Ethical Living, Tips to help other-animals

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Tips from Elephant Family:

Our planet is so precious. And just small, simple changes to your lifestyle can make a huge difference to its future – and to that of the animals we share it with.

•Minimise harmful deforestation by avoiding products that contain palm oil or wood products....
•Save energy by switching off your lights, turning down your heating...,and never leaving electrical equipment on standby.
•Avoid air travel whenever possible....
•Avoid buying fruit and vegetables that have been shipped in from abroad, and instead eat seasonal, home-grown varieties....
•Consume less!

http://www.elephantfamily.org/how-you-can-...ethical-living/

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Share of packaging waste in total household waste (OECD)
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/share_of_p...hold_waste_oecd

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Celebrate Day Without A Bag THIS THURSDAY!

Held the third Thursday in December, we ask holiday shoppers and retailers to forgo single-use, plastic shopping bags in favor of reusable bags.

http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entr...g-this-thursday

Great online movie:
Bag It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEQ1FxC0fs

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Plastic -- Boycott! ... For the Animals!

"...It takes 450 -1000 years for plastic bags to break down. Plastic in the marine environment never fully degrades. The end product of the break down, "plastic dust," is ingested by filter feeding marine animals. The dust and the bio-toxins, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that the plastic dust accumulates, are passed up the food chain to fish and humans.... Biodegradable bags take months to years to break down.... The preferred alternative to recycling plastic bags is not to use them at all.... Plastic recycling programs may give people a false assurance concerning the benefits of recycling because processing used plastic can cost more than virgin plastic. ...Manufacturers of virgin plastic strongly resist legislation requiring recycled content in their packaging products. Less expensive "…virgin resin [is] flooding the market".... http://www.atlantapolymers.net/sustainable-consumption/

Use Cloth Bags

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Great 1 min video of Lang Lang.

5 to do today

It's not hard to do five things everyday. Submit your 5.

http://5todo.org/

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A very interesting blog. This is from today's new post.

Bioplastics

We’ve all seen the pictures of birds stomachs filled with plastic detritus and read about the Great Pacific Gyre, but I just read a new twist to that story: the Emirates News Agency reported that decomposed remains of camels in the desert region of the United Arab Emirates revealed that 50% of the camels died from swallowing and choking on plastic bags. “Rocks of calcified plastic weighing up to 60 kilograms are found in camel stomachs every day,” said Dr. Ulrich Wernery, Scientific Director, Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Dubai, whose clinic conducts hundreds of post-mortems on camels, gazelles, sheep and cows in the UAE. He adds that one in two camels die from plastic.[2]

http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/bioplastics/

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Boycott plastic!

Bits of plastic endangering sea creatures

"The particles are swallowed by organisms and absorbed via the digestive tract. It has been possible, for example, to detect them in the tissue of mussels or other animals," says Lars Gutow, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Toxic substances also attach to particles in the sea which then enter the food chain and can, therefore, be dangerous to humans....

http://story.indianapolispost.com/index.ph...ea%20creatures/

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Bioplastics - Are they the answer?

According to the study, polypropylene [PP #5] topped the team's list as having the least life-cycle impact, while PVC [#3] and PET [#1] (polyethylene terephthalate) were ranked as having the highest life-cycle impact.

But as the Plastic Pollution Coalition tells us, it’s not so much changing the material itself that needs changing – it’s our uses of the stuff itself. We are the problem: If we continue to buy single-use disposable objects such as plastic bottles and plastic bags, with almost 7 billion people on the planet, our throwaway culture will continue to harm the environment, no matter what it’s made of.

http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2012/04/...hey-the-answer/

Resin Code #s:
http://healthychild.org/5steps/5_steps_5/

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Plastic Recycling: The Triangle Is a Lie

All three articles are great!

http://theflotsamdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/p/...gle-is-lie.html