recycling

In a practice I can hardly fathom, the Turkish government has been giving 155 million new textbooks each year to students, most of which are thrown into the trash at the end of the year rather than simply requiring they return them for use by next year’s crop of students.

Of course there’s not only an environmental cost to this enormous waste of resources, but an economic cost as well, with the books costing the Turkish public more than $800 million annually.
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It's the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, set against the backdrop of historic Hampton Court and a more informal and casual event than the Chelsea Flower Show. Sustainability is definitely one of the under-lying themes of the show this year. In all categories gardens have featured a recycling and sustainability aspect to their creation. We loved the idea of the Climate Change Dome which is staffed by experts providing advice on the impact of climate change on gardens and the right plants and techniques to use at home. The

Surfwear company Billabong is using a new material called ECO Supreme Suede for some of its boardshorts and swim suits. The exclusive material is eco-friendly made from recycled textiles and plastic soda bottles (rPET). The company says its cool new material doesn't sacrifice on quality.

For those of you who are fed up with consumerism or simply don’t like shopping and are looking for another way to acquire things or get rid of stuff, check out Vols Tens in Catalonia, Spain. Similar o Freecycle, this web site let’s you find or give away things in a very easy way, although it is in Catalan only. Vols Tens, meaning ‘Want Have’ in Catalan, is an anti-consumerism, non-profit project, created to get/give things without having to pay.

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Video by Martin Connolly

The other day, as my roommate and I were on our way to sell a load of plastic bottles and paper boxes to our local recycling man, we were stopped by one of our vigilant neighbors. "Whoa, he's not there! He won't be back for two months!" Th...

Here is a small reminder that we really need to redesign everything about modern life, from the smallest, least noticed items on up. Who thinks about 8 - 10 billion polystyrene or polycarbonate hangers manufactured per year, of which only about 15% are recycled?

Green Heart Global, the parent company and designer of Ditto Hangers, that's who. Green Heart Global offers two options, both made from recyclable materials....

(Picture: Cartoneros in Buenos Aires. Credit: dandeluca.) After trying two different garbage separation and recycling plans that didn't work, the Buenos Aires government is finally launching a new plan that involves cartoneros: a group of people that have learnt to live out of waste collection during the crisis years in Argentina.

The new plan seeks to install new rules for the garbage management companies that work with the government, and leave the collection of recyclable waste to cartoneros, first in big malls and hotels and t...

If you have read many of my posts over the years you will be aware of my love for Earth Ships. This is a great interview with a key figure in that scene: Michael Reynolds.

If only the Planning Department down here in the Westcountry had slightly broader minds...

You can find a few second hand markets in Barcelona, such as Antiguos Encantes, but finding cool stuff at a decent price is not easy, especially when you are not a local. On the other hand however, we all (Barcelonians are no exception) have a few too many objects sitting at home that we grew tired of, while constantly looking for new gift ideas or a special something for ourselves. So while the idea of second hand is attractive to many (cheap, more pers...

This year’s Sea No Evil event , also known as the Sea Shepherd Art Show aims to bring art, music and the environment together under one roof in Riverside, CA. The location – The Riverside Art Musem. The date – Saturday, July 12, 2008. The acts – recording artist Matt Costa, DJ Shephard Fairey and art by over 53 artists will be on display. The event is co-hosted by RVCA, the Artist Network Program and Monster Media.

For those of you in the LA or Riverside area, mark your calendars now to come out to Riverside for a good cause. Musical acts include Mat...

We recently heard a piece on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition about a school in Cairo's Manshiyet Nasser slum community where the city's young garbage collectors are learning the business and economics of recycling and using solar energy to do it.

The school is called the Mokattam Non-Formal Education Project, and has received funding form UNESCO and Procter & Gamble, a company whose products like shampoo are sold in the plastic bottles that end up on Cairo's streets....

Great minds think alike ... Here we have two organisations, almost on different sides of a country, doing much the same thing, with the same name.

The Recyclery, in Evanston, Illinois, a non-profit collective, seeks to build community through the restoration of donated and discarded bicycles. “With these bikes we offer a sustainable form of transportation at little to no cost. We wish to further open ourselves and our resources to the community at large with programs that teach bicycle maintenance, safety, and ecological sustainability."...

Way back when TreeHugger was a babe in the woods we posted on Walden, who at the time made roto-moulded kayaks from recycled plastic. They alas closed their doors, and we found Hydra, who made a portion of their craft with recycled content. But the overall Walden idea was kept alive by Earth Friendly Kayaks. Recently the whole concept was reinvigorated by Necky Kayaks of Washington state, USA.

They make several lengths of their Manitou kayaks ...

Australia has been in the grip of a one-in-a-thousand-year drought. A while back we looked at how this was affecting the ability of cities to provide basic drinking water services and what it meant for agriculture. Then we perked up with stories on how individual Australians and their municipalities have again embraced rainwater harvesting. With gusto. (Governments have even being

Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Workweek, has a really cool idea and TreeHugger is helping to spread the word; it's a contest to help enable more effective electronics recycling, with the help of the big-time companies who design and manufacture the phones, provide cell service, or help both ship these phones around the world. Stay tuned for more; for now, take it away, Tim!

