Disney - Environmentality - Storm Drain Labeling!

Now featuring Jimminy Cricket! Here is some storm water pollution prevention program drain labeling. Viva La Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans! Long Live the Clean Water Act!

Akron Zoo - Laying Down the High MPG Carrots!!

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (Marysville, OH) 24 PRODUCTS BUSTED BY USEPA!

Another eco-bust made by the USEPA! Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide Rodenticide Act, the USEPA regulates and approves all 'pesticides'. Pesticides are a broad category of chemicals under the regulation that can even include bleach (if its intended for disenfection ie killing germs).

SCOTTS of Ohio, a noted sustainability enthusiest, and that probably has as many BHAGS, as it does organic products, was BUSTED for bringing to market 20 illegle pesticides and ordered to cease and dissist all production. All major retailers nationwide have received STOP SALE ORDERS as well as a part of the legal action.

Maybe i'm off target but I find it funny (smelling) how they have organic products but manufacture pesticides. Seems oxymoronic, but then again with green wash so rampant these days perhaps its more like ying and yang. The two acts balancing each other out. Deceitful business practice emitting negitive energy credit generating type vibrations only to be offset in true cowboy market fashion with past, present, and future eco-chic and organic product launches from the conventional pesticide and fertilizer company.

Its almost like a chemical factory with a LEED certified warehouse. They are green, yea green green, champion green ;-)

Enough rant, here's the dish... from USEPA's new page on SCOTTS.

I'm betting you have heard of at least some of the recalled products. I found a bag in my garage.

Wind, Solar, Worms, Moebius Nature Center, BSI, and the Next Classroom Revolution

Here is a table we did to support the science fair at Craddock Elementary School in Aurora | Portage County | Ohio on behalf of Moebius Nature Center. Mara and Matthew (first graders now) gaze upon the display with wide eyes! =-).


















Buckeye Sustainability Institute has a venerable arsenal of arrows in its quiver in support of the battle for sustainability. We are strong proponents of the arms race of green technology. If is indeed the next industrial revolution, than BSI's gear represents one of the cache's that will help us win the battle.

For this gig I brought hands on eco_tec displays including:

1. Classroom / residential single family sized worm bins (handles about a pound of food per week),
   
2. Voltaic solar power cells (integrated into the courier bag at right)
3. Two direct current (dc) generating micro wind turbines. The turbines are each equipped with a display unit which conveys power generated at various wind speeds by varying LED intensity /brightness and also has buzzers.
   

Mara (my daughter) is only somewhat impressed I feel. These gizmo's that I think are so super eco-chic and rad, she and my son (not pictured) probably think are inside every home on earth. After all feeding the worms at my house is about as common as feeding the dog at other peoples houses. Start em early... so they can outdo or out green me later!

More Lake Erie Fish Shots - Near Van Buren Point, NY

Hot New Lake Erie Fish-tastic Shots.

No dead birds in these waters, no sirree bob.

BSI's Research Vessel 'Optimum Power' - Sails To K.I.

BSI's research and exploration vessel the Optimum Power sets sail on the longest sail of the year so far. Here is a snazzy time lapse I shot off the mast of the co-captain in action.

Just another day on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland Ohio

Spills on the river on the PD blog.

WKYC TV oiled bird footage

The Vestas Murders

It is widely believed that wind turbines are the answer to our green energy needs no matter where they are going to be erected and without regard for the various environmental attributes of a given site. Take the installation of wind turbines in marine environments... say Lake Erie for example.

Seagulls fly over and around the sea. Do you believe that there are avian impacts (bird fatalities) associated with turbines? Do you think that those impacts vary based upon seasonal bird population in the given area? How about bats, do you think an Indiana Brown Bat could be killed by a wind turbine?



Beyond avian impacts, the visual pollution that results from the installation of wind turbines in a previously undeveloped marine wilderness area is another political hot potato. This facet of the impact has received a tremendous amount of press in recent times especially in the battles to stop turbine installation near Cape Cod.

Environmental / pollution type impacts are real as well. The installation of the engineering superstructure if you will necessary to support the turbine will require the use of significant anchoring and mooring systems. Our lake bottom is comprised primarily of ultra-fine clay particles forming a soupy silt on the bottom. These sediments are known to contain copious quantities of insidious pollutants like PCB's, and mercury. Whats worse, this fine silt clay lake bottom is comprised of such small particles that once they are disturbed or stirred up by say an anchor or pilings associated with the moorings necessary for a marine turbine install job.... we could be unleashing quite the toxic underwater cloud. Next they will tell us that our drinking water intake a few miles away is safe from all of this because your water will "meet the usepa standards'. 0 ppm is safe in my book, and in my glass of koolaid that I am making to feed my kids. We'll save fructose for another time.

Japan Recommends Solar Output Increase 55 Times by 2030!

You better get off your arse and buy some solar panels likety split for goodness sake...


Ministry Recommends that Solar Power Output to Rise 55 Times by 2030

The Japanese Ministry of the Environment (MOE) "Study Group Focused
on Measures to Expand the Use of Renewable Energy towards Building a Low
Carbon Society" reported its recommendations about how to expand the use
of renewable energy to the Global Environment Committee of the Central
Environment Council on February 10, 2009. In particular, the study group
members suggest specific policies to spread the use of solar power
generation significantly in order to regain the global top spot.
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/028982.html

Exclusive Eco BUST! MELT LAKEWOOD POLLUTES in fuzzy 12 Megapixel hirez

The time, 948 pm, the date, May 10th, the location, MELT in Lakewood, Ohio. Our food service sector patrolmens nose detected the strong odor of bleach while walking past this storm drain. Note the drain most likely dischagres directly to Lake Erie, and the bleach most likely has a USEPA ID number on the bottle causing it to be regulated as a pesticide. A classic example of a violation of Federal, State, and local laws all in one fault swoop.

