Radiolab - WNYC

Earth Day 2011 only one week away!

A great resource to rely on for learning how to diminish, if not eliminate, your trash footprint is Colin Beavan's 'No Impact Man' blog.  From a blog entry in 2009, great tips were suggested for eliminating waste from your life.  I'm proud to report that we have only a couple areas to check off: soft paper goods (tissues and paper towels, both of which we buy from unbleached, 100% p-c sources), and certain plastics (specifically, those ratty little plastic "safety" strips found on most bottles, jars and other food containers, as well as, #5/7 plastic tub containers that sour cream, ricotta cheese and certain nuts/seeds come in).  I really appreciate his 'Waste not, want not' category.

From his 2009 blog post:

20 ways to keep the landfill empty

Organic material--food and paper, for example--rot and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas, when sent to the landfill. When the liners meant to seal landfills eventually crack, toxic substances can leach into the water table, causing hard to trace illnesses in faraway communities.
But perhaps the worse thing is, when we throw something in the landfill to be buried in the ground (or worse, in an incinerator to be burned into our air), it represents a waste of resources that we took from the earth in the first place.
Here's the good news: I think it actually feels good not to waste. That is to say, I've found that not making trash, actually makes me feel better about myself.
For these reasons, I've put together this list of 25 ways to avoid making trash suggest by readers of the No Impact Man blog:

1. Keep your own cutlery with you so you don't have to use the plastic versions
2. Cut up your old clothes for use as rags and avoid paper towels
3. Use mason jars to carry everything from drinking water to a packed lunch
4. Use a handkerchief instead of tissue
5. Make notepaper from the blank side of junk mail
6. Give your old eyeglasses to the local Lions Club for distribution to those in need
7. Make cardboard egg cartons into biodegradable seed starters
8. Cut yogurt containers into strips and use them to label garden plants
9. Use cloth bags for the bulk bins at the grocery store
10. Empty out vacuum cleaner bags and reuse
11. Use cloth napkins instead of paper towel
12. Cook from scratch to avoid food packaging
13. Use shaving soap bars to avoid throwaway bottles
14. Make your own yogurt so there are no plastic tubs
15. Wash and reuse ziplock bags
16. Use the waxy liners of cereal boxes to wrap sandwiches
17. Use scrap office paper for kids coloring books
18. Carry a cloth for drying your hands and wrapping things in
19. Pack a lunch in a reusable container instead of buying lunch in plastic packaging
20. Use rechargeable batteries

A hope for Earth's future: 'Power Shift 2011'

Until now, I was convinced there was no hope for our planet and co-inhabitants.  But maybe, just maybe, there is.  From a recent Wonkroom post:

Power Shift 2011, the biennial national summit of the youth climate movement, begins this Friday in Washington, DC. The challenges facing the Millennial generation posed by the dirty energy economy is seemingly insurmountable: the destruction of our planet’s atmosphere, the poisoning of our political discourse, the dissolution of the American Dream. Armed with the vision of a cleaner, greener, future, the participants in Power Shift are choosing not just to fight back, but to organize and realize their collective potential.