David and I have been scheming up some ways to deliver some quick info in tasty little chunks and video seems like the best way to do it. This first video might be a little rough around the edges but, that’s why it’s introductory… throw some ideas and suggestions our way and rest assured that our ears will perk.

Most of the time with Daily World bits like this though, I would normally just Tweet and leave it at that. Trudging through the normal newspapery writing throughout, it actually wasn’t until the end when I stumbled upon a sentence that made my mind consider a fairly hefty concept:

If we can do it right here, and if we can sharpen our saw and build our relationship here, we’re going to be able to grow our regional green economy… and then it  won’t be any job at all for anybody else to duplicate it.

Lisa Smith – Executive director of Olympia-based Enterprise for Equity

Through the peppering of pronouns and adverbs, there is a huge idea there that makes incredible sense and then it dawned on me: if nothing else, this could be a huge first step for any region to discover their “greener” economy. This is the concept I gather:

“Going green means finding what the area can do best with what it has and do that better than anyone else can.”

Mind you, this is my take so, if anyone can read it differently, let me know.

It seems like industry has always made room for this idea in some sense: there’s no reason to force trees to grow in a desert or plant wheat in the mountains, it’s just not efficient or [gulp] profitable. Now, though, we have shifted our concerns and are trying to find ways to do business without taking more than is necessary. The stakeholders in the same equations are broadening: considerations for our fellow community members have now expanded to those that we will never see but are affected in some way by our decisions… thousands of miles away and many generations forward.

So, in an effort to trim down that lengthy quote and wrap up what was just a moment of my pondering, I offer this up as another way to look at the same concept:

Love where you live.

Bonus: Googled “love where you live” before I typed it out here to make sure it wasn’t a song or movie or some catchphrase but I found this little video. I quite like it as a broad idea before it becomes a BBC ad.

Link: Daily World: Daylong conference examines “going green” movement

I’m astounded.

And from the sound of it, even people at Grays Harbor Paper are surprised by the numbers in the recent carbon assessment from Carbon Solutions Northwest.

Let’s start with some points of reference. These were all taken from the EDF’s PaperCalculator, BTW:

• Virgin paper produces an average of 5826 lbs. of CO2/ton of paper
• 30% recycled content is around 5160 lbs. of CO2/ton
• 100% recycled content is around 3605 lbs. of CO2/ton

These numbers cover all sorts of things including the use of gas fired dryers, paper decomposition, processing, pulping, etc. Surprisingly, they never seem to drop THAT much in the “nearing zero” sense that we would all love to see. This can be attributed to the energy intensive processes used in the manufacture of all paper. Don’t think that virgin paper has this close of a margin on recycled content though! This is just CO2 equiv…. recycled content automatically means less raw material which is good any way you look at it.

Now comes the Harbor 100 number: 650 lbs. of CO2/ton of paper

Yeah… crazy! There’s a noticeable drop THERE and this is attributed to the unique methods of directing tackling energy hungry processes like electricity and heat generation differently.

Ughhh… sounding PR-y. (You don’t know how much I hate press releases… sorry David!) Seriously though; biomass which is wood waste in most processes was the key to making such a low impact product: producing carbon neutral electrical energy and steam/heat on site automatically fills in the most energy intensive and carbon laden processes. The margin is so huge… I don’t even know what to say so I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

Note: So, this is just icing on the cake: Carbon Solutions also has a figure before the carbon neutral electrical energy is taken into account. This number would better represent the CO2 output when just the manufacturing process is considered: 1545 lbs. of CO2/ton.

Impressive.

Link: The real press release pdf

This just keeps going! That last post about how energy is becoming more and more of a priority for businesses; well, it just keeps coming up. This time from the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) [I assume because people saying NWEEA "neweeeeahhh" would get annoying. Personally, I can't think "Northwest" and not type NW]. A little insight into how other places like Kenworth are making their own strides in this area. So big!

