Tom Watson's EcoConsumer Blog

Plastic bags get more complicated

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 15, 2013

Here's another new "green" product that may be well-intended, but could really complicate municipal composting and recycling programs: Ziploc brand compostable bags from S.C. Johnson.

It's actually a product line of three different types of compostable bags. One of them, compostable food scrap bags, is great. Several companies, including BioBag and Glad, already make bags for compostable food scraps (also known as food waste). These bags, in a size of 2.6 or 3 gallons, can be used to line a countertop food scraps container. That makes it easy to put the full bags in your yard waste cart for municipal collection and composting, which almost every city in the Seattle area now offers for most households.

But the trouble is that Ziploc decided to go its competitors one better and also offer compostable food storage bags and sandwich bags (all 3 types of bags are described on that Ziploc website). Apparently the idea is that when you are done using one of those bags, even if it still has your kid's leftover lunch sandwich or your rotted leftovers in it, you can toss the whole thing into your yard waste cart, or into your food scraps container and then your yard waste cart.

But I have a few questions:

- Are these compostable food storage and sandwich bags a contaminant in plastic bag recycling? The plastics industry says food storage bags such as Ziploc bags are okay to include in a "bag of bags" for recycling, like you would put in a grocery store plastic bag recycling collection bin. But a compostable bag is obviously made differently than other plastic bags (which are low-density or high-density polyethylene, and can be recycled together), so wouldn't they possibly mess up the recycling process? They must, because that plastics industry website says they don't want degradable bags.

- A bag that's compostable is usually plant-based rather than petroleum-based, and is designed to break down when subjected to heat and moisture, right? Well, do you really want a food storage or sandwich bag that breaks down under those conditions? I often use or reuse those bags for other purposes, like long-term storage of little items.

- Does our local composter, Cedar Grove, accept and want the new compostable Ziploc food storage and sandwich bags in with the residential food scraps and food-soiled paper that they compost? I have contacted them to ask about this, but haven't heard back yet.

- What do we (people who work for solid waste agencies) say when the public asks, as they inevitably will: "So, should I recycle or compost sandwich bags and food storage bags? What's best? Why are some sandwich and food storage bags compostable and others not?"

If you have the answers, let me know! Good green products are always welcome, but these could be full of hot potatoes.

Buying Mother's Day

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 12, 2013

Mother's Day - today, in case you forgot - has a lot going for it. If any big category of people should have a special day, that should be moms. It's a feel-good holiday in a lot of ways, with people spending time with their moms and doing things for them (this is the first Mother's Day since my mom died, and I've been thinking about Mother's Day, and my own mom, a lot this weekend).

But Mother's Day is also one of the big American buy-gifts-for-people holidays, along with Father's Day, Valentine's Day and of course Christmas. The marketing and pressure to buy lots of stuff for all those holidays seems to get more intense every year.

I do hate that those holidays have become excuses for the kind of consumption that has made our nation the biggest contributor to global climate change. But I also don't want to judge anyone (at least not any individuals), including myself. Marketers use guilt to get people to buy bigger and more expensive presents for Mother's Day and Father's Day, but I don't believe that environmental public outreach programs (that's me) should try to use guilt to get people to buy greener gifts or fewer gifts.

It doesn't hurt to think about those things though, and you should put those thoughts into action if you're so inclined.

Related to this, yesterday I leaned something that was fascinating to me. This is from a brief article (based on a blog posting) by Ann Carrns in the New York Times:

"The founder of the modern Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, turned against the holiday. According to History.com, her efforts led to creation of the holiday in 1914 - but she later denounced its commercialization and worked to remove it from the calendar."

I love that Anna Jarvis was brave enough to speak up about that and stand up to the business interests of the day, who must have immediately turned Mother's Day into a reason to buy stuff. It's also sad that she had this big accomplishment, helping to create a new holiday to honor mothers, and then must have felt that it got sullied and compromised.

