Our Intern Visits Plastics Unwrapped at Burke Museum

As we can see, plastics are everywhere in our lives. Plastic products have made our lives more convenient, colorful, and some would argue even safer. Could you imagine life before plastics? In the "Plastics Unwrapped" at Burke Museum I found out just that. I also learned how they are made, why they’re so convenient, and what happens once we throw them away.

New World Habits: Disposable Cup Campaign

A post by Karin de Weille

What can we do to help the earth that requires no money, new infrastructure or technology, no legislation or political will, not even time (to speak of)?

I’ve been wondering, why not kick our disposable cup habit together and make an instantaneous, collective shift? Take three weeks. New World Habits has created a website and partnered with Sustainable Seattle and others--Zero Waste, Green Fest. Coffeehouses are also supportive, including Caffe Ladro, Grateful Bread, and Cafe Javasti. So a structure is in place, something to work with. But it’s continuing to evolve—the messaging, the posters, the outreach (getting individuals as well as coffeehouses on board--it's easy--a flier on the site is all you need to approach your own local shop/cafeteria/office). You can help grow this!

We’re launching the 3-week campaign soon--May 21 with GreenFest, so it’s time to spread this. A signup process is in place through The Point (see JOIN NOW on the site…)

Some stats… We Americans throw away almost half a million cups every 15 seconds. Last year, paper cup usage created close to 400 million pounds of solid waste, and that represents almost a third more than just 4 years earlier! When our addiction to throwing away spirals out of control, it’s not enough to compost or recycle. The rule is reduce first. The disposable consciousness has got to go. There’s a moving video on the site about this. Take a look. NewWorldHabits.org. On the facebook page Disposable Cup Campaign, you can join with others who want to contribute creative ideas and help shape the campaign.

Richard Conlin is a supporter, seeing this as a great opportunity for Seattle to do what it’s good at—test out something new that then spreads. So for those of you who are thinking you want to make this shift in your personal habits or would like to help grow the movement, this is a clear opportunity to explore the power of collective impact.

And if you're looking for last-minute (or belated) gift ideas for the Earth, just sign up now!

Opt In Phone Book Ordinance Passes City Council

This is the official press release from zerowasteseattle.org, a fiscal sponsoree of Sustainable Seattle.

Grassroots Activists Applaud Seattle Council for Passing Yellow Pages Ordinance Today

Toughest Phonebook Restrictions in the Country

SEATTLE -- Today, the Seattle City Council voted 8-1 in favor of a new ordinance which creates an enforceable opt-out system restricting unwanted delivery of yellow page phone books. In addition, the distributors of the books will pay the city a per book ($0.14 per book) and per ton fee ($148.00 per ton) to recover the costs to the city to recycle the phonebooks and set up the opt-out registry. The mayor is expected to sign the Council bill.

Council Member Mike O’Brien has been the leader of the effort, taking up the issue early on and even asking citizens to bring him their unwanted books. His office was flooded with hundreds of books, creating mountains of books that his staff had to peak around in order to speak to visitors to his office.

“This is a big step forward for citizens who are tired of getting unwanted phonebooks dropped on their doorsteps,” said Jeanette Henderson who has been one of the grassroots activists as part of Zero Waste Seattle promoting this legislation for the past year.

Seattle citizens will be able to go to a single web page to cancel either all phone book delivery, or to select the number and types of yellow page books they still want delivered. This opt-out system will be similar to the national “do not call” registry for unwanted solicitation phone calls

“We have seen an immense amount of public support for this ordinance,” says Ellie Rose of Zero Waste Seattle, “It is not every grassroots campaign where you have people lined up six deep to sign your petition!”

Heather Shute of Environment Washington highlights the savings to the city, “According to Seattle Public Utilities, the city currently pays over $350,000 per year just to handle the recycling of phone books. In addition, many people toss the books into the trash, and off they go to the landfill!"

Another feature of the ordinance is a restriction on non-recyclable attachments to phonebooks. “How many people remember to pull off those magnets when they toss their books,” asked Jolie Lemoine of Zero Waste Seattle. “Those magnets end up going to the paper mills and getting slivered up and contaminating the recycled paper. We are pleased that these will no longer be allowed.”

