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When I first began Heart of Green in 2004, I started noticing how many heart shapes occur naturally outdoors, such as clovers, ivy, pansies, autumn leaves, strawberries and more. Here are some photos that illustrate this heart-filled green phenomenon.
White Bleeding Hearts
Big Green Leaf
Heart Rock
Pansies
Clovers
Swans in Love
I would like to open up a topic for discussion - Completing The Circle. In my travels, I am talking with many more people who are recycling paper and plastic. This is a hugely positive step.
A next step in living the green life can be to complete the circle. By this I mean, using products made out of recycled paper and recycled plastic. People are focusing on the recycling part - the out - and the next area of opportunity is to focus on the in. What are the products coming into our lives made of? If the answer is recycled paper and recycled plastic with a high percentage of post-consumer content (actually recycled by consumers first), then we have completed the circle as nature would do! If they are made of virgin paper for example, well, then we are more like a one way street.
Initiate the Circle: Recycle Paper
Complete the Circle: Use Products made of Recycled Paper
Initiate the Circle: Recycle Plastic
Complete the Circle: Use Products made of Recycled Plastic
Paper is a great place to start because there are so many fabulous and ecofabulous products made of recycled paper, such as Seventh Generation, New Leaf Paper, Good On Paper, Green Field Paper, Eco Paper, Safeway's new Bright Green Paper Towels, and Staples 100% Recycled bright copy & printing paper. With the exception of tree-free, all paper used to be a forest. Select the highest percentage of post-consumer content that you can find, and you will really be completing the circle. Maybe you will even see the paper you recycled last month in there somewhere.
A wonderful example of a company closing the circle is TerraCycle, a company that makes products entirely from garage or waste, such as reused soda bottles and other company's extras. Tom Szaky's leading-edge company is truly turning garage into gold.
Another great case is Rickshaw Bags made from recycled PET fabric. The founder Mark Dwight calls it Bottles To Bags. The bags are so handsome, you would never know it.
Completing the circle also makes good business sense because it can be less financially and resource intensive to use existing materials than it is to chop down a new forest or to blow the top off a mountain to mine for new minerals for example. Here is a secret: for many companies, over 90% of their carbon footprint comes from the raw materials they use. Switching to making products out of recycled materials is the greenest thing they could do.
For instance, the new Reynolds Wrap 100% Recycled aluminum foil requires 80 - 95% less energy to make than traditional foil.
As Julia Butterfly Hill says, "It is not a circle until you close it." Let's use and reuse what we have already have at our "disposal." Let's celebrate all of the amazing recycling that is taking place and turn our attention to the regenerative beauty of completing the circle.
I try to compost on a weekly basis, but there is one thing that is putting a cramp in my going green style: the Tetra Pak.
Are Tetra Paks recyclable or compostable? In general, the answer is no, Tetra Paks are not recyclable or compostable as is because they combine paper and plastic - and some even contain hidden metal.
Specifically, for the milk cartons with a round middle cap, you have to remove the plastic spout first to give them a shot at being compostable. I try various ways to cut the spouts out of the cartons. All of them are annoying and lead to many words in Italian.
(Of course you know already that any pure paper soiled with food like a napkin is composted, not recycled, because it contains organic matter.)
The "Aseptic" Tetra Paks used for soups, juices and more contain 6 alternating layers of paperboard, polyethylene plastic, and aluminum foil. As Whole Foods San Francisco told me this week, these have to be trashed. There is no green hope for these overzealous fusions.
I talked with the godfather of green design, William McDonough, about the Tetra Pak problem. He said that they are a "monstrous hybrid" of paper and plastic and asked, "Why don't they just make the spout out of a biodegradable plastic?" This is what makes William McDonough so brilliant. If this were the case, then the entire carton could be composted as a whole.
The Tetra Pak Takeover
Have you noticed that Tetra Paks are taking over supermarket shelves? They seem to be multiplying like weeds. It is unsettling that many of my favorite organic products have switched to Tetra Paks. This is inconsistent with their brands. You can't say that you are the "greenest milk" or "the best organic soup" if you are utilizing a non-green package.
In an ironic twist, Tetra Pak periodically sponsors environmental events and professes to be "one the most environmentally-friendly packages on the market." This is greenwashing. Tetra Pak will not be eco-friendly until their cartons utilize a high percentage of post-consumer recycled paper and are able to be composted fully as is. If most Tetra Paks are going to landfills, which I suspect they are, then they are contributing to global warming. Because all wastepaper used to be a forest, paper breaks down in landfills and releases potent greenhouse gases into the air.
In the UK, they are testing a separate collection process for "recycling" Tetra Paks. People would collect them separately and send them to a dedicated facility. This seems like a good step, but why put an additional burden on others and why not just solve the root of the problem? This recycling process has been reported to be bogus, being put on for show to distract us from the real issue. In fact, Tetra Pak currently favors incineration as their preferred option: burning the cartons into a cloud of toxic smoke.
The No Tetra Pak Pledge
I am now trying not to buy anything that comes in a Tetra Pak. For example, Clover Stornetta Farms organic milk still comes in a carton without a plastic spout. Today was my first morning composting since making the pledge, and let me tell you, I am living large in San Francisco! It was so much easier. No pesky spouts to try to cut out, and no hidden metal in the cartons. Everything went into the BioBag and then into the green bin. Voila.
Let's encourage Tetra Pak to walk their talk. Let's encourage our favorite products to use true eco-friendly cartons. Let's design smart packaging so that valuable resources can be recovered and reused. In the meantime, I invite Tetra Pak to my residence on a weekly basis to help me do eco-chic composting. One morning with me should do the trick.
People ask me about the name Heart of Green so I wanted to share its origins with you.
The name Heart of Green originated on an airplane in 2004. I was searching for a name that encapsulated the message and meaning of my life's new mission for the planet. While looking out into the clouds, the words "heart of green" came to me. I asked one of my mentors about it, and he encouraged me to go for it and thought that the name truly represented me at my core.
For several years, no one could remember it. It was funny! It caused me to wonder if I had the right name a few times, but I stuck with it because I believed that we all have a heart of green inside. For me, the word "green" represents life, life as nature intended, a healthy regenerative existence for all life on Earth. Now in 2009 people tell me that they love the name Heart of Green. This makes me happy because it means that the intention and spirit of the name are resonating and that is the ultimate goal.
On Monday I am co-hosting an event for an organization that has both a heart of green and a heart of gold/yellow - the Vote Solar Initiative.
They do excellent and creative policy work to bring solar into the mainstream across the country, and they know how to throw one fabulous party.
Vote Solar Equinox III
Monday, March 23, 2009
6:30 pm - 11:00 pm
Mezzanine
444 Jessie Street, San Francisco
Besides wonderful people with a sunny disposition, the event will feature an awards program, rockstar performances with Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5 and jive recording artist Ry Cuming, organic tapas from the famed Radio Africa & Kitchen, organic wines, dancing and more. I hope to see you there. After all, we have the greatest source of clean renewable power shining down on us every day - the sun. Let's figure out how to use it to power our lives as the plants do. www.votesolar.org
I love going to the movies, except for one thing – the popcorn,
or rather, the smell of the artificial butter. Enter the new hip
479° Popcorn to the rescue. Not only is this gourmet popcorn certified USDA
Organic, but it is some of the best popcorn I have ever tasted.