But you know what Anna? (I like to talk to dead people sometimes in my blog, as you may have noticed.) You did good. Mother's Day is still an awesome holiday, because it helps us connect with family members, and every one of us can personalize Mother's Day any way we want. So Happy Mother's Day Anna! And Happy Mother's Day to you too Mom! We miss you down here.

And of course I don't want to leave out all you other moms who are still alive. Happy Mother's Day to you all, and thanks for everything!

Hoping and biking

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 11, 2013

"The worst word in the English language is 'hope.'" That's what former basketball coach Bobby Knight said recently in a New York Times Magazine interview.

Originally I thought that was a ridiculous statement from a very negative-thinking person. After thinking about it, I still feel that way. Hope can definitely be misplaced if it's about something you CAN control. You don't want to just hope that something in your life will happen, like passing a test or getting a raise at work - you need to do your best to make it happen. But I firmly believe in having hope about the stuff we can't personally control, which includes a lot. Hope and possibilities are what keep us going, or what keep me going, at least.

And so here we are in May, a month full of hope. It's hopeful because all the flowers are popping out, and we know the warmer weather is coming. In fact, here in Seattle, amazingly for May, the warmer weather is already here. And I also feel great hope about May because it's such a big month now for bicycles and cycling. Seeing so many bikes on the street gives me hope that maybe we can actually address climate change before it's too late (and I "hope" our freakishly warm early May isn't the result of climate change).

This coming Friday is Bike to Work Day, but there are all kinds of cool bike-related activities going on all over King County in May. And, in an effort to contribute something to all the excellent info available about owning and riding bikes, my Seattle Times EcoConsumer column last week was about making your home bike-friendly (especially by finding handy ways to store your bike and bike equipment).

Some of the comments that came in about that column on the Times website were funny, such as this one from "Rolo Tomasi" in Seattle: "Who cares about bicycles? Aside from a handful of hardcore enthusiasts and Green weirdoes, the whole bike culture is a bunch of fancy boys." I don't know exactly what a fancy boy is, but I think I want to be one (I know I'm already a Green weirdo).

My ending for the column was, "It’s been a long, sometimes bumpy road, but it’s finally getting easier to experience the world on two wheels." I enjoyed this question responding to that, from "Richard Brautigan" in Montana: "Any advice for avoiding becoming a speed bump on the long bumpy road?" A great answer came from "Robert the Bruce" in Seattle: "Never ride your bike outside the house."

I hope people keep writing funny comments to my articles and blog postings. I hope this great weather continues. I hope you enjoy as much safe and glorious cycling as you desire. And I hope you have a wonderful May.

5 great enviro quotes

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 4, 2013

"A society that consumes one third of the world's resources is unsustainable."
- Winona LaDuke

"We're challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature but of ourselves."
- Rachel Carson

"I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security."
- Robert Redford

"I only feel angry when I see waste."
- Mother Teresa

"It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."
- Edward Abbey

(These are all from BackyardWildlifeHabitats.com)

Bacon Swamp

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 4, 2013

Today I want to write about a little piece of my childhood, which I now realize had larger implications. I grew up on the north side of Indianapolis, and two blocks from our house was a swamp. Today it would be called a wetland, but to us kids it was this big, sort of L-shaped area, mostly fenced off, called Bacon Swamp (named after its pioneer owner, Hiram Bacon). it extended for blocks, maybe a mile.

We played a lot in the little woods on the west edge of the swamp, closest to our house. We had a rope swing there for a while, and dug holes, and played hiding games. We rarely climbed over the fence to explore the heart of the swamp, partly because our parents warned us that kids had drowned in there. Apparently that was true, and the legend among us kids was that it was "quicksand" and would suck you down.

Nobody really thought about or talked about Bacon Swamp much though. It was just kind of there. Years later I heard, from my Mom I think, that it had been a stop on the Underground Railroad (a place to hide escaping slaves as they moved from the South to the North during the Civil War era). One thing I remember is that they mined peat moss out of there for awhile in the 1960s. The company that did that was called Peat Moss and sponsored some of our baseball teams at Haverford Little League. That's what it said on our shirts, "Peat Moss," or maybe "Peat Moss Inc."

