The dark side of bacon

Lori Bongiorno — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:53:05 PST

(Photo: Getty Images)

Even the most ardent bacon lovers will admit that that dealing with leftover bacon grease is no fun.

What should you do with it? Let's start with what you should NEVER do: Pour it down the drain.

Even the tiniest amounts of bacon grease or cooking oil can clog up your pipes and ultimately back up sewer systems.

Rinsing with a lot of hot water as you pour it down the drain won't help. Once that grease cools down, it solidifies and sticks to pipes.

Luckily Earth 911 has plenty of suggestions for how to responsibly dispose, reuse, and even recycle your leftover cooking oil.

Absorb small amounts of grease with shredded paper, used kitty litter, or other absorbent materials and then throw it in the trash.
Pour oil in a metal container (coffee cans are a popular option). You can throw it out once it solidifies.
Some people save bacon grease or used cooking oil to reuse for cooking. If you choose to do that, you might want to strain it first and store it in the fridge. Again, a coffee can comes in handy.
A growing number of communities are offering residents the ability to recycle their cooking oil. Search Earth 911 for local options.

Environmental journalist Lori Bongiorno shares green-living tips and product reviews with Yahoo! Green's users. Send Lori a question or suggestion for potential use in a future column. Her book, Green Greener Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-smart Choices a Part of Your Life is available on Yahoo! Shopping and Amazon.com.

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

Chicago area gets wind-powered EV charging station

Megan Treacy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:17:00 PST

The Windy City area is capitalizing on its most famous attribute with a new wind-powered electric vehicle charging station. Located in Highland Park, 30 miles outside of the city, the charging station uses electricity generated by Illinois wind farms for law firm Emalfarb Swan & Bain.

The charging station is the second in the country and the first in the continental U.S. to be powered by wind. The other station is located in Maui, Hawaii.

The charge port was installed by Carbon Day Automotive, a distributor of the EV-charging leader Coulomb Technologies. Carbon Day has also created a Solar Charge-Port that not only juices up EVs, but also collects, filters and recycles storm water through a greywater filtration system for irrigation use.

via Green Car Advisor

Energy vampires: Is it worth it to unplug your electronics?

Lori Bongiorno — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:53:16 PST

(Photo: Getty Images)

It's common knowledge that appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they're switched off but still plugged in.

One solution is to unplug electronics and chargers when you aren't using them. Or you can plug cords into a power strip and switch it off whenever you want to cut off all power to appliances.

But many consumers wonder if it's worth the hassle to unplug electronics they aren't using. The answer, of course, depends on your objectives.

While it's true that an "informed and aggressive approach can reduce standby use by about 30 percent," according to scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, "There are more productive ways to save energy with an investment of an hour."

The upshot? If it's easy for you to unplug chargers and other electronics when you aren't using them, then go for it. And no-one says you have to unplug everything. You might want to choose the biggest energy hogs or items that are easily unplugged.

But don't fret if you find the job too tedious or hard to remember. The following actions are all easy and, in some cases, save you more money with much less effort than stamping out energy vampires.

Pick and choose what works best for you from this list, or try everything for an estimated annual savings of $275.

Activating the power-save function on your computer is a super-easy way to shave up to $90 a year off your utility bills. Exactly how much you save depends on whether you use a laptop or a CPU and a monitor and how long you currently leave your computer on for.

Low power mode also helps equipment run cooler so it lasts longer. Get into the habit of turning off your monitor when you walk away for 20 minutes and your computer when you leave your desk for more than two hours, and you'll rack up even more savings.

Reduce the brightness setting of your television. Select the "home" mode because the "retail" or "vivid" mode (the default setting for most TVs) uses up to 25 percent more power, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

While you're at it, activate the energy- and power-saving modes on your TV and other appliances and save around $43.04 a year.

Video game consoles, such as the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, use nearly the same amount of power when they are turned on and left idle as they do when you are actively playing a game or watching a movie.

Save more than $100 a year by remembering to turn off your gaming system whenever you're not using it.

Switching off unneeded lights will save you $21.04 a year. Does it make sense to turn off the light when you leave a room for a few minutes? Yes for incandescent bulbs. Fifteen minutes is a good rule of thumb for compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Speaking of CFLs, Consumer Reports' tests found that each CFL will save you around $5 a year in electricity costs over a regular bulb.

