What do you do with your used milk and juice cartons? I’m sure there are some of you out there who use them in creative ways (seed starters, bird feeders, etc.) but most Americans just throw them away. In fact, only .05% of the 510,000 tons of milk and juice cartons used every year end up getting recycled, meaning that the rest of them end up you know where. Well Portland start-up Milkmuny is attempting to do something about it.

Reaching out to schools and non-profits — who can always use an economic boost — Milkmuny pays for collected empty cartons and then turns them into snazzy looking wallets sure to make all of your eco-fashionista friends super jealous.

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Do you ever stand at the supermarket and think about how all the fruits and vegetables manage to be in such perfect shape? Take a visit to your local farmers market or grow your own garden and you’ll soon realize that most produce doesn’t come in “ideal” shapes and sizes. But in Europe “ugly” fruits and vegetables (in other words, more natural looking things like crooked carrots) are making their way back to the shelves, after the European Commission today scrapped marketing standards for 26 types of produce.

That means more natural looking fruit on the shelves, and above all, less waste. From the BBC:

The changes also mean that consumers will be able to choose from the widest range of products possible. It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the ‘wrong’ size and shape,” she said. The rules were introduced to ensure common EU standards, but are regarded by critics as examples of Euro-madness.

Some 20% of produce is rejected by shops across the EU because it fails to meet the current requirements.

The 26 types are: apricots, artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, avocadoes, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflowers, cherries, courgettes, cucumbers, cultivated mushrooms, garlic, hazelnuts in shell, headed cabbage, leeks, melons, onions, peas, plums, ribbed celery, spinach, walnuts in shell, water melons and witloof/chicory.

Many environmentalists do their best to not be overly obnoxious about touting their eco ways — no one wants to listen to a green buzz kill — but sometimes you have to in order to get a point across, which is why we dig these bags. A little bit of snark can go a long way. Check out more from ad agency TBWA/Vancouver.

[Via: Treehugger]

Congrats to our friends Anna and Marcus who just finished up their epic 2,000 mile journey to educate about the environmental and health hazards of plastic pollution.

From JUNKRide:

Crossing the border into Tijuana, JUNKride completed a 2 ½ month, 2,000-mile cycling/speaking tour from Vancouver, Canada to the Mexico border, giving presentations about plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean. JUNKriders Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins, both representatives of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, shared Algalita’s research with thousands of people during their JUNKride tour, and gave away samples of the North Pacific Gyre full of plastic and plankton to 5 mayors, including Gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom. Through partnership with the Surfrider foundation, and support from Ecousable, Kashi, Patagonia, Revolution Fitness, Xtracycle, Wend Magazine, and Close The Loop, JUNKride achieved its goal of bringing the plastics issue and proposed solutions to new audiences along the West coast.

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In our current age of eco-consciousness, where words like “upcycling” are becoming mainstream vocabulary, it’s no surprise that many companies are trying to make a buck off of turning something destined for the trash can into something more valuable. But this type of lucrative transformation isn’t just a creation of the eco movement. In fact in medieval times, scientists attempted to turn common metals into a more lucrative element, gold. This speculative philosophy was called alchemy, and despite the failed attempts of medieval men in search of easy-earned fortune, the word has stuck with us for centuries, coming to mean “a power or process of transforming something common into something special.” Harnessing the power of the eco and upcycling movement, one company took the definition of alchemy to heart, and has been paving the way for actually turning garbage into gold ever since.

Based in Seattle, Alchemy Goods (Ag) stays true to its name and is built on a mission of “Turning Useless into Useful.” Started in 2004, the company builds bags and accessories out of used bike tubes, and although they’ve stuck with turning something of lesser value into something of greater value, fortunately for Ag, the company has been more successful than their medieval forefathers; turning trash into a usable and fashionable product has put the Ag label in shops all around the country. Despite the company’s current popularity and success, the beginnings of Ag were built more out of necessity than a business focus. “I had a messenger that I loved that was stolen from me, so instead of buying one I decided to make one. I had all these inner tubes lying around my apartment that I didn’t know what to do with that I cut into strips and made into a bag,” says Chief Alchemist Eli Reich.

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Amsterdam is certainly known for being a cycling hub, and cruising around on two wheels is so popular that the number of bike trips taken by residents recently surpassed those by car. Oh how we love Europeans!

From Bike Europe:

The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam. Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.

More here.

Recently the United Nations Environment Programme’s Executive Director Achim Steiner advocated for a global ban on single-use plastic bags. Now, news is coming out of China that the country has managed to reduce its consumption of single-use plastic bags by 66%, showing the power of such a ban and leading the way for other countries to do the same.

