Sustainability at DHMC: Reuse those foam plates!

I was in line at the cafeteria last week when someone from one of the other offices in my building said “Oh, when did they start using china in this cafeteria?” I had to politely tell the woman that DHMC was not deploying reusable dishes at all of its cafeterias and that I bring my own plate and just wash it afterwards. “Oh, what a good idea!” she said, “I should bring my own plate sometimes. Washing it off afterwards isn’t too hard.”

Handwashing isn’t that difficult, but washing off all of the dishes in a central location, using an auto dishwasher, would probably save money and water, and would certainly save a time for all of the people working in the building. There would be an initial outlay and ongoing expense to stock the china and deal with breakages and so forth, but it would be a great step for sustainability.

Outdoor Movies: Kicking it off with “Duel of the Tough”

When was the last time you went to a drive-in?

For me it must have been at least 3 years ago. There’s a drive-in over in Fairlee, VT, and during the summer season they show double features for $8 per person. It’s a lot of fun to pile in a car and head over there, hoping for clear skies.

The Fairlee Drive-in also has a motel, and the rooms are situated such that you can open the curtains on one of the walls and watch the movie. It’s kind of a fun gimmick.

Last night I kicked off my career as a projectionist with the spectacular film Duel of the Tough, originally titled Shen tui mi zong shou. We’d had a BBQ over at my place and Cyrus stayed around to poke at the fire when I had the epiphany that I had finally acquired all of the pieces necessary to project movies outside.

Oktoberfestivities 2009

Last night was Oktoberfest 2009. We had a lot of tasty food including hendl (chicken, in Bavarian), almonds mit hoenig (I can’t remember the german term for almonds), sausage, mashed potatoes, beer, and just a drop of Jaeger.

Oktoberfest, as I’m sure you all know, is that other fall holiday when guys and girls get to dress up in sexy costumes. Unlike Halloween, Oktoberfest encourages the guys to wear leather shorts, and encourages everyone to dance, drink, and sprechen deutsch. All in all it’s quite a good holiday.

This morning I wrote hijacked a song. Would you like to hear it? Oh, I bet meine lederhosen schwartz you would:

Jaeger-weiss, Jaeger-weiss,
Every morning you talk to me,
Dark and sweet, tastes of deer meat,
Jaegermeister I love thee.

To quote the Black Eyed Peas, “Tonight’s going to be a good, good night.”

Plastic Recycling Hurdles: Label everything, please!

Okay, so I’m pretty sure I told you all that I can now recycle all plastic items with SPI resin identification codes #1-7 on them, due to a contract between Dartmouth and Coca Cola of Northern New England. Marvelous!

But I’m not quite done.

There are still a number of products I use that have plastic components that aren’t labeled. Lots of plastic containers label the bottom part but not the lid. Sure, the lid is usually smaller than the rest of the container, but I’m still trashing a bunch of waste that could be recycled.

After pondering this problem for a few days, I did what any young, eccentric recycl-aholic would do and started saving plastics that weren’t labeled. After about a month I picked up my laptop and started emailing people. It took the better part of an evening to write up a letter, find contact emails for companies, and then personalize the basic letter for each recipient.

You might think that some of the older, established companies wouldn’t have a web presence, but I didn’t find a single company without a substantial website. Heck, you can even friend some of the companies (e.g. PriceChopper) on FaceBook. WTF?

Corporate craziness aside, I got a number of helpful responses within a week. It seems that most of the manufacturers and companies are interested in increasing the recyclability of their products but are limiting themselves due to the language of the recommendations of the SPI (the plastics industry trade association) and concerns over labeling implying acceptance of the product by all recyclers.

Manufacturers shouldn’t be limiting themselves here — they should be encouraged to label as much of their products as possible so that they can be recycled as much as possible. Sure, not all plastics are going to be recyclable in all cites, all the time, but it shouldn’t hurt us to at least label everything. Telling the truth shouldn’t be a bad thing.

I’ve drafted a letter to the SPI, but I haven’t found an email address for them yet. I’ll keep on searching and send them the letter when I find one, but for now I’m going to post it here on my blog. Any help in finding contact information for them would be appreciated!

–Q