by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 05.24.11

Photos: Wikipedia & Flickr, CC

Mario & Luigi Would be Proud
Sometimes, discovery is about putting things together in new ways. We know thatmushrooms can be great at breaking down pollutants, and we know that disposable diapers are a huge problems, with mountains of the slow-degrading poop-containers filling up landfills… So how about finding a kind of mushrooms that fests on diapers? That what researchers at the Metropolitan University in Mexico City have apparently done. Read on for more…

Pleurotus ostreatus. Photo: Wikipedia, CC 

In an article published in Waste Management (the journal, not the company), Alethia Vázquez-Morillas describes her research:

cultivating the right type of mushroom on soiled nappies can break down 90% of the material they are made of within two months. Within four, they are degraded completely. What is more, she says, despite their unsavoury diet the fungi in question, Pleurotus ostreatus (better known as oyster mushrooms), are safe to eat. To prove the point she has, indeed, eaten them.

The second photo in this article shows what the Oyster mushrooms look like. They are good at this job because they feed on cellulose, the main material used in disposable diapers. In the wild, the Oyster mushrooms grow on dead trees, so they have the enzymes to break down cellulose…

By Editorial Staff

In coming years, unwanted Yellow Pages won’t be left on the front stoops of homes lining the hilly boulevards of the City by the Bay, after the near-unanimous passage of legislation by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week.

Sponsored by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, the ordinance makes delivery of Yellow Pages “opt-in,” meaning that residents have to ask for the directories to be delivered to them. Chiu says that this is better than the “opt-out” option — and closer to helping the city reach its sustainability goals — because forcing residents to say they don’t want something they get automatically “goes against human inertia.”

“The over-distribution of telephone directories results in an unconscionable waste of natural resources, and costs the City over one million dollars every year to process through our refuse system,” said Melanie Nutter, Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment in a press release announcing the passage of the ordinance. “Supervisor Chiu’s common sense legislation will save ratepayer money and bring San Francisco one step closer to its goal of zero waste in 2020.”

Ford Researching Rubber from Dandelions

By Bart King

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May 12, 2011 – Ford vehicles might one day be made, in part, from dandelions. The automaker is working with Ohio State University to investigate the weeds as a new sustainable resource for rubber.

The dandelion being studied at Ohio State’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) is a Russian variety, called Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS). A milky-white substance that seeps from the roots of this species is used to produce the rubber.

Ford says it could potentially use the substance as a plastics modifier, to help improve the impact strength of plastics. The material might then be used in places such as cupholders, floor mats and interior trim.

“We’re always looking for new sustainable materials to use in our vehicles that have a smaller carbon footprint to produce and can be grown locally,” said Angela Harris, Ford research engineer. “Synthetic rubber is not a sustainable resource, so we want to minimize its use in our vehicles when possible. Dandelions have the potential to serve as a great natural alternative to synthetic rubber in our products.”

Before the dandelion-derived rubber can be put to use, Ford researchers will assess the initial quality of the material to evaluate how it will perform in a variety of plastics that are used in vehicles and to ensure it meets durability standards.

“It’s strange to see weeds being grown in perfectly manicured rows in a greenhouse, but these dandelions could be the next sustainable material in our vehicles,” said Harris.

Besides the dandelion, the team also is looking into the use of guayule (a southwestern U.S. shrub) as a natural rubber, which is provided by OARDC and can also be grown domestically.

Over the past several years Ford has concentrated on increasing the use of nonmetal recycled and bio-based materials whenever possible, provided these materials are environmentally favorable in the specific application. Examples include soy foam seat cushions, wheat straw-filled plastic, recycled resins for underbody systems, recycled yarns on seat covers and natural-fiber plastic for interior components.

Fishing fleets offered cash to catch plastics

BRUSSELS (May 5, 1:10 p.m. ET) — The European Union commissioner for fisheries, Maria Damanaki, is set to unveil plans that will offer an alternative source of income to Europe’s fishing fleets — they will be offered cash for ‘catching’ plastic, rather than fish, in an attempt to tackle seaborne waste.

The plan is also aimed at mollifying the anger amongst Europe’s fishing industry, which is up in arms over plans that will see a ban of the wasteful practice of discarding edible but low-value fish at sea.

Fishing vessels that clear plastic will initially be subsidized by the EU but the hope is that the practice will become self-sustaining as the value of recycled plastics increases.

(Josh’s editorial in May’s Mission Times Courier)

Electronics Recycling: What You Should Know – Mission Times Courier.

Josh’s article published in the May edition of the Mission Times Courier

http://www.missiontimescourier.com/article/Community_News/Eye_On_Community/Electronics_Recycling_What_You_Should_Know/29436

Q1: How many aluminum cans would you need to stack on top of each other to get to the moon?

–         A: 3.3 billion (3,362,349,744).

Q2: Approximately how much energy does recycling a single plastic bottle save?

–         A: Enough to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.

Q3: How much CO2 is avoided by recycling more than 130 million tons of scrap material throughout the United States?

–         A: The equivalent of the CO2 annually emitted by 642 coal-fired power plants or three times the total amount of electricity used by all of the households in the United States each year.  This constitutes approximately four percent of the entire US carbon inventory.

Q4: What were the six largest markets for US scrap exports in 2010?

