I'm looking forward to our field trip to the ENC this Saturday. It's located in my neighborhood, and I've spent many a pleasant hour there either with my students, on my own with a sack lunch or wandering down the impressive trail looking at birds. I've personally seen its transformation from a portable plunked down on a piece of rough land, surrounded by a glorious trail through a dozen simulated classic California habitats, to now a dazzling LEED platinum certified green building - providing a stunning portal into the nature center. This building is the first in Orange County to receive this level of certification! LEED-certified buildings, "have smaller development footprints, are healthier environments for occupants and serve as stewards in environmental and social responsibility." In the words on the ENC website,
The ENC has been teaching and growing within our community for over 35 years. Having a building of our own has been a dream since our inception and we can finally say that our dream has come true. Our 8,500 square-foot sustainable learning center provides vital classroom and educational spaces and serves as an educational tool itself. We hope that our building can show the benefits of environmentally-conscious design and teach our visitors how to implement sustainable features in their homes and businesses. Most importantly, we hope the center will inspire our visitors to make personal investments in the protection of the environment.
To learn more, please follow this link to the LEED Platinum ENC Building page: http://www.encenter.org/visit/greenbuilding.shtml
I'm excited to see an such a vital, important and worthy organization grow exponentially. The ENC truly is spreading the word for the environment. With the advent of their Green Building, it's an impressive place now both outwardly and inwardly.
So far I'm thinking I want to work as a Green / Sustainability Consultant in the RRM field. I've been consulting for 20 years in the educational and academic coaching field, and truly love the consulting process. I enjoy being called in to figure out what the problem is, come up with solutions and design a plan, which I then help my clients implement. Watching a client's transformation for the better is truly inspiring! Efficiency and creativity are my middle names, so I'm grateful that in the Green field ... I've found a niche that fits me just right. Mother Earth is dear to me, and I passionately and wholeheartedly throw myself into her service!
I've learned a ton of things in the past 6 weeks in my classes at IVC - especially, and simply, an expanded consciousness about discards. This is probably the biggest change in my life as a result of taking these classes: I'm now more aware than ever about how the improper discard of items after their useful lives has created a nightmare of epidemic proportions. That being said, the next most important thing I've learned is that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT! And that I am a part of that something! I just cannot wait to keep learning more about the entire field and settling into what my part in this trashy transformation will be :)
From Cradle to Cradle gives a great description of one of the many problems with landfills:
Imagine what you would come upon today at a typical landfill: old furniture, upholstery, carpets, televisions, clothing, shoes, telephones, computers, complex products and plastic packaging, as well as organic materials like diapers, paper, wood and food wastes. Most of these products were made from valuable materials that required effort and expense to extract and make, billions of dollars' worth of material assets. The biodegradable materials such as food matter and paper actually have value too - they could decompose and return biological nutrients to the soil. Unfortunately, all of these things are heaped in a landfill, where their value is wasted. They are the ultimate products of an industrial system that is designed on a linear, one-way cradle-to-grave model.
What wasting! We're throwing away value resources and commodities, plus not making use of the second-life of so many things. The whole book is about transitioning from a cradle-to-grave model to a cradle-to-cradle model, where products provide nourishment for something else after their own lives are done. This is nature's model, of course. What a great example we have all around us. We too can design like nature does. And so we shall, in order to save the planet and life on it.
Cradle to Cradle mentions a kind of Frankenstein product (as far as recycling goes) man has made: Monstrous Hybrids. These are, "mixtures of materials both technical and biological, neither of which can be salvaged after their current lives." What a disaster! Citing the common leather shoe as an example, the author goes on to reveal how the particular amalgam of material and processes, including chromium tanning and the lead and plastics in rubber soles, make it totally unsuitable for recycling. Can we not design a better way to make shoes, with eco-friendly materials and chemicals? Such is one of our many, many tasks on the way to sustainability and zero waste.
In Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, the author brings up the notion that, "Whether it is a matter of cutting the amount of toxic waste created or emitted, or the quantity of raw materials used, or the product size itself, reduction is a central tenet of eco-efficiency. But reduction in any of these areas does not halt depletion and destruction - it only slows it down, allowing them to take place in smaller increments over a longer period of time." So don't emit so much waste, don't use so much material and don't make the product bigger than it has to be are the messages here. All great messages, but in reality we're only conserving better the little we have. It makes me think that in order to get to zero waste, we must come up with a better model ultimately. However, the four Rs are a great beginning. Especially the regulation, as forcing people to comply with a zero waste model - or the closest we can get to zero waste - will ensure success (well, as long as the players involved do act with integrity).
