Flow Of The River

Climate change, basketball, and a less wasteful, promising future

Last summer I became the climate change coordinator here in EPA's Region 5 office. When I tell folks this in social situations, the opinions surface immediately. For example, some people have insisted that this past cold, snowy winter disproves climate change. But there's a difference between weather and climate .

According to NOAA's National Climactic Data Center, during the November 2007-January 2008 time period, here in Illinois we had near normal temperatures and above normal precipitation (in other words, cold and snowy). Weather is short-term and local.

On the other hand, climate involves examining the long-term picture. We see that U.S. average temperatures have gone up over the last century.

The analogy that I often use that people can relate to is a sports team's record. For example, my dear Illini men's basketball team is usually pretty good (i.e., their "climate"). This past season they had a losing record (just a little bad weather, y'all!)

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , an international group of climate change experts and recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, warming of our global climate system is considered "unequivocal", and that, with over 90% certainty, humans have induced most of the warming over the past 50 years. How often can you get a group of people from all over the world to agree on something? And a bunch of scientists, no less?

And consider this: Even if you aren't concerned about Midwestern summers getting even hotter, we are all tossing a lot of money (and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions) out the window by living in drafty houses with power-wasting appliances and driving cars with sub-par fuel economy.

In December I attended the partners meeting for EPA's Climate Leaders program, which helps companies inventory their greenhouse gas emissions and set reduction goals. I learned that partner companies weren't just helping the environment, they were saving a lot of money in the process! For example, Caterpillar, where my dad worked until retiring last year, installed its own combined heat and power technology at a plant in Aurora, IL, reducing CO2 emissions by 74 percent and saving $2M annually in energy costs. That's real dough!

So…..the good news is that many organizations, governments, companies, and citizens are out there, addressing climate change. Check out some of Region 5's goals and what you can do as an individual and in your community.

Actions that combat climate change can also create new "green" jobs and industries and improve quality of life. The U.S. can be a leader in developing new technologies that can reduce greenhouse gases, just as we have been a leader in information technology.

Many climate change scenarios use 2050 as a long-term target date; basically, we really need to get our act together by then. I'll be in my mid-70s in 2050, hopefully sitting in my energy-efficient, "zero carbon" home, proud that we addressed the problem capably and reaped the wondrous potential of the solutions.

Melissa Hulting is EPA Region 5’s climate change coordinator. Prior to this position, she worked on monitoring and reduction of toxic chemicals in EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office. Read how climate change will affect the Great Lakes.

Surfing and saving Lake Michigan

Lake Michigan, Sleeping Bear Dunes State Park

Lake Michigan is really a very special lake to me. I grew up in Florida and spent every summer of my life on Lake Michigan. The Lake seemed a lot cleaner back in the 70s and I remember thinking it looked like the ocean in Florida. Little did we know what was really going on in the Lake where we as children played all day?

Hooker Chemical and the local tannery were dumping tons of toxic chemicals into the lake and it of course emptied out into Lake Michigan. It was named one of the 7 "toxic hot spots" in the country in the late 70s. Imagine that this is still going on in Gary, Indiana every day.

As a surfer and mother of two children who also surf, it is of great interest and concern to me that we do everything we can to stop these practices of dumping and polluting in our rivers, streams and Lakes. We need more laws to help protect the watersheds and educate people about how they can help at home.

We need more laws protecting our children from huge companies who want to dump their chemicals and pollution into our lakes and streams. It is our job as a society to help people understand what they can and should do to help.

My kids and friends going to surf in North Muskegon

I want to make a difference in my community by helping to provide activities and campaigns that will help protect our rivers, streams, lakes and beaches. As the co-chairman of the newly founded Surfrider Foundation, Lake Michigan Chapter, I have made a commitment to see that we, as grass roots, non-profit organization help to educate and inform the community and how they can protect their beaches and coastal environment. We need to restore water quality starting in our watersheds ending up on our beaches.

I want my kids to surf the waves of Lake Michigan the way I did, and enjoy a lifetime of blue clean water in their future. Through conservation, activism, research and care, we can, even as small communities make a difference!!!!!!

Ingrid Lindfors is a photographer, artist , and co-chairman of the Great Lakes Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. The photos are hers.

Waste Management in Switzerland: Recycle, or Else! (Part 2)

Yesterday I described a community recycling center in Chavornay, Switzerland , what they accept, and how it's illegal to throw recyclables into the garbage. And yes, if you're caught filling your garbage with recyclable materials, you get might fined by the municipality. My sister, who lives there, knows of cases where garbage bags have been opened and checked, with fines resulting from what was discovered.

