Many families are wondering how they can make this a Greener Holiday but still enjoy the season with family and friends. Even if you are the “lone environmentalist” in your family or group, that is trying to practice good environmental practices, you can make a difference.

Reduce: Use less stuff, rethink what you purchase and how it is packaged.

Reuse: Reuse what you can, don’t be so quick to throw away. Try to think of new creative ways to use an item or donate to others.

Recycle: Recycle what you must throw away.

• Don’t gift wrap; use reusable bags.
• Say NO to unwanted plastic bag when shopping. Carry your own plastic bags or a reusable bag
  Look for gifts that are unpackaged or minimally packaged without unnecessary plastic wrap or cardboard packaging. (Never hesitate to contact the manufacturer to share your concerns on unnecessary packaging!)
• Buy recycled gift wrap and holiday cards when at all possible.
• Support local farmers and their families by buying local produce and meat whenever possible.
• Buy in bulk to reduce packaging.
• Start a compost bin or pile for non-dairy and non-meat food waste. By spring you will have compost (fertilizer – black gold) for your garden, or if you are not a gardener, you have kept that food waste out of the landfill!
• Use reusable tableware, we all know how tempting it is to use disposable plates, cups and cutlery, but it will still be in the landfill for hundreds of years to come.
• Buy energy efficient light bulbs, installing 6 compact fluorescent light bulbs can save the American family $60 per year. CFL’S (compact fluorescent light bulbs) may be recycled at any Home Depot store.
• Buy energy–saving LED holiday lights. These use 90% less energy than conventional holiday lights and can save your family $50 over the holiday season.
• Use an artificial tree.
• If you buy a live tree, search for one that is pesticide free and chemical colorant free. Buy a tree that you can plant afterward. If your live tree can’t be replanted, Gallatin residents may leave it at the street for pick up with brush to be recycled. County residents may take their to Sumner Co. Resource Authority off Steam Plant Rd. and for a small fee the tree will be taken and recycled.

• $15 billion dollars was spent on bottled water last year. That’s more than was spent on ipods or movie tickets.
• 24% of bottled water is repackaged tap water.
• 1 billion bottles of water are transported by ships, trains, and trucks in the U.S. each week. Because water weighs 8 1/3 pounds per gallon, it’s too heavy to fill a an 18-wheeler. Empty space must be left in the trailer.
• Americans drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976 on average. Last year the average was 28.3 gallons per person. Soft drinks are the only drinks more popular.
• If we paid for tap water what we pay for bottled water, our monthly water bills would be $9,000.
• Half of Fiji Water’s wholesale cost is transportation. Plastic bottles must be shipped to Fiji, filled with water, and then shipped out.
• “Once you understand the resources mustered to deliver the bottle of water, it’s reasonable to ask as you reach for the next bottle, not just ‘Does the value to me equal the 99 cents I’m about to spend?’ but ‘Does the value equal the impact I’m about to leave behind?’ “

Wine Cork Recycling
By Jennifer Jordan

When a person thinks of cork, they may think of a variety of things. Some people may think of the material used for bulletin boards, while some may think of material used for coasters. Others, thoroughly confused, may simply think of cork as the other white meat. Chances are, however, when most people think of cork, they think of wine. Part of each others’ lives, the two are nearly inseparable, especially without a wine opener.

What is Cork?
It would be easy to define a cork with a simple, unrefined answer. We could say that cork is a lightweight, inert substance providing blockage of liquids and leave it at that. But, because cork is an elemental part of wine, it is bestowed with certain elegance and sophistication. For this reason, wine cork deserves a more grandiose introduction: Cork hails from the bark of the Cork Oak tree, Quercus Suber. Produced extensively in Portugal, cork enjoys being fire resistant, providing insulation, and the company of fine alcohol.

Since cork is very elastic and impermeable, it makes a great bottle stopper; for cork, just like for many of us, wine was destiny. Its adaptability, additionally, makes it an easy material to compress without change to the original shape. It was these qualities that intrigued Dom Perignon, a French Benedictine monk, to use cork in a bottle of champagne, thus influencing the world of wine from that moment on.