The field trip to the Frank R Bowerman landfill was revelatory - so THAT's where our garbage is going, and that's how it gets there, and that's what's done with it once it arrives! I was really impressed, with the size of the landfill and the sheer volume of traffic going up, dumping and then going back down. Wow. There was a constant stream of huge trucks of all shapes and color and brands, in long lines both on the way up and the way down. And this was a Saturday. I wonder if the volume is even greater on the week days?
Christine Knapp was powerhouse of energy and information. Turns out this landfill is one of three in the OC, and is scheduled to close in 2053. The other two will close in 2021 and 2067 ... and there will not be any other landfills opening up in the county. They've taken a canyon basically and are filling it with trash here. Likely by the time these landfills close, we'll have zero waste policies well in place and won't need landfills anymore ... IF we work super-hard on the problem NOW!
This landfill isn't open to the public - all we saw were business garbage trucks and haulers. I couldn't help but wonder where exactly MY garbage was on this huge pile we were standing on. Perhaps I even saw my garbage being unloaded, as we stood there and watched! I must say, this visit to the landfill inspired me to keep going forward with my green training, as there's definitely "a need and a half" for work done in this field!
Please visit our Orange County landfills website at www.oclandfills.com for the full scoop.
Green to Gold tells the story of how DuPont's Conoco oil tanker collided with a tugboat in Louisiana in 1997 and got a huge gash torn away from the hull. Instead of causing a massive oil spill, the company averted disaster due to some forward thinking - years ahead of regulations, DuPont had mandated double hulled tankers, so in this case, the outer hull ripped, while the inner hull and its contents remained intact. No oil was spilled. DuPont had previously made an, "expensive commitment to build only double-hulled ships. They believed that the reduction in risk to both the company and the environment was worth it, and were they ever right."
If only more people had such a vision! It truly is logical thinking, to take precautions that cost extra money to ensure the company's reputation, to avoid costs associated with cleaning up a disaster if it should happen and to inspire loyalty and respect in consumers. Companies can tend to think about how cheaply they can get away with things, imagining they're saving a buck at the moment, but in the long run, it pays to invest in security and precautionary measures that support the environment and foster respect from a company's customer base.
Green to Gold states that, " Employees' identities are powerfully shaped by a company's reputation. Almost everyone wants to work for a company that they can feel good about. In our knowledge-based economy the most prized workers are highly mobile and often highly sensitive to their employer's environmental performance." This is a great point about the business world. Employees often care very much about the reputation and status of the company they work for. For me, it feels good to work for a well-respected company or institution. For a company to go for the Eco-advantage makes sense in terms of employee satisfaction, and, as we all know, a satisfied employee is a well-functioning employee. Behold yet another advantage of a company going for the Triple Bottom Line of People, Profit and Planet!
Green to Gold mentions that, "some executives even talk about the importance of embedding environmental thinking and action in their 'corporate DNA'." Now THIS is exciting! Can you imagine if indeed environmental thinking and action were to become imbedded in corporate DNA? You know, when one takes an historical perspective on issues, one often sees developments coming into being that were once only wild visions and dreams. Yet, they were accomplished over time and space. An example is the anti-litter campaign. Most people in the USA now abhor littering and will bother to find a trash can versus throwing items on the ground. This wasn't the case before, but with public campaigns, education and social conditioning, it's now a cultural more. So, I have hopes for environmental thinking and action to one day become embedded in corporate DNA. If you can dream it, you an accomplish it, right? Given the practical implications of being green, I think one day, maybe not too far in the future, "green" will be our default mode across the board.
