The Red, White, and Green

Photo via Flickr: Rennett Stowe

Last week’s coal mine disaster in West Virginia may prove the impetus for stricter government enforcement of mine safety regulations — and let’s hope it does, for no American worker should have to face the increased likelihood of death or serious injury so that a company can save a quick buck.

But with increased scrutiny of the coal mining industry and the safety of its workers, we also need to start talking about another, more insidious, coal disaster that’s affecting the American public at large: toxic coal ash.

A byproduct of burning coal (which produces nearly half of our nation’s electricity), coal ash contains harmful contaminants like mercury, arsenic, lead, and boron. Of course, you wouldn’t want a known carcinogen like arsenic in your drinking water, but that’s exactly what’s happening: Unbelievably, the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to issue a ruling as to whether or not coal ash is a hazardous material.

As such, the power plants that produce this gunk can dump it anywhere they see fit — usually in large waste ponds located near residential communities — inevitably polluting drinking water and sickening the people nearby.

Most of us remember the horrific Tennessee power plant spill in 2008 that half-buried a community and contaminated its water supply with nearly 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash, but smaller-scale “spills” are happening nearly every day, all across the country, and largely under the radar: In one Alabama town, describes a resident, “Trucks unload the ash within 200 feet away from people’s homes. They are also intentionally washing it off train cars and trucks into a stream…The landfill was pumping this toxic leachate over roads and down into public ditches at night.”

In Oklahoma, another small town with 20 homes located near a coal ash waste pit has seen 14 of its residents stricken with cancer.

How did I hear these stories? Because the letters containing them, which have been made public on the Ohio Citizen Action website, have been sent to Cass Sunstein, Obama’s regulatory czar, in the hopes that he will move forward with EPA’s proposed rules to regulate coal ash disposal. The regulation has been pending since Oct. 16, amidst holdup by Sunstein’s Office of Information of Regulatory Affairs.

Yesterday, a delegation of coal ash victims traveled to Washington and met with OIRA staff members to share their stories — two staff members from EPA also sat in on the meeting — but no Sunstein. And no indication as to what or when the OIRA’s decision will be.

–Jennifer Grayson

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The federal phase-out of the traditional incandescent bulb won’t go into effect until 2012, but already the market is starting to shift. Yesterday, I went to my local Walgreens to pick up a replacement appliance bulb for my refrigerator, and was shocked to see that the top three shelves of the light bulb section were stocked with compact fluorescents (CFLs); only a few incandescent stragglers lingered on the bottom shelf.

This is great news for the environment (CFLs offer a 75 percent reduction in energy consumption), but not for my vanity. I replaced all the bulbs in my apartment with fluorescents years ago, of course, but I still cringe every time I catch a glimpse of my yellow-tinged skin in the hallway mirror. There are those who claim that decent CFLs do exist, but I have yet to find one.

But at long last, a truly flattering energy-efficient bulb may be making its way to a drugstore near you. GE announced yesterday that its 40-watt replacement Energy Smart LED bulb will be available late this year or in early 2011. The staggering sustainability stats: The lamp-style bulb will consume a mere 9 watts, provide a 77 percent energy savings over incandescents, and last 17 years. And, unlike a CFL, the GE bulb will contain no mercury.

The expected price tag of $40 to $50 may make some customers balk, but considering that one bulb could “light your kid’s bedroom desk lamp from birth through high school graduation” (or so the press release boasts), consumers are just going to have to start thinking a little more long-term when it comes to their finances. And the planet.

–Jennifer Grayson

Related post:
WATCH: LED lighting saves life of chocolate Easter bunny

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All photos: Tim Street-Porter

I like to think of myself as a backyard chicken, pumpkin-patch growing kind of gal. (I realize that I currently live smack dab in the middle of urban Los Angeles, but this is a fantasy life I’m sketching out for you right now.) Even if I had all the money in the world and could work from anywhere, I would probably live in a small town way out in the country, where my main mode of transportation would be a Schwinn and most of my grocery shopping would be done in my vegetable garden.

Of course, just because you’re eco-minded doesn’t mean you have to commit to this sort of tree-hugging lifestyle. Some people adore city life, and some (especially in LA) have come to require a certain level of luxury. Lucky for them, green and luxe are no longer mutually exclusive, as I discovered last week when I got to visit the new eco residence (dubbed “Green and Vine”) on the top floor of the LEED-certified W Hollywood Residences.

Check out the rest of the amazing digs:

The one-bedroom, co-designed by Kelly Van Patter and eConnect Group, doesn’t leave a sustainable stone unturned. In addition to the super energy-efficient appliances, low-VOC paints used on the walls, and floor coverings made from recycled carpet remnants, all of the furnishings — save the LED HD flat-screen from LG — were sourced from manufacturers and artisans within a 500-mile radius.

OK, so maybe I’ll keep my house in the country and snap up one of these for my little pied-à-terre…

To read more about Green and Vine, click here.

