$0.05 per bag @ IKEA

Beginning March 15th, customers at all US IKEA stores will have to pay 5 cents for each plastic bag. Finally a significant chain has adopted this policy! All the proceeds will go to American Forests, the nation's oldest non-profit citizens conservation organization, to plant trees to restore forests and offset CO2 emissions. Also, to help alter customer behavior and endorse environmentally responsible habits, IKEA will be selling its iconic reusable 'Big Blue Bag' for 59 cents, a cost that has been reduced from 99 cents.

IKEA gave away 70 million disposable plastic bags last year and they expect that to be cut in half during the first year of this new program. IKEA launched this program in the UK in the spring of 2006 and achieved an amazing 95% reduction in bags!

IKEA has been at the forefront in a number of environmental initiatives. IKEA specialists work diligently to promote healthy forestry practices. Wood used for IKEA products comes from well managed forests and not from intact, natural, or old-growth forests.

I've been planning on stopping at the Chicago store on one of my trips through, and now I have another reason to.

Bye Bye Incandescent

A congressman in California recently discussed his intention to propose a bill to outlaw incandescent light bulbs, which received quite a lot of press. Well now, Australia is planning on outlawing incandescent bulbs by 2010. I think the population of southern Cali exceeds that of Australia, but it's still a huge step. They estimate a reduction of 4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases as a result. Thanks BBC.

I spent time in Australia and one quickly obvious differences is that nearly every toilet has the full and half flush buttons on top of the tank. These are just starting to show up in the US - why has it taken so long? It's a very simple, yet very effective, method of saving water.

Feng Shui Paint

Just look at this picture for a second.

Any guesses on what that turquoise greenish color is? Nope, not valuable turquoise stones.... it's paint. According to this article, this quarry in southwestern China was painted green for $60,000 at the request of the forestry department, if for nothing more than to increase the feng shui. I just don't know what to say.

On another, more believable note: the state of Florida has decided that the artificial tire-reefs they created 35 years ago are not working. I have to admit that I would have made the same mistake - dump a bunch of tires offshore and wait for the corals and fish to arrive. Well, it didn't happen. Now those tires look like they were dumped there last week. Worse, they've broken from their steel or rope bindings and are being smashed into real reefs by waves and currents. This same mistake has been made all over the world, and it seems that nobody has had any luck. Now we're spending millions to begin cleaning them up. The good news is that the ships they sink are usually successful as artificial reefs.

Reporting Season

January through June every year is reporting season for environmental compliance people like myself. As annual reports go, the first is due on January 10th (a Michigan requirement), and the last is due July 1, with a bunch in between. So basically from January 2nd through the end of June most of industry's environmental peons are collecting, sorting, compiling, calculating, wading through, and sinking up to their chins in data. Different agencies and different states require pretty much the same data in different formats or for different purposes. I for example, report the amount of emissions generated from casting xx tons of iron in a given year. Some agencies want to know how many materials we have on site over 10,000 lbs, for emergency response purposes. Some agencies want to know how much air pollution was generated while we made xx tons of iron. Others want to know how much of all types of pollution was generated. Still others want to know only how much waste was generated. And others want to know how much water we sucked from the ground and how much we put back in. I also report that we're doing what our permits say we're supposed to be doing, or that we're not. I also have to create reports for nobody at all - files that sit in the file cabinets on the chance that an inspector will come by the facility and want to read them over, which does sometimes happen.

I generate a LOT of paper and I hate it. It is quite ironic that the environmental people at businesses create such incredible amounts of paper. Luckily, more and more agencies are converting to electronic or online report preparation and submission. In that case, the only paper actually required is usually just one signature page. That covers reports, but doesn't always cover your a$$. When an inspector shows up to view a report, we have to be able to show how we arrived at the numbers we've reported, and show backup documentation that supports them. Yep, more paper. Then, the electronic programs often don't let you copy last year's report and just change the production index, you actually have to enter all or most of the information again, which means you have to have a hard copy of last year's report. Yep, more paper.

Our environmental agencies, while getting better, are just as bureaucratic as any other government entity. They have an increasingly important job to do, so we should be fighting to streamline and improve the functioning of those agencies so more of the money can be channeled to the efforts that really matter.

BBC Climate Challenge

The BBC is hosting a cool online climate challenge game. It is sort of like the Sim_ series of games, but you make policy decisions on every level to try to reduce your carbon dioxide emissions while maintaining enough money, food, water, and your popularity as president of Europe.

On each turn (a decade), you play 6 cards from your stack of options of National, Trade, Industry, Local, and Household policies. Each card shows the cost/income and the effects on the other parameters, along with the popularity of the choice. Supposedly you can get kicked out of office if you make enough unpopular decisions. Also, 3 times during the game, you meet with the presidents of the other continents of the world and try to get them to agree to reduce their CO2 emissions, often requiring you to subsidize them.

The goal is the reduce your CO2 emissions to zero over 100 years while maintaining food, water, and money for Europe, and keeping the people happy enough. I have no idea how realistic the effects of the choices are, but they seem pretty good to a political ignoramus like me.

I think this game is a good exercise for some of the high and mighty out there who believe that going green is a matter of simple choices, and also for those who simply want to try to understand the cause and effect, or unintended consequences, of going green. For example, small scale organic farming is obviously more green than medium or large scale factory farming, but then your people will go hungry and you may have to import food, which produces a lot of CO2 and other pollution in the transportation.

On my first try, I got good grades for meeting my CO2 reduction goals, but I left Europe in ruins as nobody had any money or food to eat.

Kick plASStic

Now that's a granola phrase if I've ever written one. But seriously, we just simply use - most often waste - far too much plastic and other disposables. Reusable Bags, which is a great place to get shopping bags, mugs, and other reusable goodies, estimates that over 1,000,000 plastic shopping bags are consumed per minute.

The latest site to promote the BYO lifestyle is aptly called Bring Your Own. Check them out and learn something about the problem, the impacts, and some solutions. Thanks TreeHugger.

I'm having a hard time deciding how to take on three huge topics: our disposable lifestyle, energy (oil) security, and waste. My challenge is delving into each while highlighting how intertwined they are, and how political they are. Any suggestions or discussion starters are welcome.

Gigoit

Huh? Gigoit is an acronym for "garbage in, garbage out", followed by an "it". It's a new free garbage exchange (one man's is another's treasure, after all) site that simplifies the models used by Freecycle and Craig's List (which I mentioned here). You don't need a user ID or PW, or have to search through posts to see if the item you want is still available. It's in beta, and there aren't many items listed yet, but keep an eye on it.

Reuse is unquestionably our most efficient mode, at least until the rethink catches on, and you can bet that is a long way off. Thanks TreeHugger.