Lil Miss Eco

I have been introduced to something so unbelievable by a friend of mine. Garbage Island, also known as the Eastern Garbage Patch and Pacific Trash Vortex, is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This large mass of litter is very disturbing. The World's Largest Garbage Dump is rapidly growing between Hawaii and California.

Said to be larger than TWICE the size of Texas, this island....or soup actually, consists of 80% toxic plastic debris and weighs approximately 3.5 million tons.

How did this happen? Well, gradually over time, litter accumulated through currents and ended up in this one location becoming trapped. 80% of this litter is believed to be land-based sources and 20% from ships at sea. This litter ranges from toxic cleaners to fishing nets, to tires, to random pieces of plastic.

This litter has impacted marine life significantly. There was one instance where a turtle was found dead in Hawaii and had over a thousand pieces of plastic in its stomach and intestines. An estimation of over a million sea-birds and one hundred thousand marine animals are killed every year by ingesting these plastics or becoming entangled in the debris.

This is an issue that we needs our attention. You can help by supporting the Roadmap to Recovery: Take Action! through Greenpeace to protect 40% of the world's oceans as Marine Reserves.

What is a Solar Decathlon? Well, it is an event that is sponsored through the United States Department of Energy to educate and raise awareness of renewable energy and green building technologies. This is also to encourage society and competitors to choose energy efficient and energy producing technologies over traditional building.

This event is going to demonstrate the potential that Zero Energy Homes has and how it will be able to produce energy from renewable sources such as the wind and the sun. The designing team takes into consideration all the components to reduce our environmental impact when building a home. This event is expected to host over 100,000 guests.

Solar Decathlon will be displaying the very newest in Zero Energy Homes and the astonishing advancement in green technologies at the National Mall in Washington D.C. this coming October. There are 20 teams from colleges across the country and other University teams from the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, and even Spain that have been working on this project together for two years and will now be coming together to complete their project.

You can view the latest Solar Power achievements at the Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. at the National Mall on October 9th - 13th, and 15th - 18th.

One of the world's largest wind farms at sea installed in 2002, Horns Rev consists of 80 efficient windturbines and has the ability of producing 160 MW which is equivalent of providing power to 150, 000 households. (an estimate of 2% of Denmark's total energy consumption)

Horns Rev is located in the North Sea approximately 14 kilometers west of Denmark. It stretches over 20 km with 560m in between each of the turbines. The turbines themselves have an 80m rotor in diameter and 70m in height. They weigh between 439 and 489 tonnes. These offshore wind turbines produce a whopping 150% more electricity than a landbased turbine can.

This is Danish efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, but they are finding it difficult to obtain permits for these turbine sites, therefore alternatives are being considered.

Today is National Tree Day! What is National Tree Day? Well, It is actually really only held in Australia. But what a great day it is. This is where Australia hosts their biggest community tree-planting event by planting their native trees and shrubs at a Tree Day site in their local area.

Their goal with National Tree day is to inspire and educate Australians to be an active participant in protecting their land and continue to make it beautiful. This is a way that schools, community groups, and local residents come together for one positive purpose, and that is to make a positive impact on the environment. They even make it fun and have competitions and host other fun activities for the occassion. Since this day has begun, more than 2 million volunteers have collectively planted over 13 million of their native trees and shrubs.

National Tree Day was co-founded by Olivia Newton-John and Planet Ark in 1996. This event is co-ordinated by Planet Ark and sponsored by Toyota.

Plant A Tree For Free!

When we were travelling, our family had to check into a hotel for the night. I noticed the hotel had an environmental program to have the option of reusing your linens and towels. It would potentially save millions of gallons of water each year.

• recycling programs for trash, phones, batteries
• linen and towel reusing programs
• buying organic teas and serving organic wines
• using green cleaning products
• redistributing household goods and food to those in need
• energy efficient appliances and lighting
• requiring guest request a phonebook rather than providing it in the room
• Green Meeting & Conference: provides disposable-free food & beverage services and recycling stations in the meeting rooms. Also, reusable items such as silk flowers instead of real flowers, whiteboards instead of paper flipcharts, and cloth napkins instead of paper.
• in-room information, recycling bins, & water-conserving showerheads, toilets, & tap aerators.
• Eco-cuisine: using local and organically grown foods.
• electronic paperless check-in/checkout services and email options for receipts.

Check here for Green Hotels in the area you are travelling: http://greenhotels.com/members.php

I took the picture because I was impressed that I finally found this....at the end of my travels. At least we are headed in the right direction.

There is a small town in Australia called Bundanoon that has officially banned the sale of plastic water bottles within their city limits. What a start in the right direction. For establishments in the area, instead of selling plastic bottles, they will be selling reusable bottles that in turn can be refilled from all around the town for a very minimal fee.

There is the argument that people will just buy non-water bottled products. In my opinion, and I hate to say this but I am going to be completely honest, those people are just being plain lazy. It is the truth. It is not going to ruin peoples lives to fill clean water into a reusable (dishwasher safe so you don't have to wash it by hand) container. So to those who are complaining...you can stop whining. It's annoying. You can alter your convenience to do your part with the environment with a simple change in your lifestyle.

Why?

• Bottled water containers are the single largest growth area among all beverages and have more than doubled in the last decade.
• In 2003, approximately 40 million bottles a day went into the trash and even more became litter.
• It takes approximately 1000 years for 1 bottle to biodegrade, that is if it even does.
• They leak toxic additives into the groundwater.