I’m impressed with how quickly the issue of energy is being discussed in the manufacturing industry. Probably because these environments are huge consumers of energy and, when you begin to consider the value that smart energy usage has on not only your bottom line but on reducing wasteful consumption, it just makes sense to incorporate it in a business and manufacturing infrastructure.

Our own John Begley and Eli Recondo get a little screen time on this one so be sure to give it a watch!

What I’m digging is the fact that it’s a blog post that mentions us right next to Google. (!!!) I mean… it’s pretty obvious that Google has some muscle to flex in the renewable energy department so, it’s kind of an honor.

What I’m not digging is the lack of a comment system. Where’s the love, MarketShift!?

Wild West of Energy from Off The Grid Blog

Check it out… the Harbor 100 reams are pretty tough to miss. =)

Thanks to @WTGreenDeal for the heads up!

Post over at Green Deal Blog: What’s The Green Deal?

This year was different: I had the opportunity to police the whole fiasco.

Okay, lets start with what sparks this whole “spring cleaning” movement; it’s not the weather… nor is it tradition. It has to do with these little cards that come in the mail from our local sanitation service. The gist of the card states that for a weekend, you can drop a single load of… non-hazardous whatever… off at the dump not exceeding a weight value of $30.

Free "Hoquiam Spring Clean Up for 2010" coupon from Hometown Sanitation

I know for a fact that, in the past, my parents have dumped electronics, CRTs, and probably loads of other things that shouldn’t have gone there and I bet having me over their shoulders to double check their garbage was awesome. In fact; I know that it was kind of a burden to them.

Here are the big no-nos that I pointed out:

• Transmission and outboard motors

My dad is a DIY kinda guy and as such, there is always a “parts pile” or something left over from a previous project. When it comes time to move on (or if my mother simply says so), its time to get rid of a few things. This round, the leftovers were a transmission from a swap for a Chrysler LHS and a few outboard motors which had been used as parts machines it get a working motor for his little fishing boat. These are both significant amounts of metal, not to mention the transmission fluid and whatever else is hanging out inside.

To have these things just get dropped off at the dump would have been a tragedy in many ways… I seriously got upset when my suggestions were “just a little too much work.” Luckily, after a bit of persuasion and checking of the available options, the hunks of metal were dropped off at a scrapper and sold as “dirty aluminum” (due to the steel and other various metals contained inside). At 20 cents a pound, my parents were pleasantly surprised to get back $30 for their “junk.”

Disaster 1 averted.

• Electronics

I have a strong connection to my gadgets and computers. I have never bought a computer new, they have always been second-hand, and I assemble/fix them myself. Even my current Macbook Pro… totally a Craigslist fix. I also have a hard time parting with these things as they usually have a story behind them: my first processor over 100mHz… my first 3D video card… my first hard drive over 1gb which I mowed 5 lawns in exchange for. Geeky keepsakes are kinda terrible.

I also understand that they have very toxic components and manufacturing processes. I’ve been around soldering instruments as long as I can remember and was specifically told to “wash your hands” after touching any of it so lead was always a concern. Ozone is a familiar smell.

Any time I see circuit boards, stereo/video components or big CRTs at the dump, I cry a little bit inside; not just for the fact that I probably needed a component off one of those boards at some point in time and had to buy new but also that most of the actual device is still “functional.” E waste is a huge deal for me.

Luckily, most everything that I own is functional or is awaiting functioning state. So, when a boatload of donations of DVD players and computers from my parents house left, I was relieved to know that they are still useful to someone. I mean, all components had remotes attached and some even had manuals… that’s a rarity at the thrift store.

Guilt relieved.

Now, the question still arises “What actually was brought to the dump?” Turns out; not very much. The entire back seat of the car was filled with cardboard which I helped flatten and sort. The rest of the load after that was half of what it was going to be and several times lighter because the metal was sold. The rest was waste from preparations for the garden and severally broken/worn items (another issue in itself: product lifespan).

