Shiny Green Button

Portland credit union Unitus unveiled a new product this summer—the bicycle loan. Once approved, your new loan puts $250 – $2500 towards a brand new bicycle for a reasonable 7.99% APR. Maybe it’s the idealist in me, but I think this is brilliant. With both our economy and environment in shambles, this new microloan makes a lot of sense for the credit union and its customers.

I know I live in the alternate universe that is the Great Northwest. But what if bicycles began to claim at least some of the wasted space in the American psyche that cars have taken up for the last century? For most urbanites, cars are a largely irrational purchase based on a dash of necessity with equal parts ego, comfort and the reptilian brain. Wouldn’t it be nice to divert some of those Ice-Age impulses toward something as harmless as a bicycle?

Just imagine these scenarios:

Jeremy, a young professional just out of college withdraws all of his money from the bank and moves to the big city. After a plane ticket, apartment down payment and job-hunting expenses, he has no money left over for a car. Reluctant to add to his college debt and depressed at the thought of an hour and fifteen minute bus ride, he applies for his first loan. He’s approved and is now the proud owner of a brand new Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra.

Maria, a single waitress in her thirties, unable to afford to drive to work, trades in her ‘88 Escort for $500 and applies for a $2000 loan bicycle loan. She buys a custom-made Sweet Pea bicycle and is instantly the envy of the restaurant.

Paul, an overweight father of two, tired of public transportation, applies for a $500 bicycle loan. Thanks to his new commute, he loses 30 pounds, injects a little adventure into his life and pays off his loan in a few short months with the money he saved forgoing public transportation.

OK. I know what you’re thinking. This doesn’t address the fact that, as a population, we need to focus on buying less stuff and refashioning what we already own. What’s wrong with repairing your old bike?

The truth is, I don’t know how to begin to curb our fascination with buying new stuff. So, for now, the fact that anyone even thought a bicycle loan would be a remotely profitable product makes me happy.

I waste water. There, I said it. I waste it washing dishes, taking a shower, shaving. I waste it eating, I waste it getting my car washed, I waste it watering the garden. But I try not to. I fill the sink with water instead of letting it pour out the faucet. I grow my beard out so I don’t have to shave. I skip trips to the car wash. And it’s not enough.

There’s a declining availability of water, and it’s affecting numerous environmental problems, including the global food crisis. From my country to yours and everything in between, water scarcity is a problem facing us all. Read herefor what Dr. Colin Chartres of the International Water Managment Institute thinks about the topic.

So why aren’t the big brands doing what some of the smaller, environmentally-conscious companies are doing. A month or so back, Shiny Green Button discussed Dockside Green and the work of Joe Van Bellingham. Dockside Green is a sustainable-living environment in Victoria, BC, and one of conservation eforts included creating their own water-treatment plant for the site, among other plans. Check out their full water conservation cred. here.

So my question is why aren’t headquarters of corporations doing the same? All that land around corporation’s campus sites, couldn’t that land be used for on-site water treatment plants. Couldn’t money be invested in making clean water more available on a much larger scale, or are we forced to make small changes for the rest of our lives. I guess what I’m really asking is, do I need to grow out a gnarly beard for the rest of my life, or will corps. join in and make the change with us?

On a side note, I wanted to see if anyone knew why a culture such as ours, which has been responsible for a significant amount of the global environmental problems, thinks that we are the only ones with answers. Dr. Chartres notes that water conservation is a much bigger problem for third-world countries and indigenous groups. Well, why don’t we get their thoughts on how to curb the problem? Why are our solutions the only ones? If I remember correctly, our solutions are what increased the problems. I think if we’re truly going to address a global environmental problem, we need all voices. Groups like the Indigenous Environmental Network demand environmental justice and have some good ideas on how to achieve it. Shouldn’t we be tapping into that resource too? Isn’t their water as important as our water?

How far are you willing to go to be green? That’s what companies are asking. There’s money to be made in the green movement, they just know it. But what else can companies sell you in the name of saving the planet? Here’s an idea: a bidet.

According to Brondell, the makers of the Swash Ecoseat, “Over 100,000,000 rolls of toilet paper are consumed every day throughout the world. The United States alone uses over 3.2 million tons per year. In fact, 54 million trees are cut down every year just to produce toilet paper for the U.S. market. In addition, the production process itself is very destructive.”  Brondell goes on to mention that every toilet paper roll uses one and a half pounds of wood, 37 gallons of water, and 1.3 kilowatts of electricity. A bidet uses only four ounces of water per use.

There’s no question that toilet paper is wasteful. But are Americans ready to use bidets? Some companies, like Brondell, aren’t even calling them bidets, they refer to their products as a “spa” or a “personal rinse”. Europeans have used bidets for centuries. The first written reference to the bidet is from the late 17th century. And Asia, particularly Japan, includes bidets in their toilets in most places (even on airplanes.) Americans, though, have yet to embrace the bidet. Why is this? I wasn’t able to find any statistics on it, but some people in Europe have written about the removal of bidets as showering every day becomes more popular. Perhaps our habit of bathing at least once every day made us Americans feel like we didn’t need the extra step in hygiene.

