Encouraging students to think green
Welcome to the Green Movement Blog!
FA 09 Meetings: Wednesdays at 5pm
Room: 233
Group Announcement: We are challenging all clubs to see who can collect the most aluminum cans.
Group news: We won one of the $50 gift cards from the club fair on the 13th!
Upcoming Student Affairs activities:
10/30 – Halloween Party
11/17 – Mid-quarter club fair
11/18 – Pizza with the Pres.
11/19 – Great American Smokeout
Modern trash and recycling bins
Check out some of these cute and innovative designs for recycling bins! Ok, so there’s some regular trash bins listed too, but who says you can’t use them to store your recyclables?
Power-hungry consoles: which fares best?
In November 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council released this report on the energy usage of the top three video game consoles. They claim this report
“provides recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines yet to hit the shelves.”
Most people today don’t think twice about leaving home appliances on when not in use. Game consoles often get left on because the player is in the middle of a level and cannot save yet needs to do an important life task like eat or sleep. I can’t say I’m not guilty of doing that in the past. It just takes time and patience to get into habits for things like this. I’m sure for people who pay their own bills and own a video game console, the biggest reward of turning their system(s) off when not in use is the money they can save.
The energy usage for the top three consoles is as follows:
+ Annual energy use (kWh) for users who turn console off after use
- Annual energy use (kWh) for users who turn console onNintendo Wii
+ $3
-$10Microsoft Xbox 360 (revision 2007)
+$11
-$103Sony PlayStation 3 (revision 2007)
+$12
-$134Microsoft Xbox 360 (launch 2005)
+$14
-$143Sony PlayStation 3 (launch 2005)
+$15
-$160
I almost feel as though this data is not surprising considering the size of each console (Wii<Xbox<PS3) but with the recent announcement of the PS3 slim, I am curious to know how it’s new size would affect it’s energy consumption.
The biggest thing game players can do to conserve their energy is make sure all their entertainment electronics are plugged into a surge protector that can turn everything off with the flip of a switch and make sure to switch games off when not in use. The surge protectors work great overnight and on vacations to prevent electronics from leeching power while they are off and you are away.
The full report can be found here.
Update 08-29-09
According to a review of the PS3 slim by PC Magazine, the revamped system actually has lower energy consumption:
Using a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure power consumption, the new PS3 used 71 watts during Blu-ray movie playback, while the older model consumed 104 watts, making the newer model 32 percent more efficient. To compare, a 42-inch LG LED HDTV consumed about 140 watts while playing back the same scene.
This is certainly good news, but I’m somewhat surprised that Sony waited so long to make these changes. My guess is they wanted to sell as many of the larger systems at the higher price point before rolling out a cheaper overhauled version. Didn’t they go awhile before the new style PSP came out? Hm.
Mother Jones recently put up two new posts on bottled water. The first, H2Uh-Oh, brings up some PR oopsies of various water companies. Certainly things they don’t want the general public to know.
Sam’s Choice (Wal-Mart)
WET REGRET Water comes from the Las Vegas municipal supply. A test by the Environmental Working Group found it had 200% of the allowable trihalomethane, a carcinogen, and included several chemicals known to cause DNA damage.
200% of what is allowable? How much is allowable to begin with? The thought of anyone allowing a certain amount of a carcinogen is scary enough, but 200% over the allowable limit? On the other Mother Jones article about a water taste test they did in their office, via their Blue Marble Blog, comes this little tidbit:
Despite the often elaborate processes bottled water companies take to purify their water, a GAO report last month found that the FDA puts less stringent requirements on bottled water than the EPA does on tap water.
So that’s why there’s 200% of the allowable limit of a carcinogen in Sam’s Choice bottled water. Let’s remember kids, the FDA is not your friend. On the rest of their water taste test article, they reviewed various bottled water brands, as well as filtered and unfiltered San Francisco tap water. Surprisingly (or not surpringly) the unfiltered San Francisco tap water came in third on their list.
I grew up in a small midwestern town where the tap water, for the most part was quite good, if not delicious. Now living in the city of Phoenix I have experienced the worst tap water to date. Really, it’s gag-worthy. So living in a desert it’s not uncommon at all to see people toting around bottles/gallons of water with them to stay hydrated. Out here it’s just a way of life. But, it would still be nice to see a transition to reusable aluminum water canteens among the general populace. Perhaps even an investment in a faucet filter, if it would even put a dent in the taste of Phoenix tap water. For those of you who are so attached to your plastic disposable bottles of H2O that you can’t/won’t change to something better, do yourself a favor and research the brands available and choose the one with the least environmental/health impact and find out if your neighborhood has a recycling program or find the nearest recycling center to you and recycle your plastic bottles.
Going through my twitter feed this morning, I came across this little gem tweeted by Erin of elyorganics.com.
Search from your location, by keyword, or by an area you might be visiting and it will give you search results by different categories such as bakers, wholesale, online shopping, farmers markets and more. This is certainly one to bookmark if you’re curious about where you can find great local, sustainable, and organic foods in your area.
USA Today reports that makers of plastic bags aim to use 40% recycled content by 2015.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2009-04-20-plastic-bags-recyclable_N.htm
I give them props for trying, but plastic is still plastic. Even with 40% recycled content, that’s still 60% unrecycled. If you do feel the need to use plastic bags, when you are done with them find a store that has a bag recycle drop bin. That’s certainly better than the bags ending up in the ocean where unsuspecting sea life ingests them.
This Earth Day make a pledge to do one good thing for the Earth. Pick up some litter, don’t buy anything that can’t be reused or recycled, volunteer at an animal shelter… Make this day count then see what you can do every other day of the year to make a difference.
