Tag Archives: biodegradable

How to Make Your Poop More Eco-Friendly

The amount of fecal waste we excrete each day can rival the size of a small chihuahua. Have you ever considered how all of that poop affects the environment?

Poop isnt a big topic in the battle for reducing our environmental impact, but the way you handle your number twos can make small, but important changes if you put in some effort. Here are a few ways your poop can become more eco-friendly.

Compost human poo. Perhaps the most eco-friendly thing to do with your poo is to compost it and allow it to fertilize new life. If you’ve ever been camping, you may have pooped in aClevis Multrum composting toilet. It’s not pretty, per se. But all our nasty excrementgets to serve a higher purpose. If you invest in a composting toilet in your own home, you have the power to turn human waste into plant fuel.

By nourishing your soil with the nutrients and microbes fromyour composted poop (rather than letting it flow in freshwater to the treatment plant) you are doing your part to perpetuate nature’s natural and intricate circle of life support. All life comes from good soil, after all, and soil health across the country is suffering.The downside:composting your wastedoes require that you become a little more up close and personal with your poop.

Clean up your diet. Theoretically, if you keep your diet clean, your gut bacteria will be healthier, which means your poo will have a healthier spectrum of microbiota. It also will be full of good nutrients. If youre composting your waste, healthier poop can mean healthier, richer soil.

Just like us, plants need bacteria and minerals to survive and thrive. If we treat our digestive systems right, human compost can help other plants to flourish.Eat lots of organic, local produce, limit red meat consumption (and always eat grass-fed when you do), drink plenty of water and eat complex carbs like root veggies, seeds, nuts and grains (if tolerated). Eating resistant starch, found in tigernuts and cooked-then-chilled potatoes or rice, promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria the compost of your digestive system. And, above all, take probiotics before, after and during any bout of prescription antibiotics you must take, which can decimate your system. If ourwaste is more diverse and balanced, it makes for a healthier earthin the long run.

Use green toilet paper. Always opt for 100 percent recycled and unbleached. Need I say more?

Keep your pups poop green, too. Have you considered how eco-friendly it is to clean up your dogs poop? Biodegradable bags can actually take anywhere between 10 to 1,000 years to decompose. They really aren’t the best option, although buying high quality ones is the best way to go.

Other options for your pup’s pooinclude using flushable bags made of PVA that will dissolve in water (make sure your water treatment center can handle dog pathogens, as some cannot) or composting. There are plenty of options out there for dog compost that don’t involve burying your dog’s poop daily or keeping smelly, unsightly piles all over your yard. Try dog composting tanks if you have plenty of yard space, and toss all your pal’s plops in there. Mainly, just don’t leave black, non-biodegradable baggies strewn about in nature, and you will bewell on your way to becoming the owner of a dog with green poop.

Sure, maybe poop isn’t at the forefront of the sustainability movement, but it’s something to be aware of. After all, our poop is an indicator of our internal health and can help to fuel the cycle of life on our planet. If you live in a rural area where it would be feasible, would you ever consider composting your poop?Share your thoughts below.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Make Your Poop More Eco-Friendly

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Disposable vs. Reusable Dishes: The Surprising Facts

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Disposable vs. Reusable Dishes: The Surprising Facts

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Surprise: Biodegradable plastic bags usually aren’t

Surprise: Biodegradable plastic bags usually aren’t

31 Oct 2014 8:47 PM

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Surprise: Biodegradable plastic bags usually aren’t

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Reducing waste is hard. Who really knows what packaging is safe to recycle or compost when labeling standards are weak, companies regularly get away with green fraud, and seemingly every city has a different sorting game to play with bins? Straightforward rules and enforceable standardization would certainly go a long way toward clearing things up.

Even with the confusion, most people agree plastic bags suck. Perhaps sensing that we’re finally catching on, plastic bag makers have unleashed the greenwashers to make tiny changes to their product (like add a little metal) and then make up stories about how the “new” bags just disappear like magic.

In 2010, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposed some recommendations for environmental marketing claims. Since then, the market-regulating agency has actually started actively eradicating eco-bullshit.

Last year, the FTC cracked down on unsubstantiated claims of “biodegradable” and “compostable” bags. The Guardian’s Circular Economy series updates us on the latest distorted marketing word, “oxodegradable”:

Last month, the FTC sent warning letters to 15 additional marketers, informing them that their claims “may be deceptive”. The FTC also requested “competent and reliable scientific evidence proving that their bags will biodegrade as advertised”. This time, the term of offense is “oxodegradable”, implying the bag will break down in time when exposed to oxygen.

Though the names of the companies have not been released by the FTC, all are said to market traditional plastic products that have been amended with additives –metals, typically – intended to break the bags down in the presence of oxygen. As many bags are dumped in the low-oxygen environment of a landfill, the FTC has said those advertised benefits are dubious.

More to the point, isn’t the goal of making biodegradable products that they don’t have to go in a landfill at all? Food scraps are super biodegradable, and that’s why they go in the green bin or a compost pile. Biodegrading into nutritious soil in the landfill is worthless.

In the Guardian piece, sustainable manufacturing expert Joseph Greene, a professor at California State University, Chico, points out that “oxodegradable” should be amended to “oxofragmentable” to be more accurate.

Plastics just break into smaller and smaller pieces. Chemically, they haven’t been broken down into anything less hazardous. In fact, if these plastic bags disintegrate in the ocean, they’ll surely be just about the right size for small animals to mistake them for plankton.

The plastic bag industry shouldn’t feel too threatened by the trend toward BYOBag to the grocery store: We still sack up our produce and bulk items in 100 billion plastic bags a year. States and cities are launching plastic bag bans left and right, but those are baby steps at best. Even when cities “ban” plastic bags, what do shoppers put their fruits and veggies in? Plastic bags. To make a real dent, we may have to wait for Plastic Bag Ban 2.0 — a rule that applies to more than the checkout line.

Source:
Feds warn plastic bag makers over misleading biodegradable claim

, The Guardian.

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Surprise: Biodegradable plastic bags usually aren’t

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Feed Your Garden with Your Disposable Plastic Trash

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Feed Your Garden with Your Disposable Plastic Trash

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