recycling - Articles and Posts from Slashfood

Posts with tag recycling

Squirrel Gets Head Stuck in Yogurt Container Video

Posted Jul 13th 2009 11:00AM by Alex Van Buren
Filed under: On the Blogs

Oh, man. So this squirrel was caught on film with its head stuck inside a Yoplait yogurt container.

The squirrel attempts to do all of its usual running, jumping, and generally squirrelish activities against the majestic backdrop of a white, elegant gazebo at South Carolina's Furman University -- all while wearing the container on its head. Apparently the videographer, a WYFF photographer, helped the squirrel remove his cap after filming this footage.

Click and come back to tell us:

[CNN via Serious Eats]

Wine Recycling At Its Best

Posted Mar 12th 2009 2:01PM by Gretchen Roberts
Filed under: Wine, Trends

Between corks and bottles, there are a million innovative ways to recycle wine stuff. Here are some of my current favorites:

The 15,000-cork wall: In NYC, Frankly Wines has made a wall out of corks--15,000 of them, to be exact. And I thought my collection was big.

The Wine Bottle Terrarium: If you've got a green thumb, consider trying Dr. Vino's garden-in-a-bottle. A clear bottle works best.

The Plant Nanny: I actually have these and a. love them because I rarely have to water and b. get comments from envious visitors all the time. If you've seen those globe plant-watering thingamagigies, this is just like that only instead of an expensive globe, you just stick a wine bottle into the Plant Nanny, which slowly releases the water into your plant. My dwarf lemon and lime trees love them.

Wine bottle candle holder: Handy with DIY? Make these easy candle holders by slicing off the bottoms of wine bottles. (Pictured)

Recycled wine glass counters: Redoing your kitchen? Make your next counter extra-special with these counters made from recycled wine bottles. Talk about different--every counter has a unique pattern because it's recycled.

Refillable bottles: Remember the refillable mugs at gas stations? I used to have one that I could refill for $.50 in college (and I did, all the time). An Idaho winery is selling refillable wine bottles with the same concept: take it back in, get a refill for less.

Recyclable Food Containers - To Wash Or Not?

Posted Feb 6th 2009 11:00AM by Emily Matchar
Filed under: Food News

At Slate, Nina Shen Rastogi answers the question of whether or not it's necessary to thoroughly wash out recyclable containers before tossing them in the bin. As someone who's often tempted to secretly trash empty peanut butter jars rather than spending ten minutes cleaning them with soapy water (I never do, don't worry), I was glad to hear that the answer is, apparently, no. "Recycling facilities are well equipped to handle dirty cans and bottles, so some caked-on tomato sauce and the occasional stray chickpea won't significantly hinder the process," she writes. Still, it's better to rinse out containers, especially smelly ones like mayo and tartar sauce, before binning them, if for nothing else but a courtesy to the workers. Rastogi suggests using a small spatula to swish out most of the residue before giving the containers a quick rinse.

50 Years of the Aluminum Can

Posted Jan 23rd 2009 12:02PM by Mike Pomranz
Filed under: Beer, Celebrations

Budweiser mastered the mass-marketing of beer across America. And Miller gave us the first mainstream "lite" beer, creating a nationwide sales phenomenon. But Coors gave us the aluminum can.

The Rocky Mountain News reported that yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of Coors unveiling the U.S. beer industries "first seamless, recyclable aluminum beer can." Previously, beer was canned in tin containers that were hard to recycle and tainted the beer's taste. Industry transition to the now ubiquitous aluminum can didn't happen overnight -- other brewers with entrenched interests objected -- but eventually the entire steel beverage can industry was rendered obsolete.

To this day, Coors owns and helps operate the nation's largest aluminum can manufacturing plant. And in today's "go green" world, Coors also likes to remind us that in 1959, immediately after introducing the aluminum can, "Coors launched a recycling revolution by offering a penny for every can returned to the brewer." As they succinctly state in their environmental stewardship brochure: "We invented the recyclable aluminum can."