Then in the 1970s or 80s, when I was no longer living at home, they filled a substantial section of the swamp and put up housing for a retirement community. We used to joke with my Mom and Dad that we wouldn't want to live there because it might sink into the swamp.

For some reason I've been thinking about Bacon Swamp, so today I looked it up online and found this great description in the "Encyclopedia of Indianapolis." I learned that it was "possibly the only peat bog of its kind found this far south in the United States." It also had "unusual flora and fauna" and "abounded in wildlife" including reptiles, amphibians and aquatic mammals. But as it got drained and more and more of it got developed or filled in, that special plant and animal diversity faded away, much of it probably before I was even alive.

The saddest part I read was that there was a movement to turn part of it into a nature preserve in the 1950s, but that never went anywhere. I had never heard that.

Thinking about all this, I'm sad that such a natural treasure was ultimately consumed by urban development (there may be a few little pieces of Bacon Swamp remaining, but probably not much). But I also feel like we've made progress. I think today it would have been saved as a wetland, and turned in to a park. But now, of course, there's nothing left to save, except for the memories of us kids who grew up on Indy's north side.

Get a green job

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 3, 2013

I define a “green job” as one where the position or work or company or organization has something to do with environmental protection. I know that’s vague and general, but that’s okay. I have a green job that I love, and I hear from people all the time who would like to find a green job (usually something specific to their interests, which makes sense).

Like many folks, I’m a firm believer in doing what you love, and many green jobs have great potential for that, since you usually feel like you’re giving something back to the planet and your fellow citizens. So I say go for it. Try to get a green job doing something you love. Here are a few thoughts I’ve had recently related to this topic:

- There are tens of thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands - of green jobs here in the Northwest, with governments, non-profits, manufacturers, retailers, service businesses and more. Many of the best green jobs (good mission, good bosses, good pay, etc.) are hard to break into. Once someone gets a job like that, they tend to stay, and there’s intense competition for openings. The trick to getting hired, as with any job, is to make them want you, and the best way to do that is to have skills and knowledge that they want and need, and strong recommendations.

- In the environmental field, it’s often possible to get those – skills, knowledge, great references - through volunteer work. For example, I recently met a young woman, a waitress in a restaurant where I gave a presentation, who said she really wanted to do work related to marine plastic debris. She seemed passionate about the topic, and had an undergrad chemistry degree, and I recommended that she volunteer to help with some of the academic research about that being conducted in our area, at the Center for Urban Waters in Tacoma for example. Even getting a good volunteer gig isn’t always easy, but if you seem enthusiastic and easy to work with, eventually you’ll land something.

- Consider turning your current job into a green job, or moving from an existing non-green job to a green job in your same field. For example, public relations. There are several great PR firms in the Northwest that specialize in the environment, and have governments, utilities and green businesses as clients. You could move from your standard PR firm to one of those companies – but only try it IF you are truly passionate about environmental issues. Or let’s say you have a lot of experience in manufacturing, like welding and fabrication. Well maybe one of the companies that make solar panels in Marysville or Bellingham could use someone like you.

- Where do you hear about green jobs? When you find your passion, follow organizations and individuals in that field on Twitter and Facebook, and check relevant websites, jobs bulletin boards, etc. I post green job openings regularly on the EcoConsumer Twitter feed. Another good local source for green job openings is the Seattle Greendrinks job board (although occasionally jobs get posted there that don’t seem particularly green).

- And for you companies and organizations that post green job openings - or any job openings really – here’s one of my pet peeves: Listing a position as “Open until filled.” The trouble with that is, if I spend hours working on my application, but you filled that job this morning, I totally wasted my time, right? Give a deadline for when applications are due, so everyone has a level playing field. The only exception might be when you tried a deadline and didn’t get any good applications, and so you’re keeping the job open until you get a good candidate. But that’s not usually the case. I feel so strongly about this that I usually don’t even send around job openings like that.

