Category: Environment

Plants Eat Pollution

We all know that plants are really good at cleaning the air and that’s absolutely a good thing. Nowadays more and more research is looking at using plants to clean more than just the air. Recently, a researcher in Ontario has used plants to clean up pollutants in a brown field site.

“Traditionally, we dig up the contamination and take it to a hazardous-waste dumpsite or incineration facility, but then the soil is lost,” she says. “But, in using phytoextraction … after we pull all the contaminants out, you’ve still got this natural resource of the soil itself.”

The composted material may still need to be disposed of as hazardous waste, but the volume of contaminated matter has been greatly reduced, says Dr. Zeeb.

Read the rest here.

Thanks Mike!

Sustainable Tiffin Delivery Arrives in Toronto

Many other cities already have tiffin delivery and now Toronto is one of those cities and here we have a triple-bottom line company rising fast.

She hires Good Foot Delivery and its developmentally disabled couriers for anything within the PATH walkway, otherwise she’s driving the meals downtown until the electric-powered rickshaw she ordered from China arrives.

Pabari, who was born in Kenya to Indian parents, hit on the business idea in her Beaches home while packing lunch tiffins for her son, who’s now 10. Pabarai had quit her six-figure, “soulless” job in marketing for a home-improvement chain after the 2008 death of her father and was re-evaluating her life.

Tiffinday has a triple bottom line: to make money, be environmentally sustainable and socially just.

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Brewery is Also a Power Plant

Here at Things Are Good we tend to like beer and we’re always happy to see the brewing process become more environmentally friendly. A smart inventor in the USA has found a way to convert a naturally occurring element of the brewing process and converts it into natural gas!

The brewery is Magic Hat and their motto is “Saving the earth, one beer at a time” – I can’t wait to try their beer.

The MIT-trained mechanical engineer has invented a patented device that turns brewery waste into natural gas that’s used to fuel the brewing process.

The anaerobic methane digester, installed last year at Magic Hat Brewing Co. in Vermont, extracts energy from the spent hops, barley and yeast left over from the brewing process — and it processes the plant’s wastewater. That saves the brewer on waste disposal and natural gas purchasing
The 42-foot tall structure, which cost about $4 million to build, sits in the back parking lot of Magic Hat’s brewery, where it came online last summer.

Fitch, 37, is CEO of PurposeEnergy, Inc., of Waltham, Mass., a renewable energy startup company whose lone product is the biphase orbicular bioreactor, which is 50 feet in diameter, holds 490,000 gallons of slurry and produces 200 cubic feet of biogas per minute.

Brewers big and small have wrestled with waste issues since the dawn of beer-making. In recent years, they’ve turned to recycling — both as a cost-saver and for environmental reasons.

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Thanks Greg!

Sustainable Haircuts

Sustainability is great and even local and small business can benefit from shifting the attitude to a more planet-friendly one. In Toronto a hair salon has started a bunch of sustainability practices at the benefits are grand!

Over the last 17 years or so, Phillips has turned the place into something of an eco-hub, reducing the business’s electricity consumption by more than 50 percent and purging their hair and beauty product of what he considers to be environmentally harmful and personally toxic ingredients. A member of the Windshare Cooperative (co-owners of the Exhibition Place Wind Turbine with Toronto Hydro Energy Services) and the Toronto Environmental Alliance, Phillips has earned several awards for his efforts, including most recently, a Green Circle Award for Environmental Stewardship at the Mirror Awards honouring Canadian hairdressers, stylists, salons and spas. In an industry known for excess, glitzy surfaces and throw-away ideas, Phillips has tried to create a green heart at its core.

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5 Easy Ways to Recycle Electronics

In the 21st century we tend to use a lot of electronics and to save the planet we should dispose of electronics properly. Lucky for us, LifeHacker has made a list of easy ways to recycle electronics.

Many towns, cities, counties, and states have their own e-cycling programs that offer convenient drop-off locations for old computers, big monitors, and other electronics. The EPA suggests a cluster of search sites for helping you find a local ecycling program, including EcoSquid and the Consumer Electronics Association’s MyGreenElectronics. And beyond the picks you see below, the EPA has a grid list of consumer-friendly e-cycling programs from stores and manufacturers.

Read more at LifeHacker.