Kauai Recycling And Galapagos Lessons
The Galapagos Islands have experienced an increase of residents and visitors over the past few years, which has created a variety of environmental concerns including an unprecedented amount of waste. How do you handle all the waste when you live on a small island? Their efforts included helping develop a more sustainable waste management system, along with a recycling outreach campaign. Now, after just over 3 years of recycling, there are some things that the system could teach the U.S.
They have better recycling rates than the U.S. after less time.
The island currently recycles 35 to 50 percent of it’s waste, which is as good, or better, in many cases, than most U.S. municipal systems after just three years, versus three decades in the U.S.
Composting makes waste management way easier.
They’ve added yard waste and food scrap composting, which makes so much sense on a small island. Santa Cruz produces about 12 tons of waste per day (pretty small compared to any developed city) but still, all that waste has to go somewhere. With organic waste being about 50 percent of those 12 tons, there’s definitely no shortage of compostable material, so the installation of the industrial compost system has a hugely positive impact on the island’s waste stream.
Encouraging reuse with a bottle deposit really works.
The Galapagos has a deposit of $1 on all beer and soda glass bottles. That’s six bucks extra for every six pack, and even for the casual beer or soda enthusiast, that would add up quickly unless you were hanging on to your bottles to return for the deposit. It’s working great on the island; the return rate is well over 90 percent, and the bottle deposit program is really in it’s infancy.
These new efforts remain a work in progress, and more conscientious waste reduction is an obvious first step to slowing down the waste stream. The current system is a huge step up, but ultimately, they’ll need to continue finding ways to simply require fewer and less wasteful goods for both residents and tourists alike.
Organic Matters
Organic farming was the original type of agriculture, and has been practiced for thousands of years. After the industrial revolution had introduced inorganic methods, some of which were not well developed and had serious side effects, an organic movement began in the 1940s as a reaction to agriculture’s growing reliance on synthetic fertilizers. Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm.
“Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved.”
- International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
Since 1990, the market for organic products has grown from nothing to $55 billion in 2009. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland, with approximately 91,000,000 acres worldwide now farmed organically. Although organic farming is prehistoric in the widest sense, the modern organic movement is a revival movement in the sense that it seeks to restore balance that was lost when technology grew rapidly in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Ocean Acidification
Our oceans are being overwhelmed by the massive amounts of carbon dioxide they are absorbing. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have added about to 1.5 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and the oceans have absorbed about a third of that amount. Without the oceans, global warming would be far worse than it already is. They also help to mitigate human caused climate change. But the unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide being created by human activity has surpassed what the oceans can healthfully absorb, changing ocean chemistry and making them more acidic.
Global warming is increasing ocean temperatures and raising sea levels, creating a host of problems for the oceans and ocean wildlife. Recent discoveries have revealed that global warming is not the only problem for the oceans resulting from the massive amounts of carbon dioxide we are releasing into the atmosphere. The impacts of absorbing such huge amounts of carbon dioxide and heat include ocean acidification, sea level rise, disrupted marine food webs, depleted ecosystems and more.
These excessive amounts of carbon dioxide are actually changing the chemistry of the oceans, making them more acidic. Ocean acidification will have major adverse effects on tropical as well as cold-water corals and other marine life, especially those that produce shells. Even small changes in the acidity of the oceans can result in severe ramifications. As they become more acidic, corals and other organisms will find it increasingly difficult to build new skeletons and shells and those that already exist may begin to dissolve. The loss of many coral species will negatively impact the oceans and ocean-dependent economies, such as fishing and tourism.
Water and Your Footprint
The average American lifestyle is fueled by close to two thousand gallons of water a day. What may come as a surprise is that only five percent of that total runs through toilets, taps, and garden hoses at home. Nearly 95 percent of your water footprint is hidden in the food you eat, energy you use, products you buy, and services you rely on.
Take a water tour with National Goegraphic through your home, yard, diet, and transportation and consumer choices. Then, pledge to cut your water footprint and help return more water to rivers, lakes, wetlands, underground aquifers, and freshwater species.
Find out your water footprint, then join others who have already committed to saving thousands of gallons. The more we save, the more water we leave for healthy ecosystems and a sustainable future.
Take the Water Footprint challenge…
Earth Day and Arts for the Earth
In observance of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Earth Day Network created multiple global initiatives including Artist for the Earth, a campaign that involves hundreds of arts institutions and artists worldwide to create environmental awareness. Arts for the Earth is an innovative education program developed to teach sustainability and environmental education through museum and arts community networks. The goals for Arts for the Earth are:
- To promote best practices in sustainability within the extensive arts and museum communities
- To work with our arts and educator networks to develop creative lesson plans that deliver environmental education through the arts
- To feature artists who have incorporated environmental themes into their works
Program Goals for Museum and Art Venue Administrators:
- Engage the public through environmental programming
- Take measures to promote environmental sustainability within your museum or art venue and reduce your institution’s carbon footprint
- Publicize the above goals to your patrons, supporters and the public at large
Arts-related Sustainability Education Program Goals:
- Increase environmental education oppportunities using multi-disciplinary arts-based programming
- Encourage schools and after-school programs to develop Earth Day programs and events
- Develop more arts-based environmental curricula
Earth Day and Creating Climate Wealth Summit
The Earth Day Network will co-host the Climate Leadership Gala, with Carbon War Room and the American Council on Renewable Energy. This event is expected to attract up to 500 leaders of industry, government and non-profit organizations to the EPA Atrium of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington DC to celebrate recent achievements in forging a path to a post-carbon future. The Gala will feature the same caliber of A-List musical entertainment and speeches by luminaries and world leaders that made it one of the capital’s top-billed events of 2010.
Earth Day Network, Sir Richard Branson and Carbon War Room will involve investors, business leaders, policy makers and civil society in expert panels and working tracks designed to educate, excite, and catalyze them to identify market-based solutions for a post-carbon economy. Past panels identified challenges to scaling up six cleantech sectors with gigaton-scale CO2e reduction potential by 2020: energy efficiency, distributed generation, shipping and freight, grid management, electric vehicles, and aviation and next-generation biofuels. This event will also will announce the Women and Green Economy (WAGE) Leader Award.
