Our Green Streets Blog

BioLyle's two-DVD set is available for $39.95

Lyle Rudensey, in Seattle, was kind enough to send a copy of his two-DVD set, “BioLyle’s Biodiesel Workshop,” for us to review. For anybody interested in knowing about biodiesel, whether as a hobby or part of a cooperative effort, watching this video set is a great way to get started. But be prepared to spend some time with it, as the running length tallies up to 224 minutes.

I am happy to add that the viewer’s time will be well-spent. Lyle Rudensey takes viewers into the classroom for an in-depth lesson concerning everything from the chemistry to the tools required for manufacture, then into his garage for a ’seeing-is-believing’ demonstration that covers all of the steps involved, from collection and filtering, to titration, processing, storing, and cleaning.

On the Utah Biodiesel Supply website, Graydon Blair writes that Rudensey “has taught literally hundreds of people how to make their own Biodiesel through his hands-on Biodiesel workshops in the Seattle, WA area. His relaxed teaching style combined with his incredible knowledge of the Biodiesel production process makes for an incredible experience that students come away from raving about. Not only does he make the whole process incredibly easy to learn, but you’ll come away knowing so much more about why Biodiesel works, why anyone can make it, and how you can get started on a budget!” Read more of this >>

Interest in aquaponics attracts many people wordwide Source: www.aquaponics .com

We are happy hearing from senior spokespeople in the promising field of aquaponics, especially as a way to provide food in a sustainable way for poorer countries.

After a request to contribute on the subject, Rebecca Nelson, co-founder of Wisconsin-based Nelson & Pade and publisher of the Aquaponics Journal, writes to Green Streets (my emphasis):

“Nelson and Pade, Inc specializes in aquaponics, which is a sustainable, highly efficient method of agriculture.  The company is well-established in the industry and known around the world for extensive contributions to aquaponics technology.  Nelson and Pade, Inc is very fortunate that, even in this economy, interest in their products and services is growing and the business is in an expansion mode.  With clients throughout North America and around the world, the mission of Nelson and Pade, Inc is to continue to lead the aquaponics industry by providing quality systems, supplies, training and technical support.

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Graydon Blair, Utah Biodiesel founder, visually samples biodiesel Photo: Utah Bio

Graydon Blair, the owner of this biodiesel concern, Utah Biodiesel Supply, is one of the first in line to say the fuel alternative in which he specializes is not going to answer all the world’s fuel challenges.But it will address some.

Plus, watching and hearing a vehicle smoothly roll down the highway on a tank full of used fryer oil is a sight to behold, and one that’s considerably less smelly than petroleum-based diesel. Her then, is good reason for shouting to the rest of the world know this is one alternative fuel source very much worth considering.

Here are some of the reasons Blair has posted on his comprehensive website:

First, economy:

“Biodiesel can be produced by individuals on a small scale relatively inexpensively when compared to Petrodiesel. Figures range anywhere from $0.40 a gallon to about $1.25 a gallon depending on the cost of materials required to make it. With prices that low, most people are able to save hundreds of dollars on their fuel bills. In some cases it even goes into the thousands of dollars. With savings like that, most people are able to recoup their initial investment on the equipment needed to make biodiesel within a matter of months.”

Second, the product is renewable:

“Biodiesel has been touted far and wide for it’s renewable properties. Instead of making a fuel from a finite resource such as crude oil, Biodiesel can be produced from renewable resources such as organic oils, fats, and tallows. This means that it can be made from things that can be regrown, reproduced, and reused. So, if you need more, you can just grow another crop of seeds for the oil.”

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For those stumped over what things to give this holiday season, try giving a tree, then help with the planting.

www.treeculture.org

The Canada-based Tree Culture Association, founded by people who have put tree products to use — printers — is introducing new digital gift card. The gift cards are already available in different denominations through the Tree Culture website, www.treeculture.org, across Canada and the United States.This is a website worth the visit.

According to this organization, the person looking to give a unique gift simply needs to visit the Tree Culture website, choose how many trees to give, fill out some basic information, add a personal message to the recipient, and set a date to send the gift card. The recipient will then receive an email with an attached digital gift card. “They read their congratulatory message and follow a link to the world map. There they get to drag a tree around the map and place it in one of the regions where Tree Culture Association has planting projects in place. Our system registers that” says Igal Rogalsky, one of this organization’s founders.

Tree Culture Association is a non-profit initiative that was established by Victor Narynskyyi and Igal Rogalsky in Kelowna, BC. Both come from the printing industry and Tree Culture Association is a result of their efforts to make the printing businesses more environmentally sustainable. The mission of the organization is to compel producers and consumers of printed materials to plant a tree with every print order. The gift cards is their initiative to create more public awareness about their organization.

We send our hearty applause for this effort!

Bevan Suits,Sustainable Design Group

Bevan Suits, head of Sustainable Design Group and recently featured on Green Streets in a review of  his Aquaponics Guidebook, penned this analysis: “Hydroponics is an industry. Aquaculture is an industry. Aquaponics is not an industry…yet. What current trends will guide its growth?”

As author of The Aquaponics Guidebook, Access to Personal Agriculture, Suits has a pretty good notion about how such questions might be answered, especially by today’s college students.

To make a point, he refers to compelling book on food by Michael Pollan, “In Defense of Food.”

If you have not read the book, this quote tells a lot about his concerns.  “Food. There’s plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

“Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating. Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science.”

Suits believes Pollan’s work appears to be taken as a call to action by many university students attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Incoming freshmen were given copies of the book for free and seemed happy to think of it as a guidebook.

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“ABOARD THE ALGUITA, 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii — In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.

Ocean trash has abundant plastic.

“Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool…….. Read more of this >>

On the positive side, V-16 engines at the DADS landfill run on captured methane to generate enough electricity for 3,000 homes and reduce greenhouse gases. Photo: grmeyers

This Sunday’s Denver Post runs a thought-provoking column by Susan Greene that is worth reading. The subject: trash management in Denver compared to other cities.

Greene writes, “I’m talking trash — heaps of bags, lawn trimmings and boxes in cans and Dumpsters across town. Most of us city folk toss garbage with no fees and no clue where it’s headed.”

I recommend reading her column. Many of us in Denver believe we are leading the way in cultivating a greener lifestyles, including practices such as wasting less and recycling more. Not quite true, it appears.

“Denver lost funding for its pilot compost program, which managed to slash household trash 38 percent, and will end that project this spring. Progress is stalling in a town that recycles 22 percent less than the U.S. average.”

The comparison showing Denver recycles 22 percent less than the US average hit me the hardest. I hoped we were leading the pack and we aren’t even close concerning the measures of recycling and wasting less. All of us need to start regarding sustainability issues more seriously.

Home page banner for Access to Aquaponics

The word, aquaponics, may still sound new and foreign-sounding, but the term is beginning to get the attention of many who see it as one sustainable agricultural solution for an increasingly crowded planet.  This might be especially true for poverty stricken countries.

A Georgia-based author, Bevan Suits, has written an engaging new e-book about the topic, “The Aquaponics Guidebook, Access to Personal Agriculture.” For those interested, and there are plenty of good reasons to be interested, the book acts as a doorway to the world of aquaponics, “so you can learn about it quickly and get started, no matter your experience, budget or available space.,” says Suits. “Even beginners on a small scale will see amazing results. Greens like lettuce or basil can grow to harvest in four weeks.”

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