So Coors may or may not have been the alcoholic beverage of choice that caused that vagrant you see collecting aluminum cans to live on the street, but they're definitely the ones who helped give him a second chance!

What?! Too soon? Come on, it's been 50 years! Happy golden anniversary to Golden, Colorado's aluminum can.

[via Rocky Mountain News]

A Foodie Rant on Packaging

Posted Jan 9th 2009 1:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Trends, Stores & Shopping

No matter how much we talk about the environment, no matter how many times we're told to decrease our waste, we're inundated with food products. They are practically suffocating with extra or unrecyclable packaging. I write this as someone who not only finds it ridiculous to buy products that result in tons of hard-to-reuse waste the minute you get it home and unpackage it, but also as someone who has a cap on the amount of garbage that's picked up free of charge.

This isn't just an argument for the environment -- the space available to dump garbage continues to be a problem, so why fill it with needless waste? Save it for the garbage that's much harder to prevent. It's a matter of common sense. Do you want to waste space on fleeting convenience, or the garbage that you can't avoid?

The biggest culprit is styrofoam. My god, it's everywhere, and in most cases, highly unnecessary. The saran+styrofoam combo is rampant in grocery stores -- with meats, vegetables, sliced cheeses, mushrooms. Since much of the food doesn't last long in that packaging, like mushrooms and meats, it must be unwrapped and used immediately, or repackaged in something else to maintain freshness or freeze. The styrofoam is left behind -- useless, unrecyclable. And cheese slices -- my god, I've seen four slices of cheese wrapped this way before -- which is particularly infuriating when it's right next to the same cheese on a deli counter that can be sliced on request and slipped inside one small plastic bag.

Continue reading A Foodie Rant on Packaging

The Ultimate in Recycling - A Beer Bottle Temple

Posted Dec 12th 2008 5:30PM by Bruce Watson
Filed under: Beer, Asia, Comfort Food, Liquor Cabinet

In addition to being a moderately decent brewer, Heineken has also flirted with becoming a force for change in the world. In the early 1960's, during a vacation in the Caribbean, one of Heineken's brewers noticed two problems that he thought might have the same solution. While the local beaches were littered with beer bottles, many people weren't able to find reasonably-priced building materials. When he got back to work, the brewer convinced Heineken to create the "world bottle" (WOBO), which also became known as "the brick that holds beer." Basically a rectangular-shaped beer bottle, world bottles were designed to fit comfortably end-to-end, making it possible to make walls, doors, and windows without resorting to glass cutting.

Heineken ended up making a small production run of the world bottles, but never released them to the public. Today, the only two WOBO structures in the world are a shed on the Heineken estate and a wall at the Heineken museum in Amsterdam. However, even though the world bottle never went into production, other people have found a way to turn left over Heineken bottles into livable structures.

Using one million discarded Heineken and Chang beer bottles, Buddhist monks in Sisaket, Thailand constructed the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew monastery. A beautiful, graceful structure, it shows that all those empties that we put in our recycling bin have the power to make a major difference!

New uses for old wine corks

Posted May 29th 2008 12:03PM by Shayna Glick
Filed under: West Coast, On the Blogs

I had a friend once who saved the corks from wine bottles. He said that he sent them to his brother for some reason or other I can't remember now. Now there really is a reason to save your corks (and not just for all those cork stamps you've been planning on making).

According to Chow: The Grinder, a new program called ReCORK America is operating in Oregon and California. ReCORK America collects and recycles used wine corks. It's sponsored by a Portugese cork manufacturer, Amorim, and works mainly with institutions that go though a lot of corks. However, they also have drop off centers so individuals can also participate.

Tip of the Day: Reuse and re-purpose "trash" for Earth Day

Posted Apr 22nd 2008 6:02AM by Shayna Glick
Filed under: Tip of the Day

In honor of Earth Day, here are a few things you can do to keep common "trash" items out of the landfills.

Continue reading Tip of the Day: Reuse and re-purpose "trash" for Earth Day

Coca Cola going from red to green

Posted Feb 20th 2008 11:01AM by Shayna Glick

Everyone nowadays is concerned about the environment. Big business is especially concerned with its image. It wants the valuable consumers that a good green image can bring.

