The GLRPPR Blog

During the month of May, the EPA Office of Environmental Information (OEI) is hosting a national dialogue on environmental information, inviting all of its stakeholders to comment on what we’d like to see from EPA in terms of information — sources, formats, etc.

I’ve worked with EPA on the issue of environmental information for many, many years — I have not seen them as receptive to new ideas as they seem to be recently, at any time before.  Take a few moments to participate in the conversation, and especially to speak up  for the need for improved P2 related information, which is barely registering in the comments people have made to date.

As the old song goes, “I’ve been one poor correspondent/I’ve been too, too hard to find” of late.

But better late than never — so here are my slides on Green Chemistry (and especially, Green Chemical Engineering) from the Region 5/7 P2 Roundtable meeting in Omaha.

And, as well, here are some photos from the event.

I found this search tool last week and though it would be of interest to those of you who are more visually oriented. It’s targeted toward elementary and middle school students, but should appeal to anyone who is a visual thinker.

The Boolify Project was designed to make it easier to for people to understand their web search by illustrating their search logic and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results. Use the green pieces for your key words or phrases, then pull down the and/or/not pieces to link concepts. It’s a very nice way to design complex searches. There are also some great links on Boolean searching and web site evaluation in the Curriculum section.

Keep in mind that search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology, so if you’re searching for something that might be filtered, your results may not be complete.

The Campus Environmental Resource Center provides comprehensive environmental compliance assistance and pollution prevention information for colleges and universities. The center was developed by the National Association of Colleges and University Business Officials with support and funding from EPA. The Web site makes it easier for school officials to learn more about applicable environmental regulations and ensure a safe and sustainable environment for their students, faculty, and staff. The online center provides information on topics including waste management, air and water resources, drinking water, and public safety. Viewers can find out what types of campus activities are regulated by EPA, see how best to comply with environmental regulations, query federal enforcement and compliance data, learn how to apply for federal grants, and e-mail comments to EPA on regulations under development.

Please note that GLRPPR Sites of the Month are now being posted on the GLRPPR Blog, and will display on the GLRPPR homepage at the first of the month. Sites of the Month from May 2008 on will be archived in the blog category “Sites of the Month.” Previous sites of the month are listed at http://www.glrppr.org/news/site_of_the_month.cfm.

If you find the RSS feeds for individual Sector Resources useful, you might be interested in trying out GLRPPR’s RSS feed for the latest document additions to all Sector Resources. If you want to keep up with resources on a wide variety of subjects, this could be helpful. Keep in mind that this feed only features new resource links added to the Sector Resources; it does not include events, news or funding opportunities, which are included in the individual Sector Resource feeds.

If you have problems or questions related to the “recent documents” feed, contact GLRPPR Webmaster Tyler Rubach.

Just a reminder–articles for the Spring edition of GLRPPR’s LINK newsletter are due April 23.  Photos need to be at least 300 dpi.  Submit all articles and any questions you may have to Wayne Duke.

Earth Day is next Tuesday, and if you’re interested in finding local events to participate in, check out the Earth Day Network web site.  In the “Earth Day Events” section of that site, you can search for events by keyword, location or date.  You can also view a list of all the events submitted to the EDN site or submit a description of your own Earth Day event.

If your company or organization is planning a special event or activity for Earth Day, consider sharing your plans in the “Comments” area of this post–you might give another organization a great idea for next year.

The recent Region 5 and 7 joint conference held in Omaha was great. There were interesting speaker, fun accommodations, a comfortable hotel, and great networking. Kudos to everyone in both regions who had a hand in organizing and hosting the event.The conference meetings were held at the Omaha Zoo. During the breaks participants were free to explore that very nice zoo.

I couldn’t help but be struck by the positioning of the conference participants and the zoo (no comments about monkeys running the conference). Just outside the conference rooms, children were enjoying visits with some of the exotic plants and animals of our world. The conference speakers were all talking about ways to preserve the environment, and what they were fighting for was right there for us all to see. We could see endangered species and environments such as rainforests. And we could see the next generation who deserve a healthy planet.

It was fun to watch the children respond to the animals. The wide-eyed look of wonder and excitement that children have at the zoo is how we jaded adults need to look at the amazing world around us.

I’ll have a wrap-up of this successful conference in the next issue of the LINK, the electronic newsletter of the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable.

Canyon outcropping near MP5, Yakima Canyon, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

It’s the bane of astronomers and night time photographers everywhere — light pollution! It robs us of the stars, cuts us off from the music of the spheres.

No, it’s probably not as bad as persistent toxins in the environment, but it’s a shame, nonetheless.

