Why Aren’t More Roads Made of Rubberized Asphalt Concrete?

Over 240 million tires are thrown out every year in the U.S., and where do they go? According to RideLust, fewer than 7 percent get recycled, 5 percent are exported to other countries, 11 percent are burned for fuel and the rest are either sent to landfills, stockpiled or illegally dumped.  But, there’s a very eco-friendly and easy-to-incorporate use for all of these tires: rubberized asphalt concrete, a material made from shredded rubber mixed with asphalt.  RAC roads are known for making better roads that need less maintenance, yet it’s still not being used on all of the roads in the U.S.

From RideLust:

Rubberized Asphalt Concrete (RAC) does work better.

1. Using RAC clearly reduces road noise by as much as 85%
2. Applying a two-inch layer overlay of RAC can save $50,000 per lane mile compared to using four inches of conventional asphalt in the same application
3. An overlay of RAC can prevent cracks in underlying pavements from reflecting through to the surface of the new paving
4. RAC retains its original color better than conventional asphalt and markings remain more visible
5. Using RAC saves on maintenance costs, a properly designed application can last 50% longer than use of standard asphalt
6. RAC provides better traction and can reduce traffic accidents in poor weather

So, what’s the holdup? Lobbyists, as usual. The government is in charge of building the streets, and politicians choose the companies that get the contracts. The biggest corporations can afford the best lobbyists – the ones that will do practically anything to get big projects for their bosses. As noted by RideLust, there’s no incentive to use RAC even though it’s far more eco-friendly and superior to the materials currently being used for most roads.  Of course, using tires in RAC roads isn’t a miracle answer to all the tire waste in the world, but it can help.  Too bad greedy corporations are holding up progress, as they tend to do.

Link [RideLust]

Visiting Sweden? Stay in a Jumbo Airplane Hostel at the Arlanda Airport

Entrepreneur Oscar Diös had been itching to set up a hotel in the Swedish city of Arlanda for years.  Arlanda Airport is the biggest airport in the country, and he was convinced that demand for more lodging there was great.  So, when he heard there was an old disused Boeing 747-200 sitting at the Arlanda Airport, an idea popped into his head: he would turn it into a hostel.

From Jumbo Hostel:

From the beginning of December, hostel guests will, for the first time ever, be able to spend the night in a real, seasoned jumbo jet – on the ground! This is the perfect way to start your trip abroad. The plane is a used out jumbo jet model 747-200 made in 1976. It has been awarded a brand new, modern interior decoration, offering night guests an experience apart. It’s exciting for aviation enthusiasts and families with children as well as for business people. This exhilarating experience leaves no-one indifferent –we promise.

Even if you don’t want to stay there, visitors are welcome to stop by for a snack in the cafe.  You can even walk out on the airplane’s wing.  They’ll be taking reservations for overnight stays starting this December.

All in all, pretty awesome reuse! You can join the mile-high club without ever leaving the ground.

Link [JumboHostel] via [Gizmodo] via [RandomGoodStuff]

Awesome Crafts Made from Recycled Tech Parts

Folks at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) came together recently to create crafts from old tech parts that would otherwise have ended up in landfills.  Computer parts ranging from keyboard keys to chips and wires adorn items like photo frames, earrings, and even a beer cozy.  Some are just plain silly while others are downright cool.  Check out the photos below! Great job, guys – let’s continue finding new ways to reuse this stuff instead of just throwing it out!

Link [NNEDV]

10 Creative Responses to Junk Mail – From Art to Garden Mulch

Who likes junk mail, anyway? It kills millions of trees, and most of it ends up in landfills or littering the streets.  It clogs our mailboxes and puts us at risk of identity theft.  With the amount of junk mail that arrives daily seeming to increase constantly, you may be wondering what’s the best way to deal with it.  Well, the folks over at ProQuo have gathered 10 creative responses to junk mail – from custom portraits and sculptures to handmade recycled paper and garden mulch.  Here are a few of them – check out the rest at ProQuo.com.

Link [ProQuo] via [BoingBoing]

Electronics Industry Greening up as a Whole, Offering Recycling Programs

There’s a big difference between merely greening up your company and greening up your entire industry, and a great example is what’s happening right now with televisions and other electronics. Companies like LG, Sony, Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba have begun major recycling programs that are free and easy for consumers. These programs embrace the idea of producer responsibility, which is the notion that whoever makes the product should be ultimately responsible for its recycling or safe disposal once its usefulness is complete.

