Reflection: Weeks 8-14

The second half of this class made me much more likely to make an active effort to change not only my own habits, but to advocate for change in a larger scope as well.
I of course enjoyed the few documentaries we watched this semester, as they are always very informative and eye opening. I would say the most influential one we watched the second half of the semester was the Story of Stuff. Although just a simple narrated animation, it really makes you think about what you are doing to the environment and what is even motivating you to buy new things. Even though you are buying something really cheap, the real cost is hidden out in the rest of the world with things like pollution and harm to other people's lives.
The advocacy project was pretty fun as well, as even though I pay a little bit of attention to politics, I really didn't know who everyone was that was representing me (or is supposed to be anyway!). Finding an issue and contributing to it's cause by educating and informing an elected official is a very empowering thing to do, because a lot of times you just think of yourself as one of many people that person is representing. You can then think about how many of those people even know who is representing them, let alone going through the effort to research an issue and writing in to the official. 
Our junking project was very fun as well, and I know I am supposed to have a picture of it on here, but considering I gifted it away to one of my friends, unfortunately that is not possible! I did have a fun time looking through so many ideas before coming up with mine though. All of the ideas in class that we shared really inspired me to think that really anything can be re-purposed and made into something awesome. Also that hockey sticks can be made into pretty much anything!
Going to Goodwill was a very eye-opening experience as well, as I have shopped there hundreds of times but never really knew what happens behind the scenes, or even that their main purpose was employees disadvantaged individuals. I look at the company and the people that work there in a much different light now knowing what they are doing for our community, our country, and the individuals they are offering employment to to help give purpose to people's lives.
Overall, I really enjoyed this class and have spoken very highly of it to all of my friends. I try to share as much knowledge as I gain with others and hope to continue advocating for change in my own life as well as whatever community I settle down in.

Share & Voice: Reduce Reuse and Upcycle

The blog I found and have decided to highlight is titled Reduce Reuse Upcycle. This blog has a little bit to offer everyone, ranging from abilities such as sewing and knitting to being able to roll up a piece of paper. Current posts even follow a very festive Christmas theme, so you can get lots of responsible ideas for the holidays from the blog! There are a lot of different ideas involving the re-purposing of old clothes (both men and women's) and a large amount of ideas regarding home decor items too. As the blogger says her goal is to bring upcycling ideas to everyone in order to reuse things that don't need to be trashed, save people money from having to buy new stuff when you can make stuff out of trash that is just is nice, and to satisfy everyone's craft habits! I will highly the craft in particular that led me to the website. The idea was to take old beat up bottle caps of your favorite beverages and turn them into magnets, which I thought would be fun to show anyone who looks at your fridge what you like! Rather than tossing away your caps you can turn them into something useful like to hold up all those Christmas cards us college students get right??

Advocacy Project: Letter to Elected Official

December 12, 2011

Senator Herb Kohl

U.S. Senate

330 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

VOTE YES ON S.1285 HYBRID AND ELECTRIC TRUCKS AND INFRASTRUCTURE ACT

The bill you have sponsored will greatly impact not only the economical stimulant into the automotive industry that is needed, but will provide assistance in the fight to reduce air pollution caused by vehicle emissions. As a concerned citizen, I believe that not only my health, but of society as a whole should be concentrating on making healthy choices for future generations and us. This bill will ease the production of emissions caused by vehicles that are not fuel-efficient and promote the use of new hybrid and electric technologies.

In 1990, 54 million metric tons of emissions were emitted from mobile sources. These emissions are full of harmful chemicals that are detrimental to health. Over 74 million people are exposed to high levels of at least one of the pollutants found in emissions, which include carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and lead. All of these can have adverse health effects, and some other lower level pollutants from vehicles are known carcinogens, such as benzene and formaldehyde.

Opponents of this bill may say that we do not need excessive spending in the automotive market or that this bill has other motives regarding the industry. Even though it may have some benefits for them, the real benefits are felt by all of society by being able to live in a healthier and cleaner environment not having to worry about these dangers posed by air pollution and vehicle emissions.

I appreciate your continued support and sponsorship of this bill protecting us from the harmful effects of emissions.

Caleb Taplin

Muffin Recipe

Glad the feedback on the muffins was positive! Here's the recipe for all those interested. If I do varying amounts in the directions it's because I tweak it here and there. The amounts will be to make a dozen, so if you're making more just use your multiplication! And the tilde sign (~) means about by the way.

1 egg
1 cup mashed up bananas (about 2 decent sized bananas equal a cup, use your old frozen bananas for this!)
~1/3 cups of applesauce (I've used normal applesauce, and then cinnamon applesauce too to compliment the ground cinnamon)
2/3-3/4 cup of packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1-1.5 tsp of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup of oats
box of raisins (just put as many as you want in)
chop up as many little carrot pieces as you want - i went pretty light on mine
can add nuts if you'd like - I used to use walnuts but they are expensive! 

Get a large bowl and combine egg, banana (stir bananas and egg together now in my opinion, the bananas are really chunky if you try to later with everything else in it), brown sugar, applesauce and vanilla. In a different bowl, throw the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together. Then combine the flour mixture and oatmeal into banana mixture. After that you can stir in the raisins, carrots, nuts, etc. Then throw the batter in the muffin tins or the pan! I fill them just about halfway and that usually gives a good size and thorough baking.

Bake @ 350 F for roughly 16-20 minutes

Then, you know, just let 'em cool so you don't burn yourself! And wear oven mitts cause pans are really hot when they come out of the oven...