Wash your clothes in cold water. You'll reduce your bill by around $18.58 a year and it's better for your clothes.

Even just switching your temperature setting from hot to warm water can cut a load's energy use by half, according to the Department of Energy.

Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

Federal climate change agency being formed

Megan Treacy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:04:00 PST

A new federal agency charged with reporting on climate change is being formed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set up the Climate Service using members of the National Weather Service and other NOAA offices.

Climate operations have been spread out among NOAA offices, but with more and more requests pouring in for information concerning climate change, officials decided to combine those efforts into one main office. The Climate Service will be headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six regional directors elsewhere in the country.

The agency will still have to be approved by congressional committee, but if it clears all necessary hurdles, it should be up and running by the end of the year.

via Huffington Post

Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on Valentine’s Day

Umbra Fisk, Grist.org — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:33:08 PST

Dearest readers,

Sometimes when I’m down in the stacks researching answers to your latest dilemmas, I enjoy taking a stroll down Ask Umbra archives lane.

Here are some sparkly tidbits I culled from my past advice on lessening your impact on that sweet little romantic holiday, Valentine’s Day. Have any of your own sustainable loving tips or stories? Let me know in the comments section below or shoot me an email.

Break up with your blow-up doll
And that jelly vibrator, while you’re at it. Lots of popular sex toys are made of PVC—a fancy name for vinyl (no vinyl, that’s final)—or with plastic-softening, hormone-disrupting phthalates. Heat and agitation from use can cause toxins to leach from the toys—not hot. Get the full Ask Umbra answer.

Pull the e-card
About a billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent globally each year. Don’t let your Valentine greeting be just another number: Save some paper (and a few bucks) by sending your snookums a well-selected e-card instead. Get the full Ask Umbra answer.

Channel Martha Stewart
Eschew conventional consumption, and get a little crafty for your Valentine. Put together some memorable photos, write a poem, or bake a tasty vegan chocolate cake. Get the full Ask Umbra answer.

Sweeten the deal
If traditional is your middle name, then your parents were a little odd, no? Anyway, perhaps you’re inclined to give a more classic V Day gift like chocolate. Because of issues like child labor, low wages, pesticide use, and deforestation, pay careful attention when picking sweets for your sweetie. Look for chocolate that’s both fair-trade and organic. Get the full Ask Umbra answer.

Turn on the green light in the bedroom
Set the mood in your boudoir with sustainable hemp sheets, dimmed lighting, organic massage oils, and vegan condoms. Then pop in a steamy movie—An Inconvenient Truth, perhaps?—and let the magic begin. Get the full Ask Umbra answer.

Lovingly,
Umbra

Related Links:

That funny "green police" Super Bowl commercial

Dan Shapley — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:06:00 PST

The Denny's Grand Slam breakfast Super Bowl commercials could have doubled as environmental ads, if only the message was about free range pastures, rather than overworked laying hens.

And while it may not have lived up to the standards of that Doritos kid slapping his mom's date, one of the funnier Super Bowl commercials was for the Audi A3 TDI, which gets 34 mpg of diesel fuel, and was chosen as Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal.

Even clean diesel, though, is not as clean-burning as gasoline. The Audi A3 produces 15% more carbon in a year than either the Nissan Altima or Toyota Camry hybrid, which also get 34 mpg. It emits 9% more than the Toyota Yaris, which burns gasoline in a conventional engine and gets 32 mpg.

But the Audi A3 TDI still achieves impressive mileage, and we haven't seen a better commercial for any of those other comparable models:

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Vote for your favorite greener gadget

Megan Treacy — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:59:00 PST

It's that time of year again! The Greener Gadgets Design Competition has started and 18 cool, eco-friendly gadget ideas are waiting for your votes.

This year is the third year for the competition and the Greener Gadgets Conference, which is being held on February 25 in New York City, and I must say, this is the best crop of designs yet.

Some of the highlights include a kinetic-energy-harvesting rocking horse that fuels flashlights or nightlights called Rocco, a USB-outfitted, wall-mounted charger that is powered by indoor light called the Illumi Charger and a system of turbine-run highway lighting that would be powered by the air turbulence from passing cars.