- But let’s end on a more positive note (well, it’ll get positive in a moment). The world needs help. Climate change is a dire global problem. Toxic chemicals endanger our health every day. Pollution takes an enormous toll, especially in developing nations. But the good news is that the movements to solve those problems are booming, and building. Thousands of companies and organizations and government agencies are working on these problems now, with more jumping in all the time. If you’re passionate about their work, and have skills to offer, they need you. Jump in the game. Get a green job. You won’t regret it.

Plastic bag waste – 5 things you might not know

posted by: Tom Watson on May. 2, 2013

1) Bans keep coming
It’s certainly debatable whether it’s a good idea for local governments to ban supermarkets and other retailers from distributing plastic bags. But officials with some local governments still feel it’s their best option for addressing plastic bag waste. The latest city in our area to approve a ban is Shoreline, just north of Seattle. The Shoreline City Council approved the ban by a 5-1 vote Monday night. Curiously, the local mainstream media has so far ignored this story as far as I can tell. Plastic bag bans used to be a big deal, but maybe they no longer seem as interesting to the media simply because these bans are going mainstream. Here in King County, Seattle and Issaquah already have bans in effect and Shoreline’s starts next Feb. 1. That means that as of next year, more than 700,000 King County residents will be subject to a plastic bag ban at their local stores. That’s more than one-third of the County’s total population. Bans seem increasingly viable now partly because of the expanding availability of stylish, high-quality durable shopping bags. Many cities launching bag bans, such as Issaquah, have helped their cause by widely distributing free reusable shopping bags to residents.

2) Plastics industry hasn’t given up on recycling
The plastics industry continues to push recycling as the best way to deal with plastic bag waste. According to several estimates, the recycling rate for consumer plastic bags is under five percent. Compared with most other recyclable materials, that’s pretty sad. But at least there are lots of options for the public now for recycling plastic bags. Some curbside recycling collection programs accept them (not loose, but if you put a “bag of bags” in your recycling bin), and a new industry report says, “There are currently more than 15,000 locations where consumers can take their used polyethylene bags and wraps to be recycled, primarily at large grocery and retail chains across the United States.” Also use the “bag of bags” system when you take them to those stores.

3) Ziplocs are okay for recycling
You can recycle more than just grocery bags. Here’s the latest list of recycable plastic bag and film and wrap products from the plastics industry. Note that the industry says Ziploc-type sandwich bags and food storage bags are fine, as long as they are clean and dry (which all bags need to be when you recycle them).

4) Bag recycling can go awry
One reason some governments have moved to bans is that plastic bags are a pain for recycling hauling companies and processors. People put them in the bins loose and they fly around as litter from the trucks, or get stuck in equipment at the processing plants. A recent survey of residents’ recycling carts by the City of Auburn in south King County was eye-opening: In Auburn, where they do not accept plastic bags in the home recycling cart, 38 percent of surveyed residents’ recycling carts contained plastic bags anyway. Remember, if you collect recyclables such as bottles and cans in a plastic bag, don’t put them in your recycling cart that way. Dump them out of the plastic bag into the cart, and do something else with that bag.

5) Reuse rules the roost
When you have plastic bags, the best option by far is to reuse them, such as for storage or to pick up dog doo. I also keep hearing about cool new ideas for reusing plastic bags. Here’s a great one, perfect for Seattle: Make an outdoor pillow by stuffing it with plastic bags and then sewing a dish towel around it. We showed this on our KOMO4 TV Earth Day segment last week. Here are the details for how to make one, from the "In My Own Style" blog. It seems like at our house we are always leaving pillows out on the deck and then it rains and it takes forever to dry them out, or you have to put them in the dryer and use a lot of energy. But these nifty DIY pillows solve that problem, since they dry fast and the plastic bags inside don’t get soaked like regular pillow stuffing does.

Should plastic bags be our number one environmental concern? Of course not. That would be climate change. But bags do matter, and reducing our consumption of plastic bags helps us address climate change. Remember that famous scene in the movie “American Beauty” where a plastic bag floating in the breeze becomes a thing of beauty? Making plastic bags disappear is even more beautiful.