Share & Voice: Pinterest

Wine Cork Upcycling

Wine Cork Floormat

Pallet Upcycling

Although I briefly touched on the site last week in my Share & Voice post. I thought I would stress the usefulness and educate all of you a little more on Pinterest. Pinterest is a vision-board styled social website where you share ideas, interests, and your creativity with one another. You are allowed to 'like' pictures, similar to the style of Facebook, where you can then go back and reference the posts you have liked. The thing I am most enjoy is creating 'Boards'. You can 'Pin' pictures to your boards and create themes for yourself to follow. Personally, I have boards for things such as DIY projects, Photography Poses, and Rooms that I want in my future house! By simply searching in the search bar, you can find an incredible amount of ideas for recycling, upcycling, junking, and other DIY projects. You can also view people Boards, so when you are searching and find someone with a board titled 'Awesome Upcycling Ideas', chances are there are going to be lots more pictures within that board that aren't even listed in the search results! Let's say for example you have an excessive amount of wine corks laying around your house that you for some reason decided to keep (don't worry, I'm guilty too..). Simply searching 'Wine Cork Upcycling' will give you more results than you can even handle! If you are really into this, you could just look around at all the random things in you're home and start deciding what you could turn them into and soon you'll have a house full of hybrid products than were formerly useless! And you don't have to worry about forgetting what you saw or saving the link address to go back to later, just re-pin it to your Board that you have created! I hope that a lot of you are as interested in this site as me! It has already been a ton of help for me with my photography, and I have found lots of cool DIY ideas that I am looking forward to trying once I obtain the resources for them! You can also 'Follow' people on Pinterest, so if you find someone who has lots of common interests, follow them and you will see all of the posts they like or re-pin. I look forward to seeing lots of you on Pinterest so we can share ideas with each other!

Advocacy Project : Fact Sheet

Motor Vehicle Pollution: What You Have Already Done, and What You Can Do Now.

Facts on Fuels, Rules, and Automobiles

Presented by Caleb Taplin

How did this all get started?

            - It wasn’t until 1952 that automobiles were first acknowledged to be linked to air pollution. Since then emissions have been increasing every year as more and more people drive cars that lack fuel efficiency. In 1990, 54 million metric tons of emissions were emitted from mobile sources.

What can be the side effects of these levels of emission?

            - Over 74 million people are exposed to high levels of at least one of the pollutants found in emissions, which include carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and lead. All of these can have adverse health effects, and some other lower level pollutants from vehicles are known carcinogens, such as benzene and formaldehyde.

What can I do to help reduce my impact on these emissions?

-       When shopping for a vehicle, choose the most fuel-efficient vehicle that meets your needs.

-       Look for vehicles that meet EPA low-emission or ultra-low-emission standards.

-       Consider buying a flex-fuel vehicle, which can operate on gasoline or E85 (Ethanol/Gasoline blend) and both combined.

-       Look into buying a hybrid, which offers 20 to 30 percent better mileage.

-       Perform regular maintenance. Failing to do so could increase emissions.

What will the S.1285 Hybrid and Electric Trucks and Infrastructure Act do to lower emissions?

-       Increase and extend through 2015 the tax credit for new qualified hybrids.

-       Allow tax credit for fuel-efficient heavy trucks and heavy electric vehicles.

-       Extend through 2014 the tax credit for alternative fuel vehicle refueling property expenditures.

-       Allow a tax credit through 2014 for installation of electric idling reduction devices.

As you can see, this bill has much to offer for the reduction of emissions, which is a necessity as we cannot continue to support the trend of growing emissions. Email, write, or call your Representatives and let them know how you feel on this issue.

Eye Opener: Photo Essay

For my photo essay I thought it would be fun not only to take pictures of things being repurposed, but specifically things I found at Mom's house while I was back home for the holidays. I found it important to find out how much my Mom cared about converging and repurposing items, because I may not have realized it over the years but these thoughts have been impressed onto me now.


As I began looking around, it was not too hard to find things that had been repurposed. The first thing I found was simply an old crappy piece of wood that had been made into a beautiful mantle above our fireplace. After seeing that, nearby I found a plethora of beautiful quilts, which of course is just repurposing of old material sewn together. Either taking small worthless scraps that would otherwise go into a landfill somewhere or taking old shirts that are no longer wearable you can create masterpieces that also have very common purposes for warmth! 
The third repurposing I found was a gourd that had been turned into a birdhouse. So not only are you not creating waste, but you are creating a home for another living creature on our planet!

The fourth item my mother pointed out to me was a beautiful painted clay piece that she turned over to show that it had been an old tile that had been pulled up from somewhere and rather than breaking or throwing it, someone had decided to turn it into art. The fifth item used to be a Japanese net anchor, which made it over to America and into our hands somehow, so it has since been repurposed into a decoration which when the light hits it just right!
The sixth item I found was this old ice chest, which clearly has some age to it, but has since been touched up and repurposed to be an outside cabinet for general storage. Rather than going out and buying some fancy new cabinet system and throwing such a beautiful item away you can restore an old piece that is even better quality than what you would buy nowadays. The seventh item is now an outdoor lamp that fits the decor of the house very well, however it used to be the chimney cap of some sort on an old house. I thought this was a fascinating use and it looks like some similar items that go for hundreds of dollars at upper end design stores. You can make the same thing by yourself if you know where to look!
The final item may be the simplest, yet one of the smartest repurposing items. The simple swing. As you can see in my picture, an old board was the choice for ours. You may also be familiar with the gold old fashioned tire swing. These ideas not only create fun things for young kids to keep occupied with, but instead of buying new swings that are made of plastic, or boards that have been treated with dangerous products, you can take an old board that serves little purpose or an old tire from the junkyard and create one yourself!

These are just a few of the brilliant things that I found around my home. If you are interested in seeing what you can do with products laying around your house, go check out my post about a site where you can search for lots of exciting repurposing and up-cycling ideas.

