Innovative Kiosk Gives Users Money for Returning Recycled Electronics

Check out this fascinating article on how an innovative start-up company called EcoATM created a profitable kiosk that gives customers an instant cash incentive to recycle their used electronics (used MP3, finished ink cartridges, video games, cameras and much more).

How does it work? You first insert your electronic item into the EcoATM machine. The EcoATM machine then scans the item, classifies the electronic good, and estimates its value.

What’s more, EcoATM offers customers competitive rates instantaneously; however, the real value lies in the gratification you get from recycling. Read the article for more details and check out EcoATM’s website here.  You can also find a video demonstrating how the machine works here.

From Trevor S.

Helping Teenagers Escape the Downward Spiral of Drugs

Drug addiction costs - not only for addicts, but also for society (treatment costs, public-damage costs, etc). What's the best way to prevent teenagers from becoming drug-addicts? As this article implies, education is about making people understand, not drilling points into their heads. It's about seeing, not looking. It's about listening, not hearing. It's about feeling, not regurgitating.

From Ralph Y.

Greening Our Economy

Another proposed solution to our environmental challenges without directly focusing on them...this one's from the UN: greening our economy. This would allow us to maintain economic growth to enable continued development, as well as ensuring that development lasts us long into the future.

From Yan Y.

How Google Uses Goats to Reduce Its Environmental Impact

I came across this fascinating article by Mashable which shares 10 fun facts about Google. 

Fact #5 (Google Rents Goats) was the most interesting in my opinion. Google rents goats from a company called California Grazing to reduce the amount of weeds and brush at its Headquarters in Mountain View, California. Google currently has 200 goats, a herder and a border collie, and it argues this unconventional method is "kinder" to the environment.  

From Trevor S.

Canadian Health Hullabaloos

The Senate will be reviewing Canada's healthcare system. Our healthcare system definitely needs change, and talks like these are important to direct where change occurs. Hopefully they will find some major problems so that we can really move somewhere!

For more details please click here.

From Emma T.

Queen's reduces its Greenhouse gas emissions

Hopefully the trend continues! Check out this article for more details.

 

From Yan Y.

Sustainable food systems: solving environmental issues when politics can't.

"Foodies Can Eclipse (and Save) the Green Movement: Why the Food movement is becoming an environmental force"

(link to TIME article contributed by Elaine P.)

Summary and thoughts of the article:

• The environmental movement may face political blockades, but the healthy/sustainable food movement sure isn't! Because of food's direct relevance to people's personal tastes and health, it has a lot more traction with people than the distant issues of environmentalism that many see as making people give up their quality of lives. In fact, the food revolution has gained in popularity so drastically that it may actually be a two-birds-one-stone solution, solving both environmental and food issues!
• This is actually not a far-fetched idea at all. One simple statistic: food production uses about 25-30% of all the world's energy. If we can make the food production process more efficient, and also waste less with more streamlined supply-chain mechanisms, then we'll have made a huge contribution to solving the world's environmental issues as well. Not to mention all the secondary benefits of healthy food which can also improve societal sustainability (i.e. more veggies in diet --> healthier lives --> less obesity --> less demand for costly healthcare services --> less demand for the energy, the plastic, and all the other resources that go into healthcare services).
• Everything's connected in this world...oftentimes that's a bad thing (bad positive feedback loops and such), but sometimes such interrelationships work out in our favor!!

From Yan Yu

Why Air Conditioning is Bad for You and the Environment

I have spent almost two months in Bangkok completing my exchange and I am appalled by the excessive use of air conditioning. I decided to investigate the environmental repercussions of air conditioning and search for viable alternatives.

Nearly one-sixth of all electricity generated in the United States is used to cool buildings. What’s more, most air conditioning in the United States is produced by burning coal which contributes to dirty air, acid rain, and green house gas emissions. Using government data, Stan Cox—a scientist at the Land Institute, Kansas—calculated that more than 1,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide is emitted each year from cooling the average American home.

A far better alternative to using air conditioning is geothermal systems. I have a limited knowledge of these systems but this article by The Independent discusses how geothermal systems use the ground as a natural cooling mechanism. Geothermal systems generate heat from the ground in winter months to warm up buildings, and discharge heat in the summer to the ground.

I also came across this article, written by Doctor Robert Phillips from the University of Alabama (UAB), which explores how air conditioning has adverse health effects. Specifically, Doctor Phillips explores how air conditioning contributes to obesity (ties in nicely with Yan's latest post). The basic premise is that air conditioning has caused homes and offices to be kept a constant temperature year round. According to UAB biostatistician Dr. David Allison and his research team, "this causes the body to expend less energy, because it does not have to work to warm up or cool down, potentially leading to increased fat stores". Read the article for more details!

From Trevor S.

Fraternizing with Foes to Fight Fat!

Obesity is not just a personal-aesthetic issue. It's also got major health consequences, which in turn can affect the functioning of an entire society. So how best can we combat this epidemic? Should governments simply churn out sin tax after sin-tax? Or should it make deals with "the enemy", and work with major food corporations, including the ones (KFC, McDonalds, etc) that are causing the obesity epidemic, to get to the core of the issue?

Check out this video which introduces the debate...

Personally, I don't think it ever hurts to try all avenues of approach, figure out what works best, then prioritize that. Corporations certainly do have a lot of influence, both to do bad and to do good. People are going to be hard-pressed to stop eating KFC, especially if eating it (as was the case for me every birthday up until high school) is a much-enjoyed tradition. So if we can get these food corporations to make their food healthier, less calorie-dense, and less addictive through government-initiated dialogue, collaboration, and sure, even regulation, then maybe people can still enjoy these foods (in moderation!) without the social and health burdens of obesity. We'll see!

From Yan Y.

If honey bees collapse global food security will be threatened

Legend has it that Albert Einstein was once quoted saying "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, man would have only four years to live". A statement of exaggerated melodrama? Perhaps not. Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, and there is a rising concern that the currently understated collapse of the world's honey bee populations may become a dangerous threat to global food security. 

From Katie L.

Let nature design things for us!

A fantastic and inspirational TED talk that explains the vast potential of biomimicry. Michael Pawlyn draws on many exciting examples on how we have learned from nature and the great success that has resulted. Implementing solutions derived from biomimicry will be a necessary step for the world to achieve true sustainability.


From Howard S.

London's proposed sewage super-tank

Thames Water in London, England plans to construct a HUGE sewage storage tank miles below the city to store all the city's human waste.

True, the human sewage needs to go somewhere. But I find this proposed solution to be a truly obtuse way to deal with the problem.

The key decision-makers of society need to start realizing that waste is not something to be thrown out, but something to be re-used in different ways.

They should watch this talk, given by Mark, one of the founders of the ISH, about redefining "waste".

There are myriad other ways to deal with human 'waste' in a more sustainable manner.

For 4 billion dollars/pounds, an amazing wastewater treatment facility can be built that turns solid wastes into compost to sell to farms (currently being done in Calgary).

The nitrates/phosphates in the liquid waste can also be turned into liquid fertilizer for plant growth.

Gasses produced by the microbes digesting the waste (methane, etc) can also be harvested and used as fuel.

It's a shame that this sewage super-tank is even being talked about and campaigned for.

If it does get built, I can only hope the methane accumulating under London doesn't volcano its way out and blow London into smelly smithereens!!!

By Yan Y.