From Worldwatch Institute:

A strict Chinese limit on ultra-thin plastic bags significantly reduced bag-related pollution nationwide during the past year. The country avoided the use of 40 billion bags, according to government estimates.

Plastic bags are commonly found in waterways, on beaches, and in other “unofficial” dumping sites across China. Litter caused by the notorious bags has been referred to as “white pollution.”

The State Council, China’s parliament, responded in January 2008 by prohibiting shops, supermarkets, and sales outlets from providing free plastic bags that are less than 0.025 millimeters thick.

The State Administration of Industry and Commerce also threatened to fine shopkeepers and vendors as much as 10,000 yuan (US$1,465) if they were caught distributing free bags.

In its first review of the ban, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced earlier this month that supermarkets reduced plastic bag usage by 66 percent since the policy became effective last June. The limit in bag production saved China 1.6 million tons of petroleum, the NDRC estimated.

Read the full article here.

As human ethnology has evolved over time, so has our beer. Now, in the era of green, a culture of specialized brewers has emerged who contend that the recipe for a better brew is incomplete without a dash of environmental ethos.

Over the past two decades America has experienced a sudsy explosion of consumer demand for specialized, or craft, beer. What is craft beer? According to Seattle-based writer Vince Cottone — who coined the term in his 1986 book, Good Beer Guide: Breweries and Pubs of the Pacific Northwest — a craft beer is one that has been made by “a small brewery using traditional methods and ingredients to produce a handcrafted, uncompromised beer that is marketed locally.”

Since the 1990s, the number of breweries in the country has risen from 44 to nearly 2,000, almost 70 percent of which are made up of small operations like microbreweries and brewpubs specializing in brewing craft beers. In 2008, the craft brewing industry produced nearly 8.6 million barrels of beer in the U.S., making it one of the fastest-growing segments in the beer industry.

But while Big Beer’s mega-corporations continue to dominate the world market with slick advertising campaigns and inexpensive products, brewers of handcrafted beer stick to a more localized, or bioregional, business model that prizes quality and diversity over mass production. The brewers of America’s New Beer are independent by nature, and for many, the tendency to eschew the old industry model is a decision rooted in ideology as much as economics.

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What if consumers could consciously put all their money towards a good cause? What kind of change would we see from a “reverse boycott” where instead of avoiding businesses with bad practices, consumers good choose those with good ones? That’s the goal of Carrotmob, a “method of activism that leverages consumer power to make the most socially-responsible business practices also the most profitable choices.” First held in San Francisco, Carrotmobs have popped up all over the world and tomorrow our very own Portland gets the chance to take part.

On Sunday June 21st, Hotlips Pizza will be taking 100% of the day’s proceeds and committing them to reducing the restaurant’s carbon footprint. In other words, customers get the chance to “eat pizza, save the earth.”

We caught up with Tim Bauman, a recent graduate of Central Catholic High School and the co-founder of Carrotmob Portland, to learn more about Carrotmob and just how people can make positive change with their dollars.

Wend: In a nutshell, what is the goal of Carrot Mob events?
Tim Bauman: Carrotmob’s goal is to create an atmosphere where corporations compete to be the most socially-responsible. Carrotmob would represent all the consumers in the world who care about the environment. Everyone who is part of Carrotmob would buy from whichever company pledges to be the most environmentally-friendly. Each event is a small step in this direction. Several competing businesses each pledge a percentage of their revenue for one day, and whoever bids the highest gets a Carrotmob event. In exchange for this pledge, Carrotmob brings as many customers as possible to the store in that one day.

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Leaders in the environmental movement, all eyes are on European countries as they come up with initiatives to help combat climate change. This week brought the latest in progressive policies, when 11 companies, representing 30 different airports and one quarter of Europe’s air traffic, signed a plan to cut their carbon dioxide emissions to zero. But as of yet, the plan has no deadline.

Despite a lack of deadline, the plan is still significant. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), aviation’s total CO2 emissions account for 2% of global emissions’ impact on climate change.

More from Reuters:

The Airport Carbon Accreditation scheme covers about 26 percent of passenger traffic in Europe and includes some of Europe’s biggest airports, including Frankfurt, Athens, Dublin, Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Italy’s Milan Malpensa and Orly in Paris.

But London’s Heathrow — whose owner BAA is struggling with a partial break-up — did not sign up.

ACI Europe’s director general Olivier Jankovec told Reuters the group’s vast and diverse membership had made it impractical to set a deadline for airports to achieve carbon neutrality.

“If we’d looked for a date, we would never have got agreement,” he told Reuters. “But we are engaging our members on the issue.”

Read more here and here.

[Photo: Thomas.L, Flickr]