Advocacy Project: Issue Overview

The problem I am investigating is air pollution caused by the emissions from motor vehicles. In 1990, 54 million metric tons from mobile sources; that's 43% of total emissions! 1952 was the first time automobiles were acknowledged to be linked to air pollution (1). Past legislation dealing with regulation of air pollution includes the Clean Air Act of 1963, 1970, and 1990, all of which put tighter regulation on emission standards for motor vehicles. The bill I am investigating is the S.1285 Hybrid and Electric Trucks and Infrastructure Act, which aims to increase and extend the tax credit available to those who are buying hybrid, electric, or fuel-efficient trucks and other vehicles.
This issue affects anyone who lives in the vicinity of an area of traffic flow. Over 74 million people are exposed to high levels of at least one of the pollutants found in emissions, which include carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and lead (1). All of these can have adverse health effects, and some other lower level pollutants from vehicles are known carcinogens such as benzene and formaldehyde.
In this case, the losers are everyone who is exposed to these toxins and runs the risk of having adverse health effects from the exposure. The winners would be the companies that continue to manufacture vehicles irresponsibly and don't have to put any research and development money into creating more efficient cars to reduce emissions. A domino effect would also create another group of losers, petroleum companies, who would see a decline in sales as automobiles become more efficient. These companies have lots of lobbying dollars that they put to good use, delaying or defeating any bill that would cost them sales.
The economic costs of this issue lie with the government and automobile manufacturers. The government spends money funding agencies devoted to testing products and air quality every year. The EPA's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, MI tests over 1,000 vehicles every year to certify them. With 500 employees and utility costs over $1,000,000 every year, this comes at a pretty steep price (1). Automobile manufacturers are also bearing some of the economic responsibility, as previously mentioned, now that there are heavier government mandates for emissions they must spend money improving their vehicles. Some companies just meet the bare minimum, while others invest more in creating more efficient vehicles and can use this as a marketing pitch for the concerned consumer. Additional economic strain could be felt by those families that are unfortunate enough to develop an illness because of the poor air quality, forcing them to seek expensive medical attention. If these people are uninsured, with our current health care system we may all feel the impact of this financially if the government is forced to raise taxes to support a failing health care system, among other things.
Socially, the main issue that arises is the impact of having someone you know become ill from the air quality. Having a close friend or relative be struck with an illness can be devastatingly stressful and time consuming. We should not even have to consider this an issue, as it should be a given that we need to have the cleanest air possible and not have to think twice about breathing it in for fear we may become ill. We would all benefit from tighter legislation and more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. It is our responsibility to each other to buy the best vehicle emission-wise so we do not harm each other, or the environment.
The barriers to solving this issue include economic, social, and political hurdles. Economically, it is very expensive to fund and research new technological advances to take the next step in reducing emissions. It is very expensive to fund this research, and often vehicle manufacturers are not willing to foot the bill, and most certainly petroleum companies couldn't care less. The government, as previously pointed out, must spend millions a year on testing these vehicles to make sure they are meeting the requirements. This would not be necessary if we could trust manufactures to do their job and be responsible. Socially, the boundaries are that even though there is an increase in efficient vehicles and new technology, more and more people every year are driving cars. With the population growing, it only makes sense that there would be more cars on the road (3). With people job hunting and taking jobs farther away from where they live in order to make ends meet in a recession, you can see that traveling farther distances has an effect on emissions too. One smart way that I found through my research that cities are reducing pollution is the installation of roundabouts, which reduce the need to come to complete stops and then accelerate, creating better fuel efficiency (3). Politically, barriers must be overcome ignoring political differences to make new standards. It has been over 20 years since a new Clean Air Act, and since then there have been many changes to the market infrastructure.
The main resource needed for this issue is money. Everything boils down to affordability. Companies have to be able to afford to research better technology, while we have to be able to afford the vehicles they are putting onto the production line. There is a delicate balance of interaction between all components, and currently things are not in balance.
Historically, a lot has been done to bring down the levels of air pollution for motor vehicles successfully. From implementing new technologies into vehicles to make them more fuel efficient, to creating more vehicle friendly roadways to reduce the need to stop or accelerate. Politically, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board are the top dogs in creating legislation and regulation for the issue, and have created lots of programs for the prevention of emissions polluting the atmosphere at any higher levels.
Nearly every group of people, businessmen, and politicians would support not only this bill, but the cause as a whole. People want to live in a safer and cleaner environment. Businessmen such as those who run the automobile companies, although they would have to spend more developing technology, would be able to offer a superior product and potentially see an increase in sales based on their vehicles being more responsible. Politicians should want what their supporters want, so that being said they should support these causes as well. The only group that would not support this bill would be petroleum companies. The bill would put more fuel-efficient vehicles onto the roads, getting rid of old gas guzzling vehicles that these companies have relied upon for some long to boost sales because of poor fuel-efficiency.
The policy needs to be voted in law so we can continue having options and incentives as consumers. Without such tax credits being offered, people may simply go for a cheaper car that doesn't have as good of fuel-efficiency. Some may not even know this is an issue until they are informed they can get these hybrid or electric vehicles for less, only then being told how irresponsible their old vehicle was compared to the new alternatives. Voting yes on this policy will assist the country financially and environmentally.


Sources:
(1) EPA Powerpoint. <http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zA5E9LvcUckJ:www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/fapmve2.ppt+current+legislation+on+air+pollution+from+motor+vehicle+emissions&hl=en&gl=us>

(2) Maine Department of Health <http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/lev4me/effects.htm>

(3)  Sovacool, B.K. and Hirsh, R.F. (2009). Beyond batteries: An examination of the benefits and barriers to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) transition. Energy Policy. 37:1095-1103.

