use fuels to increase their efficiency, especially those that are on the roads everyday for long hours.


From WBOC (AP)

"The White House projected savings of 530 million barrels of oil and $50 billion in fuel costs over the expected lives of the vehicles covered by the new standards, along with improved air quality and public health.”

Part 6: Unplug the Second Refrigerator

This is part 6 on ways to take steps to make you home more energy efficient.  You can go to the previous entry Part 5 or go to the next entry Part 7 here.

Freezers and Refrigerators are the two biggest users of electricity in people’s houses. They typically account for 1/6 of the total electricity bill. They are much improved with them using 60% less electricity than models 20 years older. A lot of people though then use their older fridge to store extra food. I know growing up my parents kept one in the basement to keep food that we couldn’t fit in our main fridge. Anything you can do to limit yourself to one refrigerator will do a lot for your monthly electricity bill. Also by limiting yourself to one fridge it may spur you to eat healthier by buying more fresh food as opposed to prepackaged products that are loaded up with salts and other preservatives. This alone could save you 20% of your electricity and possibly more depending on the efficiency of your fridge. Also while you are looking at your refrigerator also check the dials inside for how cold you are keeping both the fridge and freezer portion. If possible setting these both to a lower setting will also help you save more.

Green Cleaning

With so many families having two working adults it is tough to keep up with all the household chores. Today more and more people are turning to maid services to help keep their home clean and to be able to stay on top of other chores around the house. For a lot of us finding a service that is also environmentally responsible is tough to do. At my first home we had a service briefly but stopped after a few cleanings as the smell of the bleach became too much to bear. We have yet to restart service as we have not found one that meets what we want done and we are now making better use of our time.

Carnival of the Environment - August Edition #1

Welcome to the August 6, 2011 edition of carnival of the environment.

Environment

The Spicy Meatball presents How to Buy Local Produce by Joining a CSA posted at The Spicy Meatball.



Art presents For peats sake, leave the raised bog alone posted at The Helpful Engineer.

Green

Green Eco Tales presents Permeable Walkways and Driveways posted at Green Eco Tales



GreenJobsGuru presents Research Indicates Multiple Usages for Solar Panels posted at Green Jobs Ready




That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of
carnival of the environment
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our

blog carnival index page.

Share
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Technorati tags:

carnival of the environment, blog carnival.

GOP and their war on the Environment

This is a good article on how far we have to come to convince the rest of America about the damage we cause with our policies. The conservative GOP has gone too far tin their support of business and the status quo. After many years of no improvements in fuel economy, we are not beginning to see some real innovation out of Detroit. This has led to Ford retooling their standard engine and GM starting to get into hybrid and battery powered vehicles. None of this would have happened had the government not moved the standard on these companies. The new Ford new engine with ecoboost will improve fuel economy on the cars and trucks it is used on. The Ford Explorer will now be the most fuel efficient SUV in its class . If the GOP gets its way and limits the powers that the EPA and other environmental agencies have we could be set back in the development while other countries pass us by.

Chesapeake Bay Dead Zones

This is a very interesting article from the Miami Herald about how different causes are having an effect on the Chesapeake Bay. Some scientists now think winds may also be having an effect on dead zones in the bay. Essentially what happens is that some of the deeper salt water does not receive enough oxygen. They now think that winds may have more to do with than tides. Some of this is because of the nutrient rich waters from the tributary rivers that contain an excess of fertilizers. This then causes algae blooms on the bay which block sunlight from reaching below. A new grant will allow scientists to better monitor the bay for a variety of conditions to better make recommendations.