So, what to do? Well, it turns out that P2 can be applied to light pollution as well. Check out the International Dark Sky Association, for instance. They’ve produced a number of documents, including this guide to “good lighting/bad lighting.”

If you want something more…well, “Web 2.0″ — consider WikiHow’s article on “how to prevent light pollution.” Note the related article on “how to become an environmentalist” — in case you were wondering.

The Light From Above web site has a lot of resources — of varying quality — on light pollution for those interested in anything from the science to the policy of restoring darkness.

And, as you might expect — Sky and Telescope magazine has a great resource center on restoring dark skies.

Check ‘em out!

Did you know you could rate the usefulness of the answers provided in the GLRPPR Help Desk Archive? Just click on the “View Answer” link for any question in the archive. Below the response displayed, there will be a prompt saying “Was this answer helpful to you?” and you may click “yes” or “no.” Note that if you would like to add to or comment upon the information provided in the archived answer, you can click the word “Comments” at the bottom of the response and fill out a simple online form to submit your comment. This is your opportunity to share information about a resource that you’re aware of, but which wasn’t included in the archived answer, to say how you used the information provided, or to simply thank our Help Desk Librarian for the great info.

Remember that submitting a pollution prevention related question to the Help Desk Librarian is easy–just fill out the online form and submit it. You’ll get an hour of free literature and Internet searching by a professional librarian and a response within a week that will provide a great start for exploring the topic you’ve inquired about. Archived Help Desk questions and answers are also integrated into relevant Sector Resources on the GLRPPR web site.

If you have questions or would like further information about the GLRPPR Help Desk, contact Laura Barnes.

Railcars at sunset (clean), originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

Sorry I haven’t been able to post more Korea pictures yet — sort of waiting until we have an “OK” from our host to include more pictures of the industrial facilities we visited.

So instead, my weekly photo post is a reminder that access to hazardous materials needs to be controlled not just on-site, but in adjacent sidings and rail yards as well.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! For those of us of Irish descent (and those who pretend to be Irish, if just for today), I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time considering environmental initiatives in Ireland. Here are a few examples of green activities on the Emerald Isle:

• Wind Power: According to Sustainable Energy Ireland, “wind energy provides electricity to the equivalent of 40 million European citizens, and wind farms in Ireland supply enough clean green power to support over 146,000 users.” Their web site provides an interactive map of existing wind farms in Ireland (as of April 2007). A recent post on the Green Tech Blog (“Ireland: Where Wind Power is King” by Michael Kanellos) discusses the great potential for further wind farm development on the island, both on and offshore.
• Cultivate Living and Learning Centre: The Cultivate Centre in Dublin serves as a hub for environmental activities and ideas. Their web site provides a green map of Dublin; environmental workshop listing; a directory of schools, businesses and other organizations in Ireland that are teaching or training and have principles of sustainability rooted in their mission and strategies; information on energy issues and climate change; and a host of other resources. The themes addressed in their educational programs include green building, permaculture and organic gardening, renewable energy, energy conservation, and rethinking urban design and planning.
• Cleaner Greener Production Programme (CGPP): This program of Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency encourages Irish business and industry to produce goods and services in more environmentally friendly ways. That agency defines “Cleaner Greener Production” as “the application of integrated preventive environmental strategies to processes, products and services to increase overall efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment, for example: (1) Production processes: conserving raw materials and energy, eliminating toxic raw materials and reducing the quantity and toxicity of all emissions and wastes (2) Products: reducing negative impacts along the life cycle of a product, from raw materials extraction to its ultimate disposal (3) Services: encouraging and supporting the development of higher environmental performance in the service sector, by incorporating environmental concerns into designing and delivering services.”

Cheers to the folks at Green Guardian for using the upcoming holiday to promote container recycling. GreenGuardian.com is a web site created to promote environmentally responsible purchasing and disposal choices among the citizens of Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The site is sponsored by the region’s Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board (SWMCB) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), and is organized into sections geared specifically toward residents, businesses and children.

I receive their electronic Green Tips newsletter, and was pleased to see them taking the opportunity to tie St. Patrick’s Day to raising environmental awareness. The lead story in the latest newsletter was entitled “Kiss Me, I Recycle” and is an obvious play on the “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” slogan you’re likely to see emblazoned on t-shirts, buttons and hats starting this weekend. (Incidentally, the SWMCB web site provides a handy “Kiss Me, I Recycle” St. Patrick’s Day button template for anyone interested in wearing green and simultaneously promoting green activities.) As eluded to in my previous post, there are likely to be lots of bottles and cans associated with St. Patrick’s Day festivities, and the SWMCB and MPCA are trying to ensure that folks consider recycling and are aware of how to properly recycle as well as what can be recycled. The “Kiss Me, I Recycle” story links to a helpful can and bottle recycling guide on GreenGuardian.com. The guide not only tells you what and how to recycle (which is strictly speaking, not pollution prevention since it’s an “end of the pipe” sort of activity) but also highlights the energy savings associated with recycling, as well as the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and water consumption that result from recycling containers as opposed to throwing them in the trash–all of which are important environmental benefits that are certainly complimentary to P2 activities.