Share & Voice: Cell Phone Charging Station

First off, anyone who is interested in learning lots of fun projects for re-purposing or DIY projects of such nature, Pinterest is a very cool network where people post pictures of projects they have done and share them. I have found many cool things I will be trying in the future, so head on over and join if interested! This cool project I found through Pinetrest and decided it sounded like an awesome idea, as I often find myself struggling to find a good outlet that I feel comfortable just putting my phone on the ground next to. All you have to do is cut two slits in the Frisbee about one third of the way up, and then fold the small section inward. After that, just cut a hole the size of your charger, and place it over the charger and let your cellphone rest on it! If like me you find yourself with more Frisbees than you would ever know what to do with, this can be a great way or re-purposing a couple of them while saving you from worrying about stepping on your phone or losing your phone ever again!

Advocacy Project: Healthy People/THOMAS

The HealthyPeople 2020 environmental objective I am interested in is improving outdoor air quality by means of reducing mobile emissions. Reducing emissions will decrease the risk of adverse health effects caused by airborne toxins. 1.8 million tons of mobile sources of air toxic emissions were reported in 2005, and the target would be 1.0 million tons of emissions.

S.1285 Hybrid and Electric Trucks and Infrastructure Act

Summary: Hybrid and Electric Trucks and  Infrastructure Act - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) increase and extend through 2015 the tax credit for new qualified hybrid motor vehicles; (2) allow such credit for certain fuel-efficient heavy trucks and heavy electric vehicles; (3) extend through 2014 the tax credit for alternative fuel vehicle refueling property expenditures; (4) expand the definition of refueling property for electric motor vehicles to include panel upgrades, wiring, conduit, trenching, pedestals, and related equipment; and (5) allow a new tax credit, through 2014, for 50% of the cost, up to $3,500, for electric idling reduction devices installed on heavy-duty diesel powered on-highway vehicles.  

Sponsor: Sen Kohl, Herb (WI) (introduced 6/28/2011) Cosponsors: Sen Blunt, Roy (MO) - 6/28/2011, Sen Hagan, Kay (NC) - 10/5/2011, Sen McCaskill, Claire (MO) - 9/19/2011

All actions: 6/28/11: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

Recommendation: Vote Yes for S.1285 Hybrid and Electric Trucks and Infrastructure Act

My Political Representative: Senator Herb Kohl (D, WI)

Share & Voice: A River of Waste

I recently watched the documentary A River of Waste, which is available on Netflix. I thought i would share the knowledge I gained as well as recommend that all of you watch it. I do warn however if you have a weak stomach I would avoid watching, as many of the scenes can be quite horrifyingly grotesque. The movie is about the practices of large animal production farms and slaughterhouses and their effects on the environment and our health. It is important to know about these Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) produce 95% of the poultry we buy in this nation. Upton Singlair was the first journalist to take a stab at these practices in the early 20th century, and through his book The Jungle, changes were made. But that time has come and gone, and now political agendas and monetary donations outweigh the importance of the environment and our societal health. We are well behind the European nations, who already have strict regulations in place and much safer practices. For example, ammonia is a gaseous byproduct of excrement, and can cause illness in humans and in animals.
The European union has regulations on ammonia that only allow 20ppm (parts per million) of ammonia to be in the air in CAFOs, but there have been measurements of over 100ppm taken in CAFOs in America. The effects of these establishments are not only on the food supply and animals, but on the environments that surround them. One fisherman from Oklahoma said he wouldn't even consider eating anything out of the water in the area due to the amount of pollution. The litter from the chickens has also been linked in small areas surrounding these CAFOs to be cancer causing. Additional viruses include e coli, which poultry works are 32 times more likely to contract and carry because of the exposure to waste in their working environment. Even though some people are trying to change the way we dispose of waste and the regulations in place, there is not enough focus on our own country and that no one is practicing what we are preaching.
The Peace Corps sends volunteers around the world to educate people about how they should not dumb waste into rivers and other water sources, while here in America we do not follow these guidelines ourselves and allow large companies to have their way with disposal of waste. The methods of slaughtering the birds themselves is extremely disturbing, too. The birds are completely aware of pain and if they are not killed by a machine that is designed to cut their throats, they are boiled in a bath of hot water that is designed to help loosen their feathers. If you are interested in any of these issues I suggest watching this documentary.

Advocacy Project: My Political Representatives

This week's post is identifying our political representatives. I will be identifying my Wisconsin representatives, as I am still a registered voter back home and participate via absentee ballots. I will hopefully eventually be a Minnesota resident when I get an awesome job and can move to the Twin Cities, but for now, Wisconsin it is!
The President of the United States is none other than Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, who is a Democrat. You won't have much luck getting in touch with our Commander-in-Chief on your own, but you can contact the White House if you'd like to try to reach him. Our Wisconsin senators are Herb Kohl (Democrat) and Ron Johnson (Republican). Mr. Kohl can be contacted via his website, and Mr. Johnson can be by his website as well. My two State House representatives are Chris Danou (Democrat) and Dean Knudson (Republican). Chris can be reached by his email, and Dean can also be reached by his email. My Democratic State Senate representative is Kathleen Vinehout who can be reached via her email. Unfortunately my other State Senate representative is Republican Sheila Harsdorf, who earlier this year we tried to get out of office in a recall election. A former high school teacher of mine, Shelly Moore, ran as a Democrat against her. We were unsuccessful is removing Sheila from her abusive post of power in the Senate. You can email Sheila if you'd like to ask her why she has decided to turn her back on the residents she supports. Our Wisconsin Governor is Republican Scott Walker, who has gotten his fair share of media attention for his decisions for the state regarding union rights. If you would like to contact Mr. Walker, you may email him.