In addition to cost savings, grassroots activists raised issues of privacy and climate change. Scott Stromatt of the Cascade Chapter Sierra Club said, "The ordinance is a positive step forward in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Seattle and in limiting the intrusion of unwanted phone books on our property."

Heather Trim of Zero Waste Seattle continued, “Seattle is already a leader in working to reduce our carbon footprint and advance zero waste goals. We expect that many cities across the US will be following suit quickly. Most jurisdictions are looking to save money, reduce waste, and address climate change. This ordinance is a win-win!”

“We applaud the leadership of the City Council to stand up to the pressure of the Yellow Pages lobbyists who worked hard to fight this ordinance,” said Sally Wolf of Zero Waste Seattle. “Our City Council voted to implement a simple system to let Seattleites to say “No” to unwanted phone book delivery.”

For more information about Zero Waste Seattle: zerowasteseattle.org

Tour de Fat recap

As promised, we spent the day of the Tour de Fat staffing the "Compost Offices" for New Belgium. It was a fun day, and a chance to learn a lot about how waste reduction works on the ground, and a bit about the company (check out their sustainability page - it's impressively comprehensive).

Lessons learned:

• An event like this can be run with minimal environmental impact: for example we managed a 95% waste diversion rate. I lost track of the exact amounts, but most of that was compost, with a small proportion of recycling, and only the remnant 5% going to landfill.
• Doing this takes a lot more work on the day than just dumping everything, and a lot of planning; one thing I was impressed with, for example, was that the food vendors had been pre-vetted for their ability to provide all compostable packaging.
• Staffing the waste stations makes a huge difference—we found a lot of inappropriately sorted garbage on the morning, from having left the bins out in the park overnight, but everyone is co-operative when pointed to the right bin.
• It didn't matter that the beer cups said COMPOST in big black letters on one side, or that there were signs up listing what went into which bin - people are creatures of habit enough that most automatically took those towards the recycling bin.
• But there are visual cues we can give people which help; a sort of Design With Intent for waste sorting. Here are two examples:
  • If you look at the picture below, the tiny office trashcan is for landfill waste, while the other two were recycling and compost - that made everyone who wanted to landfill stop and think. It was an accident originally—I hadn't realised we'd be handling landfill waste too, until it was too late to get official-looking bins for it so I improvised and raided our office—but it worked so well that I'll definitely repeat this next year and get intermediate-sized bins for recycling.
  • After this picture was taken, one of our volunteers (Tysan) hit on the idea of closing the lid on the recycling bins, to make people pause before dropping compostable cups in.
• And finally, one that I was taught repeatedly as a computer science student: document everything. Sustainable Seattle has done this job at the Tour de Fat before, but the people who did it in previous years have moved on and I had to rediscover a lot of things. I'm writing it all down, so even if it's not me next year they can do a better job of co-ordinating and spend half as much time on it.

A huge thank you goes out to:

• Everyone who volunteered on the day, especially the couple of people who stayed for much longer than you had signed up for.
• New Belgium Brewing for taking the sustainability of the event so seriously, and Brian Bogan there for being patient when I had to ask all these things he expected me to already know from last year.
• Cedar Grove Composting for collecting the material and turning it into lovely compost that will be used in Seattle parks, among other places.

We're making the Tour de Fat a zero-waste event, with your help

This Saturday, New Belgium Brewing is bringing their Tour de Fat to Seattle. It's a bike carnival in Gas Works Park, with a parade around Fremont, costumes, "insane bicycle contraptions", music, and of course beer. As well as being a fun event, we love it because it promotes cycling, the day will raise money for two wonderful local nonprofits—the Bicycle Alliance of Washington and Bikeworks—and the organisers are partnering with Sustainable Seattle to make it a zero waste event. Making it zero waste involves not giving out any material that can't be reused, recycled or composted, and having volunteers at every set of bins to make sure people do recycle and compost everything they should. We need your help with that last part.