–Jennifer Grayson

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[Learn about TerraCycle on YouTube]

There’s nothing like shelf placement by a mass market retailer to bring an eco-friendly product from the fringe to the mainstream. When Target started carrying Method cleaning products in 2004, the biodegradable and nontoxic household cleansers stood out like a sore green thumb against the bleach- and chemical-filled landscape; now, every brand name from Clorox to Windex comes in a natural, plant-based version.

Will post-consumer content king TerraCycle‘s upcycled products have a similar influence now that they’ve hit the shelves of every Walmart store in the US? If style is being judged alongside substance, then I’m betting that the line — which will be available through April 29 — will be a big hit.

Several standouts:

Cheetos eco-kite. The world’s first standard delta kite made from recycled food wrappers. Other “flavors” available.

Skittles lunch tote. Other accessories bags include backpacks, purses, and camera bags made from everything from M&M bags to Capri Sun drink pouches.

Rold Gold pencil case. Is this pencil case making you thirsty? The perfect eco-friendly school accessory, made from upcycled snack food packaging. 

Candy wrapper notebooks. Loaded with recycled notebook paper and available in a host of bright candy wrapper colors.

To make sure Walmart customers get the whole “trash to treasure” concept, the more than 60 different upcycled beauties will be sold alongside the original items from which they were made. Kind of takes a bit of the guilt out of buying a bag of chips…

–Jennifer Grayson

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[Watch Food Revolution trailer on YouTube]

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is proving a big hit for ABC, but it remains to be seen whether the show will really spark a movement toward healthier eating in our nation’s junk-food plagued public schools. It’s to be expected that the forces of resistance against Jamie (curmudgeonly cook Alice, the snarky Sean Hannity-esque radio host) are played up for the makings of good dramatic television, but I’m betting that much of the opposition is the real deal.

Food journalist Michael Pollan wrote last year in a New York Times Op-Ed piece that “reforming the food system is politically even more difficult than reforming the health care system.” To see the truth in this statement, one need look no further than big ag’s efforts to thwart Baltimore City Public Schools’ adoption of Meatless Monday in its school cafeterias.

And while the cable news crazies’ reaction to the BCPS Meatless Monday effort seemed overblown and self-serving (Glenn Beck: “…You’ll throw me in jail, my last meal will be a giant steak”), you have to wonder why no other school districts have yet followed suit. Could the meat industry lobbyists be winning? The push to make Mondays meat-free at New York City public schools is, as of now, the only other school effort I know of, and it’s still under consideration.

God forbid we try to take mystery meat patties out of the mouths of babes.

–Jennifer Grayson

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[Watch video on YouTube]

In the spirit of Easter weekend, I thought this video was pretty apropos. Sure, it’s a promotional tool for LED lighting manufacturer Cree, and I don’t even celebrate Easter, but I couldn’t exactly resist a chocolate bunny — especially when said bunny so effectively demonstrates the inefficiency of traditional incandescent bulbs.

What’s cool about Cree is that the company is focusing on commercial applications for its LED lighting. We talk a lot about how much energy individuals can save by  swapping out their regular light bulbs for CFLs and the like, but that energy savings is magnified when giant stores like Walmart jump on the green lighting bandwagon. (Walmart is a Cree customer, along with Friendly’s, IHOP, Taco Bell, and KFC — not exactly establishments you would normally associate with environmental consciousness.)

The biggest motivator for these companies, of course, is their bottom line. To wit: An “eco-friendly” (and I use that term lightly) McDonald’s in Cary, NC, has reduced its electricity costs by 78 percent since the installation of its Cree lighting system.

And unlike at home, where the aesthetics of eco-friendly lighting can leave something to be desired, who cares if a store uses LEDs or fluorescents for an outdoor parking lot? There’s no excuse not to.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Kevin Krejci

If you haven’t played a prank yet today, here’s a cool one that’s for a good cause: As part of its effort to educate Americans about the problem of plastic pollution, California clean water group Heal the Bay has developed an April Fool’s Day app that allows you to “trash” a friend’s Facebook page (or any other web page, for that matter) with floating images of plastic bags.

To participate, visit the campaign’s website to send an email tease to unsuspecting friends and co-workers. When recipients click on a link embedded in your email message (“Dude, I trashed the front page of your Twitter”), the targeted page quickly and harmlessly fills with images of single-use plastic bags.

Those plastic bags will be gone from your friend’s web page tomorrow, but unfortunately the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a massive floating landfill in the Pacific Ocean comprised of 3.5 million tons of plastic trash — won’t be disappearing anytime soon. (Oh, and there’s one in the Atlantic Ocean, too.) That’s because plastic doesn’t biodegrade, it photodegrades — meaning it breaks up into miniscule little bits that are then ingested by marine life (and in turn ingested by us when we eat those fish).

Fortunately, there’s something we can do to drastically cut down on the amount of plastic pollution that reaches our oceans. It’s called a plastic bag tax. Washington, DC, passed a 5-cent tax in January, and since then the city’s plastic bag usage has dropped from 22 million to 3 million a month.

–Jennifer Grayson

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