This sort of campaign got me thinking about opportunities for similar outreach activities on college campuses. For example, I’ve heard that Mather House at Harvard University has a “green happy hour” for St. Patrick’s Day that involves the promotion of recycling, sustainability and waste reduction. I’m curious to know if other campuses have been involved in similar activities, perhaps on a wider scale. If you know of a “Green St. Patrick’s Day” event or promotion at a college or university, or if your organization, like SWMCB and MPCA, is tying environmental awareness campaigns to St. Patrick’s Day, please take a minute to share what you’ve done in the “Comments” section for this post.

The first installment in this series concerns something other than Irish heritage that, for better or worse, has become inextricably linked to the celebration of the holiday in the U.S.: beer. Although this alcoholic beverage is sometimes dyed green for the sake of St. Patrick’s Day parties, the following resources relate to beer and brewing practices that are green in the sense of their environmental impacts.

As is the trend with most organic foods and beverages, organic beer is becoming more and more widely available as even big box retailers climb aboard the “green products are good for public relations, profits and the environment” train. Co-op America offers an overview of organic beer and wine as well as the rationale for choosing locally produced beers whenever possible (to reduce negative effects of long distance shipping, among other reasons). You can also search their National Green Pages under “Wine/Beer” for examples of breweries that produce organic beer. There is also a North American Organic Brewers Festival, scheduled this year for June 27-29 in Portland, Oregon. The festival web site lists the participating breweries and the beers they’re presenting.

For those of you, like my husband, who enjoy brewing your own beer at home, you might find the Seven Bridges Cooperative an interesting resource. Based in California, Seven Bridges provides certified organic ingredients for home brewing, such as organically grown hops and grains.

Interestingly, organic beer became the topic of controversy last year, as the USDA added to the list of non-organic ingredients that may compose 5% of a product by weight and still allow that product to bear the label “organic.” Hops were on the list, and while critical to the production of beer, they do make up less than 5% of the finished product by weight. The Organic Consumers Association was outraged by what it termed the “Budweiser Exception” that could allow big brewing companies to mass produce “organic” beers without using organically grown hops; the controversy was covered by MSNBC. Anheuser-Busch has since switched to using 100% organic hops. See the USDA’s web site for more information on organic food standards and labels.

Turning to waste reduction and efficiency in the brewing process, regardless of the use of organic ingredients, the March/April 2007 edition of In Business magazine featured a profile of Mad River Brewing Company in Blue Lake, California, which recycles or reuses 98% of its residuals, with a goal toward generating zero waste. The April 2007 edition of eco-structure Magazine included a look at the sustainable practices of New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. Among other things, the company purchases wind energy to power 100% of its brewery’s operations, the packaging hall was designed with energy efficiency in mind, and the brewhouse features a closed-loop heating system. For more information about New Belgium’s sustainability initiatives, see their web site.

For an example of sustainable initiatives at a brewery within the Great Lakes region, check out Michigan DEQ’s case study on the Leopold Bros. of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Goose Island Brewery in Chicago, Illinois is also a founding member of the Chicago Waste to Profit Network. An article from the October 2000 edition of Conscious Choice discusses several organic beers, including Goose Island’s organic beer production and partnering with Panorama Brewing Company to produce Wolaver’s Organic Ales regionally. Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was the first brewery in that state and the first business in Milwaukee to receive the Travel Green Wisconsin certification from the state’s Department of Tourism. Check out the brewery’s web site detailing what they’ve done to reduce their environmental and social impact and earn this recognition.

For more resources related to P2 for breweries, check out the GLRPPR Food Processing Sector Resource. I’ll be adding a “Beverage Manufacturing” subcategory in the near future to make finding resources related to brewing and other beverage production within this Sector Resource easier.

St. Patrick’s Day is less than a week away, and as someone with Celtic roots who is also married to someone with Celtic roots, this is a big deal to me. Connecting with our Irish heritage is a major part of the celebration of this holiday in the U.S. It’s an even bigger deal for me because St. Patrick’s Day is also my mother’s birthday (and you guessed it—her name is Patricia).