Reflection: Weeks 1-7

The first half of the semester has been very informative and fun! We have covered a lot of information I never really thought too much about, and have had lots of eye opening experiences thus far.
I really enjoyed my Read n Seed project the most. It has been a while since I read a book at all, let alone one so informative and beneficial. I learned a ton of new information about the trash we create by making stupid decisions throwing stuff away that has tons of other uses. I will definitely use the things I have learned through this book for the rest of my life and try to spread my knowledge to others the best that I can.
Although I haven't had to learn too much about blogging or HTML myself, I have enjoyed helping others learn these skills. I remember when I first started out learning these tech skills and they were very confusing, so I really like being able to help my fellow peers get better in these areas to help maybe open doors to them being able to express themselves better through the world of blogging.
Although I have seen a couple of the documentaries we've watched so far, the ones I hadn't watched were very informative as well. Also, the class discussions of these documentaries have a lot more insight to offer than just watching them by myself and having my own opinion to judge the whole thing off of.
Overall, this class has been awesome and I look forward to learning lots more in the second half of the semester. I have enjoyed every aspect of the class so far, and I know there are even better parts yet to come!

Eye Opener: Junk on the Brain

Antiquing in the form a verb is defined as looking for or shopping for antique furniture, articles, etc. Junking is finding discarded items that others have decided are trash and finding new purposes for that item or restoring it to usable condition. A flea market is usually held outdoors, where antiques, used household goods, and other oddities are sold. A thrift shop is a shop that sells used items, especially clothing and household goods, usually to benefit a charitable organization. Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value. A resale shop is similar to a thrift shop or resale buys their items from others and then resells them.

All of the above terms are very important to environmental health because they are all instances where others are being responsible and recognizing that items do not have to be at the end of their life cycle and can have lots of other purposes besides their original one, or even be restored at a reasonable cost to be completely usable.

There is Father Time Antqiune store at 395 S Lake Ave Duluth, MN 55802. They can be contacted by phone at (218) 625-2379 but do not have a website listed for their business. Jadco Special Haulers is a junkyard you can go digging through at >4011 Rehbein Road, Duluth, MN 55803. They can be contacted by phone at (218) 724-5538 ‎and do not have a website listed. HERE is the link to a website that posts flea market locations based on the area you search, so that would be a good way to keep up on where some flea markets are. Goodwill is a local thrift shop that is located on Garfield Ave and can be contacted by phone at (218) 722-3050. You would be able to practice upcycling at any of the locations litsed because all you have to do is find some trash from those places and practice upcycling with them. An example of a resale shop in Duluth would be Plato's Closet located at the Burning Tree Plaza which can be contacted at (218) 733-9455.

I do like to go to Plato's Closet and Goodwill on occasion, along with other stores such as Savers. These stores can be great places to get deals, steals, and unreals! Buying used instead of new sometimes just makes sense because of the way so much older stuff is built to last as opposed to our current mass produced cheap stuff that constantly breaks creating more waste for the world.

One awesome project I found on Junk Market Style was a Reel Bird Feeder. I thought this project was an awesome deal because movie reels are a prime example of stuff that has limited uses in modern day society with so much new technology, but this person found such an awesome reuse for a large and bulky item that would take up a lot of room in a landfill or salvage yard. Another great project using the same item, a movie reel, can be found on the site too, a Reel Plant Holder. You could probably think of endless things to put inside these reels once you get thinking about it (i.e. maybe even candles?!?) Being a sucker for plant life and well placed greens in a house I found this Planter idea very nicely done too, as they took old metal boxes that didn't serve a purpose anymore and simply placed a plant in and placed them in a good spot in the house.

Read 'n' Seed 5: Fourth Quarter & Final Review of Trash Talk

The fourth quarter of this book contains some brief ending statements, and then continues to list a plethora of resources to continue learning new ideas from. There were a few interesting things from the concluding pages from the authors. One very promising fact is that the city of Toronto has reduced emissions by 67% since 1990, proving that once enough individuals come together to make a difference. Another example of how being responsible can make big differences for business is clear with the statistic that BellSouth Telecommunications reduced their paper needs by 1.3 million pounds simply by printing customer bills double sided, clearly saving them millions of dollars in the process.
Although the rest of the book simply contains lists of resources, which may be a turn off since it requires putting in extra effort for more information, I feel it is our responsibility to each other to do everything we can do to find out how we can help. To make it a little easier on all of you, I will sift through some of these resources and choose the best ones, pulling any tips I think will be the most helpful as well as providing you with the link so you can investigate further if you wish.

Planet Save - This was one of the most informational websites from the list. There is an entire section to help you find ways to go green from Transportation (bicycles, trains, green vehicles), energy, food, and recycling. A lot of the content is user-submitted articles, so even though you may not be getting information from experts necessarily, you will be able to enter into discussions with these people directly as opposed to reading a book. I highly suggest touring this website and seeing if some articles catch your eye, as I was on for a very short time and found myself sucked into multiple articles. One big thing that is very applicable to our current time of year is pumpkin carving. I realize it may be too late for some of you who may have already carved, but if you haven't yet DON'T! Every year Americans alone create 1.1 billion pounds of waste from throwing out these carved pumpkins. Sure it may be fun, but it is definitely not responsible!

Zero Waste America - Zero Waste America is a pretty standard activist website, offering up news updates regarding laws and regulations in regards to recycling and disposal, as well as many areas with tips and tricks to reduce your waste to zero. The only problem I found with this site is that it has not been updated since 2010. So although some of the news may be outdated, the tips are still valuable. For current information I would suggest using Planet Save though.