That doesn’t mean that all of these companies willingly stepped up to the plate, of course – it’s the result of a lot of hard work by organizations to have regulations passed in 15 states (so far). The Electronics TakeBack Coalition has put the pressure on states, and a coalition of nonprofits has been pushing individual companies to offer free recycling.

From Green Biz:

The coalition’s next target is Samsung, another Korean firm which is running an Olympic-themed online scavenger hunt called “hunt for the gold.” The coalition respons thatolder TVs include toxic chemicals lead, mercury and cadmium as well as gold, and that many are collected for recycling and then “sent to developing countries like China by unscrupulous recyclers, where they are literally bashed open and melted down with few if any safeguards against toxic releases.”

You can be fairly confident that once industry leaders like Sony and LG offer free recycling, their competitors will have to go along. It’s probably not much of a burden to their business, either–rising commodity prices mean that the value of old electronics, formerly known as garbage, is also increasing.

Imagine what would happen if more industries began running on the ‘producer responsibility’ concept. There’d be virtually no waste. That’s the direction we need to go in – and this is a hopeful sign that through pressure from organizations and consumers, we can get entire industries to green up and stop trashing the planet.

Link [GreenBiz.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user saidunsaid

How to Fix NY’s ‘Bigger Better Bottle Bill’

Groovy Green has reposted a great article by Daniel T. Weaver of the Daily Gazette about how to make New York state’s bottle deposit program work for everyone – states, environmentalists and soft drink companies. New York currently has a 5 cent deposit on all soft drinks, and unclaimed deposits are kept by the soft drink companies. Many New Yorkers support a ‘bigger, better bottle bill’ that would include bottled water, sports drinks, tea and other beverages, but the bill has failed consistently over the last several years.

Dan’s suggestion? Raise the deposit fee to 25 cents. Oh yeah, and to the environmentalists of the state: stop trying to grab the unclaimed profits for yourselves.

From Groovy Green:

The proposed legislation goes too far in some areas and not far enough in others. Let me explain. First, the bill does not include the large plastic beverage cups that people get from fast food restaurants and convenient markets. I find these along my road all of the time. Secondly, the bill does not increase the amount of the deposit on returnable bottles and cans. The amount has been a nickel for twenty-five years. Most people won’t bend over to pick a nickel off the ground, and the nickel’s lack of value accounts for the many cans and bottles that are thrown out of car windows, left on beaches, etc.

The legislation requires that all unredeemed deposits be turned over to the State Environmental Protection Fund. Currently the beverage industry keeps the money, which totals more than 100 million dollars each year.

Dan points out that at 25 cents per bottle, there would be very few unclaimed bottles. That means far less bottles littering the roads, beaches and other areas of New York. The state currently only has a 70.2% return rate on bottles. So the income from unclaimed bottles would be far less for beverage companies, but as Dan suggests, compromising with them might help the legislation get through.

We like this idea for a lot of reasons, and think it should go nationwide. Charge people extra for beverages that come in a bottle or a can, and they’ll think twice about throwing it in the trash. More will be recycled and homeless people will be able to earn more. The caveat? People might buy far fewer canned and bottled beverages in the first place, which is probably exactly what soft drink companies are afraid of. Thus, the lobbying that prevents the bill from being passed. But still, good call Dan – and thanks Groovy Green for picking this up!

Link [Groovy Green] + [The Daily Gazette]
Photo credit: Flickr user judepics

Green Stimulus Idea – ‘Cash for Clunkers’

With the economy in need of some help, the people in need of some hope and a whole lot of pollutin’ vehicles on the road, one New York Times columnist has a ‘modest proposal’ that could go a long way toward all three: ‘Cash for Clunkers’. This idea would put into place a variety of programs in which the government buys up some of the oldest, most polluting vehicles and scraps them.

From The New York Times:

Here’s an example of how a Cash for Clunkers program might work. The government would post buying prices, perhaps set at a 20 percent premium over something like Kelley Blue Book prices, for cars and trucks above a certain age (say, 15 years) and below a certain maximum value (perhaps $5,000). A special premium might even be offered for the worst gas guzzlers and the worst polluters. An income ceiling for sellers might also be imposed — say, family income below $60,000 a year — to make sure the money goes to lower-income households.