Bobba Fett was always my favorite Star Wars character. Here’s your chance to emulate him and become a bounty hun...

Over the last year there has been a relative rush of books on eco and ethical fashion published in the UK. We think this is an excellent indicator of the public’s awareness of how, what, where and whom produced the clothes in our closets. First was Tamsin Blanchard’s Green is the New Black, then Mathilda Lee’s Eco-Chic and most recently Kate Fletcher’s Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys and not forgetting Sa...

Earlier this month, Keen announced the winners of their STAND sustainability awareness contest. Prizes totaling $150,000 USD were awarded to three winners and fifteen runners up.

The three respective winners in their categories of Stand Up, Stand Out and Stand For were: a) Spencer Brown’s Rent a Green Box makes rentable reusable moving crates out of recycled plastic waste; b)Leslie Freeman’s Wild Science Explorers takes under privileged high school students on river trips complete with science education and Leave No Trace training; and Brian Bell, ...

Seat belts save lives and recycling saves the planet: Now the two create the perfect union with the Seatbelt lounge chair by designer Nuttapong Charoenkitivarakorn and manufactured by Boonchucharoenkit. Thai villagers take seat belt scraps -- made of a crash-dummy tested cotton-nylon -- and weave them in a criss-cross pattern around the plywood frame. The result is high design, available through the Future Perfect in Brooklyn, New York. via ::Interior Design ::

File this one in the 'how to do it right' category: earlier this week, Interface Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpet tiles, released their 2007 "ecometrics," measuring the impact of their operations on the planet. Among the impressive numbers: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are down 82 percent from the 1996 baseline, while total energy intensity (use per unit of output) is down 45 percent from 1996. In a nutshell, these numbers mean that they've learned how to make more carpet with less energy, emissions and pollution.

In addition to typical financial metrics like profit and loss, Interface began tracking their ecome...

The next time Tom Hanks finds himself marooned as a castaway on a tropical island maybe his companion will be a green basketball, instead of a white volleyball.

The Wilson ‘Rebound’ has a surface comprising 40% recycled rubber. 70 such basketballs are said to be equal to taking one car tyre out of landfill. "Think Globally, Hoop Locally" is the accompanying catch phrase. We’re not sure why a product as robust as a basketball requires packaging in a box. But at least Wilson have opted to to make it from nearly 80% recycled cardboard. Though they are ambiguous as to whether that is pre or post consumer content.

we mulled over the notion of whether colourful Crocs footwear might be the Birkenstocks for a new generation. Many respondents argued that without containing recycled content or at least a way of recycling the worn-out shoes they couldn’t be considered ‘green.’

Earlier this year Crocs seemed to have taken steps, if you will, to address these issues. Their new line of SolesUnited are made with grounded up old crocs. The new styles have 20% of this recycled content. Going one further Crocs plan, for 2008, to develop partnerships with shipping companies and worldwide non-profit organisations,...

Yesterday Collin, TH's resident design guru, reported that there's been proof at the Salone del Mobile of some high profile design studios taking a greener approach to some of their products. The theme started by the 'One day paper waste' table at Droog,was continued over at another design giant's stand with Stephen Burks' recycled paper tables. While designboom noted ''a lack of seriously minded sustainable
products'' we're glad to see that they still managed to find a few gems like the new 'Cappellini Love' col...

Patagonia have updated their Webby Award nominated Footprint Chronicles website with five new product lifecycle assessments (LCAs). The additions are their Nine Trails shorts, Sugar and Spice shoe, Capilene 3 bottoms Vitaliti strappy dress and Puckerware shirt.

That last product (seen above) traveled 22,000 km from its fabric source to distribution centre expending enough energy per shirt to run a 18W light bulb nonstop for 49 days. The shirt created the of 41 times it’s own weight in CO2 emissions and created waste equal to 2/3rds of its weight. And Patagonia can’t yet find...

Spring has finally reached the northern reaches of the Northern Hemisphere, and that means amusement parks, and in Denmark's case, lots of beer drinking (it's legal to imbibe on the streets). In addition to amusing and not-so-amusing public drunkenness, the drinking policy also leads to mountains of street trash after a warm spring night.

But at the famous Copenhagen amusement park Tivoli (one of the world's very first in-city large scale permanent parks) there's no trace of plastic cups on the grounds or even in the bins, and that's not because of overzealous maintenance staff - it's due to Tivoli's plastic cup deposit and return system that gets an approximately 80 perce...

Only author Bill Bryson could write such a paean against littering (or "fly-tipping" as they evidently call it over in the UK) :
Nowhere in the world is there a landscape more lovely to behold, more comfortable to be in, more artfully worked, more visited and walked across and gazed upon than the countryside of England. It is a glorious achievement and much too lovely to trash.
That is why he is leading a Campaign to Protect ...