by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
ROCHESTER, MI, August 2010: The August 2010 issue of The ULS (Use Less Stuff) Report is out, featuring ways to save environmental and economic resources when readying your kids to go back to school.
Emphasis is on use of recycled materials and being "greener" when packing lunches. According to Editor Bob Lilienfeld, "Just by spending an extra 2 minutes a day to pack lunch for 2 kids, a family can save $2 a day, or over $325 a year! Simply switch from single-serve, disposable packaging to larger, more economical sizes of fruits, vegetables, cookies and crackers. Then put these items in reusable containers."
The August issue also discusses whether packages made from bio-polymers, or containers claiming to be biodegradable or compostable, are as sustainable as they are purported to be.
This part of the August issue of ULS also and especially makes most interesting reading and should make us really think. Bio-plastics are somewhat like bio-fuels; not as green as we are made to believe. In fact, let me rephrase that: they are not at all green in the main.
While plastics from bio-polymers are a way of making plastic from sources other than oil the fact that actually crops are used to produce the base to those polymers is what is also a problem in the long run. Those crops are, first of all, also food crops and secondly they will take up, in the same way as crops for bio-fuels, valuable food growing lands.
The ULS (Use Less Stuff) Report is published monthly, and its website is rated #1 by Google, Yahoo! and MSN for searches relating to waste prevention and source reduction.
Editor Bob Lilienfeld also hosts the monthly TV segment Use Less Stuff on Fox. The current ULS newsletter can be found at http://www.use-less-stuff.com/Archive/ULS-Report-V10N4.pdf. This is a PDF file and you will need a PDF reader for this.
One of the best PDF readers available, in my opinion, is not Adobe Reader but Nitro PDF Reader. It is free and, so I understand, Open Source and has the facility to add annotations, etc. which will also be saves (something you have to pay dearly for in other readers) and also can extract text and pictures.
© 2010