People who sell their clunkers would receive government checks, perhaps paid to them at the motor vehicle bureau office where they turn in their old vehicles. They would be free to spend this money as they see fit, whether on a new car or truck or some other form of transportation — or anything else. To ensure that the program really pulls clunkers off the roads, only vehicles that had been registered and driven for, say, the past year would be eligible.

The government can either sell the cars it buys to licensed recyclers for scrap, or refit them with new emissions controls and resell them. But the government must not ship the cars to poor countries, where they would continue to belch pollutants.

Such a program would distribute some money to low-income people (since the rich rarely own clunkers), giving them a little extra cash to feed into the economy. The auto industry would benefit as well, since people would be trading up.

There are similar local plans already in place, but what really limits them is lack of money, which is where the need for stimulus comes in. The NYT article goes into details of how the program would work and how much it would cost. We love the idea of these sorts of government programs – achieving so many goals at once.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Todd D Jones

Recycling Dumpsters for Use as Gardens, Skateboard Ramps & Swimming Pools

This gives ‘dumpster diving’ a whole new meaning: getting somebody’s unwanted used dumpster and turning it into a swimming pool.  Or, perhaps your urban apartment building doesn’t have any green space, and you’d love to stretch out on some grass for a picnic just a few steps from the front door.  Just fill up one of these giant waste receptacles with some dirt and plant some green things, and you’ll have an insta-lawn.

This is one of two proposals unveiled by design graduate Oliver Bishop-Young for the reuse of dumpsters (referred to as ‘skips’ across the pond).   Aside from the above-mentioned creative reuses, Bishop-Young proposes a website where people can detail the contents of their dumpsters so that other people can scavenge it.  The database would be searchable by a variety of filters including item or location (a temporary demo can be viewed here).

What an awesome idea! There are so many items thrown into landfills every day that could easily find a new home if people just had a chance to grab it.  Free stuff and less waste – who could complain?

Link [Environmental Graffiti]
Photo credit: dezeen.com

Schwaggin Wagon Collecting Donations on the Road This Summer

If you’ve ever been to a convention, you probably have some of this junk sitting around your office or home: mugs, hats, pens, calendars and other items emblazoned with corporate logos.  You may use some of them for a little while but chances are, before long they’ll end up in the trash.  The brains behind The Schwaggin’ Wagon, Michael Liskin and David Preciado, realized how wasteful that really is one evening over some Thai food, and decided to do something about it.  The Schwaggin’ Wagon, which runs on sponsorships, travels to conventions and takes all that schwag that no one wants and donates it to charity.

The Schwaggin’ Wagon will be at Twiistup4 and the Mashable Summer Tour collecting items and cash donations to benefit Operation Gratitude, a charity that sends care packages to U.S. troops abroad.  The troops love stuff like flash drives, hats and t-shirts, and they share the novelty items with local children in the communities they patrol as a means of promoting goodwill.

Both Twiistup4 and the Mashable Summer Tour are going to be hot events with edgy Web 2.0 companies, influential bloggers and other digerati in attendance.  Mashable’s 2008 Summer Tour will cover 7 cities in less than 1 month, with 500 to 900 attendees per event and will include networking, formal introductions to sponsors, music and appetizers.  Twiistup events connect people from technology, media and entertainment, featuring several startups chosen to show off their products and services to influential bloggers, techies, investors and the media.

Both events are sold out, but you can still contact Schwaggin’ Wagon about sponsorships to help them do what they do best – educate the public about conservation and sustainability, specifically in the recycling and re-purposing of branded schwag.

We love that the Schwaggin’ Wagon is not just making sure that all that junk doesn’t clog the landfills – they’re giving it to people in need.  What an awesome concept.  What we love even more is how they’ve chosen to get their message out – they promote eco-conscious behaviors and party like rock starts at the same time.

Link [Schwaggin’ Wagon] + [Operation Gratitude] + [Twiistup4] + [Mashable Summer Tour]

How to Stop Wasteful Phone Book Deliveries

Every year, at least once, you open your front door to find one – or possibly even two or three – phone books piled in a heap on your doorstep, driveway or lawn. Competing phone book companies put out various versions of their tomes, giving you yellow books, white books, county books and city books. And, when’s the last time you even used a phone book? Aren’t we all just looking things up on the internet by now?

