Last Friday, several Fallonites partook in Critical Mass Minneapolis, the Twin Cities' chapter of a nationwide bicycle awareness movement. For those unaware, Critical Mass is a group that meets in Loring Park on the last Friday of each month and consists of several hundred bikers who ride through the streets of Minneapolis. The group's founding mission is to promote bike usage as a regular means of transportation and raise awareness of how unfriendly city streets are to cyclists.
TJ, Claire, and myself took the streets of Minneapolis to experience what exactly this is like. The following is a photo storyline of our experience.
Cyclists begin to assemble at Loring Park around 5:30. Before the ride, a small civilians rights group makes a presentation about how to interact with police if they give you difficulty. (This was presented due to incidents like this which have occurred in Minneapolis.) The group also makes us write a "jail hotline" on our arm, in case we are arrested. 
Claire's arm
The police arrive on bike and in squad car to escort the group. After multiple incidents, the MPD has decided to play nice. (Ironically they don't play so nice later, but that is a whooooole different story.)
TJ and Claire cruisin' Lyndale Ave.
CM heads downtown
Fallon represent!!
Post CM celebration at Preston's. 
Overall great experience. I will be back on August 29 as will many others hopefully.
Due to society's elevated green awareness as of late, I've been noticing more and more small changes that could really help in everyone's ability to reduce waste.
For instance, piggybacking off of my shoebox post earlier, another thing I often find myself throwing away is receipts. Think about how many small or insignificant purchases are made every day at retailers and how many receipts get quickly tossed into the trashcan near the front door. That's a lot of wasted paper. What if the little credit card scanner next to the cashier gave you the option, like at gas stations, "Need a receipt? YES or NO." I would be inclined from my own shopping experiences to just say no.
Last weekend, I attended the Rock the Garden event at the Walker Art Center which was fantastic. But in addition to the great bands and music, I was really impressed with how they handled the trash situation. The concert called itself a "zero waste event" which obviously wasn't true, but it was the first time that I had seen multiple recycling bins set up for different types of waste. Not only that, but the event had volunteers stationed at every trash outpost to make sure people didn't get lazy and just throw everything into one bin: trash gatekeepers if you will.
Anyway, I like it. And I think some programmer should just write the 10 lines of code it takes to ask "yes or no" for the receipt.
My second "first day" at Fallon was this past Monday and in preparing for a triumphant return, I felt like I needed some new clothes. In a moment of poor decision making, I drove to the MOA in order to make sure that I would have every option available.
During my shopping extravaganza, I purchased two pairs of shoes from Bostonian, and didn't think much about it until I got home and was unpacking. I took out the shoes, shoved all of the tissue papery stuff back into the two boxes, and brought them downstairs to our recycling center. As I was carrying them, I realized how wasteful shoeboxes are.
Everyday, thousands of pairs of shoes are purchased. As a runner, I have gone through literally dozens of pairs of running shoes over the last 9 years of my running career. Granted, some people save their shoeboxes for other uses (at least I have) but in my closet right now, I can think of only 3 shoeboxes.
Quick calculation:
5 pairs of training shoes/yr
+
2 pairs of racing shoes
+
2 pairs casual shoes
+
2 pairs dress shoes
=
At least 11 pairs of shoes per year x 4 years = 44 shoes boxes during college
41 of these boxes got thrown away/recycled.
I realize that as a runner myself, these numbers are skewed, but think about all of the collegiate/professional teams out there who go through multiple pairs of their own training shoes per year and how many boxes that adds up to. I know that on my team, after a new equipment issue there would be boxes upon boxes stacked next to trashcans (no recycling bins... too inconvenient)
It seems like shoe companies could stand to innovate their packaging from the perspective that boxes are a one time use item. Maybe a re-usable plastic box that consumers can choose to leave with the salesperson at the store to be sent back to company. I don't know enough about the material to know would could be done in terms of compostable material or something, but I see opportunity.