–         A: China, the EU, Canada, South Korea Turkey and Taiwan.

Q5: What is the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous metals?

–         A: Ferrous metals are metals that contain iron and are magnetic.  The most common ferrous metal is steel.  Non-ferrous metals are not magnetic and are usually more resistant to corrosion than ferrous metals.  The most common non-ferrous metals are aluminum, copper, lead, zinc and tin.

Q6: One metric ton of electronic scrap from personal computers contains more gold than that recovered from how many tons of gold ore?

–         A: 17 tons.

Q7: What year (BC) did people learn to melt or re-melt metal?

–         A: Approximately 7000 BC.

Q8: An artificial turf field uses 125 tons of crumb rubber made from scrap tires. How many tires – approximately — are recycled to make the field?

–         A: 20,000 scrap tires.

Q9: If you can’t grow a commodity, how do people find the materials they need to manufacture new products?

–         A: It has to be mined or recycled.

Q10: How much stainless steel is recycled in the United States each year?

–         A: Enough stainless steel is recycled in the United States each year to build more than 1,000 St. Louis Gateway Arches — the tallest monument in the United States and the tallest stainless steel monument in the entire world.

Q11: What is the recycling rate of cars?

–         A: Approximately 102 percent.

Q12: If the ferrous scrap processed in the United States in 2010 were put into rail cars, how long would the train stretch?

–         A: More than 10,400 miles — further than the distance from Washington, DC, to Sydney, Australia.

DATA PROVIDED BY ISRI, THE LEADING TRADE ASSOCIATION OF THE RECYCLING INDUSTRY

“To halt the decline of an ecosystem, it is necessary to think like an ecosystem.”

– Douglas P. Wheeler, EPA Journal,September-October 1990

Let’s take a closer look at the cherry tree: As it grows, it seeks its own regenerative abundance.  But this process is not single-purpose.  In fact, the tree’s growth sets in motion a number of positive effects.  It provides food for animals, insects, and microorganisms.  It enriches the ecosystem, sequestering carbon, producing oxygen, cleaning air and water, and creating and stabilizing soil.  Among its roots and branches and on its leaves, it harbors a diverse array of flora and fauna, all of which depend on it and on one another for the functions and flows that support life.  And when the tree dies, it returns to the soil, releasing, as it decomposes, minerals that will fuel healthy new growth in the same place.  The tree is not an isolated entity cut off from the systems around it:  it is inextricably and productively engaged with them.  This is a key difference between the growth of industrial systems as they now stand and the growth of nature.  -McDonough, Cradle to Cradle

GM Tops Clean Energy Patent List for 2010

By Bart King

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April 1, 2011 – GM registered the most clean energy patents in 2010, pushing Honda out of the top spot for the first time since 2002. 2010 was also a record year for cleantech patents in the US, according to the index published by law firm Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C.
The Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) reports 1,181 patents for the year, up by more than 170% over 2009 levels. That marks the largest year-to-year jump since the index began, and more than three times the difference between 2008 to 2009 figures.

The CEPGI tracks the granting of U.S. patents for the following sub-components: Solar, Wind, Hybrid/electric vehicles, Fuel Cells, Hydroelectric, Tidal/wave, Geothermal, Biomass/biofuels and other renewable energy.

Patents in fuel cells and wind power were each up more than 57% over 2009. Solar patents were up 134% while hybrid/electric vehicles were up 60%.

Tidal energy and biomass/biofuel energy patents were up 28% and 41%, respectively, at fourteen patents each. Hydroelectric patents were up 16 patents, an increase of more than 500%.

Geothermal patents was the only sector that decreased at five less patents than 2009–a 50% decrease. All of the technology sectors, except geothermal, were at all time highs in 2010, surpassing all previous records.
 

Fuel cell patents continued to dwarf the other components of the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index in 2010 with 996 patents, almost three times the number of patents of nearest competitor solar (363).
Patent Holders
Over seven hundred entities contributed to the total of clean energy patents in 2010. The top clean energy patent holders in 2010 were dominated by automobile companies, which occupied six of the top ten spots.

GM took the annual clean energy patent crown from last year’s winner Honda. Samsung jumped to second place, largely on the strength of its fuel cell patents, overtaking Honda and Toyota relative to 2009.

Toyota increased its annual total by 20 patents to get fourth place while GE increased by thirty to place in fifth. Nissan (6th), Ford (8th) and Hyundai (9th) rounded out the automobile competitors for 2010.

GE placed fifth predominantly on the strength of its wind patents which was over twice the number of patents of its nearest wind patent competitor in 2010, Vestas Wind Systems.

Panasonic came in 7th in 2010 to tie its 2009 showing on the strength of its fuel cell patents and exceeded the 29 patents from 2009 by five patents, after having had only 6 in all the prior years.

Hitachi rounded out the top 10 with 23 patents, which were predominantly in the fuel cell and wind areas. Canon, far and away the solar photovoltaic patent leader since 2002, missed the top ten with a 12th place showing in 2010 at 15 patents.

Tying for 11th place in 2010 were Canon, Toshiba and Bloom Energy with 12 patents. There were also 18 other entities with at least 5 fuel cell patents in 2010 including heavyweights Sanyo, Delphi, GE, Honeywell, Daimler, 3M and Samsung.