Sustainability In Your Ear

Theresa Carter launched an online petition calling on Target Stores to eliminate single-use plastic bags that has gathered more than 310,000 signatures. She talks with Earth911 about how she got the petition started. Beginning with her choice to put the petition on Change.org and sharing her call to action with friends on Facebook and her local physical community, Carter's story is a roadmap for c...

It's time to eat sustainably in the sun. The Earth911 team sits down to talk about Summer eating. It is a perfect time to try some new foods and food-related activities. Maybe you have a garden or just a pot of herbs. Maybe you would like to try a new ingredient or make a vegan meal. No matter what your goal might be, we are going to talk about how to find great food, make great food, and avoid fo...

Earth911 is getting ready for Summer! Join Evelyn, Sarah, and Mitch to talk about preparations for a more sustainable summer. We can all make improvements in how we garden, cook, travel, and make changes in energy use. We start off in the garden with ideas about how to build DIY birdbaths, as well as how to use combinations of feeders and nativar plants to fill your yard with wild birds. While you...

Recycling safety is the topic of Earth911's interview with Scott Wiggins, vice president of Environmental Health & Safety at the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). On June 12th, most recycling programs and scrap yards will close down for an hour each shift to focus on workplace safety as part of Safety Stand Down Day, and you can help protect recycling workers by making smart choices...

Dan Lambe, president of The Arbor Day Foundation, joins Earth911 to talk about the organizations The Time For Trees initiative to plant 100 million trees. Lambe and team also want to get five million people to join in the tree-planting and save the atmosphere from CO2 emissions. Established in Nebraska during 1872 by newspaperman J. Sterling Morton and adopted across the country as a national day...

Sunya Norman, director of sustainability at Salesforce.com, joins Earth911 to talk about the customer relationship management (CRM) company's pursuit of carbon neutral operations. Since its founding, Salesforce has broken new ground in the cloud and ways of doing business. CRM services are used by companies to build deeper interactions with their customers, and Salesforce's leadership in sustainab...

June 5th is World Environment Day and the Earth911 team will help you get ready. Join Evelyn Lopez and Mitch Ratcliffe to talk about World Environment Day activities and how to participate in raising air pollution awareness in your community. The Mask Challenge, a global call for citizens to post pictures of themselves wearing face masks to protect against dirty air, began May 24th and runs throug...

Helmm co-founders Zach Groffksy and Taylor Lane discuss sustainable men's care products. They recently launched a subscription antiperspirant/deodorant subscription service for a luxury refillable holder. The elegant Helmm deodorant container is made with recyclable metal and fine leather. With four fragrances available today, Helmm lets customers schedule how frequently their refills arrive. Each...

The Moses Filter can separate debris from the sea, an environmental priority for cities and suburbs where dirt, leaves, medical sharps, and cigarette butts, among many other materials clog stormdrains. The replacable, bio-degradable filter invented by Jean-Louis Kamand and his team, is being tested in Vancouver, British Columbia. Kamand joined Earth911's Sustainability In Your Ear podcast to talk...

2018 was a year of big changes in recycling and in 2019 we're seeing the beginnings of a new era taking shape. The Earth911 team sits down for a conversation about how local recycling programs are changing in the wake of China's ban on contaminated imports and shifts in overseas destinations for U.S. scrap metal and recyclables. While glass recycling is facing cutbacks across the country, U.S. scr...

Dr. Katrina Cornish developed a genetically engineered dandelion to produce natural latex, which is primarily imported from Southeast Asia, in vertical indoor farms in the U.S. As the scientific advisor to American Sustainable Rubber Company, Dr. Cornish is working to commercialize T.K. Dandelion rubber for the sporting goods, medical supplies, and tire industries. She speaks with Earth911 about t...

After launching toxic-free household cleaning products leader Method, Adam Lowry cofounded Ripple Foods in 2014 to reinvent dairy-free milk. Earth911 talks with Lowry about the health and environmental benefits of Ripple's plant-based milks, half & half, and nutritional shakes. Using 100-percent recycled plastic packaging that can also be recycled, Ripple has pioneered pea-based milks with richer...

