This month The Ocean Cleanup launched a 2,000-foot boom designed to gather plastic debris and clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

According to The New York Times, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floats between California and Hawaii and is comprised of 1.8 trillion pieces of trash, with at least 87,000 tons of plastic. Gross. The Ocean Cleanup will endeavor to clean up half of the garbage patch in five years.

To learn about how the boom technology works, read our article about plastic waste and The Ocean Cleanup here.

According to Forbes, the patch measures 617,763.45 square miles in size. For reference, Alaska is 663,267.26 square miles in size. That’s our biggest state. That’s big enough to be seen clearly by satellites from space.

The boom has been towed to a site for a two-week test period, after which it will be towed to the garbage patch 1,400 off the mainland. Boyan Slat, 24, founder of The Ocean Cleanup, said that the boom will arrive by mid-October.

While cost efficiency, performance, and impact on marine life remain open questions, the fact that such an ambitious waste management endeavor has been undertaken deserves to be celebrated. In a world that’s only begun to see the devastating effects of climate change, the least we can do is take out the trash.

Source:

Caron C (2018) Giant Trap Is Deployed to Catch Trash Littering the Pacific Ocean. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/science/ocean-cleanup-great-pacific-garbage-patch.html

Nace T (2018) The World’s Largest Ocean Cleanup Has Officially Begun. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/09/10/the-worlds-largest-ocean-cleanup-has-officially-begun/

Recycle Tips for Summer Trips

It’s easy to be green on the go. Here are three easy vacation tips: First, bring a reusable water bottle, coffee mug, or grocery tote. This cuts down on waste and doubles as a cute fashion statement. Second, when you shop for snacks, buy family-sized rather than individual packages. This saves money and reduces the amount of wrapping that ends up in the trash. Third, designate a shopping bag to be used for recycling throughout your trip. Collect cans, bottles, brochures, and other recyclables. Throw the bag away when you see a recycle bin at the next rest stop, gas station, or vacation destination. These steps are simple and an easy way to teach your kids how to care for their environment.

Reduce Trash Smell

No one likes to come home to a kitchen that smells like trash. Luckily, there are simple home remedies you can use to reduce trash smells after you take out the trash: First, sprinkle the bottom of your trash bin with baking soda. It will absorb offensive odors the same way it does in the refrigerator. If your trash bin is metal, pour the baking soda into a coffee filter and tie it with a rubber band or a piece of tape. This will prevent corrosion. Second, take one or two dryer sheets that you use for laundry and place them at the bottom of your trash bin. This will mask offensive odors and keep your trash bin fresh. Third, daub cotton balls with mint or vanilla extract, place them at the bottom of your bin, and let them sit overnight. This will fill your trash bin with the sweet smell of extract. These DIY tips are simple and will help make your house smell like home.

Did you know that every person in the United States creates about 4.5lbs of garbage every day? That is equivalent to 1,643 pounds a year! But where does it all go once you throw it away? Introducing Trash Unwrapped. A blog series dedicated to getting your garbage or recycling questions answered.

So, once your throw your trash away and take out the garbage, now what? Well simply put, it’s in your neighborhood trash man or lady’s hands. From there, your trash typically makes its way to a Transfer Station, or in some cases, an Energy Recovery facility. If taken to a Transfer Station, the trash will be sorted and then re-transferred to its final destination. Sometimes this is a landfill where waste is buried and left to decompose. This process can take hundreds if not thousands of years.

Another option is an Incinerator or Energy Recovery Facility. This is where your garbage is burned into ash and heat—often times to generate energy. For every 10 garbage trucks filled with trash, only one will remain (filled with ash) after going through the burning process. The hot, burning trash heats up pipes overhead filled with water, which then turn into steam. This steam activates generators that give the plant, (and sometimes those nearby, residents or hospitals), energy to use.