I went out to Sprouts earlier to do some shopping. Usually when I go to Sprouts I only look for food, usually fresh vegetables and the occasional meat. In my personal effort to become “more green” I decided to try out some green household products offered at Sprouts since I needed a few things anyway. After buying the products, I thought it would be great to review new products as I try them out to give anyone else who reads this blog a heads up about what might be good products to switch to. So to kick this off I will be reviewing two products.
First up is the Avalon Organics Tea Tree Scalp Treatment Shampoo and Conditioner. There were quite a few choices for hair care products at Sprouts and they ranged in price from about $6-$12 a bottle. They had a couple of brands on sale, with 25% off, and Avalon Organics happened to be the one settled on. They were about $7 each after the discount, which I must say is a lot more than I am used to paying for hair care products. My boyfriend picked the Tea Tree Scalp Treatment because he occasionally has dandruff but has had issues with an irritated scalp since moving to Phoenix. The bottle does say it is for all hair types so having dandruff shouldn’t limit you to having this shampoo. So tonight I took a shower and tried out the new shampoo and conditioner. My first impression is that the shampoo didn’t lather like past shampoos and the conditioner wasn’t as creamy and heavy as past conditioners. I attribute this to the brand being organic and using mainly natural oils. After leaving the shower, my hair didn’t feel as “conditioned” as with past products, but it did feel a bit lighter and perhaps a bit cleaner. The smell from the tea tree oil, chamomile, and lemon peel is very invigorating and really wakes me up. Probably the most interesting thing is the way my scalp feels. If you can imagine the cool minty feeling in your mouth after eating a peppermint, that’s the way my scalp feels. It’s kind of cool and tingly and really feels nice. I must admit I have never had a hair care product do that before. Either it is supposed to be a good thing, or I am having an allergic reaction. I don’t really feel like I can give a full review of this product until after I have used it a few more times, so for now I will say it seems to be working out well and will update more about this when I have been using it longer.
The second product I will be reviewing is the Seventh Generation Natural Dish Liquid in lemongrass and clementine zest scent. We got this item slightly on sale for $3.69. That price doesn’t seem too bad to me, but I don’t buy dish liquid very often so maybe it’s not comparable in price to other brand name dish liquids. I haven’t actually had a chance to use this yet, but my boyfriend used it on tonight’s dishes while I was at work, so I have grilled him for answers on how well it worked compared to our last bottle of brand name dish liquid. The first thing he had to say was he enjoyed the scent. It has a very crisp clean scent that doesn’t smell fake. He said the bubbles were about the same as the name brand, and if there was any difference it wasn’t enough to make him care. He did like how his hands didn’t feel dried out after he was done. He said they came out just as soft as they were when they went in. And the dishes? Well hopefully he added enough elbow grease to get them completely clean.
I found an awesome article over at Planet Green (part of the Discovery network). It’s basically a guide on how to weed out harmful products in your house and eliminate bad things lurking in everyday products.
I know some of the suggestions might not be the most viable for college students/people on a budget/people who don’t own their own house, but there are still some great suggestions such as buying organic/natural laundry detergents and buying organic fruits and veggies. While it is very important for us to monitor what we throw out, and to make sure we recycle anything that can be recycled, we also need to make sure we are aware of what is in our foods (pesticides) and everyday products like shampoos and lotions (mercury).
If you were a student who happened to go to last quarter’s Pizza With the President, you may remember him mentioning there might be printing restrictions in the near future. He feels there is too much paper and ink (which is expensive!) being wasted by people printing. We’ve all had times where we finish our paper, print it out and notice a horrible mistake spell check overlooked. Which means there’s 3-4 pieces of paper that end up in the recycle bin (I hope you wouldn’t throw it away) and another 3-4 pages being printed. There are also other people who print a web article only to have a page or two of nothing print out following the content we want. I know that annoys me a lot.
So our president has a proposed solution: A set amount of prints per student, per quarter. If I remember correctly, we would all have a code we would type in (probably at the printer) when we want to print. It would print our document and deduct the amount of pages from our total. In the instance of a printer malfunction or something along those lines, we would be credited the amount we lost.
I think this idea might be good, in theory, but perhaps there are other things we can do to reduce the amount of paper and ink wasted. Here are a couple of things I have found so far:
Ecofont
I first heard about Ecofont over at EcoGeek. This is a free font for download and it will apparently use 20% less ink. The font is sans-serif with tiny holes in the middle of the letters. It might look kind of odd, but when used in 9 to 11 point, the font will look no different than any other font. Obviously, a larger point size will make the holes look obvious.
The font is free, so it could be installed on all the computers on campus, but then it would be up to faculty and staff to educate the students about it. This font may not work great for a graphic design project, but it will certainly work for an art history paper.
GreenPrint
Remember those web pages I mentioned earlier? The ones that print those annoying junk pages after printing what you want? Well this software program might be the answer to that problem. GreenPrint is a program that goes between you hitting the print button and the printer spitting out your paper. It will evaluate what you’re printing and check to see if there are any unnecessary pages due to print. You have the option to choose which pages you want printed.
Not too shabby, right? They have a free version for the Windows users as well as two other upgrade versions with more paper and ink saving goodness. They also now have a version for Mac OS X, but right now you can only get a free 30 day trial and then purchase a license for $29 if you like it. I suppose even if we did download the free version for all our PCs at school and paid $29 for all the Macs (yeah I know that would be pricey) it would probably pay off in the long run.
This is a great little post over at Mother Jones, highlighting the top 20 “econundrums” such as the age old shopping question: “paper or plastic” Their answer? They’re both just as bad, so bring your own bag.
See the rest of them here
aipxgreenmovement
Jess