by Bob Huffman
1. Printing Less Stuff = Using Less Paper. Paper makes up about 35% of our waste stream - even though it’s one of the easiest materials to re-use and recycle! First of all, organize your inbox to make e-mails easier to find and reference. You can encourage others not to print your e-mails as well. Make back-up copies of important files and e-mails and keep them on an external drive. When you do need to print important documents, make sure you use a sustainable paper, and set your printer or copier to print on both sides of the page.
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by Bob Huffman
April 22nd, 2008
Today, Earth Day, 2008, I went for a brief walk at the Southfield Civic Center Nature Area about a quarter mile from the C-E offices. Here’s a list of some of the things I saw:
- Song sparrow
- Carolina wren
- Mayapple
- Trillium
- Horned grebe
- Snapping turtle
- Chipping sparrow
- Downy woodpecker
- Palm warbler
- Painted turtle
- Tree Swallow
- Barn Swallow
- Painted Lady Butterfly
- Bullfrog
- Painted turtle
The list goes on.
If we don’t take time to appreciate the natural world, we don’t have any real motivation to save it. Take time to get out, and more importantly, take time to learn to recognize what you’re seeing. The more you know, the more you will see. And the more you see, the more reason you’ll have to save what’s left.
by Bob Huffman
With trace amounts of pharmaceuticals showing up in the drinking water of major cities, authorities are encouraging consumers around the Great Lakes to drop off leftover and expired medicine at collection centers.
The Environmental Protection Agency has set a goal of collecting 1 million pills and 1 million pounds of electronics during an Earth Day initiative aimed at the more than 30 million people who live around the Great Lakes, which are by far the largest source of fresh drinking water on the planet.
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by Bob Huffman
April 8th, 2008
Energy Balance
While E85 gets 20 to 25 percent fewer miles per gallon compared to gasoline, it is less expensive than gasoline in most parts of the country and has 96 octane compared with 87 octane for regular unleaded gasoline. Premium gasoline has less octane than E85 and sells at a higher price.
Cleaner Cities
Ethanol does not require more energy to produce than it delivers as a fuel. According to the Argonne National Laboratory, the “net energy balance” of making fuel ethanol from corn yields about one-third more energy for automotive fuel than is used to grow the grain. And the USDA says next-generation cellulosic ethanol produced from switch grass generates 540 percent more energy than consumed in production. Think about these facts:
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