Revolution on the parking strip

posted by: Tom Watson on Apr. 28, 2013

The street we live on in Seattle is revolutionary.

It wasn't when we moved here 15 or so years ago. It's happened over time. But it's pretty exciting.

Here's the revolution: On our street, Columbia Street, the parking strips are not just full of grass like they are most other places. (The "parking strip" is the space between the sidewalk and street. Not all streets have them, but many do. Sometimes it's called another name. In Los Angeles, for example, they call that space the "parkway.")

Here on Columbia Street, in Seattle's Central District and Madrona neighborhood from roughly 14th Avenue to 35th Avenue, the parking strips have a life of their own. No longer are they all seldom-used, mono-cultured swaths of grass.

In the most ambitious project, the Pollinator Pathway, the amazing organizer Sarah Bergmann has put together grant funding, volunteers and various partners and convinced dozens of property owners along Columbia Street to remove much or all of the grass from their parking strip. In its place they have put in plants that attract native pollinator species such as honeybees. This project has been going for several years now, and it's fabulous. All these new flowering plants, many of them Northwest natives, along the street have added so much to the neighborhoods.

But there's another part to this revolution: Growing food on the Columbia Street parking strips.

At our house, we were one of the first ones to do this on Columbia Street, albeit on a very small scale. Maybe, I don't know, eight years ago, I installed a little raised bed in the parking strip to grow veggies, since that was the spot in our yard that had the most sun. I used salvaged cedar planks from the RE Store. That garden is still going strong - I just harvested the wintered-over kale, and the leaks that have also been in there all winter are almost ready. Actually when I started that garden, growing veggies in a raised bed in Seattle wasn't even legal in Seattle, but I didn't know that (it has since been made legal, thankfully).

But my parking-strip veggie bed now pales in comparison to others along the street. It's so great to see edibles planted in parking strips in creative ways all along Columbia Street and now also all over Seattle. It's a national movement too - check out this awesome TED talk by Ron Finley about growing food in the parking strips, aka parkways, in the South Central district of LA.

And here on Columbia Street, it just keeps getting better. One family, with the help of a work party of friends, has just turned their parking strip into a big hugelkultur project. Don't have any idea what that is? I didn't either, until someone told me about it a couple months ago, but now I'm fascinated with hugelkultur and may want to try it myself. Check out that web page to learn about it, but basically it involves building big mounds filled with wood waste and then planting the mounds. On our street they're going to plant them with edibles, which is what I would do. Ideally the rotting wood will provide all the fertilization and moisture the plants need.

All this is the future, right here on Columbia Street: Growing food and pollinator-attracting plants and native plants where no one would have dreamed of growing them before. If you have a parking strip, wherever you are, why not dig in yourself?

Getting social

posted by: Tom Watson on Apr. 26, 2013

It's been awhile, so I thought I'd give a little recap of where we're at on social media. By "we" I mean the King County EcoConsumer public outreach program that I manage. Compared to many businesses, especially tech businesses in the Seattle area (and their employees), we don't use social media that much. But on the other hand, the EcoConsumer program uses social media much more than most government programs around here.

But it's tricky. Recently someone in my office made a comment something like this: Tom doesn't really represent King County; he just represents himself. I believe that was in reference mostly to stuff I've written here on the EcoConsumer blog and on the EcoConsumer Twitter feed.

Actually what I really try to do is represent the public. What would be interesting to people? What are some observations or info or even opinions they probably haven't heard, related to the environment, that might help their understanding? It certainly is true that I don't just regurgitate King County press releases and positions. Because that would be boring and redundant, and people would stop reading the blog and following me on Twitter.

I'd like to think that by providing useful information and being interesting, I'm representing King County well. Definitely let me (or my bosses) know if you ever think I'm not.

As far as specific types of social media, Twitter and blogging are still at the top of my list. Twitter has been a huge help in reaching new people, both in the media and the general public. It's also been an awesome information source. With Twitter, if you see a great article or video clip, you don't just send it out to your little circle of friends or colleagues, you send it out to the world. More than 2,300 people are following the EcoConsumer Twitter feed now. Not all of them will read an article I send a link to, but some will, and if it's compelling enough a few of them will also send it on to their followers. I just love that kind of immediate and direct reach.