Spring is here! Even in our northern corners, gardeners are assessing their plots and making plans. So we thought today would be a perfect time to talk about some spring garden essentials – particularly, soil prep, including building raised beds and greenhouses, as well as solarizing the soil and encouraging kids-and-beginning-gardeners to try their green thumbs. There are no mistakes in gardening...

Ken Nealson led teams at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that developed tools for detecting life on other planets. Now he leads the University of Southern California's sustainability programs and the Wrigley Institute, an ocean research center on Catalina Island off the coast from Los Angeles. The Institute  and USC Business School recently announced its third annual Wrigley Sustainability Prizes, a...

Happy Earth Day, everyone! The Earth911 team sits down to talk about the history of Earth Day, the actions each of us can take to support endangered species, reduce our carbon footprints, and improve recycling outcomes across the world. Earth Day 2019 is focused on preserving and educating people about the extinction of species. Next year, the Earth Day Network aims to bring a billion people out i...

Billy Johnson, the chief lobbyist for the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), joins Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe to talk through the major policy issues facing recycling in 2019. From the growth in ferrous metal exports despite China's ban on contaminated scrap imports to the U.S. Surface Transportation Board's impact on domestic recycling prices, we cover the growing sophistication of...

April Fool's Day could be the global holiday for greenwashers and ecological mythmakers, but the Earth911 team is on the case. We discuss the realities of products labeled biodegradable and compostable, how to shop for sustainability when presented "organic" and "recyclable" products, and the habits that will make a real difference in your carbon impact. From myths and truths, how to recognize and...

The fast-growing cannabis industry is a growing source of packaging waste, with billions of packages made of plastic, composite materials, and glass already contributing to a new problem. Sana Packaging, founded by two University of Colorado Boulder students, Ron Basak-Smith and James Eichner, has developed hemp- and ocean-plastic-based alternatives for cannabis packaging that is made from natural...

The Global Recycling Day episode of Sustainability In Your Ear features a conversation about the future of recycling, circular economies, the business value of preserving resources, and the power consumers have to drive companies to embrace environmental values. Evelyn Fielding-Lopez, Trey Granger, Sarah Lozanova, and Mitch Ratcliffe discuss producer responsibility laws, global access to waste rem...

The Sustana Group is a pioneer in paper recycling. The company's Rolland division started producing recycled paper decades ago and now provides annual sustainability and production lifecycle assessments of its supply chain to ensure customers have all the necessary environmental information to make a carbon-aware purchase. Today, Sustana is partnered with Starbucks and other food packaging makers...

The Earth911 gang sits down to talk about the water we drink, the water we use, and the consequences of extreme water-related weather events. Evelyn Fielding-Lopez and Trey Granger survived the flu and travel challenges that kept the usual group from gathering, and they talk through the growing recognition of lead, carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl used in dozens of familiar p...

Making changes to improve the sustainability of our lives is not easy. Old habits, long-held assumptions, and preferences built over decades can keep us from making the moves that will help to reduce the CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels, as well as reduce water pollution and waste. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe tells the story of his recent conversation from a gas-guzzling sports car to an electri...

The Green New Deal (read the actual bill) was announced with great fanfare in Washington D.C. and has received a flurry of Presidential-hopeful endorsements. But it is short on details while packed with related social goals that make it politically challenging to turn into policy. The Earth911.com reporting team sits down to talk about the Green New Deal, the important components, and the projects...

In our continuing conversations with sustainability writers and bloggers we admire, Earth911 talks with Kathryn Kellog. She founded GoingZeroWaste.com after a personal health issue and has grown the site into a comprehensive source of sustainable living ideas. We have pointed to many of her articles, including he excellent Top 10 To Get Started Going Zero Waste, 7 Tips To Avoid Greenwashing, and h...

With Valentine's Day around the corner, Evelyn Lopez and the Earth911 team sits down to talk about what's working in our sustainable lives, as well as what needs improvement. We explore the Reduce. Reuse, and Recycling options in curbside programs, how to apply precycling practices before shopping, and the mysteries of recycling handtool batteries and compostable plastics. Earth911 contributors Sa...