Your votes will narrow down the pool to a handful of finalists that will be judged at the conference. You have until February 12 to cast your vote for the best and most revolutionary idea. Click here to vote and learn more about the conference.

Smaller, distributed solar projects are gaining momentum

Megan Treacy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:47:00 PST

While the BLM is facing a virtual clog of large, desert-based solar project proposals, smaller, distributed solar projects are popping up at an impressive rate. In just the past few weeks, 1,300 MW worth of these projects have been announced or approved, which could equal about the same energy output of a big nuclear power plant.

The larger, more ambitious solar power plans have many environmental and land-use hurdles to clear, while these smaller plans, set to occupy commercial and residential rooftops, areas near electrical substations and urban areas, don't have the same obstacles in their way. Also, the smaller projects are cheaper, meaning more utilities can afford to implement them as they're scrambling to meet renewable energy mandates.

Arno Harris, the CEO of Recurrent Energy, a company that has signed a contract with Southern California Edison for 50 MW of small-scale solar, summed it up like this:

“Distributed solar is faster on permitting, on environmental issues and interconnection to the grid. It offers a safety valve for utilities who don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket.”

The projects, anywhere from 50 to 500 MW each, are mainly concentrated in California, though New York Power Authority is planning 100 MW installation around the state as well.

via Green Inc.

A safe way to dispose of BPA-containing plastics

Megan Treacy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:22:00 PST

The media coverage of the health dangers of BPA has really reached a fever-pitch these days and, thanks to that coverage, many companies are removing it from their products. While that is wonderful, there are still many BPA-containing plastics out there and 2.7 million tons of it being made every year. How do we make sure all that plastic is disposed of safely?

Scientists have come up with a way that they believe decomposes polycarbonate plastic without releasing BPA. The scientists, Mukesh Doble and Trishul Artham, pretreated polycarbonate with ultraviolet light and heat and then exposed it to three types of fungi known for their pollutant remidiation abilities.

After 12 months, the pretreated plastic had substantially decomposed without releasing any BPA, while the control plastic that was not pretreated before being exposed to the fungi showed almost no decomposition.

via Science Daily

FTC to retailers: "Bamboo" fabric isn't bamboo

The Daily Green Staff — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:29:00 PST

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on a marketing claim that may have ensnared many environmentally conscious buyers: "bamboo."

While clothing and other textiles may have started off, at some point, as the rapidly regenerative bamboo, the FTC says companies can't label rayon as bamboo, even if it's made from bamboo. Why?

Because, according to the FTC:

Rayon is a man-made fiber created from the cellulose found in plants and trees and processed with harsh chemicals that release hazardous air pollution. Any plant or tree – including bamboo – could be used as the cellulose source, but the fiber that is created is rayon.

The FTC this week sent warning letters to 78 retailers about misguided use of "bamboo" marketing. Among the warned retailers: Amazon.com, Barney’s New York, Bed Bath & Beyond, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Bloomingdale’s, Costco Wholesale, Garnet Hill, Gold Toe, Hanes, Isotoner, JC Penney, Jockey, Kmart, Kohl’s, Land’s End, Macy’s, Maidenform, Nordstrom, Overstock.com, QVC, REI, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sears, Shop NBC, Spiegel, Sports Authority, Target, The Gap, The Great Indoors, Tommy Bahama, Toys R’ Us, Wal-Mart, and Zappos.com. Last year, the FTC sued several retailers for advertising rayon as bamboo.

"We need to make sure companies use proper labeling and advertising in their efforts to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers," David C. Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a prepared statement. "Rayon is rayon, even if bamboo has been used somewhere along the line in the manufacturing process."

If retailers and manufacturers fail to comply, the penalty can be severe: $16,000 per violation.

The FTC's consumer tips include this information about "bamboo" rayon:

Rayon made from bamboo uses "toxic chemicals in a process that releases pollutants into the air."
"Extracting bamboo fibers is expensive and time-consuming, and textiles made just from bamboo fiber don’t feel silky smooth."
"There’s also no evidence that rayon made from bamboo retains the antimicrobial properties of the bamboo plant."
"No traits of the original plant are left in the finished product."

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