BEF Blog Has Moved To New URL

Hi BEF Blog Readers,

We just wanted to let our fellow readers know that our blog URL is moving to http://www.b-e-f.org/blog/ so that we can host our blog on our own website instead of at WordPress.  If you are a subscriber or reader of our blog, you’ll need to go to that link for future updates as this old blog will go away eventually.

Speaking of future updates, we have some exciting news to announce this week, so check that new blog URL later this week!

Thank you,

Your Friends at Bonneville Environmental Foundation

 

new tax credits for energy efficiencies

Thinking about taking advantage of the new tax credits to improve your energy efficiency? The federal government website at energy star has a specific list with answers to lots of questions. Whether you’re looking for business reasons or your personal use, check it out – I certainly will!

 

Celebrate National Outdoors Month – Build a Solar Oven!

Celebrate National Outdoors Month this June by creating your very own solar oven! This activity is fun for the whole family. BEF Staffers used the oven we built to cook some delicious cinammon rolls in front of our Portland office. Try melting mozzarella cheese over toast with basil and tomatoes, warming leftovers for lunch, or experimenting with other types of food. Take advantage of the clean, solar energy today!

1. Use a box knife or sharp scissors to cut a flap in the lid of the pizza box. Cut along three sides, leaving about an inch between the sides of the flap and the edges of the lid. Fold the flap out so that it stands up when the box lid is closed. Cover the inner side of the flap with aluminum foil so that the rays from the sun will be reflected off.

2. Use clear plastic wrap to create an airtight window for sunlight to enter into the box. Do this by opening the box and taping a double layer of plastic wrap over the opening you made when you cut the flap in the lid. Leave about an inch of plastic overlap around the sides and tape each side down securely, sealing out air.

3. Line the bottom of the box with aluminum foil to reflect heat and then cover that with black construction paper (black absorbs heat).

4. Now your oven is ready to try out! Take it outside to a sunny spot and adjust the flap until the most sunlight possible is reflecting off the aluminum foil and onto the plastic-covered window. Use a stick or a dowel to prop the flap at the right angle.
Pizza-box solar ovens will reach about 200 °C on a sunny day, so they take longer to heat things up than a conventional oven does. Try melting mozzarella cheese over toast with basil and tomatoes, warming leftovers for lunch, or experimenting with any other food you can think of ideas for.

To build a more advanced homemade oven, visit the Solar Cooking Archives online (http://solarcooking.org/).

 

International Delight reduces their carbon footprint by 30%

International Delight offsets with BEF Wind Energy.

You may not immediately think “green” when you think of International Delight but their packaging team does. They redesigned their bottle this past month, responding to customers’ requests for an easier-to-use cap and at the same time reducing their environmental impact—lightening their carbon footprint by 30%!

First, they heard their customers about leaky bottle caps but rather than just fix that, they looked at their supply chain and processes and decided to work with a cap manufacturing facility closer to their plant that uses a plastic that needs less energy and water for production. Also because the bottle caps are created relatively close by, this solution has saved them 157,652 transportation miles and approximately 31,530 gallons of fuel a year.  Plus they’re shipping the caps in reusable totes, eliminating the use of 279,720 cardboard cases—about the equivalent to saving 793 trees annually.

International Delight also works with BEF to offset the electricity used in manufacturing the plastic bottle with clean wind energy.

Sure a cap is a small thing but small things add up and this series of small changes and decisions is a terrific example of a company going beyond business as usual to take responsibility for its environmental impact and engage in more efficient practices while also delivering an improved customer experience.  As a consumer, I think it’s particularly great to see this kind of leadership coming from a company that I don’t think of as “in” the green space.

Have you seen any exciting eco-leadership measures lately from companies?  I’m especially interested in examples from companies who don’t brand “green” specifically.

 

100-year Floods, Rosgen and Thalwegs

100-Year Floods aren’t the way to think about flood plains anymore. The experts now rate them on their probability of occurring in any given year: “100-Year” is now “1%”. And really, if you look at statistics, those floods happen every decade or two instead of every century anyway. But as we all know, climate change is blowing up our old statistics, so maybe even these classifications aren’t that dependable.

Today, Kendra Smith, a Certified Floodplain Manager and director of our Willamette project, taught any staff who wanted to attend the Rivers and Floodplains Lunch ‘n Learn. We learned lots of terms like thalweg (the deepest part) and tail out (where ponds transition to riffles and salmon want to spawn.) Streams are classified by letters and numbers in the Rosgen Stream Classification, much like the Periodic Table of Elements or botany. 