How Do Wine Corks Affect the Environment?
Wine corks are environmentally friendly, like a material that is always willing to lend a helping hand or an encouraging word to the ecosystem. This makes wine corks stand out from other forms of packaging, forms that often hinder their surroundings rather than help them.

Wine corks are biodegradable, natural, and renewable. They also don’t go to waste, with each aspect of a wine cork having the potential to become something else. Even cork dust can be used for fuel and cork residue can be used to make other cork products.

Cork forests, where cork oak trees reside, are important to the balance of the ecosystems with several species, including endangered species, calling these forests home.

What is Wine Cork Recycling?
Many places, such as Europe and Australia, have programs set up for wine cork recycling. Dropping wine corks off in designated areas, the wine corks are granulated and turned into products such as pin boards, tile, engine gaskets, hockey balls, safety mats, and boat decks. Recently, wine cork has even been used in rocket technology.

Because wine cork is one of the easier materials to recycle, there seems little reason to not recycle it. However, the US does not routinely engage in wine cork recycling, leaving some environmentalists to wonder why.

This wonderment, not limited to individuals, has been adopted by a few US based companies. One of these companies, Yemm and Hart, a firm specializing in the recycling of products, is conducting an experiment asking for wine corks that they can recycle. Theorizing that cork is a valuable resource that should not go to waste, Yemm and Hart plan to begin manufacturing tack boards, coasters, plaques, and floor tiles all made from wine cork.

What Are Creative Ways to Recycle Wine Cork?
If the concept of wine cork recycling catches on, recycling wine cork in the US may someday be as simple as recycling newspapers or soda cans. In the meantime, however, those who live in America can recycle their wine corks through a few creative means.

While some people have donated wine corks to children’s museums, for use in displays and dioramas, others have made wreaths and decorative pieces out of old wine corks. Some people wire together wine corks and make hot pads while others suggest gluing sliced wine corks to the bottom of vases and knickknacks, as a means to keep these items from scratching tables and shelves. People have even found old wine corks useful as door stops, knife scrubbers, and pin cushions.

Just as wine should never go to waste, neither should wine corks. A highly useable material, there are several ways wine corks can be recycled, even if it’s not routinely done on a national level. With all the kinds of packaging that can destroy the Earth, cork is an exception. A special material, cork is able to protect wine and the world by putting a stop to wastefulness.

Jennifer Jordan is the senior editor at http://www.savoreachglass.com. With a vast knowledge of wine etiquette, she writes articles on everything from how to hold a glass of wine to how to hold your hair back after too many glasses. Ultimately, she writes her articles with the intention that readers will remember wine is fun and each glass of anything fun should always be savored.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Jordan
http://EzineArticles.com/?Wine-Cork-Recycling&id=334051

Battery Recycling: Help Your Environment
By George Royal

Batteries may contain harmful metals and chemicals such as nickel cadmium, alkaline, mercury, nickel metal hydride and lead acid, which can contaminate the environment if not disposed properly. For example, when batteries containing cadmium is used in landfills, they will eventually dissolve and release the toxic substance that can seep into water supplies, posing serious health hazards for the population. This is why recycling batteries has become so important because it helps prevent pollution, and also saves resources.

The Recycling Process:

First of all, the batteries to be recycled are sorted according to chemistries such as nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal-hydride, lithium, alkaline etc. The combustible material, such as plastics and insulation, is then removed with a gas fired thermal oxidizer, which is the first step in the recycling process. Most recycling plants have scrubbers where the gases from the thermal oxidizer are neutralized to remove pollutants, producing clean, naked cells that contain precious metal content.

The metal in the batteries are then heated to liquefy, after they have been hacked into little pieces. Black slag left by burned out non-metallic substances are scraped off with a slag arm, and the different alloys that settle according to weight are skimmed off. Some plants pour the liquid metals directly into (65 pounds) or ‘hogs’ (2000 pounds) without separating on site, which are then shipped to metal recovery plants to produce nickel, chromium and iron re-melt alloy for the manufacturing of other metal products.

