The Story of Stuff

Watch this video for a good explanation of our consumptive system and all its faults. The narrator outlines all the stages a product goes through from resource extraction to its eventual place in a landfill, and explains what is fundamentally wrong with this system. Special thanks to Gaelen Weiss for sending this video our way!

“The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See”

Check out this video about global warming that breaks the discussion of future action into a very clear, logical argument. This video helps us understand that protecting the fate of the world far outweighs any other possible consequences. Moreover, this video helps bring the discussion of global climate change out of the realm of the purely environmental and helps frame it in ways that people will understand—no matter their views on politics, the economy, etc.

Special thanks to Phil Cassidy for sending this video our way. Phil is a former Environmental Studies Major at  Skidmore College .

Conscious coffee drinking

By Martel Catalano

I started drinking coffee at age 13, but so many of my friends began to regularly consume it freshman year of college. Despite not liking the taste, they found it necessary to survive at school, needing to pull all nighters or to not fall asleep during their first class. I found it most convenient, and most cost-efficient, to get my own coffee maker long ago. Around the time when Keurig’s were becoming popular I knew I had to have one. The speed and efficiency was unbeatable, but as an environmental student I couldn’t help but notice all of the single-use pods (or K-Cups) I was throwing in the trash. Each cup of coffee meant another K-Cup in a landfill. I rationalized this at first by the fact that I wasn’t buying a new paper cup at the coffee shop each time I wanted a cup of joe…but I felt guilty. In my opinion, nothing should be single-use because it only promotes the consumerism illness our country suffers from.

photo via greenmountaincofee.com

I was really happy to read the New York Times about a month ago and see that Green Mountain Coffee, a company with over 300 kinds of K-Cups and supposed eco-conscious reputation, is generating some ideas to abolish their old K-Cup idea. Biodegradable pods are a possibility, or recycling-programs for the pods could be a solution. Even more convenient than the K-Cup itself is the fact that the best solution to this problem is actually available to buy. “My K-Cup” is a plastic pod with a metal filter inside. You buy ground coffee from the supermarket the old-fashioned way (imagine that) and pour it into the pod, where it is then inserted to the Keurig and – voila, the perfect cup of coffee, without any shred of guilt or trash! 

photo via roaste.com

So, for all of you coffee lovers – or college students – out there, you can now save money and help the global waste problem all in one. Get your Keurig here and your My K-Cup here (also available at Bed Bath & Beyond), because I know you’re sick of paying over two bucks for a cup at Starbucks.

Appologies

Dear readers,
We are very ashamed of the long article hiatus The Ry has taken. Getting back to school and starting classes for the last time has caused us to put the site on the backburner for a while – which we greatly regret and apologize for.
Now that we are engulfed in our new learnings, we are more eager than ever to get The Ry going – we are looking for articles, opinions, even just links to post on a regular basis. We know The Ry has great potential, and we are asking for you to help us make it something to talk about. Our hope is that with increasing traffic, The Ry can get it’s own official URL and become a noteworthy environmental forum!

-The Ry

Food

By Isaac Blum

As Americans we tend to live in bubbles. We like to feel distant from the atrocities of the world; be they genocide in Rwanda, the use of child soldiers in Sierra Leone, or the trade of human beings for sex across the globe. By no means is any problem in America comparable to the horrible acts committed in other countries, but we do have our own minor problems. One, for example, has to do with food. There is a lingering problem associated with American food consumption that is all too apparent yet at the same time completely unnoticeable. We know we are a fat nation yet it seems as though we do not question the reasons as to why that is the case. It’s almost as if we are fine with the fact that America has created the obesity epidemic and nearly 30% of all adult Americans are overweight. The fact that we have a relatively “new” epidemic of obesity should open people’s eyes to our problems and make us question the foods that we consume.

I recently read the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan for the first time. It was an extremely fascinating expose into the different production methods of the food we eat. I feel as though I am somewhat knowledgeable about the food I eat, but this book truly opened my eyes to the disgusting food conditions that the vast majority of our food is produced in. As I was reading the book and thinking about the arguments, I came to a realization that should have been apparent much sooner for me. What I realized is that there is an inherent problem with food production on a large scale. The problem with large scale food production is that we demand ever lower prices for our food. We want $1 eggs, $2 gallons of milk, and very cheap, if not free, bread. This demand has a number of effects. In order to meet this demand, companies must find the cheapest way to produce these goods as possible. This has meant that smaller companies have consolidated into larger ones to create economies of scale and/or have created an industrialization process that would make Henry Ford roll over in his grave, all to create lower food prices. Wal-Mart is the best known example of a low price strategy in action. While no doubt large scale food production companies have run a very efficient business campaign, there comes a point in the production process when questions of quality must be asked in favor of price. For example, what does the quest for ever lower priced food have on our bodies? And where does this food come from? These answers are well documented for those interested. The former is partially evident in the obesity epidemic mentioned previously and the latter is much more complicated. The large scale food production process that we have demanded has created an environment where our food is no longer cared and treated for as it once was. Food production has more resemblance to car production today that it does to the smaller scale production of food as known before the 1930′s. The problem with this is that food is not meant to be produced in the same fashion as cars or clothing. Food production is a natural process that differs yields based on soil fertility, sunlight, water, and other mechanisms in nature’s bounty. We must start viewing the production of food on a local scale in terms of the quality of the product and healthfulness, not the price. As soon as we disassociate ourselves from cheap, unhealthy food and refocus on building local food economies will we begin change the problem that persist among us the most; obesity.

Throw it and Grow it

By Jesse Watson

Worldwide, there are over 1.1 billion people who smoke cigarettes. Every year, these 1.1 billion smokers discard 4.5 trillion cigarette butts. All of this litter has to go somewhere, and unfortunately, the majority of these butts are not being disposed of properly. In a 2006 study by the Ocean Conservancy, cigarette filters are listed as the number one debris item found worldwide, constituting 24.7% of all total collected debris.  What’s worse is that these butts can take up to 15 years to degrade completely. During this slow degradation process, cellulose acetate and carbon particles—both known to cause cancer in humans—leach into our soil and water supply.

Fortunately, the future doesn’t have to perpetuate the past. A new company, greenbutts, is revolutionizing the way we make and dispose of cigarette butts. This San Diego company has created a cigarette filter that is made entirely of organic cotton and natural de-gummed hemp. There is no synthetic glue used in the process either; wheat flour and water hold the filter elements together. This new filter design makes for a cigarette butt that is 100% compostable. But greenbutts doesn’t stop at cotton and hemp—they are also manufacturing filters that contain grass, flower, or even tree seeds. This means that if you place your used butt in soil rather than an ashtray, you can grow a plant, creating life rather than refuse. And even if you choose to throw away your butts rather than planting them, at least you can be confident they will biodegrade safely and naturally.

In a world that is quickly replacing green with gray, imagine the effect these seed-containing filters could have on the environment. If even a quarter of all cigarettes produced worldwide were able to integrate this innovation into their design, there would be the potential for a over a trillion new flowers and trees to be planted every year. And while ameliorating the largest source of litter in the world, greenbutts would be going a long way in changing how we think about cigarettes.

2055

Watch this optimistic video of our world in 2055… is it too idealistic? possible? what do you think?