greenrightnow.com » John DeFore

Green Goods: From bottles to baubles

John DeFore — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:40:56 +0000

Gifts made from recycled goods tend toward the hip and funky, but not all are incompatible with dressier occasions.

Ecoist, the company that has made a name for itself with reclaimed-material handbags ranging from happily garish to chic, recently started offering a small selection of jewelry, made from recycled glass, that displays a similar range of styles in only a handful of products.

While some of the pieces carry visible evidence of their consumer-product origins (like these earrings made from Aveda bottles), others bear little trace: A matched set of earrings and a necklace are more roughly shaped than you’d expect from most boutique goods, but in an appealing way.

The pieces are the work of Atlanta designer Kathleen Plate, whose own online store presents a wider array of recycled goods — not only jewelry but a rainbow of glass drawer pulls, Christmas tree ornaments and even a line of products made with the official cooperation of Coca-Cola.

Smart Glass jewelry by Plate is sold in 500 stores nationwide.

Green goods: biodegradable fishing line

John DeFore — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:49:24 +0000

By John DeFore

Eco-minded fishing enthusiasts may be aware, and appalled, that the traditional monofilament fishing line they probably use isn’t only made of petroleum but, should a stretch of it break off and get lost in the deep, it will hang around for centuries, quite likely obstructing fish habitat and definitely junking up our already too polluted waters.

One solution: Bioline biofilament, which when dropped into a lake, according to the manufacturer, “will be gone in five years versus six hundred.”

Sold online by the outdoor goods retailer Go Fast and Light — where you can find a trout bait that’s also 90% biodegradable, with the remainder made of sand — the line comes in 210-yard spools ranging from 4- to 12-pound test weights. (It’s sold in a sealed pouch that has a five-year shelf life when sealed; once opened and put to use, the line should retain 100% of its strength for 10 to 12 months.)

A spinoff of the technology that led to medical sutures that dissolve into the human body, Bioline’s product claims to comply with ASTM’s “Standard Specifications for Compostable Plastics” and, according to Go Fast’s Patrick Dotterweich, is “in the final month of lab testing (which simulates a five year span in six months in a lab) that will certify their claim to [be] 100% biodegradable by a 3rd party test.”

Dotterweich adds, “The five year claim is conservative,” and that “under ideal ‘composting type’ conditions they expect it to be gone in less time.”

Giving the world the first fishing line that got away.

L.A. experiments with food-scrap recycling

John DeFore — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:56:31 +0000

By John DeFore

Some unenthusiastic recyclers grouse about having to keep separate collection barrels for glass, plastics and paper. Imagine the whining taking place in Southern California right now, as certain Los Angeles residents are being asked to start separating food scraps from the rest of their trash as well.

Following the lead of existing programs in places like Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, L.A. is testing a food-waste recycling program in pursuit of its zero-waste goal. As the L.A. Times reported when the plan was announced, around 5,000 residents of three neighborhoods are being recruited for the experiment: Each gets a two-gallon bin (the size of a small cooler), which they’re to keep in the kitchen and fill with a variety of food-related waste — not just apple cores and spoiled leftovers, but egg shells, bones, and even non-food items like pizza boxes and paper plates that have been soiled by food contact and therefore are forbidden in the normal recycling bin.

On collection day, residents are to empty these kitchen bins into curbside receptacles they already have — the green ones used for leaves and tree branches. That material should, in the colorful language of a city report, “absorb fugitive liquids” and keep odor to a minimum. Together, food and lawn waste eventually will be turned into compost.

Los Angeles already has a program helping restaurants recycle their wasted food, but estimates that over a quarter of what goes into residential trash bins is food waste as well. According to this NPR report, planners believe that if it were to expand throughout the city, this household scrap collection could divert “600 tons of wasted food that go to the landfills every day.”