One tip I had read about recently is the fact that many staples end up in the garbage each day. I don’t have any statistics on how many are thrown away, I just know what I have done to eliminate my staple waste. Paperclips are reusable and do just as good of a job as staples if not better. I actually have grown to prefer paperclips because I can easily change the order of the stack of papers; with staples I can’t. They also make earth friendly staplers. They perforate the pages and you would fold over a small cut-out which replaces the use of staples. Give me your tips of reducing staple use in your home or work environment.
Archive for the ‘Ashley's Posts’ category
Staples Are NOT Green!
March 10th, 2010
Packing Light
February 26th, 2010One quick tip that we will do this vacation to help reduce our carbon foot print: we will pack light. When flying, each additional 10 pounds per traveler requires an added 350 million gallons of jet fuel per year. I always tend to over pack, and not use several items that I take with me anyways. This year we will audit what we normally bring and ask ourselves. “do we really need this?” We will bring smaller sized things, like toothpaste, shampoo and soaps (ones that we have gotten free from hotels anyways). Since we will only bring one bag between the two of us, we will have less baggage charges and it will require less time for the ticket counter to process us. It’s a win-win situation. Feel free to leave us any of your own experiences traveling lighter.
Another Use for Sugar Beet Waste
February 23rd, 2010Now is the time of the year where you can get a whiff of the sugar beet plant in Moorhead. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s not a horrible smell but it’s something that you recognize. There are six sites across North Dakota and Minnesota that processes sugar beets into something we enjoy: sugar. American Crystal Sugar Company has a growing understanding that we need to protect our environment. In 2008 they created a new process to take the tailings from sugar beets (waste product) and turn it into methane.
The University of Florida have been researching a new process of getting rid of sugar beet waste and turning it into something useful and contacted American Crystal to test this process. The project received $1 million from the Xcel Energy Renewable Energy Development Fund. This process uses microorganisms to eat the beet tailings and will in turn produce methane which can be turned into electricity.
Early computations provided results as large as 125 billion British Thermal Units (BTUs) could be produced annually from tailings at the East Grand Forks site. And this is only one of the 6 sites. Since I don’t understand what a BTU is here is a general definition: the term “BTU” is used to describe the heat value (energy content) of fuels, and also to describe the power of heating and cooling systems.
The benefits to using this new method is not only reducing the disposal costs associated with beet tailings, but also to create a usable byproduct from it. This is also energy that is produced in America and it’s renewable. Last, but not least, the environment will win because the carbon footprint of our factory could be reduced. I really enjoy reading about the new technology being created to reduce waste but to also fuel America. I believe we should do whatever we can to reduce the amount of waste that is going into the landfill. Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