I should mention, too, that the bidet of 17th century France is completely different from the bidet of today. The bidets of this era either hook right onto the toilet seat, or come built right into the toilet seat. They have seat warmers, water heaters, and even warm-air dryers with built-in odor filters. Your butt will never be cold or stinky again! These things do everything. Some of them even have remote controls. You can alter the temperature of the water as well as the seat. You can tell the water to move forwards or backwards, you can tell it to oscillate or pulse. All with the push of a button.

There are dozens of companies selling bidets. There’s the Bidet Biffy, the Bemis Purité Personal Cleansing Spa, and even Kohler’s C3 toilet seat with bidet “functionality.” Actually, Kohler has had bidets all along, but now they are catering to the American market by including them right in the toilet seat, all incognito. Your friends don’t even have to know you have a bidet/toilet hybrid and you can save natural resources. It’s a win/win.

To be honest I don’t have one, but I am curious. Because prices start at around $100 (for the Biffy) and go right up to $1,000 (for the C3), it’s not exactly something I can just try out. But what about the rest of America? Will dwindling natural resources be enough incentive to create an American market for these devices? What if they include every control and comfort you could imagine? Kohler’s betting on it, as are dozens of other companies. I’m wondering what the slogans will look like. I think humor stands the best chance, preferably something that rhymes: Save 50 pounds of paper a year! Just use a bidet to clean your rear! 

When I think of sprouts my stomach cringes and I picture the grass that goes on a Garden burger and in a 1980’s version of green salad. Sprouts live in the fridge until they form a gelatinous gunk that gets returned to the earth in the compost bin. Sprouts are good for you. Yuck.

SPROut on the other hand IS a "good for the earth" small nonprofit I just learned of in a recent supplement to the mag Sustainable Industries. SPROut is Sustainable Plant Research and Outreach and they’re taking phytotechnology to new levels. The organization’s mission is to become a driving force behind promoting and developing plants to help solve environmental problems.

Located on site at the Oregon Garden one of SPROut’s projects is to maintain the wetlands constructed there that provide water for irrigation and at the same time treat the nearby City of Silverton’s wastewater. What a perfect blend of form and function. I’ve been to the Gardens and can attest to how beautiful the wetlands area is, but I had no idea they were designed to serve a waste management function as well.

SPROut has facilitated numerous other projects from creating a storm water swale system to capture runoff from roof drains at a local Portland, Oregon apartment complex to a "Botanical Burrito" project where plant materials form a "tortilla" wrapped around soil and other plant material that floats atop polluted waters and aids in improving water quality. Hmmm…sounds like the Willamette River would be a good candidate for some Botanical Burritos.

Look for SPROut’s soon to be published "Phytotechnology Resource Book: An Oregon User’s guide to Plant-Based Solutions."

Although I’m committed to never eating another sprout, I’m definitely excited to learn about SPROut and the ways they are making a measurable difference in providing creative solutions to some of our most pressing environmental concerns. Check em out!

On Grist today, chef and blogger, Kurt Friese is shouting the praises of Iowa’s local farmers markets. No big surprise, right? Iowa. Farmers Markets. Makes sense. Actually, for those of us who have ever baled hay or detassled corn, the fact that Iowa has more farmers markets than any other state should raise some eyebrows. Sure raised mine.

Growing up in the eighties in northeast Iowa, I remember plenty of county fairs, malls and Wal-Marts, but I can’t remember attending one single farmers market. Almost everyone I knew in Iowa had a garden, but no one ever made money from their veggie patch. Farmers focused on the cash crops—soybeans and corn—to sustain their families. Maybe times have changed in the heartland. Is this a sign of a larger shift across the country? Are farmers abandoning the old standbys for a more diverse harvest? Have local markets transcended the world of slow foodies and inserted themselves into the daily lives of Americans?

Let’s hope so. The proliferation of local farmers markets holds all kinds of benefits for local economies and our collective carbon footprint, not to mention our bellies. But the reason I’ve become such a fan of local markets doesn’t have much to do with peak oil, GNPs or even french breakfast radishes. I come for what Friese calls “vital public space.” In every market I’ve attended, from Union Square to Takoma Park to Studio City to Portland, an overwhelming feeling of community is the constant. In an increasingly disconnected world it serves an important purpose. It feels good.

One of the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales encounters an ancient guy shuffling about, tapping the ground with his cane to say, "Dear Mother (Earth, that is), let me in." That’s me when I hear statistics about impending planetary destruction. I get dispirited. They make me glad to be old.

And, yes, we’re all headed that way, but no, it isn’t a solution to the earth’s mounting climatological problems. So when someone comes up with another way to talk about what we can do, I’m all ears.