Happy to see this initiative starting to take at least some hold on our side of the pond. Across all its stores on April 22nd (Earth Day), Whole foods will cut the "plastic" out of "paper or plastic".
The company is trying to make the transition easy for shoppers accustomed to plastic by providing an array of options:
"We make it easy by offering a wide selection of reusable bags for sale at our stores — check out our “Better Bag” — only 99 cents and it’s made from recycled plastic bottles. Helping the environment in two ways!" (from their website).
Disposable bags have long been discouraged in many European countries (Ireland recently joined the cause, instituting a tax on bags to get people motivated) and earlier this year even China stepped up.
A smart move and something that all of us can do in our collective effort to fight pollution, and fits well with Whole Foods vision on sustainability and our future.
And also, maybe it'll help offset some of the backlash that co-founder John Mackey caused with his message board blunder last year. Hope you learned your lesson, John (just remember: Transparency).
The Photographers’ Gallery invited people to submit photographs of plastic bags spotted around London and elsewhere which can be viewed here.
[…]Reminding us of our ability to consume and dispose, this project provides the public with their own platform for visual expression and is part of the Gallery’s continued remit to encourage further audience participation and highlighting photography’s influence in everyday life.[…]
via GHAVA
Mark talks a lot around here about a growing sense of autonomy among Americans. The increased sentiment that “it’s up to me” and subsequent actions to protect “me and mine.” I grew up with a dad who staunchly believed in the right to bear arms, just in case the government went so askew that citizens needed to take up arms in correction. So I’ve had trouble reconciling my historical perception of autonomy with Mark’s more evolved version. 
An article in Time magazine this week helped me bridge the gap. It profiled a new way of living, the EcoVillage at Ithaca (EVI). Liz Walker, a co-founder, describes her vision for EVI as “trying to create an attractive, viable alternative to American life.” It sounds really great. Over 150 people live in the community, and they all work together to reap benefits of communal food, daycare, and laundry.
But it’s not a commune. These are people who are dedicated to reducing their carbon footprint (and are very successful in doing so) by changing the way they live (not just planting 80 trees to make up for that vacay in Mexico).
And they’re not hippies. The community is very technologically advanced, adopting some bleeding-edge conservation concepts. Homes are “Norman Rockwell meets Al Gore,” and run up to $300k, yet there is a waiting list to join. 
A second example of people getting together for change is happening in Philadelphia where crime has reached an unacceptable level. A group of concerned citizens, comprised of local executives and men who worked on the Million Man March, brought a proposal to the Police Commissioner: allow them to organize as volunteer peacekeepers. The plan is to gather up to 10,000 men to patrol the streets—unpaid and unarmed—to watch out for criminal activity. The thought is that a roving band of bystanders and witnesses will deter would-be criminals.
I guess now that I read this post, the examples aren't all that far from the essence of my dad's point of view: he was just protecting our right to take matters into our own hands and these people are taking action on that right.
via NPR
Scientific American this month focuses in on the various complexities of our current food situation: "The global paradox of obesity and malnutrition." I'd recommend that anyone who is interested in diet, health and consumption should pick this up.
Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat and NYT contributor, wades through many of the conflicting stories we hear to try to get to a simplified view on what to embrace and what to avoid. On the subject of organics, she writes:
Further research will likely confirm that organic foods contain higher nutrient levels, but it is unclear whether these nutrients would make a measurable improvement in health....Organics may be somewhat healthier to eat, but they are far less likely to damage the environment, and that is reason enough to choose them at the supermarket.
Lots of talk about getting up and doing more lately (shout to Leland's manifesto about taking action in planning). I think part of the magic potion is finding inspiration so compelling that the spirit moves you into action. So here are a few examples of innovation and invention that will will hopefully move you in that direction.
"INDEX: is a global non-profit network organization that focuses on Design to Improve Life – e.g. design that substantially improves important aspects of human life – worldwide."
Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? Last week, awards were given to designers who had made significant contributions to designing differently.
