Matter of Trust is Collecting Hair Clippings for a Great Cause

About a week ago I was in need of background noise while editing my manuscript and I came across a marathon of Tabitha’s Salon Take Over. I mean no offense to the show but it was the perfect thing as I truly just needed something I could ignore. Of course a few episodes in my ears perked up at the mention of Matter of Trust and I had to immediately put my editing aside for a few minutes of research.

The organization collects the scraps of hair that are cut off and swept up into a garbage can then they take them and fashion them into mats.

Now, before I hear a ton of comments like ‘eeew, I don’t want a hair mat!’ let me explain what these mats are used for and why.

Turns out that human hair is quite adept at retaining grease and oil and it, combined with other fibers such as feathers, furs and wools that were all headed for the landfill, can be fashioned into hand held mats that are used to clean up oil spills all along waterways. Cool!

As their website indicates there are upwards of 370,000 pounds of hair thrown away by just the hair salons in the United States every day, that’s a lot of hair that could be turned into mats.

Phil McCoy is the inventor of the hair mat and he is asking for every salon in the US to sign up to send in their hair clippings to help assist in cleaning up the 2,600+ oil spills that happen in and around our waterways every year. They even suggest reusing the boxes that salon product was shipped in to do it. What a fantastic environmental idea!

The only snag is that right now the old warehouse location is no longer adequate and they are seeking a new space for donations to be sent in but they strongly urge salons to sign up anyway with an email address as they will contact you as soon as they are ready to begin accepting the boxes again.

Sometimes the best way to discover something new is diversion. I was really excited to discover this organization and I hope all my salon friends (including my own hair dresser who I will be alerting about this program when I next see her in a couple weeks!) take full advantage of this way to turn waste into treasure and help our water ways!

Tap Water Just Got Tastier with PUR Flavor Options Water Filtration Systems

We all know that plastic bottles created from petroleum are harmful to the environment as they take centuries to break down (if at all), can end up leeching into the Earth or become stuck spinning in the middle of the ocean in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so tap water in a reusable bottle is certainly the responsible way to go.

Tap water alone can become boring and although flavored water is tasty, most water enhancements such as packets or already flavored waters add calories, sugar or both to the water we drink. Not to mention how much money can be spent on all those individual bits. So then what is a thirsty Greenie to do? Why they run right out and pick up a PUR Flavor Options Water Filtration System of course!

Filtering tap water with a PUR filter can reduce pharmaceuticals in the water supply by 96% (if they are present), not to mention various agricultural or industrial pollutants, chlorine, lead, rust and microbial cysts. Who knew there was that much floating around in our public water supply? Um, yikes! Not to mention that using a PUR pitcher instead of bottles means that up to 2,000 individual bottles are removed from the landfill per person every year.

Of course the coolest part of this little baby is the flavor cartridge. Instead of a small individual packet that is used and tossed each time, the PUR cartridge inserts into the lid of the pitcher. If flavoring is desired just click a button on the top of the handle while pouring and a squirt is added. But without clicking there will be no flavoring, leaving the option open for plain water as well. The cartridges are said to last up to about 75 eight ounce glasses so there is far less waste associated than with packets or bottles.

And oh yeah, it’s super yummy without adding any sugar or calories! The pitcher I got came with a raspberry cartridge, I also got lemon, but there are strawberry, peach and grape options available as well. I tried the raspberry right away (mine and Matt’s favorite so far) but wanted to try lemon too so I just popped out the cartridge, tossed it in the fridge (tip up) and poured a glass of lemon water. E-Z!

My only concern is that the items we must throw away are in fact petroleum based plastic -- the filter and cartridges. Additionally, sometimes the squirt of flavoring ends up stuck in the little reservoir at the end so when switching to a different flavor it needs to be cleaned out. In comparison to individual bottles or packets however the waste associated with this PUR Flavor Options System is minimal so I am awarding it a Four and a Half Green Leaf rating!

I am uber impressed with this entire system and our little family is happy to be drinking healthy water as well as helping to keep tons of plastic out of landfills. Nice work PUR!
♥love♥

The Waterless Eagle

Yesterday my Aunt sent me an article from the Boston Globe about street sweeping in the city of Boston. The title of the article was related to the future of street sweeping and I was immediately curious if this wasteful yet somewhat necessary institution was about to be disbanded due to the recent economic downturn. Instead I was pleasantly surprised to read about a newly unveiled, waterless street sweeper proposed to the city of Boston called the Waterless Eagle.

The Waterless Eagle uses forceful suction and brushes to intake all the dirt and grime, as opposed to simply pushing it forward until it reaches a low point to fall into as a standard sweeper does. In a city demonstration the Eagle managed to suck up dirt that a standard sweeper missed and left the asphalt shiny clean. City officials were certainly impressed but there is one great downfall to the Eagle, the price tag. At $235,000 per unit, to replace all seven city machines during a time of proposed budgetary cuts would be a hit of over $1.6 million so there would need to be some very strong reasoning behind the change other than pretty roads.

During my research I discovered that street sweepers can have a tank with up to 420 gallons of water and as the article states, the seven trucks in operation in the city of Boston (not to mention all the privately owned trucks operating around town) are capable of using over 800 gallons of water per day, each. That is a hefty number especially when considering sweepers are out from spring to fall. In addition to the wasteful aspect of the machines, all that water has to go somewhere. As the machine sprays at the curb the large rotating brushes literally sweep away the dirt, grime and trash leaving this water free to run right into neighboring streams or sewers. Let us not forget all that rock salt or sand that was used over the winter that is now headed straight downstream, compromising waterways and nature in the process.

The Eagle runs on a powerful John Deere motor and can travel as fast as highway speed which means increased efficiency in the time it takes to complete an entire neighborhood. The hopper will hold up to four and a half cubic yards of waste and can sweep a swath of up to ten feet. The hopper and sweep path are comparable to that of a standard sweeper but the most excellent feature of all is the optional fuel systems. The Eagle can be fitted to run on either compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) meaning an immediate savings of fuel cost and emissions city wide.

I am hopeful that the city of Boston will see the benefit of such an efficient and Green machine and invest in at least one for this year as a test run toward greening up the city. Once they find the benefits of such technological advances far outweigh the cost it will only be a matter of time before residents start seeing big white trucks sucking up our grunge as opposed to the well used, once loved, yet completely outdated dirt stained yellow machines of yesterday.