Whenever a holiday approaches, I like to consider how pollution prevention applies. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and my sainted mother, I’ll be taking some time over the next few days to ponder a different shade of “green” than the one you’ll find on “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” t-shirts. Happy Birthday, Ma! [Note that my mother will likely never read this; she doesn't own a computer and is as non-technical as a person can be. Try as I might, I can't get her to understand what it is I do for a living. She knows it involves "environmental stuff" and computers, and that it is somehow tied to the University of Illinois. Still, she's the greatest, and without her I could never have grown up into a person who cares about the environment and concepts such as pollution prevention (P2).]

If you’re interested in finding out more about St. Patrick’s Day in general, check out Wikipedia and the History Channel. Also, the name for this series of posts (”P2 Go Bragh”) comes from the incorrectly spelled, Anglicized phrase “Erin go Bragh,” which is intended to mean “Ireland forever” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Go_Bragh). Thus, this series of posts is in the spirit of “pollution prevention forever” and sustainability.

PU Mixing station, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

this is a mixing station at one of the factories we visited here in Busan — this is where polyurethane is mixed with solvent and dyes to the customer’s specifications, then mixed before being sent to the knife coater.

The factory recently installed fume hoods over each mixing station, to reduce vapor concentrations (the solvent mix is a blend of toluene, MEK and DMF — DMF is relatively non volatile (bp around 153 C) but the other two are of course fairly volatile.

Some of the material is sprayed onto the floor and fume hood walls, as it wicks up the impeller shaft and is then scattered about. This creates a clean-up problem as well as some loss of working material.

Perhaps a bigger concern is that the facility emits about 30 tons/mo of solvent vapors which is not recovered. The b.p. range and water miscibility of DMF make this a problematic recovery, but I’d be interested in hearing if anyone’s aware of case studies…..

SB

Busan skyline, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

Well, the NPPR team (Ken Grimm, Pollution Prevention Resource Center; Tony Cooper, WA Department of Ecology; Thomas Vinson, Southwest Zero Waste Network; and myself) spent a day acclimatizing to Busan, South Korea. We’ll be here all week conducting P2 assessments and training.

Busan is Korea’s 2nd largest city, and while it’s architecture is often uninspired, the setting of the city is beautiful — nestled amongst steep hills that surround a bustling harbor, it is somewhat reminiscent of San Francisco.

Evidence of growth is everywhere. As you can see.

Tomorrow, we’ll be starting our first assessments.

Waiting for a plane, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

…I sorta know when I’ll be back again.

Later this week, I’ll be heading to Busan, South Korea with colleagues from the National P2 Roundtable, to conduct P2 assessments of Korean industries. I’ll be accompanied by Thomas Vinson of the Southwest Zero Waste Network, Ken Grimm of the Pollution Prevention Resource Center; and Tony Cooper of the WA Dept of Ecology.

Computing technology, work schedule, and jet lag permitting, I will be posting a daily photo blog of our adventures in Busan on this blog, starting Saturday, March 8.

Check back daily to see what we’re up to!

SB

Birds landing at McNary wildlife refuge near Burbank, WA, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

The area around my home poses an interesting dichotomy — the world’s most polluted, most expensive environmental clean-up (the Hanford site) and huge expanses of relatively clean wind power, sitting within eyesight of one another.

This is a shot looking south towards the Stateline Wind Farm project, near the alliteratively named town of Walla Walla, Washington. The view is from the McNary Wildlife Refuge, a very popular stopping point for waterfowl every winter. Every evening, tens of thousands of migratory waterfowl come to roost in the fields and ponds here, making a heckuva racket — actually a lot louder than the windmills, in many cases.

You’ll be seeing a lot of windmills in the P2 Picture Post of the week, partly because I’m fascinated by them, and partly because they are so common around here that it’s hard to avoid them.

By the way, these are not actually CALLED the Porcupine Hills — at least not to my knowledge.  I just happen to think they look like porcupines with all the wind towers sticking off the ridge lines.

SB

Lunar Eclipse sequence - Feb 20 2008, originally uploaded by Scott Butner.

Couldn’t resist posting this sequence of photos of last night’s lunar eclipse, even though it has absolutely NOTHING to do with pollution prevention or information technology, much less their supposed intersection.

Though I will say that digital photography is a great example of dematerialization, the replacement of a material object with pure information. In “the old days” when I did film photography, I would have needed to go through dozens of pictures, a couple rolls of film, and the associated gallons of rinse water and processing chemicals, to come up with the same image. By working entirely in bits and bytes, I’m left using a small amount of electricity to charge the camera’s batteries.

Have we dematerialized all the products we can? What’s the next big breakthrough that will eliminate the need to make products, much less waste?

SB