Global Greenie

I have an interesting new group of friends here in Portland.  We share a desire to do some good in the world, or — at least — in our city.  We have some fun social outings, like bowling (which I’d done maybe twice in my life), and we’re going to volunteer to do something together once a month.  On Saturday, we all became temporary bike wrench monkeys at the Community Cycling Center.

That’s me with one of the bikes we cleaned, greased, de-rusted, and prepped for one of the CCC’s main missions: to give bikes to needy kids.  Looks brand new, doesn’t it?

And while cleaning was somewhat satisfying, I got a bigger thrill out of destroying kiddie bikes.  Some of the donations are too beat out to clean up, so we learned to deconstruct them, saving parts like tires, rims, and inner tubes.  We also spared a few chains, seats, horns, etc. from the landfills.

If you’re in the Portland area, and would like to volunteer, check out the opportunities.  And there are plenty of other ways to support if you don’t like to get dirty.

There’s a new layer on the worm bin.  I built it in about 1/2 hour from recycled fence posts.

I had to add a “third story” because the worms slow down in winter and our food scraps were building up faster than the worms could consume.

And I hate to admit it, but my bin has mice living inside.  They’re cute, but somehow I feel like they don’t really belong.  Are they eating the worms or do they just roll around in the scraps harmlessly?

Matt Davis of the Mercury calls me a Tanzamook skeptic.

Bojack says to remember Vera and Randy.

There’s a great travel company based here in Portland called BootsnAll.  Tonight we’re attending their tenth anniversary party at the Wonder Ballroom, and since this December’s unusually dry so far, we’re walking to the event.

Yesterday their office had an open house and we got to meet (and in some cases, remeet) the knowledgeable staff.  So while exploring their website a little more today, I found a link to their Ecotourism blog, and in particular, this post with 25 green gift suggestions.  Since we’ll be spending this holiday on an island which cultivates rubber trees, I was especially interested in #20, the fair trade basketball.

He shoots!  He scores!

Now, off to the party.  Maybe I’ll see you there?

It looks like Coca-Cola going to expand in Oregon and start bottling filtered water from the Willamette.  Does anyone besides me think it’s a little odd to bottle a river which is partly a Superfund Site?

No one who’s “green” should be drinking bottled water anyway.  Thankfully, Oregon’s added water bottles to the existing Bottle Bill, so beginning in January, there will be a five cent deposit on each one.  According to the Oregon DEQ, this will, “reduce the roughly 125 million water bottles reaching state landfills.”

I located a FAQ page for the Oregon Bottle Bill and the changes coming within the next two months.  Besides the addition of water bottles, I’m happy to see that stores will be required to take back all cans and bottles, regardless of place purchased.  It’s always frustrating to try to recycle your microbrews at . . . say . . . the Safeway four blocks away, and their machine rejects them because they were purchased at Fred Meyer.

But back to Dasani, and other bottled waters: Maybe you’d like to join me and take the pledge.  Don’t buy bottled water.

Ever since I started traveling internationally, I noticed that most grocers and other stores expected you to have your own bag.  It makes total sense.  Even China, known for its pollution problems, last month banned the plastic bags so common everywhere in America.

Why are we so far behind?  According to a May issue of Fortune

$4 BILLION a year is the estimated size of the plastic bag industry in the United States. Americans consume roughly 110 billion bags annually; they cost retailers an average of 3 to 4 cents a unit and account for about 0.5% of Americans’ solid waste.

• 28 CITIES in the U.S. have proposed laws restricting the use of plastic bags. No city has banned plastic bags entirely, as countries like Bangladesh and Taiwan have. But San Francisco now requires all retailers with revenue over $2 million to offer only compostable or reusable bags, and Seattle has proposed a 25-cent per-bag tax.
• 2 PERCENT of plastic bags used in the U.S. were recycled in 2006, according to the American Chemistry Council. In California, grocers are required to offer in-store recycling. Some chains, like Wal-Mart and Kroger, offer reusable bags made of canvas or nylon. Last month Whole Foods stopped giving out plastic bags altogether-proof that the Bag Monsters’ street theater has a place on big business’s stage.

Here in Portland, our mayor-elect Sam Adams has proposed a bag tax in stores, ranging from five to twenty cents per bag.  (That’s him holding the bike-powered blender in the photo).  You know what, I’m for it.  We have a market basket we bought in France for when we go to the farmers’ markets and these giant Costco bags, which we use at the grocery and, well, Costco.

I don’t know what disappoints me more, the anti-bag tax comments, or the ones wrapped in homophobia, like this, found on the Oregonian message boards: The queen of Portland wants MORE tax money to piss away.

Two weeks ago the new cans arrived: a green one for yard debris and a blue one for commingling our recycling.  We kept our trusty 20 gallon garbage can, and of course, our food scraps already go in the worm bin.  One of our yellow recycle bins is where we separate glass and I left the other on the curb — it used to hold our separated recycling and now IT’S the recycling, I suppose.

I was really excited about commingling.  Obviously it’s a lot easier and less messy than sorting everything.  I can even recycle my yogurt cups now, which I always felt sick about tossing out.

But apparently not everyone is a fan of commingling.  I found a ten-year old article from Willamette Week, which is a weekly published here in Portland.  In it is an early mention of the recycling plan.  “‘It makes me very nervous,’ says Jeanne Roy, founder of Recycling Advocates, a nonprofit Portland citizen group.”

I admit that I don’t know much about the potential pitfalls of our city’s new direction in recycling.  But I’ll do some research and report back soon.

Do you mix your recyclables where you live, and if so, has it changed the way you recycle?