The whole “free dump day” kind of scares me a little though. I think it gets people like my parents into a mindset that it’s some sort of opportunity to throw the things that have been bothering you into a big pile to forget about forever. It’s come up time and time again that landfills really are here to stay and they’re ultimately someones problem. Here on the west coast, landfills are still the cheapest route to go but in more populated areas, landfills are a HUGE deal. Stupid as it is, those three Rs came into play big time in the whole “dump day” cleaning venture.

When the truckload became half it’s original size, and they hadn’t even reached the dump, I felt like the whole thing was success on my end and I’m sure that they both felt a little more accomplished putting useful things back out there for someone to utilize. I bet they’re still a little annoyed at my environmental bickering though.

Links:

Should the U.S. Burn or Bury Its Trash?: Debate Blog from NYTimes

Hometown Sanitation: Trash service for Hoquiam. Distributed “free dump day” coupons. Cute website.

Le May Inc.: Company running our local landfill.

E-Cycle Washington: Find the RIGHT place to recycle computers, TVs and monitors in Washington.

Yep. It goes in that beast of a printer.

Wahh!!! I’m a dork but it’s kind of a big deal. After all those high school papers being printed on whatever my parents had in the printer and the college years of either printing on campus or taking paper from the printers (Hey! I’m pretty sure WSU Pullman used Grays Harbor Paper so… it wasn’t THAT bad), I finally have to buy my own printer paper for my small office.

Ugh.

I’ve learned more of the paper industry in the past month or so than most people would care to know. Reading thick sustainability reports on paper companies in Switzerland is not my idea of a laid back read. I also remember taking the mill tour in grade school and leaving wondering “when will I EVER use 500 sheets of paper?” Yeah, Grays Harbor Paper gave us little fourth graders each a ream of paper when we left the mill. That might be another story in itself.

Anywho, for my little adventure, I had to go to the only place that I know off the top of my head that sells Grays Harbor Paper: Aberdeen Office Equipment. I’ve only ever gone into the place once before and that was LONG ago when I went looking for fancy/gaudy paper for printing letters of recommendation on for scholarships. Who knows if the paper did anything. The store looks so much different when you’ve got an office in mind compared to when I was in high school. Ergonomic chairs look… enticing. Yeah, weird.

It's white, I get 500 of them, and they go in my printer.

I can’t honestly make buying a ream of paper exciting. It honestly wasn’t: 500 sheets, 8.5×11, white and goes through my printer… and I think that’s what was great about the whole thing. I have never looked up the price of a single ream of Harbor 100 but I was ready to stomach any price after all the literature and marketing material I’ve had to look over. In some ways, I think I sold it to myself. (???)

So that’s what I would say: My purchase of Harbor 100 was nothing life changing, it was just a buyer choice. Another Pepsi/Coke. Another Charmin/Angelsoft. Another Palmolive/Dawn…

It just happened to have these things going for it:

1. The paper had traveled less than 10 miles to get into my printer
2. Was made by people I could run into around town
3. Umm… that tiny little thing where it’s manufactured with biomass power (I’ve read about paper companies in Canada with electrical bills in the millions of dollars… energy primarily produced with coal.)

Not to sound like I’m getting all crazy about something you would expect to read on the Grays Harbor Paper Blog but this kind of stuff blows my mind every day.

In the end: I just needed a first ream of paper after moving into the office.

To top off the whole story, I had to stop off at one of the music stores here to get some guitar strings (Rosevears… hadn’t been there in a while) and mentioned that I was in the area again and blogging for Grays Harbor Paper. The guy who rang me up said that he had a few friends working there (yeah, small town) and that he couldn’t imagine a paper company needing a blog. Neither could I a month or so ago but luckily, I’m still typing away!

So, totally lame, I know, but I put the Walmart Sustainability announcement on my calendar and watched the whole webcast in sweats. If you are seriously interested, there’s a link at the break but the announcement was kind of low key; the kind of event that you might see in your high school auditorium versus one that you would see at a convention center. Maybe I’ve been watching too many glossy, black-backed Apple keynotes. It’s the message that matters though, right?