Swiss municipalities vary in their ordinances, like in the US, but the differences are mostly in the financial systems and incentives. Incentives go beyond the risk of a fine. In some places, residents are charged for garbage by weight, in others they pay for the number of bags. In either case, the more you recycle, the less you pay for garbage.

So, what's left for the garbage when so much is recycled? There's a fairly quick answer. Very little. And that's the entire point. The soiled papers, animal-based food wastes, plastic-paper mixes, and such, make for a pretty small amount that gets picked up by the garbage collectors on their weekly rounds.

The more interesting question is: Where do all the materials go from the center? Well, sometimes people will scrounge for things. (Indeed, I looked around for a Rolex, but finding none, I lamented not buying that one I was offered on the street in Naples.)

Otherwise, the materials are picked up by a public utility for waste management and transported to a regional center for further sorting. Some materials are actually incinerated and not recycled, for example, pieces of broken furniture that can't be restored or re-used. The vast remainder, however, is distributed to recycling businesses.

Medicines left at the center are protected from weather and locked away until they are transported for treatment "in accordance with their environmental threat" (I'm not sure what that means, but most is incinerated).

But I learned that the first priority for disposing of any kind of medicines is for the consumer to bring them to any pharmacy, which by law is required to accept them and convey them for proper destruction (I believe that means incineration). Take-back laws like this are more popular in Europe than the US as a way to handle several kinds of wastes. Electronics are similar to medicines – businesses must accept them back, then either recycle or refurbish them.

Even though economic incentives have proven time and again to be an effective way to change behavior, I don't see residential fines catching on here anytime soon. But I suspect my neighbor would put more recycling to the curb if he knew he would be fined for mixing it with his garbage, or better yet, if he was simply charged for garbage pick-up on a volume basis.

Waste Management in Switzerland: Recycle, or Else! (Part 1)

What if you got fined for putting your old computer in the trash? That could happen in Switzerland. I found this out while visiting my sister, who lives in Chavornay. This small village near Lausanne is perched on an ancient plateau between the Alps and the Jura Mountains. Humans have been living here for 14,000 years. I wonder what the place would look like if they’d been throwing out today’s trash all that time!

Minimizing household inconvenience is not this community’s goal. No curbside recycling here; residents bring their recyclables to a central waste and recycling center for sorting. Success requires economic incentives, hence the fines for non-compliance.

I accompanied my brother-in-law with his recyclables to Chavornay’s recycling center. We drove a load of paper, plastic and glass down a small hill, past a few old houses and farm buildings, some hiding walls originally built around the 1200s, and passed through an open gate into what looked like an outdoor warehouse next to railroad tracks.

There in the open air, I saw dumpsters so large they reminded me of the cargo containers we see stacked in the US as a reminder of our international trade deficit. One dumpster held old broken furniture. Another had branches and logs. A third had old carpet. There were smaller dumpsters for glass, plastic, compostable materials, and a slew of other stuff. Under a small roof stood barrels and bins for people to throw out all sorts of things -- batteries, household appliances, tools, cell phones, computers, and yes, right in the middle of all this was a half-filled barrel of unwanted medicines. I looked around for a law enforcement presence, but found none.

It's remarkable what this community recycles. I visited their website to see what they say about it. There's predictable stuff like:

• Paper
• Glass
• Plastics
• Metals

Then there's less obvious stuff:

• Large items, like skis, furniture – tables, couches, carpeting, mattresses, box springs, treated wood.
• Household appliances – lighting fixtures, mixers, drills.
• Clothes.
• Oils – vegetable, mineral, motor and machine oils.
• Compostable materials – food scraps, plants, kitty litter, ashes, sawdust, turfgrass leaves, branches, etc.
• Inert household materials such as rocks, stone, porcelain.

And then there's a whole category of materials that may be dropped off at the recycling center, but businesses are also required to accept them back:

• Light bulbs
• Batteries
• Electronics – TVs, stereos, computers, telephones, etc.
• Stoves, washers, refrigerators, freezers
• Household hazardous wastes
• Expired medicines
• Tires

Next time: So what's left for the garbage can? What happens to the materials once they leave the center?

John Haugland works in the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office.

A little Earth Day music

For quite a few years now, a group of EPA employees have gathered on Earth Day to play music together. We perform at our office Earth Day event, and we call ourselves, naturally enough, the Earth Tones.

We practice on our lunch breaks in empty conference rooms. The lineup may change from year to year, but our organizer and keeper of the chord charts (and bringer of the P.A.!) is always Bill Tong, who works in EPA Region 5's water program.