I also love that Twitter is fairly easy to use. Facebook, on the other hand, is not easy for me, possibly partly because I just use it for work (for the EcoConsumer program) and don't really use it personally. We have about 300 people or organizations who "like" the overall EcoConsumer Facebook page, but that's really not very many for Facebook. Also, Facebook makes it hard to reach even that many people with individual postings. Facebook wants businesses and agencies (and maybe even individuals now too) to pay if they want to reach more people.

I love blogging just because it's writing and communication at its most basic. And both Twitter and blogging allow me to recycle and use info that I might not be able to use any other way. I get a lot of press releases, and I hear lots of interesting stuff, and it doesn't always fit into the mainstream media we do, like TV, radio and print. But I can use it on Twitter or in the blog.

I've also become fond of Pinterest. It's just so visual and interesting. We can find lots of ideas there for our TV segments and other media, and we can share pictures of some of the cool stuff we've showed on TV and elsewhere. We also have a lot of the videos from our EcoConsumer TV segments on a YouTube channel now, including a segment last week that we helped set up for a local Spanish-language TV station.

So what do you think? How are we doing on social media? The goals are to connect with people, provide info, and answer questions, so if you have any ideas how we can do all that better, please give us a shout, or a tweet, or whatever you like. Thanks!

Beating the battery blues

posted by: Tom Watson on Apr. 26, 2013

I hang on to some old traditions, even if they aren’t necessarily as “green” as the new way. I still like to read a paper newspaper, for example.

But there are some things that have been around my whole life that I wouldn’t miss at all if they went away. For example, the battery drawer. That’s the place (or often places) where we keep all those disposable batteries we need – usually AAA, AA, C, D, and 9-volt. It does seem like, in my house at least, that we’re going through fewer single-use disposable batteries than we used to. But we still definitely use them, in flashlights, clocks, remote controls, smoke detectors, etc. I’m sure some families go through many more, if they have lots of battery-powered toys for example.

The biggest problem with batteries is all the waste. More than 2 billion single-use household batteries are thrown away in the U.S. every year. Although single-use alkaline batteries don’t have the serious toxics in them, like mercury, that they used to, it’s still a waste to throw all those away. So what to do?

For years, enviro education types like myself have promoted the use of rechargeable household batteries. But they haven’t caught on, and I’m a good example. A few years ago I bought one of the new-generation little home battery chargers and a few rechargeable batteries, with good intentions. But we haven’t used it once. For some reason it just seems like too much hassle. And also, I don’t think most of our battery uses – for devices that aren’t used that often, like flashlights, for example - are well-suited for rechargeables (a disposable battery might last and work fine in a flashlight for three years, but a rechargeable battery would run down and need to be recharged before that).

Now, however, someone has a new idea for making it easier to use rechargeables. Bettery, a Portland-based company, thinks it has a better battery system (and it definitely has a great name). They sell packs of their rechargeable AA or AAA batteries from vending machines, which are currently in the north Seattle (Roosevelt and 64th) and Lynnwood Whole Foods stores in the Seattle area and in four locations in the Portland area. The idea is that you return your spent Bettery rechargeable batteries and, for a low fee, the machine spits out replacements (fully-charged Bettery rechargeable batteries). So, now you can use rechargeable batteries, and potentially save a lot of money, without having to recharge them yourself. And if you’re a frequent Whole Foods customer, it’s especially easy, because you can just do it on a regular shopping trip.

I hope this catches on. King County’s Local Hazardous Waste Management Program has been supporting this service because it reduces battery waste and also because the Bettery vending machines collect standard household batteries for recycling at no charge (batteries can be recycled, into items like steel rebar for construction).

Consider giving Bettery a try, especially if you have devices that blow through batteries quickly. See how much money you save. And even better, it’s innovative habits like this that could really help reduce climate change, if enough of us practice them.