The last option is that trash is taken to a recycling center where it will be transferred to a manufacturing plant so materials can be used to make new products. Pretty cool right?

If not properly disposed, waste can end up harming the environment and polluting our air and water. Who wants that? This is why it’s so important that we put our trash into the proper containers.

Here are 10 simple everyday things you can do to lessen your trash build-up:

1. Recycle Glass. Recycled glass reduces related air pollution by 20 percent and related water pollution by 50 percent. If it isn’t recycled it can take a million years to decompose.

2. Use one less paper napkin.
 During an average year, an American uses approximately 2,200 napkins—around six each day. If everyone in the U.S. used one less napkin a day, more than a billion pounds of napkins could be saved from landfills each year.
3. Use both sides of paper. 
American businesses throw away 21 million tons of paper every year, equal to 175 pounds per office worker. For a quick and easy way to halve this, set your printer’s default option to print double-sided (duplex printing). And when you’re finished with your documents, don’t forget to take them to the recycling bin.
4. Recycle newspaper.
 There are 63 million newspapers printed each day in the U.S. Of these, 44 million, or about 69%, of them will be thrown away. Recycling just the Sunday papers would save more than half a million trees every week.
5. Rethink bottled water.
 Nearly 90% of plastic water bottles are not recycled, instead taking thousands of years to decompose. Buy a reusable container and fill it with tap water, a great choice for the environment, your wallet, and possibly your health. The EPA’s standards for tap water are more stringent than the FDA’s standards for bottled water.
6. Plant a tree.
 It’s good for the air, the land, can shade your house and save on cooling (plant on the west side of your home), and they can also improve the value of your property. Make it meaningful for the whole family and plant a tree every year for each member.
7. Recycle unwanted wire hangers.
 Wire hangers are generally made of steel, which is often not accepted by some recycling programs. So what do you do with them? Most dry cleaners will accept them back to reuse or recycle.
8. Recycle aluminum.
 Twenty recycled aluminum cans can be made with the energy it takes to manufacture one brand new one.
9. Reduce junk mail (including paper bank statements). Feel like you need to lose a few pounds? It might be your junk mail that’s weighing you down. The average American receives 40 pounds of junk mail each year, destroying 100 millions trees. There are many services that can help reduce the clutter in your mailbox, saving trees and the precious space on your counter tops.
10. Plastic bags stink. Each year the U.S. uses 84 billion plastic bags, a significant portion of the 500 billion used worldwide. They are not biodegradable, and are making their way into our oceans, and subsequently, the food chain. Stronger, reusable bags are an inexpensive and readily available option.

Do you have any additional suggestions on how to cut down on waste? If so, let us know in the comment section.

Tom Cherry, CEO and Founder of Remyndr

Sources:

50 Ways to Help the Planet

The Lifecycle of Garbage

With a New Year on the horizon, there is no shortage of New Year Resolution articles and blog posts popping up. From exercising and eating right, to giving up smoking, recycling or spending more time with family – the intention is always there, but not always the follow through.

It’s important to set yourself up for success when creating your New Year’s resolution list, (that is if you’re creating a list at all). How you ask? By remembering the 66-day rule.

On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances.

Take recycling for example; to be successful, it will be important to recycle diligently for about two months. Once you make it past this milestone, you are well on your way to achieving your goal for the remainder of the year.

It’s always easier to break new goals up into smaller more attainable pieces. If you start off by saying that you will recycle everyday for the whole year, the likelihood of that happening is slim. Now, by breaking it down into weeks and giving yourself a more tangible timeline your recycling goal is much more attainable.

Remember, 66 is the magic number. Focus on making it to March 7th and the rest of the year should be a cakewalk… that is if you’re still eating cake by then. Whatever your goals are for 2016, we hope this post helps you achieve them! Leave us your thoughts and New Year’s resolutions below.

We wish everyone a Happy and Safe New Year’s Eve!

Tom Cherry, CEO and Founder of Remyndr