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The The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has identified marine debris as a significant problem, contributing to stress on fisheries and even interfering with navigation. The Pacific Garbage patch is only the surface manifestation of a marine debris problem that extends to the ocean floor.
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The Suwa Basin, in the Nagano Prefecture, Japan is home to mineral springs as well as to precision machining companies and metal plating facilities. All of these are thought to contribute to the high concentration of gold in their wastewater sludge. The sewage treatment plant is a modern day urban mine extracting more than 4 pounds of gold from each ton of the fly ash that it produces from processing wastewater!
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As we all know, batteries don't last forever. And when the flashlight dims you may be left with a double handful of toxic heavy metals to get rid of somehow. Until very recently mercury has been the main villain, but in addition to mercury, other hazardous metals such as lead, cadmium, chromium, and silver lurk in those little cylinders.
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Many businesses are discovering that they can reduce disposal costs, save paper costs, earn money, and preserve our natural resources by reducing, reusing, and recycling office paper. Paper is probably the biggest source of waste in most offices and usage is rising by around 20% every year, with the average office worker using approximately 50 sheets of paper every day in the typical office. That is aside from other paper waste such as newspapers and magazines that they may read.
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One item touches every article of clothing and is touched by every customer. It’s the ubiquitous, invisible clothing hanger. It’s so prevalent, so insignificant that no one sees it, no one thinks about it, no one cares about what happens to it when it gets thrown into the box under the counter after a sale.
Where do all those thousands upon thousands of hangers go at the end of the day? Alarmingly the vast majority end up in landfills via the store’s dumpster. How many hangers are we talking about? The landfilled waste they create world-wide would fill 4.6 Empire State Buildings each and every year. The annually trashed 8 billion invisible plastic and metal hangers entering out municipal waste stream are now becoming a very dire issue.
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It's almost Valentines Day and its the time of year when jewelry shopping goes into high gear. In these depression times, fun, eco-friendly jewelry that won’t break the bank, is a great idea. From e-waste to recycled metals, very bright artisans and designers have come with the right ideas for your green sweetie.
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Pedal-powered taxis and free love are being combined in the city of Dublin, Ireland. They offer free eco-taxi rides throughout the streets of the city. They are a fleet of modern passenger tricycles operating a free shuttle service, thanks to kind sponsors so you can enjoy the benefits of a fun and environmentally friendly journey.
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Selling billions of gallons of water in everlasting plastic bottles to people that already have access to clean water is turning our planet into a gigantic garbage dump. 60 million plastic bottles are thrown away each day in the USA alone. Only 14% actually get recycled, meaning 86% become garbage roaming our planet or cluttering landfills. It will take 700 years to begin composting, 24 million gallons of oil are needed to produce a billion plastic bottles, bottling and shipping water is the least energy efficient method ever used to supply the liquid, and it is the second most popular beverage in the United States.
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Even the most environmentally-conscious among us use batteries containing toxic substances on a daily basis and most fuel cells and batteries contain a core of heavy metals, which are expensive and pollute the environment. Now UK chemists have discovered a property in the mushroom enzyme "Laccase" that could revolutionize the way fuel cells are produced. They discovered that the substance is every bit as effective as a catalyst on fuel cell electrodes as platinum.
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Humans pollute the air in many ways, but the single most contaminating activity is mining for gold. According to the EPA, mercury pollution from trash incineration, hazardous waste collection, and mercury mining combined still does not add up to half the total amount of mercury pollution made by gold mining. After the metal has been mined, approximately 63 percent is used in jewelry, 21 percent as coins, 15 percent in industrial use, and the other 1 percent in dental. So anything we can do to reduce this pollution is a welcomed activity.
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