We play mostly folk music, and some Irish and old-timey tunes. All the songs we sing have an environmental connection (sometimes more tenuous than others).

I realize it's not strictly Agency environmental protection work that we're doing when we play, but it's fun to do non-work things sometimes, too.

Here's a recording (mp3, 2:46, 3.9MB) we made of "The Great Lakes Song" by Shel Silverstein.

More info on the Earth Tones w/ photos and music

Happy Earth Day to you!

Karen Reshkin works in EPA Region 5's public affairs office and plays fiddle with the Earth Tones.

Earth Day in Chicago

Earth Day at Daley Plaza in Chicago.

EPA Regional Administrator Mary Gade encourages participation in the Earth Day Challenge. (She's a blogger, too.)

EPA bloggers Chris Newman and Beth Murphy work at the EPA booth in Daley Plaza.

EPA's Todd Nettesheim wants you to recycle your old cell phone.

With grant money from US EPA, the City of Chicago has purchased pharmaceutical collection boxes like this one.

Meanwhile, back at the Metcalfe Federal Building, the unwanted medicines collection continues under the supervision of two plainclothes Chicago police officers.

The unwanted meds collection in our building filled almost the whole barrel. Looking pleased are Vicki Thomas (Great Lakes Program), Region 5 Administrator Mary Gade, and Great Lakes National Program Office Director Gary Gulezian.

Karen Reshkin works in EPA Region 5's public affairs office.

Go Green by Helping to Keep it Blue!

 

Pro surfer Jenny Flannigan surfing eastern Lake Superior

For as long as I can remember, I have been mesmerized by water. As a young boy Michigan's largest river, the Grand, was my backyard. I would stand in awe as the early spring currents moved swiftly past me.

"Where was that water going? Where could it take me?" I used to wonder. Later in the summer on our family boat trips, I would be in the stern, eyes locked for hours on the endless curl that peeled from our wake. It was this fascination with waves that really took hold of me as a teenager and continues now into adulthood.

Surfing on the Great Lakes has been a passion for me for over 25 years. But I was not among the first surfers who ventured out into the fresh-water waves with board in hand; they came 20 years before me.

Each season experienced surfers will surf from spring into the winter, where under 6mm of neoprene they harness 6-10 foot waves. It was among these conditions where I learned a respect for the awesome power of the Great Lakes.

 

Local Marc Hoeksema surfing Grand Haven; note the line where the water changes from brown to blue.

The more time I spent on the water, the more I began to see and understand the nuances of this environment. The powerful rip currents can sweep an unsuspecting swimmer out to sea. The color of the water changes depending on the sky that day, or in my case in Grand Haven, the amount of rain that fell the day before.

The Grand River winds some 260 miles through large cities and through miles of farmland and subdivisions before reaching Lake Michigan in Grand Haven. As a boy I discovered the many "treasures" left behind after the spring rains. There were beverage containers, balloons, fishing gear, and various other plastics. But later as a surfer, I began to realize it was the things I could not see that were causing the most problems for us.

Sewage overflows, industrial waste, pesticides and fertilizers all seep downward and eventually reach the river. After heavy rains, the water can be covered in a slime that reminds you of a strong chemical detergent or even an overflowing outhouse. The earaches and sinus infections take hold immediately.

Surfing in these conditions eventually pushed me to try and make a difference. But I never wanted to be an "environmentalist." I saw many of them as unrealistic and hypocritical. I was not ready to give up my foam-core surfboard anyway. It just seemed like such a huge problem. How could I possibly make a difference?

 

Vince Deur surfing across the Lake in Sheboygan, Wisconsin

As it turned out for me, that "grand" river really did take me somewhere. My love for waves led me to circle each Great Lake and travel to six countries to highlight coastal issues for a couple documentary projects.

Throughout these experiences I came to realize that we are all polluters to some degree. However, after meeting so many people around the world who are working for change, I know now that we can improve. We can build better sewage treatment plants; we can find cleaner ways to care for our crops and our yards; we can all help keep our shorelines free of trash... but we can only do it together.

Vince Deur is a Great Lakes Surfer, filmmaker (Unsalted & Eco-Warrior), and Co-Chair of the Lake Michigan Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.

• Unsalted: A Great Lakes Experience
• Eco Warrior
• Vince Deur Productions
• Save the Waves Coalition
• Surfrider Foundation

Medicine Collection Day in Milwaukee

On Saturday, April 19, the Milwaukee Metro Sewerage District conducted its third annual Medicine Collection Day (A prescription for clean water & safe kids) to collect and safely dispose of medicines in Milwaukee, Racine, Ozaukee, and Washington counties. The organizers said, "This will be our first truly regional Medicine Collection Day to help protect Lake Michigan, prevent childhood poisonings, and reduce substance abuse."