If you’re sick of wasteful phone book deliveries, you can put them to a stop. Here’s how, from Simply Thrifty:

If you want to stop receiving phone books call:

* ATT/ Yellow Pages: 1-800-479-2977
* Verizon: 800-555-4833, press 4, then 5, then 2
* DEX: 1-877-243-8339, press 2
* Yellow Book: 1-800-929-3556, press 2

You can also opt out of phone book deliveries at www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org.

Link [Simply Thrifty]
Photo credit: Flickr user merfam

Company Converts Gas Powered Cars to Electric

One question many people have had about the switch from gas powered vehicles to greener models is, what happens to the old cars? There is definitely a possibility for an awful lot of waste – not all of the materials from a vehicle can be recycled. Luckily, there are forward-thinking companies like Voitures électriques du Québec (Electric Cars of Quebec).

From the company’s website:

Electric Cars of Quebec is a company which is proud to offer electric cars to the public of Quebec. Since the company’s conception in 2007, the founder Mr. Loic Daigneault has been developing a line of products which offer a viable alternative to drivers who wish to save money and reduce their green house gas emissions. With safety as a priority all ECQ products meet the requirements of the SAAQ and have been designed to withstand the rigors of the Canadian climate.

While ECQ won’t turn the vehicle you already own into an electric car (they prefer to buy models that are already compatible with electric design to ensure quality and safety), purchasing a converted car from ECQ is an awesome way to go green AND recycle at the same time.

The cars have a range of 100 km (62.137 miles) with the option of traveling further via a gas generator, which essentially turns the car into a hybrid, making it able to charge its own battery. Without the gas generator, the car will take about 8-12 hours to recharge once spent. The battery doesn’t have memory, so you don’t have to wear it down completely before recharging. The battery lasts about 1200 recharges or 6 years.

Get more info at the Electric Cars of Quebec website!

Link [Electric Cars of Quebec]

Eco Geek Says It’s Time to Stop Sending Letters

Yesterday, the price of stamps went up again by a penny. It wasn’t all that long ago that you could send a letter for 25 cents, and now it’s 42 – a pretty sharp increase in such a short amount of time. Of course, part of that is due to the fact that we now use electronic communication so much more often, and that is a good thing for the earth – it means far less waste ends up in landfills.

Eco Geek thinks it’s a fine time to stop sending letters, and they’ve provided a list of ways you can avoid using stamps: through scanning, online bill pay, e-cards, video letters, choosing postcards instead of letters when you do have the urge to do it the old fashioned way and finally, avoiding air mail at all costs. Makes total sense, right? Especially the air mail bit – what a waste of carbon emissions. People are very impatient these days.

So why is my eyelid suddenly twitching? Why do I feel a sense of dread, like something is terribly wrong? Oh, right – I was an English major. I’m a literary and history dork. I have a passion for all things romantic and old-fashioned, and that love of parchment paper and quills and envelopes sealed with wax is completely at odds with my desire to be more ‘green’. I am a collector of old, dusty, well-worn books and a lover of language. I am a scholar of the Italian Renaissance, and wrote my thesis on a long-dead European daughter of a pope. I hate acronyms and techie newspeak (or what nervous parents refer to as NetLingo) like ‘LOL’, ‘BRB’ and ‘AFAIAA’. When I use them, I do it with sarcasm, but despite that, a little part of me dies every time.

In this way, I represent the resistance to change that’s making it difficult to get a momentum going in this fight against global warming and everything that goes along with it. I treasure old things, and mourn the loss of the art of letter writing. I’m sad that kids are no longer taught cursive handwriting in school. I think it kind of sucks that typing has taken over as the dominant form of nonverbal communication. But, I don’t want to be one of those people that holds us back from moving into an age that could save us from ourselves.

I think it’s okay to write handwritten letters every now and then. We just need to make up for it in other ways. For example, I’m funneling my love affair with old things into a sort of recycling effort. I choose second-hand before new, any time I get the chance. I keep odds and ends like pretty soap wrappers and nicely printed cardboard product packaging to use for handmade cards. I don’t like the idea of a future where kids don’t even know how to write words out, and can only type them – so I want to make sure that those kinds of skills get passed down. I’m afraid of the truth in fiction like Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and even the action film Equilibrium.