Coca Cola is no different, of course. The soft drink giant has already taken a number of steps to green-ify its image. The beverage maker has already pledged to recycle all of its plastic packaging in the US. Now it's time to tackle aluminum. Coca Cola has now decided that it will recycle 100% of the aluminum cans produced in the US.

To coordinate everything, the drink maker even created a whole division dedicated to collecting and recycling all of its waste packaging. Coca Cola Recycling just built a plant in South Carolina. The division says that the aluminum recycling initiative will use 95% less energy and reduce carbon emissions by 95% than creating new cans.

So here you go; another big company working to beef up its green image. I think it's great. A company as big as Coca Cola recycling all of its waste can make a huge impact on what goes in the landfills. It also makes a lot of business sense. So this kind of thing is a win-win for everyone.

Environmental groups continue to denounce use of chopsticks

Posted Feb 8th 2008 4:00PM by Ellen Slattery
Filed under: Business, Asia, Newspapers

Chinese environmental activists continue to protest the country's use of disposable chopsticks, an industry that churns out about 63 billion pairs a year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Just yesterday, activists stormed a Microsoft Corporation cafeteria to alert patrons to the damage the utensils were doing to forests.

China is already mobilizing to decrease its reliance on disposable chopsticks. Since November, about 300 restaurants have promised to replace them with reusable chopsticks, and in 2006, the government levied a 5% tax on these and other products they deemed environmentally unfriendly.

And to go along with their attempts to green the Beijing Olympics this summer, many events will not offer disposable chopsticks to visitors.

But the industry that activists are protesting is one that employs over 100,000 people in China, and provides well-needed jobs for people in poorer areas (some younger activists are experiencing conflicting feelings, as their parents make a living producing the very product that they are condemning). And Lian Guang, president of the Wooden Chopsticks Trade Association, told the WSJ that the company uses leftover wood or wood from trees that are not endangered, like birch, poplar, and bamboo.

But though activists are encouraging Chinese citizens to tote their own pair of reusable chopsticks (much like the U.S. is encouraging people to use their own water bottles), it doesn't look like the disposable chopstick industry is going anywhere anytime soon.

Making paper from apples

Posted Apr 17th 2006 8:05PM by Nick Vagnoni
Filed under: Science, Fruit, Europe

An Italian inventor has developed a way to make paper from apple by-products, according to a recent release on FreshPlaza.com. About two years ago, Dr. Albert Volcan (right) began work on the process of drying, cooling and grinding waste from apple juice production. He has since fine tuned the method so that the apple waste doesn't ferment and is thus able to produce a stable paper product that is being called Cartamela. For you Italian speakers, more info is available at EcoApple.com.

Kai Into Compost

Posted Jan 15th 2006 3:29PM by Andrew Barrow
Filed under: Trends, New Zealand

The city council in Wellington, New Zealand is embracing green issues with the start of a new scheme entitled Kai into Compost.

Now I am waiting to hear that this is a widespread practice throughout all forward thinking cities but Wellington is trailing the scheme to collect kitchen waste from food outlets and turn it into compost.

A truck collects kitchen waste from 50 hotels, supermarkets, restaurants and other food serving establishments and dumps it in a municipal compost plant.17% of waste that ends up in landfall is food waste which breaks down into harmful leachates and methane this can only be an environmental sound policy. They hope to extend the collection to household food waste shortly.

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Squirrel Gets Head Stuck in Yogurt Container Video

Wine Recycling At Its Best

Recyclable Food Containers - To Wash Or Not?

50 Years of the Aluminum Can

A Foodie Rant on Packaging

The Ultimate in Recycling - A Beer Bottle Temple

New uses for old wine corks

Tip of the Day: Reuse and re-purpose "trash" for Earth Day

Coca Cola going from red to green

Environmental groups continue to denounce use of chopsticks

Making paper from apples

Kai Into Compost

Tip of the Day

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