State and Federal Regulations in the United States:

The Mercury-Containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act was passed in 1996 by the U.S. Congress which requires regulated batteries such as Ni-CD batteries and sealed lead-acid batteries to:

1. be easily removable from consumer products to make it easier to recover them for recycling

2. include in the label the battery chemistry, the “three chasing arrows” symbol, and a phrase that instructs users to properly recycle or dispose the battery

3. provide national uniformity in collection, storage, and transport

4. phase out the use of certain mercury-containing batteries

The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC):
(www.rbrc.org)

The United States Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) was set up in 1994 as a non-profit, public service organization to help and promote the recycling of portable rechargeable batteries such as Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Ion (Li-ion), and Small Sealed Lead. It also educates rechargeable power users about the benefits and accessibility of rechargeable battery recycling. However, RBRC only recycles batteries that has RBRC Battery Recycling Seal. Manufacturers, marketers and collectors or rechargeable batteries or products that use them can contact RBRC at “licensee@rbrc.com” for better solutions. Other Contact Info:

RBRC

1000 Parkwood Circle

Suite 450
Atlanta, GA 30339
Ph: 678-419-9990

Fax: 678-419-9986

Recent Developments:

The mercury reduction in batteries, which had already started in 1984, is still continued today. For example, batteries such as those containing alkaline have had about a 97 percent mercury reduction, and newer models may contain about one-tenth the amount of mercury previously contained in the typical alkaline battery, or may be zero-added mercury. A number of mercury-free, heavy-duty, carbon-zinc batteries are now available as alternatives. Technology such as silver-oxide and zinc-air button batteries contain less mercury so they are starting to replace mercuric-oxide batteries. Nickel-cadmium batteries can be reprocessed to reclaim the nickel, and cadmium free nickel and nickel-hydride system are also being researched. At present, most nickel-cadmium batteries are permanently sealed in appliances but changes are being made in regulations which will result in a more convenient retrieval and recycling of nickel-cadmium batteries.

Batteries HQ http://www.batteries-hq.com/ everything you need to know about batteries.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_Royal
http://EzineArticles.com/?Battery-Recycling:-Help-Your-Environment&id=244489

For some time, United Parcel Service (UPS) has been making mostly right turns. Managers used to drive routes and plot how to increase the number of right turns in order to save gas and time for route drivers. Now computers plot routes. UPS saves three million gallons of fuel each year.

As I plan my route, I also use this strategy. Not only does making more right turns save gas, it reduces time and stress. As customers are added, I go back over the route to make sure I’m idling as little as possible. I am doing some backtracking right now, but I plan to make some changes.

Despite asking customers to have bins out by 8:00 a.m., many know when I usually pick up and delay putting their bins out. Once I changed the order of the route just so I could get to a fast food drive-thru early enough for breakfast. Several customers emailed to say I missed them. So now, before I make any significant changes in the order of the route, I let customers know I’ll be coming earlier than usual.

Saving Gas Means Turning It Off

Another way I save gas is to turn the truck off when I pick up, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes. Notice that delivery drivers also do this just to walk from the street to your front door. I didn’t turn off my truck for a long time when I thought it would only take a few minutes to make a pick up. As soon as I started turning it off every time I stopped at a house, I started saving gas, almost a quarter of a tank each day, which would be 3-5 gallons.

I use the same habits when I go out for personal business. I plan my route so that I make right turns as much as possible and turn off the car when I have to wait at the pharmacy, fast food, or bank drive-thru. Many people are naturally doing this, but if you aren’t, give it try and let me know whether it makes difference.

Notice the L.E.V. Two people can service 2,000 homes a day even while sorting. Of course, since the city provides curbside recycling, the trucks service all the homes on each street, a total of 125,000 per week. A lot of my time is spent traveling between pick ups, which affects how many homes I can service in a day (about 100) and the cost to the customer.