There’s no Walmart bashing to be had here… I’m not like that. I’m a pretty passive-aggressive person so, I will do what mad-scholarly people do and critique. Like they could let people down with a sustainability announcement though (Unless they just sent someone on stage to say “Sorry, we just can’t do it.”).

Walmart China!

Walmart is the epitome of retail. Period. In the world. Period. And hard as I try to I avoid eating processed foods and as many things I buy secondhand and as many gadgets and electronics I repair myself, I know that Walmart will reign supreme in the world of cash and goods.

The thing is, with such an understanding and powerful role in the world of consumer goods, Walmart is a HUGE PLAYER in reducing GHGs and creating a sustainable future while providing for consumers. I think that, in some cases, federal regulation could have a lesser impact than a simple policy change from within Walmart. That’s why I’m proud to bring you my simplified, and less awkward list of highlights from the Walmart sustainability announcment!

• Extend lifecycle of products

We all know that certain things at Walmart have that terrible “throwaway factor.” You know; that thought that crosses your mind Well, what does it matter that it looks/feels like it will break, at this price I can come back when it breaks. I know I can’t be the only one who would appreciate buying something that will last a little while longer.

• Reduce emissions of products 20 million tons of GHGs by 2015

The big one that encompasses many of their other efforts.

• Working directly with suppliers
• For the process to work, it must be transparent, measurable and can be done

Just a good phrase.

• EDF applauds Walmart for taking huge sustainability strides before legislation REQUIRES it

That same thought that Walmart has the power to do HUGE things and sees the need to do something.

• Separating carbon growth with retail growth
• Refillable detergent at ASDA!

This one was amazing and makes SO much sense: ASDA (essentially super-Walmart in the UK) ran trials of a refillable laundry detergent packet that, after 10 refills, reduces packaging waste by 96% and saves the consumer €5. This is the kind of stuff that I’m hoping we see here in the US fairly soon: combining good habits with money savings to make it sensible to the consumer.

The whole sustainability webcast via Walmartstores.com

These four turbines will be selling their generated energy to the local public utility (Grays Harbor PUD) to generate revenue. One of the estimates that I read projects energy sales of around $500,000 annually. Healthy chunk of money for just harnessing power; money out of nothing, eh?

So, half a mil annually… and where does it go? This part blew my mind:

…the profits that are earned from it is going to be used for funding a number of social service programs of CCAP [Coastal Community Action Program] including those like meals on wheels & home care assistance to seniors, AIDS medical management and transportation services for disable people.

Funds come for wind farms | BiofuelsWatch.com

This is amazing news for… quite simply: everyone!

1. Green power: depending on their capacity, four 1.5MW turbines making (optimally) 6MW should be enough for around 1500 houses… SOLD THROUGH GRAYS HARBOR PUD!!! This should be coming right back to us Harborites which means a substantial increase in sustainable energy percentages for everyday power… just like that. Now, capacity factor used to be 35% but given the technology and the available wind around here, I would think this percentage could be a little higher.
2. Project funding: Social programs seem to be a high risk group for funding cuts, these days. Our community has a great deal of individuals that would suffer a great loss if program funding were cut. I’m sure an extra half-million could really help in the right places.
3. Paving the way for a new, green energy infrastructure and understanding: The whole project represents a big change in the understanding of how energy can be generated and implemented, especially on a smaller scale. The market for energy is always there and (unfortunately) is still growing. A decentralized grid means less waste, more community building and big opportunities for cash flow to stay local.

I’m excited about this and really can’t wait to see these things turning in the breeze. Really haven’t heard much from the PUD about the whole ordeal but I expect something soon. It’s really up to them to see how the energy is implemented. Fingers crossed, eh?

I hopped over the bridge into Cosi really quick to see if I could catch one of these trucks rolling by. Kind of mediocre pictures but if you didn’t get to see these things passing though, this gives you an idea of what we should be seeing in Grayland pretty soon! Assembled, of course.