Now, what does MELT have to say about this?
What does the USEPA and Ohio EPA have to say about this?
What do you have to say about this?

Japan Cuts TV TV Shows To Save The Globe!

Shortened TV Broadcast in Japan Contributes to Cutting CO2 Emissions



As a special one-day environmental event, Japan's public broadcaster,

Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), shortened the airtime of its

educational TV channel on December 29, 2008, to reduce its carbon

dioxide (CO2) emissions and save electricity.

I love realneo.us

You see my blog, its old, and dusty (this one) but I have several... perhaps find a link to my worm blogs and you may find my flavor of the month.

Realneo.us is good shizer!

Offshore Wind Heading Inland to the Great Lakes?

Written by Craig Rubens

Regulators are preparing to draft rules for the development of offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes, even though no official projects have been proposed just yet. Cuyahoga County in Ohio is spending $1 million on an offshore wind task force to create a feasibility study on the potential for a wind farm in Lake Erie near Cleveland. But before any turbines go up, regulators and lawmakers will have figure out zoning and leasing rights, and with eight states and two Canadian provinces bordering the lakes, it will take a coordinated interstate and international effort to lay the ground rules.

Regulators and wind energy companies have been eying the Great Lakes for years. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Energy hosted the Great Lakes Offshore Wind Technical Gathering, and just last month a study from the Michigan State University Land Policy Institute estimated that 100,000 turbines in Lake Michigan could generate 321,000 megawatts of energy. But if the progress of offshore wind projects in Rhode Island, New Jersey and Massachusetts is any indication, it will be years before any turbines start spinning up on the Great Lakes.

The AP reports that Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality processed a mock offshore wind farm application earlier this year, which brought up questions that will likely have to be addressed by new laws and regulations. Siting turbines will have to cleared with fishery managers, shipping lane managers and the regulators of the Lakes’ bottomlands, which are currently held in public trust.

Calls to the Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources regarding how offshore wind will be regulated were greeted with chuckles and the same response: “That is a good question.” Clearly the regulatory entities are still figuring out jurisdictions. Further complicating matters is the international border running through the Great Lakes, which brings the U.S. Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers into the mix.

The Great Lakes and Rust Belt states are primed to supply the potential regional offshore wind business with turbines from a growing number of manufacturing centers that are filling the void left behind by the slow collapse of the auto and steel industries. We mapped out nearly a dozen new wind turbine manufacturing plants opening up across the Midwest and Great Plains and the NYTimes recently picked up on the trend with a story about wind companies revitalizing the Rust Belt.

Brown City Dead Lake Chronicals ver. 2.28 Exclusive Exotic Footage - Species Dubbed 'Ultra-Thin Fish' Disovered along the South Shore of Lake Erie

NTDTD - China News

CBS News - Chinese Pollution Reaches USA

FISH KILL - Made In China

Chinese Pollution Death Toll Rises

Biocides@

OSHA Focusing on Microwave Popcorn Hazards

Poor Orville Redinbocker......

Three months after announcing it would do so, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration July 27 published policies and procedures for implementing a national emphasis program focused on microwave popcorn manufacturing.

The directive is effective for one year upon publication.

OSHA announced April 24 that it planned to initiate an emphasis program to address hazards in the microwave popcorn industry associated with butter flavorings containing diacetyl, which has been associated with bronchiolitis obliterans, a potentially fatal lung condition (37 OSHR 365, 4/26/07 ).

The emphasis program will include targeted inspections, direction on how to control chemical hazards, and extensive compliance assistance, the directive says.

All workplaces under federal jurisdiction where butter flavored microwave popcorn is manufactured will be inspected, according to the directive. OSHA previously had said this will mean inspections at some 40 work sites under the emphasis program (37 OSHR 574, 6/28/07 ).

While the program's inspections will be limited to butter-flavoring chemical hazards under the directive, OSHA inspectors may expand the scope of the inspection if other safety and health hazards or violations are observed. Additionally, the agency said, if the facility also has potential exposures to other flavoring chemicals containing diacetyl--such as cheddar cheese or almond flavorings--the inspection will be expanded to address these related exposures as well.

Inspection Focus

During the inspections, OSHA staff will specifically look for compliance with the hazard assessment and equipment selection sections of its personal protective equipment standards, the hazard determination sections of its hazard communication standard, and evaluations conducted under its respiratory protection standard, according to the directive.

Because studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have demonstrated a link between inhalation of butter flavorings and occupational lung disease, OSHA said, "employers in the microwave popcorn manufacturing industries that use butter flavoring ingredients must conduct the evaluation required by ... the Respiratory Protection standard."

During the inspections, OSHA added, material safety data sheets for flavoring chemicals will be thoroughly reviewed to ensure compliance.

OSHA inspectors will also review employer injury and illness records to identify employees with illnesses or symptoms associated with diacetyl or other flavorings exposure. Because bronchiolitis obliterans is a rare disease that can be misdiagnosed, inspectors will investigate all log entries on asthma, respiratory abnormalities, toxic effects, and other similar notations.

OSHA inspectors will interview all employees whose names are recorded on the logs, as well as employees working in areas where exposure to flavoring chemicals might occur.

Top Quality Vinyl For Sale

More antiquated polymers being liquidated at INSANE BLOW OUT PRICING!!!

Act now as this is limited time offer (people are learning about externalities).    

PVC Free Companies

With the PVC chew toy gifts our children may receive around their teething ages in mind, I bring you the list of lists. I call it PVC Free on PVC FREE. Aka PVCFree X2

Eco-Caching!

Emerald Ash Borer Monitoring Area

A sacrificial ash.