Wal-Mart has taken a bad rap the last several years for being environmentally and socially unconsious. It represents all that has gone wrong with commercialism, right? Maybe not. Wal-mart might actually be a leader for a people-centered form of environmentalism. While green technology is often blamed for being overpriced, Wal-Mart has brought prices way down on flourescent bulbs and solar lights, recycle bins, and EnergyStar appliances. In fact, they have a “Earth Friendly Products and Budget Friendly Prices” link of their website. Even the buildings themselves are becoming more environmentally friendly.

A few years ago, Wal-Mart conducted a detailed study that showed shoppers bought significantly more products when natural light showed on the area. Other researchers have found that natural lighting increases morale and health in the workplace. As a result, skylights might be coming to a Wal-Mart near you. They have also been playing with more environmentally friendly buildings. A new supercenter in Las Vegas boasts a 45% decrease in energy use compared to other Wal-Mart supercenters. They are also endorsing a Kids’s Recycling Challenge, in which participating schools earn $5.00 for every 60-gallon collection bag filled with plastic grocery bags they bring to a local Wal-Mart store for recycling by March 31, 2008.

According to paperrecycles.org:

“In 2006, a record 53.4 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. (53.5 million tons) was recovered for recycling. Paper recovery now averages 360 pounds for each man, woman, and child in the United States. “

The American Forests & Paper Association (AF&P) is proud of this feat, but paper continues to comprise more than 40% of waste created by Americans today, according to Carnegie Mellon University’s Green Practices site.  AF&P hopes to increase the amount the percentage of paper recycling to 55% by 2012.  This should be easy, since 86% of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off recycling programs.  If you currently do not use a curbside pick-up, which costs around $2 a week, locate your local drop-off center.  If your office does not currently recycle, visit A Guide to Recycling at Work.  Finally, for easy to read recycling information for children, click here! 

When it comes to the financial end of things, if we could recycling 100% of our paper goods, we would be nearly doubling the life of our landfills, saving taxpayers millions…in dollars and good sense.

While in college, I took a class called Quantitative Aspects of Global and Environmental Problems. In short, we learned how to assess the validity of numbers, statements, tables, maps, and graphs like those listed at a website on recycling facts I recently visited.

While I’m sure that many of these ‘facts’ are based off of academically based research, there are many qualitative factors that could go into a statement like: “During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.”

There are many concerns with a statement like this. If so many cans are made in a short time, than the various amounts of time it takes different people to read would drastically effect the number of cans produced.

I timed myself reading the sentence, and it took me 3.94 seconds to read it silently and 4.87 seconds to read it out loud. Let’s say it then takes 4 seconds to read the sentence silently. That would mean that (50,000/4) 12,500 cans are made per second. That means that (.87 x 12500) 10,875 more cans were made when I read the statement out loud. There’s a big difference between 50,000 cans and 60,875 cans. In fact, thats a 21.75% increase.

Then there’s the fact that we don’t know how where or when he or she got this rate of production in the first place.

I’m not trying to pick on this website, and certainly not recycling, but we should be skeptical of ‘facts’ published like this.

The three “R’s” of ecology (Recycle – Reduce – Reuse) all get together in this home project that I found in today’s news featured in The Star online (Malaysia). The article has you take the classifieds (or any newspaper section!), fold, weave and “sew” the sides with string, and what do you have? A basket just the right size to for you to put in – what else?- your newspaper!

Dr. David Shapiro, Professor of Economics (Penn State University), featured basket weaving among his amazing collection of photos from a 2004-2005 trip to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Africa).

Baskets as an “uber-commodity” are available under the Longaberger brand name. They are still hand crafted in the corn fed state of Ohio, and I’m having a Longaberger basket Home Show! Soon! If the consultant calls me back.

Basket-weaving is also an idiomatic example of a “really easy” college or university major or class at any level.