Ant Problem? Tackle it with Green Solutions

Once you start seeing ants around the house, it seems like it’s a never-ending problem – unless you want to resort to dangerous chemicals, which can be toxic to kids and pets (not to mention the environment). There are actually some fairly easy, humane, green ways to kill ants – or if you’re really a softie, to divert them away from your house.

Your mileage may vary with these four methods from wikiHow, and which one you choose might depend on your ability to stomach ant violence. Method 1 involves pipe tobacco, glue, baby powder, red pepper, chalk and lavender – check it out on the wikiHow page. The following three methods are a bit simpler:

Method 2: Fill a spray bottle with highly concentrated soap water. When you see ants, just spray them and they’ll be dead on contact. Wipe up the carcasses with whatever they were trying to eat. Within an hour, any stragglers will have dissipated.

Method 3: Collect a large number of ants from one ant hill (easy to do just leave some food in a container, return after 2 hours and you should have heaps. Drop all the ants in the container onto another ant hill and the ants will start fighting each other resulting in many casualties.

Method 4: Spray 3 parts dish soap and 1 part water on them and they will die instantly.

Method 3 seems kind of cruel but fun for those with suppressed homicidal maniac tendencies. If you’re too squeamish to kill them, one tip is to place a partially open jar of honey up in a tree in your backyard. The ants will seek out the honey instead of raiding your home in most cases.

Link [wikiHow]
Photo credit: Flickr user striatic

Clean Rivers in Maine Lead to Black Fly Swarms

Maine struggled with polluted rivers for years, and it took a lot of effort to get them cleaned up. After the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, the clean-up tasks in rivers such as the Penobscot and Kennebec began, and now Maine residents are enjoying dozens of species that weren’t seen while the rivers were polluted. Unfortunately, they’re also dealing with an infestation of black flies, which are very sensitive to pollution and thrive in pristine flowing waters.

From Boston.com:

It’s an unintended barometer of good ecological health, but Maine officials are adamant they will not mess with nature in any way to provide relief.

“They can be so thick you breathe them in and they get stuck in your throat. They even get under your eyelids,” said Julia Brilliott, an Eastport resident who showed off four lumpy red welts on the back of her neck after climbing Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park last week.

For the uninitiated, black flies are blood-sucking insects with a menacing reputation worthy of a late-night science fiction movie. Not all bite humans - some feed on other mammals and birds - but those that do are relentless daytime feeders. Even the nonbiting flies are often despised because they emerge by the millions in warm months and, lured by the carbon dioxide we exhale, swarm around people.

Situations like this require a tricky balance. Obviously, it’s better for the rivers to be clean so that more species can thrive – and animals like birds and trout feed on the flies. Though other states like Pennsylvania use chemicals to kill the fly larvae, which they claim are safe for the ecosystem, Maine officials refuse to use them, having the foresight to realize that a substance that’s toxic to one organism will likely be toxic to others as well.

Hopefully Maine officials will find a solution before residents decide that they’ve had enough of the black flies and get back to pollutin’.

Link [Boston.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user Benimoto

Woody Harrelson’s First Foray into Environmentalism was Saving Ants

Actor Woody Harrelson gets made fun of a lot in the media for being a hippie. And apparently, it all started when he was just a wee boy: he would put himself in a position to get beat up by other kids by defending a pile of ants.

From Ecorazzi:

“It got me into fights. But every day, I would run out just after class and stand there and stop anyone from stepping on the ant bed. I’d stay put until everyone had passed by and then I’d finally go home. I guess you could call that my first activism.” The actor sums it up: “With a name like Woody, I suppose my path was probably already established. It was inevitable that I’d be doing something like this. But people didn’t really give the environmental movement much importance back then. Now it’s a pretty hip thing to be green. But me, I’ve always been kind of a Hollywood hippie.”

Good for Woody. He went from a nerdy ant protecting kid to a crazed serial killer and porn king. No, but seriously, Woody Harrelson is one of those celebrities who really walk the walk. He lives in a solar powered sustainable community in Hawaii, runs his car on biodiesel and is heavily involved in a wide range of environmental and animal rights causes. You can read more about Harrelson’s activism at SFGate.

Link [Ecorazzi]+ [SFGate]
Photo credit: How to Go Further: A Guide to Simple Organic Living

‘Crazy Raspberry Ants’ Invade Houston, Ruin Computers

You might be wondering whether we’re about to describe the plot of an Ed Wood movie from 1954, but it’s confirmed reality: a species of tiny red ants named after exterminator Tom Raspberry are invading Houston, Texas by the billions and are inexplicably attracted to electronics. They supposedly came in on a cargo ship.

The Huffington Post has it:

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as “crazy raspberry ants” _ crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and “raspberry” after Tom Raspberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

“They’re itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they’re just running everywhere,” said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. “There’s just thousands and thousands of them. If you’ve seen a car racing, that’s how they are. They’re going fast, fast, fast. They’re crazy.”

They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner’s gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction.

And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.

No one can explain why these strange little creatures are so interested in electronics. The Texas Department of Agriculture has teamed up with A&M researchers and the EPA to figure out how to stop them from eating Houston alive. Typical ant control methods aren’t working.

Craaaaazy, man. Attack of the crazy electronics-eating super fast ants! They’re coming to get you!

Link [Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Chow Down on Insects to Help the Environment

Doesn’t the sound and texture of insect exoskeletons being crushed between your teeth make your stomach growl? Especially when their crispy outsides break open and you get that gush of mushy innards all over the inside of your mouth. Some people describe the grayish, greasy meat of the giant water bug as “perfumey, tastes like salty apples”.

Sorry if I just ruined your lunch, but, eating insects is being called a great new way to help the environment. David Gracer, a composition teacher at a Rhode Island community college, has made it his goal to persuade Americans to eat insects in an attempt to “shake up how we all think about our food supply”.

Discover Magazine has it:

Gracer wants people to move away from getting their protein from traditional livestock such as cows, pigs, and chickens because raising livestock has a huge negative impact on the environment, regardless of whether the animals belong to subsistence farmers in developing countries or a Western industrial conglomerate (see “Warning: Contains Pork By-Products,” page 40). A United Nations report released in 2006 calls the livestock sector “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” The report notes that, among other adverse impacts, livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. (That’s more than what is produced by transportation worldwide.) And the problem is only going to grow, with global production of meat reaching 465 million tons by 2050, double the amount produced in 2000.

Other benefits of insect eating include the fact that raising them has a low impact on the environment, and that they’re low in fat. Somehow, though, I can’t see even the poorest of the poor in America being desperate enough to bite into a cockroach patty sandwich. Considering that America has a narrow view of what is deemed acceptable to eat, broadening our horizons enough to include insects on the menu is probably no more than a pipe dream. More power to those who can stomach it!

Link [Discover Magazine]

Photo credit: Flickr user Barnaby

Five Killer Bug Swarms to Avoid If You Can

The insects will inherit the earth…

…by force if they have to.

Environmental Graffiti has a great post with the five most dangerous insect swarms. If you see any of these little buggers heading your way, swing around on your heels and boogie out of there. Head over to Environmental Graffiti to get the full rundown.

• Locusts
• Fire Ants
• Yellow Jackets
• Army Ants
• Killer Bees

It’s should be noted that Global Warming seems to be helping Army Ants and Killer Bees expand their territory as winters shorten across the U.S. What a fun new world we’re leaving our children.

Link [Environmental Graffiti]

Photo Credits: Flickr users Gustav, Azrainman, Orin Optiglot, Alex Rouvin, Axel Buhrmann