Cars line up to drop off medicine

Bags of medicines being dropped off

A bag of pills that was dropped off at the event

Photos courtesy of Susan Boehme

With Great Lakes comes Great Responsibility

One of the Earth Day Challenge events is a new Chicago Public Television program called Professor Mike's City Science. It will air in the greater Chicago area on Monday, May 5, 2008  at 7:30pm on WYCC Channel 20.   It's geared toward middle school students and their parents. I got to appear on the show as an EPA expert on the Great Lakes.

The first episode is on electronic waste and our challenge to collect one million pounds of e-waste. It opens with a student attempting to throw out an old computer monitor. She is perplexed  when the garbage man refuses to pick it up. She visits Professor Mike to find out why. The show then progresses through an exploration of the Great Lakes, pollution, conservation, invasive species, and what to do with old electronics in a variety of settings ranging from Navy Pier to the Research Vessel Peter Wise Lake Guardian. Professor Mike conducts several experiments in a Mr. Wizard like fashion.

My scene was filmed in a laboratory at a local college decorated with dismantled computers and lots of graduated cylinders filled with brightly colored liquids. When I arrived on set, I was introduced to Professor Mike and sent off to hair and make up. (Apparently the style and polish of a typical government scientist isn't quite up to par with television standards, but one can't disappoint the fans.) After being sufficiently primped, Professor Mike, the student and I began to rehearse our scene. It took a little while to work out all the kinks, but eventually we found a good flow for the information we wanted to share and started to film the scene.

It was really important to both the show's producers and to me that the information be accurate and entertaining without dumbing anything down for the viewers. I gave a lot of general information on the Great Lakes:

• the HOMES acronym for the names of the Great Lakes
• the water in the Great Lakes equals about 10 feet of standing water if spread out over the lower 48 states
• 25 million people get their drinking water from the Great Lakes.

I also did my best to explain how deposition of pollutants from the air impacts the Great Lakes.

The main message, however, was that if we want to keep the Great Lakes GREAT, every person needs to do their part, a little every day, to keep our water clean and to ensure that it is a resource for generations to come. With Great Lakes, there truly comes Great Responsibility.

Beth Murphy works in EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office, and runs the Great Lakes Fish Monitoring Program.

More to do

There's more to do.

Every so often someone sets a TV set or computer monitor or other old piece of electronics in the alley behind my house. Did they put it there in hopes that someone will pick it up to use it? (I found one TV with the remote taped to the top.) Or maybe they really meant to throw it out but couldn't lift it into the big trash cans.

Lots of times this stuff ends up getting rained on, broken, or torn apart, and then it can't be used again. Sometimes the scrap guys that drive down the alley cut off the cords for scrap metal. Either way the equipment gets picked up with the trash collection a few days later.

When it gets closer to an electronics recycling event and I have a few things to take, I start picking up some of this stuff and storing it in my garage (see photo). I figure I'm making the trip anyway.

These events have been going on for several years. There's even a collection site that's open two days a week in my city, and lots of people make use of it. Clearly some people have gotten the message, but many others haven't.

Why aren't people taking advantage of these events.

• Are people uninterested and we're going against the current trying to make change?
• Are they too busy to bother?
• Do they just think recycling isn't worth it? (There has been controversy about the effectiveness of my city's recycling program.)

What do we need to do get people more in tune with electronics recycling?

• better advertising of events?
• outright bans of electronics in landfills?
• waste haulers picking up e-waste?
• reminders about collection events in people's water or garbage bills?

And what if people do show up at the collection events every time they have something to recycle? Will our publicly-funded system be able to cover the costs of recycling all the materials that are brought in?

How can we make this Earth Day message stick with people so that next time they have something that can be recycled, they'll think about recycling it?

We're working with Earth911.org to catalog the events that are in the Earth Day Challenge. Will people remember it and use it as a resource?

One of the states in our Region has a statewide program for recycling electronics . It's been successful; they've collected millions of pounds in about one year. We need programs to cover more states, or even the nation as a whole, so that we can have just one message to get to people, it will be more consistent over time, and they will participate.

More questions than answers here, but it's what I'm thinking about now that the weather is getting better, and my bike is barricaded in the garage behind two cars and two TVs.

Chris Newman works in EPA Region 5's Land and Chemical Division, and deals with issues related to electronic waste, scrap tires, and composting