Use Less Stuff -  This site seems a bit more predominant, as the editor of the website has been on Fox for monthly enviro-segments. Whether you like Fox or not, we won't get into that. They offer lots of newsletters and research updates, however, be weary when getting too deep on the website, as they are a for profit and eventually will be asking you to join their cause and will be asking for some form of payment.

The rest of these websites either were outdated, being updated, or didn't contain enough information for me to create a write up about them, however there were many other books sources that I would suggest maybe checking into after reading this book as well. They are all listed at the end amongst the websites.

Overall this book provides some fantastic ideas for simple day to day things you can change and look at in order to start making a difference, and extremely easy things to share with friends in person or blogging to your audience! Backed up by lots of statistical information and common sense, clearly the authors are reputable and did not distort any of the information, they just plainly stated the things they do in their daily lives, hoping that you too will recognize the ease of these changes and start to contribute to the cause.

It is really hard to try and pick just three things that were more significant than everything that I learned from this book. There are certain items from the first part of the book that I will never throw away again just because the authors found such good alternatives or new uses for. One thing would be the use of plastic bags and how easy it is to simply reuse them at the grocery store next time you go, or as I have been doing lately refusing to get one at all, which has brought me some strange looks when I say I will carry my groceries out without a bag! Another top thing I learned was the whole Refuse aspect of the R's. Just as we've discussed many times in class, every time you spend a dollar on a product, you are voting for it. When we refuse to buy products we are sending a message to the companies that we do not desire what they are making and that they need to make changes. As a community we can make huge changes by such a simple thing as deciding to purchase from more responsible companies. The third main point I will probably carry with me to use in the future is the things you can do when building a house to be responsible. Making small investments in your home regarding energy consumption can make your home more valuable and save you money in the long run. These are all important things that can be achieved with minimal effort and I am hopeful that all of you learned something while reading about my book through these posts.

I would absolutely recommend this book to others interested in this topic. The book is short and to the point, with countless tips easily outweigh the price of the book. Through using tips from this book you could probably save more than the book costs in a month. After you're done reading, pass it on to a friend!

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

The product I use and decided to look up on the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database is White Rain Hair Spray, which I use to hold my beautiful fauxhawk in place. The health concern for this product was moderate. The fragrance had a large impact on this score, as it got an 8/10 on the hazard scale. The rest of the ingredients had relatively low hazard ratings, none going over 2. They all pretty much said the only concerns would be if you got them into your eyes, mouth, etc. you would become very irritated. I was pretty happy to find out I wasn't really exposing myself to anything too dangerous that would put my health in danger at all, such as cancer causing agents or anything of that nature. As long as I am careful not to get any of the product in my eyes, inhale it, or get any where it may irritate me I will simply continue to use this product. Right now I am being responsible with product use because I just got my head shaved short, so with less hair I don't have to use any styling product or as much shampoo and conditioner.

New Pictures!

Hello readers!

I just wanted to let anyone who in the past has enjoyed my little slideshow of pictures on the right sidebar that I recently added a few more pictures to it! You can view it over there or below in this post. For anyone that wants to know specifics of the shoot they were taken with a Nikon D5000 with a Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6 lens. I went out at about 10pm-midnight and setup with my tripod and a remote shutter cable to reduce noise in the pictures. They were taken with about 5-15 seconds of exposure depending on the picture. If anyone has any other questions or is interested in learning more about exposure shooting just leave a comment!


Thank you!

Read 'n' Seed 4: Third quarter of Trash Talk

In the third section of Trash Talk, the concentration is on how to reduce our use of paper and lumber by-products, thus reducing the need to cut down forests to satisfy the need. We all know trees produce oxygen for us to breathe, but did you also know they help clean the soil and air? A nine year study by the University of Delaware even produced results that said patients with a view of trees from their room went home earlier than those without a view of trees. Those are the natural and health benefits, but it doesn't stop there. One 50 year-old tree has an annual worth of $164,250 in energy savings. This includes oxygen production, pollution control, water protection, and erosion protection. Needless to say if you can do any of the following things I talk about, you will be making a huge contribution.

I previously mentioned briefly some uses you can have for salvaged lumber, such as building projects and in the garden. Some more specific examples would be to build a playground for your children, make bird houses as a fun project for your kids or in a classroom, build compost bins, or use for landscaping around the house and garden. Companies that produce paper can be responsible too. The Dutch paper needs are satisfied by 75% recycled paper, which in turn creates 75% less air pollution, 35% less water pollution, and uses 60% less water than creating paper from scratch. For every ton of paper saved, it saves 380 gallons of petroleum. Besides environmentally responsible, it can also be financially helpful. By saving paper only printed on one side and reusing it they can save thousands on paper needs a year. From a tourism standpoint forested areas can also be an attraction, for example the world famous Black Forest of Germany or the large Redwoods in California. Mail (envelopes, junk mail, newspapers) is a very large user of paper. Reusing envelopes can be easy and includes re-mailing the envelope, using it to store seeds, buttons, coupons, or other small knick-knacks, and you can also cut the sides and reuse both parts as scratch paper. Junk mail claims 62 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water per year. Not only does that sound like an incredible waste, it's even worse once you know that only 50% of junk mail is even ever opened. You can do your part here by calling, writing, or sending change of address notices to companies that are being wasteful and sending you unwanted letters or promotions. Newspapers can be layered between the ground and mulch to help protect against weeds. They can also be shredded up and used in animal cages, as well as for packing valuables. For all you ladies out there the
following tip sounds very helpful. If you have tall boots that sometimes get creases in them from tipping to the sides in the closet, you can simply wrap some magazines in rubber bands and stuff them inside to prevent those ugly creases! In one of my earlier posts we discussed what to do with plastic bags from your grocery store, but what about paper bags? One very interesting tip I found was that you can put peaches, pears, plums, and nectarines in paper bags to help them ripen! You could also find some fun projects for kids, using them as puppets or just decorating them to hang up somewhere, be creative! HERE is a site to give you some project ideas. Cardboard, although many people simply choose to recycle (which is fine!) can also serve secondary purposes such as being put down two layers thick to keep down weeds. Keeping on with the fun kid activities you can have them draw or paint on a piece of cardboard and then turn it into a fun puzzle!