Essentially, I will be one of those people who fights to preserve some of the personality and history behind written communication, but I’ll do it in such a way that prevents me from being part of the problem.

What say you? Will you give up hand-written communication for the environment?

Link [Eco Geek]
Image credit: Ballantine Books

Moore College of Art & Design Turns Trash into Fashion

Would you wear a gown made of electrical tape and used shower curtains? How about a cocktail dress made of candy wrappers? Moore College of Art & Design held their eleventh annual Trash Fashion Show last Thursday, showing off over 20 eco-friendly designs made entirely of trash and reused items.

The event had students constructing garments made of items like soy packets, phone wire and old CDs. Students weren’t allowed to use anything new or store-bought; it all had to be trash and was held together by fishing line, glue guns and staplers. It was designed to get people to think about how items that are thrown away could be used differently.

While the contest was held in honor of Earth Day, and a similar one-time challenge was seen previously on an episode of the popular Bravo series ‘Project Runway’, things like this shouldn’t be seen as a stunt. There are plenty of things that are currently being thrown away that could function beautifully as materials for clothing, and if designers started taking it seriously, we could end up with some fabulous eco-fashion made of all kinds of recycled materials.

Link: [Moore College of Art & Design]

‘Unbuilding’ Offers an Eco-Friendly Alternative to Tearing Down Houses

I’ve always thought, passing by buildings being demolished to make way for something new, that surely all of those materials that were being crushed and thrown away could have been used for something else. It seems incredibly wasteful to throw so much into landfills when it could be resold or even donated to charities that help build homes for the poor. I’m not the only one – more and more people are forgoing the old wrecking ball routine in favor of a more eco-friendly model, despite the increased cost and time.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that some people are choosing to ‘unbuild’ rather than tear down, which makes a lot of sense in today’s climate of heightened sensitivity to waste.

From the Wall Street Journal’s Nancy Keates:

Unbuilding our home will take longer (two weeks) and is more expensive (about $4,000 more) than simply crushing it and throwing everything out. Even with the tax deduction and what we save by reusing our old materials and appliances, we still come out a little behind. But since we are reusing so many things — and because it seemed like the eco-friendly/right thing to do — we decided to go ahead. (Another option is to hire the local fire department to burn it down as practice; that often allows a whole house deduction for tax purposes. Instead of deducting just the pieces, which are worth less.)

This kind of thing is exciting – it represents a change in the way people are thinking about so many different aspects of life. It also means that more history will be preserved, even if it’s taken apart and put back together again somewhere else. The important thing is, all of those materials won’t be sitting in a landfill of no use to anyone at all.

Link [Wall Street Journal]
Photo credit: Flickr user Editor B

Old Subway Cars Now Luxury Condos for Fish

Ever wondered where old subway cars go to die? You might not be too surprised to learn that there’s a subway car graveyard off the coast of Delaware. Before you get your panties in a wad, consider this: fish are moving into these subway cars so fast, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control can’t get more cars down there fast enough. Jeff Tinsman, the artificial reef program manager, has called them ‘luxury condominiums for fish’.

Having planted a thriving community in what was once an underwater desert, state marine officials are faced with the sort of overcrowding, crime and traffic problems more common to terrestrial cities.

The summer flounder and bass have snuggled so tightly on top and in the nooks of the subway cars that Mr. Tinsman is trying to expand the housing capacity. He is having trouble, however, because other states, seeing Delaware’s successes, have started competing for the subway cars, which New York City provides free.

I never thought I’d view tankers dumping old junk in the ocean as a good thing. Not only are the subway cars being recycled and scores of fish getting brand new homes, but states are fighting over the opportunity to do it themselves. Pretty awesome.

Link [New York Times] via [DVICE]

Photo: Tim Shaffer for The New York Times

The Friday Crazy: The Can Man Suit is 35lbs. of Aluminum Can Awesome

Maybe because it’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m spending my last day as a twenty something (turning the big 30 tomorrow), but I’m feeling silly. The Can Man is rad. Check this out:

Via [Trendhunter]