Or, in this case, eyes. Management expert Peter Senge describes some powerful success stories in his new book, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World. Many of his examples come from the industrial era, such as commercial construction, soft-drink bottling and aluminum processing.

As the book’s subtitle suggests, partnerships are helping industrial-age companies find common ground around more sustainable ways to do business, with positive effects for the bottom line. The U.S. Green Building Council engaged companies with expertise in site preparation (like bulldozing), heating and air conditioning, building materials, water and energy. For some magical reason, participants got beyond their own needs and thought about the future. That’s how they were able to work through differences to develop the LEED rating system, which today, as everyone knows, can add major value to a construction project.

Coca-Cola, a heavy user of the world’s water supplies, collaborated with the World Wildlife Fund to improve water management in vulnerable watersheds. Turns out that Coke and people living in those areas all had a stake in having clean water available. Recognizing that, they were able to reach consensus and make progress.

The happy thing about this book is that it seeks out examples beyond the usual sustainability suspects, such as Ben & Jerry’s and Timberland. It’s fun to learn, for example, that Alcoa now thinks not five years ahead but 25 years, and that once-evil DuPont has staked out a position as a world leader in plant-based chemicals.

Senge’s relentless optimism could have a Pied Piper effect among other industrial-age companies. Let’s hope more join the parade.

Stanley Fish has stirred the pot with a column in the New York Times today. In it, he confesses to resenting and rebelling against the supposed need to change his behavior to reduce his environmental impact. “I don’t want to save the planet,” he writes. “I just want to inhabit it as comfortably as possible for as long as I have.”

He rails against what he calls irritating gestures–using rags instead of paper towels, switching to compact flourescents and recycling, for example–because they’re too much personal bother without personal benefit.

While Fish’s column is provocative, what’s most interesting to me are the comments it has sparked. Predictably, there are a lot of them. About 75% are running against Fish, calling him selfish and short-sighted (or urging him to reconsider his position), with the other 25% expressing solidarity with his courage to speak out. Reading through them, you can quickly run through a cross-section of the familiar positions, both pro and con, associated with the gathering environmental movement. They offer a saturated snapshot of where we stand today, as a nation and a culture–not just about environmental issues, but on politics and the economy and work/life balance and values and even religion.

Of all the meta-issues we face, the environment seems to be the one that spans the greatest and most diverse range. It is a major, if not a dominant, thread in our national conversation, which is remarkable given where we were just three years ago. And that begs the question–if we were to return to this column and these comments three years from now, what will we discover with 20/20 hindsight? What positions will have evolved and which will have become more entrenched? How will the tone and vocabularly have changed? Will we still largely be fighting each other over our positions? Or will we have reached some consensus and be arguing over the particulars of policy or measures or progress?

Like many, many households across the U.S, each week at my house we buy several of those convenient little plastic tubs full of cottage cheese, yogurt, butter, salsa, what have you. When a stack of those tubs and lids spilled out of the kitchen cabinet the other day, it hit me. Man, what a load of plastic we go through … every week, every month, every year. Ugh. Plastic is evil.

Of course, we reuse many of those tubs for leftovers and such and the others get tossed into recycling each week to become some other form of plastic–a soda bottle, a milk jug? That should offer me some sort of comfort, right? Hmmm. But there’s one other pesky thought that gnawed its way into my consciousness as I gathered up the six or so lids that had scattered across the floor: Why can’t these guys be thrown in with our regular recycling? After a bit of Internet research, the simple explanation is that the lids and containers are not made of the same type of plastic and never the twain shall be mixed together for recycling. Something about contamination. And so, our curbside recycler doesn’t take the lids because it doesn’t have the operations to recycle them. Now I fear that everyone in my neighborhood, city, state, country is just throwing them into the garbage*.

But wait before you (and by you I mean me, I) go down the deep dark abyss of "recycling is too difficult … doesn’t make a difference … schmer, schmer, grumble, grumble" – a brand hero emerges. Enter friend of the earth Aveda. The maker of really good smelling hair care and beauty products has recently launched a nationwide program to collect any and all hard plastic bottle caps in their stores, salons and schools, which it will ship to its recycler to be turned into new caps and other stuff. This is a great next step for a brand that’s had a long history of environmental mindfulness, leadership and responsibility. So, to all those other brands out there that are making plastic packaging, I say, step up and start taking it back. It’s the least you can do.

As for all of those plastics that we (meaning me, er … I) buy every week, I’ll try to keep a lid on it, so to speak.

*Hey, here’s an alternative to just throwing non-recyclable caps and lids in the trash: At my house, we keep a special bag on the recycling porch for all of those little plastic bottle caps, lids and other non-recyclable plastics. Every couple of months, we haul them to a local grocery store chain (a shout out to New Season’s Market) that sends them off to an operation that can recycle them. It’s an extra step, but it feels better than sending them to the landfill.