These are just a few things to think about as you evaluate your use of paper in your life. I know I definitely will be paying more attention to the mail I receive and telling companies I don't need to get an advertisement once a week that I just throw out. Keep practicing all of the tips that I have posted so far and help spread the word! The more knowledge we spread the more effective our sustainable campaigns will become!




(Both photos used courtesy of Caleb Taplin Photography)

Read 'n' Seed 3: Second quarter of Trash Talk

The second part of my book, Trash Talk, continued to offer tips on trying to create a better lifestyle for conservation. Straying from the first part which concentrated on specific items, the second quarter concentrates on actions and lifestyle changes you can take to have significant impacts on your effect on the environment.

If you are like me, you've worn glasses your entire life. Now, think about what you've done with all of your old pairs. Thrown away? Sitting in a closet somewhere? We now live in an era where contacts are taking over, and glasses are becoming less of a necessity for some. Not everyone is in a financial position to make this decision though. There are over 1.5 billion people in the world that are in need of optical assistance. By simply donating your old glasses laying around, they can find a match for your prescription and help someone see the world from a new perspective. Running, walking, and hiking are some of the most relaxing and simple activities one can do (weather permitting!). Simply taking a bag along with you to pick up trash can not only improve your surroundings, but can potentially improve others attitudes about helping out to if they see you picking up garbage beautifying the area. There are many great tips to conserve energy in this section as well, however many of them are things that are more useful if you consider them during the building/remodeling of a house. Consider choosing a clean energy like geothermal, which although expensive at first in the long run is not only responsible, but pays itself off. One that you can do right now is purchasing light bulbs that are responsible, using lower wattage bulbs in rooms that do not need extensive lighting to save energy. Coffee lovers (like me!) there are some great things you can do to lesson your impact. Consider buying a reusable filter, which can not only save you about $10 a year, and of course lessening waste from throwing away papers filters. You can also use the coffee grounds in compost or use them for mulch! The final area I will talk about from the section is water conservation. Clearly there are easy things you can do like not running the water while brushing your teeth, not taking unnecessarily long in the shower, etc., however you may not know a very clever trick to help save water when flushing the toilet. Some of you may not know the inner workings of the back of your toilet, but it is a pretty simple fill to the line every flush system. An easy way you can save water is fill a container full of water, put the cap on, and put it inside the back of your toilet, displacing that much water, and thus using that much less water per flush. This may not seem like much, but when you consider each person uses 9,000 gallons of water a year by simply flushing, it can add up quick, especially in large households.

All of these things are very small changes that create large scale returns. So, there are few legitimate reasons you could have for not trying to do some of these things in your everyday behavior. We all use energy, we all use water, and most of us drink coffee! These are just a FEW examples from this section, too. Thanks for reading, and if you haven't read the first installation, go check it out!

Eye Opener: CSPI

I decided to use the Eating Green Calculator for this activity. The calculator found that my impact is that I use .4 acres to feed animals, 8.6 pounds of fertilizer to grow feed, .1 pounds of pesticides to grow feed, and create 2323 pounds of manure from the animals I eat.

Based on the amounts of servings I was willing to cut out of my diet I would be able to reduced acre use by .3, leaving only .1 acres being used by me. Pesticides would not go down at all, but pounds of fertilizer would decrease by 6.1. Pounds of manure would drastically decrease by the amount of 1839. These results would also prevent potential diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses related to these portion decisions.

I did decide to take the pledge, because it is such a simple lifestyle change that can have such a huge impact on the world. Simply changing portion sizes and food choices is something I have control over, while creating a new planet with resources or curing myself of heart disease or cancer would be much more difficult. Being sure the animals were raised in humane ways is also an important thing to look at, as many large chains have very disgusting practices for raising their livestock and other animals.

Read 'n' Seed 2: First quarter of Trash Talk

Everyone is at least somewhat with the three R's of the environment; Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Lesser known is a fourth R, that is even more important than the other three; Refuse. In part one of the book we are reintroduced to the R's, and then introduced to a plethora of ideas on how to execute them.

The first and most important R is Refuse. By refusing to buy products that are over-packaged, individually wrapped, or just plain irresponsible products you can have a huge impact on a company and their decisions. You may think you can't make a difference, but consider how demand for hybrid vehicles has risen because consumers have refused to buy irresponsible gas guzzling vehicles. Try to find alternative products such as those that are Eco-certified or bulk packaged to avoid unnecessary waste. Your average fruit or vegetable travels about 800 miles before reaching your produce center at the grocery store. Buy local and organic to avoid supporting all of those excess energy expenditures and packaging.

You can Reduce your waste by asking a couple questions while purchasing or while disposing of products. Will you be eating all of the food you are buying before it goes bad? If not, buy smaller portions more often to decrease waste. Reuse as much waste as you can by salvaging materials and creating products of out waste to not only save the environment, but save money. Recycle is pretty self explanatory. Set up a recycling pickup in your local area, or visit your local recycling center to drop off items or receive more information.