We also learned why the “floodway” and “flood fringe” are regulated – to protect everyone and everything all along the waterway from damaging high water.  And vegetative buffer zones blunt some high water damage along the edges, protecting land further in.

The biggest takeaways for most of us were where not to buy land (within the meanders or the bankfull) and where to fish (in the deep pools above the riffles.) Kendra said she used Google maps to check out some property a relative was thinking about buying and responded immediately “No way!” Clearly, it’s handy to have someone who knows rivers advise you on real estate decisions.

 

San Francisco Now Has Nation’s Toughest Recycling Law

San Francisco just okayed the nation’s toughest recycling law.  On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to approve a proposal “for the most comprehensive mandatory composting and recycling law in the country.” Essentially, if you live in San Francisco, you better learn to separate your recyclables, from your kitchen scraps, from your landfill-bound waste .  And if people don’t comply? They can say hello to a $500 fine—it’s the first time in the US that a citizen could be fined for failing to recycle.

Personally, I think this is a step in the right direction.  When you think about how much waste businesses produce and what percentage of it is recycable or compostable, it baffles me that more cities are not moving in this direction.  Here’s some statistics on the amount of waste businesses and residents contributed to the landfills in San Francisco in 2007:

According to city statistics, residents and businesses sent 617,833 tons of waste to the landfill in 2007. More than 35 percent of it was compostable and about 30 percent was recyclable (mostly paper)

source

 

ShrinkYourFoot.org Named “Best Interactive of the Month”!

Our website was named “Best Interactive of the Month” by bestadsontv.com!  ShrinkYourFoot.org is listed with the likes of Toyota, Visa, Orange and Fosters!

http://www.bestadsontv.com/interactive_latest.php

What an honor, thank you Bestadsontv.com!  And thanks to the folks at TEQUILA\Chiat, the creative agency who generously donated their time to working on our website.

 

Watershed Team Update

The BEF Watershed team has been busy lately on the road and in the office.

Kendra and our summer intern took their show up the Willamette River for the Meyer Memorial Trust partnership, meeting with potential watershed councils in several Willamette tributaries and with the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board. Reports are they were very well received, bringing lots of attention to BEF’s programs and this work in particular. Robert and Todd have been out in the field checking in with new potential model watershed folks.

If you want more in-depth information on any of the BEF watershed work, you can find it at b-e-f.org/watersheds. And check back regularly, as we’re planning to improve that portion of our website in the next few months.

 

Global Cooling News

TIME magazine just listed 51 ways to survive global warming – including what we’ve been saying for years – buy carbon offsets! And drive less, change your lightbulbs, fly straight, eat less meat, etc. etc. etc. See especially tips number 19, 27 and 28, then buy your offsets here at b-e-f.org.

Speaking of meat – the New York Times ran a story by Leslie Kaufman this weekend on research into cow methane - that powerful greenhouse gas burped and otherwise released by cows. It seems that if you feed them the diet they evolved to eat – grasses – they don’t burp nearly as much as when they eat the usual livestock feed made of things like corn and soy, in fact, 18% less. Here at BEF, we’re involved with a couple of projects that creatively use that methane productively – biodigesters and burners that turn it into electricity, offsets, and usable fiber. See the previous blog post and this picture of another barn.

 

Win, Win, Win, and Win with 40,000 Waste Tires

The Oregonian featured a story today about BEF’s biodigester project with NW Natural at Threemile Canyon Dairy in Boardman. It’s a very exciting project — the first application of a new biodigester design that uses old automobile tires to create a lagoon where cow dung is anaerobically “digested” to capture the methane and create fuel. Read more about it in Bill’s post announcing the project.

According to the Oregonian, DEQ is hosting an informational meeting at 6 p.m. June 9 in Boardman to discuss the waste tire storage.

What’s with the four wins?

Win 1: Using the cow’s waste (only a fraction with this project, but if this is a success, more projects, more waste)

Win 2: Using the waste tires. According the DEQ “Oregonians generate about four million waste tires per year.” and “Illegal waste tire piles can accumulate rainwater which can become a breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitoes. Large piles can catch fire, causing air and water pollution.”

Win 3: Capturing methane reduces the amount of methane that goes into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. Methane is 21 times more potent than CO2.

Win 4: As the Oregonian notes, “cleaned methane is a renewable alternative to natural gas. Generators also use methane to produce electricity.”

And just as added bonus — biodigesters reduce the stinkiness factor too!