Of course our favorite computer made the cut.
And the Solar Bottle, an answer to unclean drinking water. After bottling, the water sits in the sun, and pathogens are destroyed by heat. Winning designers, Alberto Meda & Francisco Gomez Paz increased functionality and practicality by adding an aluminum side to increase reflection and a handle to make the bottle portable. Simple, but brilliant.
via creativity.
The Laundry is another example of devising practical solutions. It's a paper recycling system for small businesses in London. And it's easy easy easy. Put your paper on the sidewalk, someone will take it away, and then, voile! magically, 100% recycled paper will return in its place. It completes the loop, so now recycled products are integrated painlessly into business' operations. One small step down the path that can help acclimatize companies to alternative products/uses.
Derek Lerner at GHAVA Twittr'd me this interesting clip as it reminded him of the Trash Talk initiative (note to self...behind on photo posts, where's dat cord? Doh.).
On the same note, this link about transparent rubbish bins from PSFK gives me other food for thought around the urgency of making our trash more transparent if we are to spark a change in personal action. We, collectively and individually expend great efforts to hide and disguise trash. Since childhood, we have come to know trash only as something that goes down a magic tube and "away". We hide the smells, we hide it out back, we never have to face it full on and truly deal with it. So the pile builds under our figurative carpets.
Ambient Devices offers ingenius products that re-envision everyday data...in these examples - a desktop glow-orb that depicts real-time stock trends, or a wall meter that displays real-time energy consumption. How might this work in a trash can connotation? Tap our toilets and actually assess the damage we inflict? Tap our drains and confront the volumes we channel down the pipes?
More interesting is the Hive Minding potential that Frog Design's Trash Talk Initiative begins to reveal to me: toss up an idea (or a problem, aka a "brief") and invite bright minds to brew on the subject and blog insights and experiences.
Last weekend, Leonardo DiCaprio's The 11th Hour was released in select cities (Minneapolis: August 31). The film's promotional web site is interesting. (Well, aside from the lame Planet Green game sponsored by Starbucks; reminds me of "fun" children's PSA activities—how many forms of pollution can you find in this picture?—or of Captain Planet.)
A brief quiz lets you assess your carbon output. While that service isn't new, this is a clean and easy way to assess your lifestyle. I don't drive, so my biggest output is air travel. I admire people like John Grant who have cut their impact by reducing travel, but would find it hard to follow suit for both personal and professional reasons. Mine are typical issues: far-flung family and friends, out of town clients, and the not insignificant (and not unselfish) love of travel and exploration (if only I'd been to Climate Camp, perhaps I'd feel otherwise). Purchasing carbon offsets would be a good first step, but that ultimately doesn't solve the problem, it simply incorporates true cost of the service.
So if we can't cut out travel, what to do instead? We have low emission vehicles, why not low-emission planes? And low-emission airports (think of all the trash created while we eat our way to departure time, moving walkways, 24/7 lighting, etc.)? Yet as McDonough and Braungart note in Cradle to Cradle, "being 'less bad' is no good." Is there a completely clean solution? Unlike mass consumer technology, the design of commercial planes—and most major forms of transport—has remained relatively stagnant over the past 50 years, concentrating on improving the existing model versus revolutionizing the idea itself. The physical air travel infrastructure is relatively minimal compared to other modes of transport (beyond airports, there aren't thousands of miles of track or road that must be maintained; fueling stations are centralized); can that be leveraged in a redesign?
Easy questions to pose when you're not an engineer, but as someone whose life has been greatly shaped by air travel, I sincerely hope the eco-vs.-airplane game isn't zero-sum. And if so, perhaps by the time we've reached that conclusion the physicists will have figured out how to make Apparition a reality.
Travel Trash Update. Again, I have fallen off the wagon due to travel and conferences. 3 hail marys and all may be forgiven, rite?
I am, however, increasingly conscious of avoiding needless paper plates and plastic bags. Ever notice how everyone wants to give you plastic bags for any and everything? And those dumb stirrers at the coffee condiments table.