We'll have 5 compost stations, and we'd like to get two volunteers staffing each one from 11am to 5pm, ideally for two hour shifts. We'll give you a cheat sheet listing everything that goes into each bin, so you'll just have to talk to people and show them what to dispose of where. It's a great opportunity to help reduce the environmental impact of a public event and educate people about waste reduction, and you'll still have plenty of time to enjoy the event yourself.

If you are interested, please email Eldan Goldenberg with a preferred time (preferably a 2-hour block, but we're flexible), and a second choice in case everyone picks the same time. If you represent another non-profit, please let us know, and we'll be happy to give you some space to hand out flyers at the event.

UPDATE: there will be t-shirts and free beer tokens for volunteers!

Journalism that Matters part one

Sustainable Seattle was invited to host a table and participate in Journalism that Matters. We came to learn, to change and to affect change from this un-conference for transforming our world through the communication.

Norm Rice spoke to being a green city council member in 1978. As a grad from the School of Communications, he identifies the importance of effective communications. Norm talked about how he once worked to address the issues of how minorities gain access to electronic media and how access to electronic media transforms lives. He said that while he did not find the solution, seeking for it transformed his life. Civic engagement was and is fundamental: Being heard. Can you frame the question to bring out hopes and dreams so we can articulate and work with strategies for moving forward. Do not frame in the negative, Norm cautions us, ask for a transformation in specifics: What does sustainable transportation look like? Gathering people, facilitating meetings, helping people speak and ensuring people listen creates consensus on issues. When organizations- governmental, non-governmental and others partake in active learning after bringing people together to discourse, people step up to the plate, engage in working together to solve a problem. Accountability and political will on the part of policy makers are key to implementing civic engagement. Communicate the aspirations and goals on a civic engagement process- this process is key – it is a long process, and this process is key in success. The civic engagement process is about life and hope – civic engagement is a process by definition. Life, hope and aspirations are the engine that keeps the process alive. When the task is accomplished, the people will remark- “we have done it ourselves.” This is the mark of success.

Chris Jordan came on and asked us to reach into our hearts, to think with our hearts, to speak from the heart. Allow your heart to be broken, and to be broken again. Speak authentically. Take the templates off. Care. This is the key to transforming space, shifting our world. This is the key to reaching the wisdom we all carry, to reaching those big huge goals we are seeking, and feeling so close and yet, like Tantalus, so far. Chris Jordan is a visual artist who uses consumption products to depict and emphasize the amount of waste in the American culture.

Stop Paper Junk Mail

If you are concerned about lowering the amount of waste you are responsible for, you may want to think about the amount of junk mail that is sent to you on an annual basis. People have signed up in record numbers for the "No Calls" list to get phone salespeople out of their evening meals, and now there is a growing movement to stop junk mail from wasting our resources.

Here is an announcement from an organization called Zero Waste Seattle.

Take quick action to put a stop to wasteful junk mail

The deluge of junk mail in our mailboxes every day is not just annoying. It's also a subsidy to advertisers and logging companies. Seattle ratepayers are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more in our trash bills to dispose of those industries' waste. Not to mention the 200,000 trees cut down each year just for Seattle for paper nobody wants.

Zero Waste Seattle and ForestEthics think we should have the choice to not contribute to this problem. A Do Not Mail registry–just like the existing do not call registry– could be set up by government to give use an opt-out choice.

In fact, the Seattle City Council will vote on January 11th on a resolution calling on the state to do just that. They are facing opposition from the junk mail industry and need to hear that you support a Do Not Mail registry. Please call or email these Council members today:

Councilmember Sally Clark: (206) 684-8802, sally.clark@seattle.gov

Councilmember Tom Rasmussen: (206) 684-8808, tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov

Councilmember Sally Bagshaw: (206) 684-8801, sally.bagshaw@seattle.gov

Speaking at the Council hearing on this issue is also a great way to show your support. It will be January 11th, 2:00 PM at City Hall, 600 4th Ave. 2nd floor. Please join us!