Green to Gold points out that, "A great deal of pollution is waste and a function of outmoded production processes or poor product design. So improving the resource productivity of a business - the amount of material or energy needed per unit of output - goes straight to the bottom line." As an efficiency expert myself, it seems to me a great step for any company would be to eliminate waste, both for savings and for functionality, if not to be environmentally responsible. This is one of the ways I see myself fitting into the green field, providing efficiency expertise. Per our waste audit we're doing at the college, it simply doesn't make any sense to just throw things into the general garbage to be dumped in our landfills, when the material discarded actually has market value. Some places will actually pay the school for these items they are simply throwing out now! Plus, paying less (or nothing?!) for garbage disposal fees taps into the school's bottom line!
I think it's extremely interesting how, "environmental challenges have become an important part of the business landscape." I love the fact that doing the right thing for the planet is now in total alignment with business practices! It definitely is inspiring me to transition into this field and start using my skills to green up everything we can on this planet. So many green things are no-brainers, as seen in the class waste audit we're doing at IVC. We are finding all sorts of items being chucked as trash, when they could be easily set aside for recycling. It makes business sense for the school to do so, in that they can jump on the green wave and therefor improve their standing in the community, can save money on trash hauling AND even make money with redeeming items such as bottles and cans!
Principle 2: Give honest, sincere appreciation.
I haven't had an opportunity as of this writing to apply this principle by expressing appreciation to someone recently, but I can comment on seeing my teenage niece apply it when she took the High School Dale Carnegie course earlier this year. It was amazing! She made a point to come up to each one of my family members at a family gathering and express her "honest, sincere appreciation" for things we each do for her. It was quite touching. It was obvious she had put some thought into what she was grateful for, and could approach each one of us and verbalize it.
Being on the receiving end, I can see how appreciative people can be when they receive this sort of thoughtful kindness. I see this principle as an extension of simply being grateful for all life has to offer. Cultivating gratitude is a wonderful practice to undertake. Personally I've been doing it for several years now, and the results are overwhelmingly positive! I look forward to trying this principle out in the context of this course, and seeing the results - stay tuned!
Principle 1: Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
Uhh, right. Yesterday I had a Balboa Ferry incident, where after we'd been waiting in line for 1/2 an hour, inching forward slowly but surely, a guy boldly cut in front of the car in front of me, just as we were moving up to the front position to be on the next ferry! In plain view of all of us toward the front of the long line! I was livid, and after I confirmed with the car in front of me that indeed the guy had cut in front of her, I got out of my car and went up to his open passenger window. He had his wife and kid in the car, and I said angrily that he'd just cut in front of us, and we'd been patiently waiting half an hour in line, and I asked him to please consider un-cutting: getting out of the place he'd cut into, and going to the end of the line! Well, he'd have none of this, and angrily (and dishonestly) replied to me, stating that he, too, indeed had been waiting 1/2 an hour (in the alley to cut in front of us!) Of course, he'd only been "waiting" - to cut in front of us - for about 3 minutes or so. I stomped away, fuming. I called the police, who told me I had no recourse, and suggested I call the ferry and tell them to not let him on. I found the ferry phone number online and called them, only to get an answering machine.
Honestly, I remembered the idea of road rage, and this guy looked extremely scary to boot. I considered getting out of my car and walking up to the ferry landing and asking the next ferry to not let this guy on. I immediately thought better of it! I would've been an extrememly obvious target!
I asked the ferry people about it once I got on, and they said that yes, they definitely try to block any cutters from gettting on the ferry, as long as they have sufficient notice before they drive onto the ferry.
Well.
Dale Carnegie says that, "instead of condeming people, let's try to understand them. Let's try to figure out why they do what they do. That's a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness."
In the heat of the moment, it's difficult to take the long, detached view. But eventually I could start to not judge and condemn, and instead feel sorry for him. Carnegie mentions being sympathetic, tolerant and kind. This is spiritual high ground. It must be sought after through spiritual means. It's attainable, I know.
More will be revealed as I delve into this book and start to try to apply the principles.
I've just created my first blog - and this is my first entry. Woah! This blog is devoted to what I'm learning at IVC's Recycling and Resource Management Certification courses, for the school year 2011-2012. We're starting with Dale Carnegie's book, specifically his seminal work, How To Win Friends and Influence People. My brother just finished a stint as OC's Dale Carnegie course promoter to High Schools, and both my teenage nieces recently took the course. Great connections, then! Unfortunately one of my nieces is moving to France in 2 weeks for her senior year abroad, but, with the Internet, communication might not present such a problem after all! Stay tuned for my next entry!