In the subsequent pages of the book after the four R's refresher the first part of the book is broken up into sections by item, listing the potential uses for items that you normally wouldn't think twice about throwing away. I chose the most conventional ones that relate to us to re-list here, although there are many, many more in the book. The first item is plastic bags, which if you are like me, slowly pile up in a cupboard until they are exploding out. These can be reused, can often be returned to their store of origin, or donated to thrift stores. Another common use I have found for them is as small garbage bags in your bathroom, laundry room, bedroom, etc. You can also use them to clean up after your dog on walks. These small changes can not only reduce throwing away these bags, but can save you money on garbage bags. The second item is toothbrushes. You may not know that you can order from companies where you order the toothbrushes, which are made from mainly recycled plastics, and then when done you can send them back to be recycled again. It is responsible companies such as these that you should support instead of multinational companies concentrated on profits. One item I found to have a very exciting secondary use was cereal bags. I enjoy a nice healthy bowl of cereal, but when you consider the waste produced by the box and bag, you may wonder how you can lessen the impact you are having. Consider cutting the bag in half and using it to line cookie sheets while baking, which will also save you money on buying wax paper. You can also wrap leftovers and foods to go in the bags. The next item can save money, create useful materials, or even give you a sense of goodwill; clothing. What do you do with your old clothing? Throw that ragged shirt and torn jeans away? Next time consider using them as dishrags, cleaning cloths, use them in the garden instead of buying weed blocking fabric, donating them to a secondhand/goodwill store, donating them to your local car mechanic or anyone who does lots of work while getting dirty! The possibilities are endless, so don't simply throw something away that has so much life still in it. The next item is somewhat of a no-brainer; containers. Your standard containers for butter, cool whip, mayo, cream cheese, coffee, peanut butter, milk, Crisco, etc. can all be used to store just about anything from art supplies, other foods, or miscellaneous household items. Next up is how you can salvage your old furniture. First is to take a look and decide do you really need new furniture? Often you can refinish or re-fabric an item and make it look brand new. If not, however, consider using wood to build new items such as a dog house, garden trellis, etc. If you are in need of items like this already, ask around the neighborhood and look for free wood pallets. These pallets are often made out of very valuable wood and can easily be broken down to create whatever you need! Reclaimed metal (such as what the LSBE building is partially constructed from) is also a very valuable material to reuse. Currently, every year we already recycle enough metals to save enough electricity to power Los Angeles for an entire year! The last note I would like to make from this chapter is a common misconception that your unused pharmaceuticals can be flushed down the toilet; do NOT do this, you are only putting those drugs into the water system and they will end up in the water, ground, etc. Instead, take them back to the pharmacy and they will take care of them for you.

This is all information that could create an incredible amount of monetary and environmental saving among the population. Use examples like this in your everyday life and create your own solutions as well. Don't forget to share what you discover you can do to help!

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

When I was doing the carbon footprint quiz, I was extremely surprised at how much of my footprint consisted of service oriented causes. I find this matching the results from another quiz I took, which had a large percentage dedicated to my electricity use as the largest part of my footprint. I would really like to try and improve in this area, as it would definitely produce the most evident results. I try to take the bus and carpool as much as I can, and it definitely shows since a very small piece of the pie consists of mobility causes. I also believe food is somewhere I can improve on, as I could easily buy more locally grown and whole foods rather than processed and packaged foods at the grocery store.

According to the summary, if everyone consumed at the same rate as me it would take 4.3 Earths to provide an adequate amount of resources for the population. So lucky some people are more responsible than me, and I will work on being more responsible with my consumption to decrease my footprint as much as possible. My consumption rate is considerably higher than what Wikipedia states to be the average at 1.4 Earths.

There are some pretty clear ways I can adjust my footprint. Mainly I will work on controlling energy use. Beyond that I can basically eat more environmentally friend foods, and try to reduce vehicle use even more than I already do. These are steps I know I can take pretty easily without having to make any major adjustments to my life, so it is not unreasonable to make changes that will benefit the Earth.

Read 'n' Seed 1: Trash Talk

Hello readers! The book I selected to read for the Read 'n' Seed project is titled Trash Talk. This book will teach you ways to save your community and our Earth. It takes everyday items that you would usually throw away and gives you ideas to reuse them.

I chose this book because it clearly relates to the theme of my blog, which is preventing contamination. Reusing items conceived to be trash with prevent these items from being dumped into lakes, rivers, landfills, and further contaminating our environment and ecosystems.

If you proceed to click HERE I have provided the author's website, where you can learn more about them, their message, and what drives them to do what they do. HERE is a link to Amazon where you can read some of the reviews for the book. Additionally HERE is a link to Barnes and Noble where you may also read some reviews.

The book is 188 pages long and is divided up into four sections, which is how I will be breaking up my posts. I really look forward to learning lots of new information and sharing it with all of you so we can all work on our bad habits of instinctively throwing items away!

Welcome to Caleb Cares about Contamination!

Welcome followers!
My name is Caleb and with this blog I will be providing you with intriguing, compelling, and maybe even frightening information regarding conservation practices (or lack thereof) in our modern environment. I won't pretend to be an expert, as I will be learning as I am teaching. My hope is that together as a group, class, and community we can help each other grow and learn and make better decisions for our future!

There are 5 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

    1.    Advocacy Project
    2.    Eye Openers
    3.    Reflections
    4.    Read n Seed
    5.    Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. (Use the "label actions" feature in the edit posts tab to add the labels.) You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. (Place labels gadget below blog header but above blog text). All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.
The members of my web group are:

    1.    Dr. V & Kristen@Enviro-Surfing with Amy & Kristen
    2.    Sarra@Sarra's Notes in Nature
    3.    Andrea@Fun in the Sun with Andrea
    4.    Jamie@Jamie on the Big Lak

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile."

I look forward to having many engaging conversations with all of you regarding any topic that may arise. I hope we all take as much away from this semester as possible and continue to use what we will learn in the future to better ourselves and our communities!