Archives for category: environment

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There are new incentives for homeowners and businesses to update old heating furnaces in New York in favor of more wood heating. Renewable Heat N.Y. is a $27 million initiative that will spread the use of sustainable, high-efficiency, low-emission wood heating in New York. This initiative will also develop a more clean technology manufacturing sector in New York, a skilled installer base and sustainably harvested wood fuels from forests.

This means that wood pellet stoves should increase in the state. The incentives for residencies are $1,000 or up to $1,500 for income-qualified homeowners. In addition, residential customers and small commercial customers are also able to receive a $4,000 incentive for the recycling of old outdoor/indoor wood boilers and an additional 20% of installed costs of up to $4,000. Small commercial customers can also receive an incentive of up to 25% of total installed, up to $100,000, for the installation of a large pellet boiler with thermal storage. Large commercial customers are eligible for up to 20% of the installed cost, up to $100,000 for the installation of a large pellet boiler with thermal storage. Large customers can receive an incentive of up to 25% of the installed cost, up to $150,000, for the installation of a tandem pellet boiler with thermal storage.

This energy and natural gas provider serves 40% of upstate New York, NYSEG are helping spread this initiative, and you can learn more about this story from their web resources here: http://www.lookupstateny.com/WhoWeAre/nysegsnewyork.html

Source: http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/10717/n-y-announces-biomass-thermal-incentives-rps-solicitation

 

 

YOURE_INVITED_TO_AN_ECO_FRIENDLY_PARTY

We searched the web to find eco-related events around the world so that we could direct you to effective websites.

The best results were from Eventbrite:

http://www.eventbrite.com/directory?q=eco&loc=San%20Jose%2C%20CA&sort=best&slat=29.28&slng=-101.43&vp_ne_lat=62.4293&vp_ne_lng=-59.2393&vp_sw_lat=-3.8681&vp_sw_lng=-143.6143&crt=regular&

The Planet Friendly aims to bring people together over ideas that matter all around the globe!:

http://www.planetfriendly.net/calendar/

If you want to host your own eco-friendly event we have tips on how to throw a party that doesn’t end up with a bunch of garbage strewn around your venue:

https://wastetracking.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/the-greenparty-how-to-throw-a-green-party/

If you want to invite @wastetracking on Twitter we can also help you promote an eco-friendly event!

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Also, did you know that latex balloons are 100% biodegradable?

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Here we have it, the top reasons why we can be hopeful that we will overcome climate change from The Guardian:

1) Barack Obama has made it one of his defining issues
2) China has ordered coal power plants to close
3) The cost of solar has fallen by two thirds
4) People are taking their money out of fossil fuels
5) Bangladeshi women are being retrained as solar technicians
6) Renewable energy will soon take the lion’s share of new power
7) European homes are using 15% less energy than they were in 2000
8) Cutting emissions has become a business imperative
9) Oil is becoming much more expensive to find
10) Electric car sales are doubling each year

There are also helpful data, details and visuals to see here:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/30/reasons-hopeful-overcome-climate-change-solar

What to read about the Greenhouse gas news this year so far in summary format? Please see:

https://mygreenhalo.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/americas-greenhouse-gas-news-this-year-so-far/

 

Another great Green article from WasteTracking.com

Track your recycling at WasteTracking.com

Follow WasteTracking.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wastetracking 

Don't_Recycle_that_Pizza_Box

Oil/grease is one of the worst contaminates in the paper recycling process because paper recycling undergoes a heat process, gets mixed with water and pulverized to paper pulp to make recycled paper. If there is oil in the paper pulp mixture then the paper ends up having spots and holes.

About three years ago we wrote about the fact that many corrugated cardboard pizza boxes are recyclable if and only if they are clean. You can read about the pizza box recycling debate here.

We hope that by spreading the word about this and providing you with some visuals about the seriousness of ruining entire batches of recycling because you didn’t know that oil soaked cardboard shouldn’t be recycled in any amount, we can make people aware of this simple point: it might be better to throw that oily box away.