Airplanes, don't separate out the cans and organic compost. What's up with that NWA?
Airports, not a recycle bin in the whole complex.
Hotel events and luncheons...hotel rooms...no assistance for this reforming wastemaker.
On a related note - I now realize that I love my Escape Hybrid. More specifically, I love the "score" meters in-dash that show me just how much MPG I am saving this moment when I drive slowly enough to remain in the "green" (aka electric mode). Staying steady in the green racks me up the savings "points". Driving speedy and erratically shows me the consequences immediately. And I stop, because seeing 20 MPG is a bummer. However, seeing that I am racking up 30-40 MPG makes me feel good. These green meters in my dashboard compel me to change my driving habits and rack up more MPGs. These point meters remind me of a video game score, and moreso provide me the perception of "progress". And reward. I am compelled to beat my driving score from last time, and top my all-time-high MPG score. I realize this is probably not the intention of the green designers at Ford.
I'd like my trash can to note my scores, too. Why can't the cans tell me just how toxic (or not) my trash currently is? I'd like my garbage can to function better and tell me how well I am progressing at this very moment, every moment.
Flickr compiles
Theater, Travel and Tradeshow trash edition.
Took the wifee to Spamalot! on Saturday and decided to leave the trash in the car (hey, I had a good excuse!). The attendent makes you trash your cups before entering to be seated (whew!). Theaters have lots of useless plastic cups forced upon you even though you're only ordering an Orangina which already is in a perfectly useable bottle. I guess the plastic cup is somehow more chic than the bottle?
Travel creates loads of useless trash to be avoided, from the half-eaten sandwich that you knew would taste nasty yet still purchased anyway to the double layers of bathroom paper towels ("I ain't touchin' nuthin' in here!") to the bottles and tickets and countless little slips of paper. Interestingly, for all the containers proffered, DAMN FEW AIRPORT CONTAINERS ARE ACTUALLY CONDUCIVE TO STREAMLINED TRAVEL! Everything is damned bulky and chunktified (yes, a made-up word) requiring great pockets to keep it all together. 
Was at FoodSmarts Conference in Chicago for past 2 days..additional photo forthcoming. I admit, I did a bit of cheating these 2 days. Between the laptop and the bags of samples and brochures and camera and notes and miles of walking the floor - I let some of the trash go (like the half-eaten turkey sandwich and some Red Bull cans and some food sample cups and plates). Tradeshows, with all their lame pens and lights and trinkets and mints and flyers and brochures are probably the posterchild for wasteful disposability. Everything you're handed is headed to the trash. Best to just not take most of the crap, maybe exhibitors will quit buying them and provide more engaging and memorable experiences to draw crowds in lieu of trash trinkets.
And another thing: NOT ONE DAMN RECYCLE BIN ANYWHERE IN THE AIRPORT OR CONVENTION HALL. Can a wasteful consumer get any help on trying to reform?
Needless to say, my actual trash generation at the tradeshow is a bit more than the photos depict. Minus 10 points on cheating. Doh!
And yes, I have added a man-bag to keep my trash ever so stylish.
One napkin can, indeed, last all damn day (especially when you don't want to haul napkin trash all day). Perhaps I may invest in a handkerchief (gramps was onto something there).
Flickr compiles
Met Ashley Menger at Frog Design a few days ago and was introduced to their Trash Talk Initiative.
As an attempt to research our (dis)connections with the trash we create (and hopefully evolve some solutions), Trash Talkers commit to a few weeks of living with the trash they create daily. Common wisdom insists that it takes 3 weeks to actually change human behaviour so I will take on the Trash Talk challenge for 21 days and keep my daily trash with me everywhere I go.
Here's my first day's trash...
Direct mail did me in. 1 week of direct mail at that. Travel Tomorrow. Tickets to the theater tonight...lemme think about how I'm gonna get my trash in the show. Doh!
Seed Newsvine