If you still want to recycle that pizza then there are great ways to go about this:

  1. If the top half of the pizza box has no grease on it then feel free to rip that half away from the bottom and recycle the top half!
  2. Share this article with others who could learn a thing or two about how recycled paper is made, trust us, they won’t forget the next time they have an oily pizza box!

The number 1 factor that effects whether or not someone will or will not recycle is their knowledge about what can be recycled. Yolonda Wright conducted 200 surveys to see what factors play a key role in determining the likely hood that one will recycle.

campanile berkeley sather recycle study

Yolonda wrote about UC Berkeley’s first Recycling Summit, 2001 that promoted campus recycling by increasing access to recycling and refuse containers, the campus bought recycled paper and even established a materials exchange.

In addition to one’s knowledge (a distinction was made between general knowledge and “knowledge about what can be recycled), demographics, knowledge of recycling bin location, age, area of study and more factors were considered.

Our blog has a lot of ideas for those who are already motivated to recycle. We also talked about people in correctional facilities that recycle quite a bit thanks to the training that they receive during their positions. For more about sustainable jobs, please click here and Yolonda’s study can be found here.

Do you find this easy or hard to believe? Let us know what you think on Twitter http://twitter.com/wastetracking

Food trucks are eco-friendly for a number of reasons which can be seen here. To encourage the frequency of dining at these small, efficient eateries here are a few websites that show you the location of food trucks (click to go to their website):

 roaming hunger food trucks are green

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 yelp_mobile_food_app

Another great Green article from WasteTracking.com

Track your recycling at WasteTracking.com

Follow WasteTracking.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wastetracking

Medical-membrane technology was used by Dr. Yuichi Mori to grow agricultural crops with minimized water and soil consumption which he presented at TEDx. Seeing this “hydromembrane”, a gel plastic wrap looking material interestingly enough supports plant growth so that they are safe for consumption.

plant and vegtable imec system is a revolution that allows more food to be produced and hunger to be reduced

A video of Dr. Mori with the Imec membrane and cress that grew from it can be seen here:

Source: http://www.mebiol.co.jp/en/product/

creativity is just connecting things waste tracking

We believe that original messages are worth spreading.

We learn from people who we follow, and we also learn from our followers.

We’ve learned our followers like electric vehicles, living roofs, construction industry interviews and space exploration to name a few so we are always on the lookout for news that is worthy of your thoughts. Please feel free to let us know what you think and we welcome you to share your blog with us!

Thank you!

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The ZenRobotics Recycler currently separates Metal, Wood and Stone from mixed construction and demolition debris. The separator received the Global Cleantech Cluster Association’s Later Stage Award for Best in Waste Management at the end of 2013 and ZenRobotics Ltd. is working on increasing the features of this product. Separating mixed construction and demolition debris is important because currently people perform their arduous task and their labor could be use very effectively elsewhere in waste facilities. Not only does this take a dangerous and tedious task off of the hands of waste facility employees, but this robot even improves recovery rates and sorting efficiency.

Jaakko Särelä, CEO of ZenRobotics, says that ““It is already clear that clean technology will develop to a globally significant business sector. What is now needed is a national strategy for the development of environmental technology”. The minimum amount of reclaimed debris that the sorter can reclaim annually is 12,000 tons with the potential to sort up to 60,000 tons. In addition, the sorter little energy, and only costs $1.36/hour to operate.

 

Source: https://mygreenhalo.wordpress.com/

Another great Green article from WasteTracking.com

Track your recycling at WasteTracking.com

Follow WasteTracking.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wastetracking

waste tracking wastetracking system website wednesday

For Website Wednesday we have…

Green Building News: http://bit.ly/1xFVqXD

Green Building 101: http://bit.ly/1r4IVkt

and

100 Top Environmental Sites: http://www.world.org/weo/environment 

 

Another great Green article from WasteTracking.com

Track your recycling at WasteTracking.com

Follow WasteTracking.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wastetracking