News Archives » Integrity of Creation
One Rechargeable Battery Can Replace 1,000 Regular Batteries January 19th, 2011
Did you know? People in the United States buy three billion batteries every year. That’s about 10 batteries for each person in the country, including babies. Most of these batteries are made to be thrown away. But rechargeable batteries are made to be reused. These batteries aren’t perfect. But they are better for the Earth than disposable batteries. One rechargeable can take the place of up to 1,000 regular (single use alkaline) batteries during its lifetime. Yep, that’s right 1,000! Amazing, no?
Make the batteries that you use last longer:
- Take them out of equipment that you are putting away for a while.
- Don’t put batteries (or things that have batteries in them) in really hot places. Heat shortens a batteries’ life.
- Don’t use old batteries with new ones. It wears out the new ones faster.
- But most important use rechargeable batteries.
Want this and other Eco-Tips in Spanish? Visit our Spanish site
These Come From Trees! January 10th, 2011
Do you want to save trees – and money – at the same time? Check out the blog “These Come From Trees” – which describes itself as “An experiment in environmentalism, viral marketing, and user interface design with the goal of reducing consumer waste paper!
The group sells inexpensive, but durable stickers that look like this:
A single “These Come From Trees” sticker can save roughly a tree’s worth of paper, each year!
The project has indeed gone viral, with stickers appearing everywhere from the Denver airport to Seton Hall University. Schools can order them for free, and the project has developed a simple lesson plan which guides students through calculations of paper and money saved.
People often accidentally over-consume paper products, without intending to do so. A friendly reminder at the right time can help us to pause and consider how much of that item – whether a paper towel, napkin, or photocopy – we really need. The stickers wind up reducing consumption by as much as 30%, and at no cost to the user!
Order your “These Come from Trees” stickers today!
Eco-Tips for the Holidays December 10th, 2010
We have a new Eco-Tips page on this site. Updated weekly, it has suggestions on how to make our everyday lives more environmentally sustainable – and fun! Please visit the Eco-Tips page in English and in Spanish.
Our thanks for these weekly posts go out to a committed parishioner in the Oblate parish of Mary Immaculate in Pacoima, California! These weekly tips are printed in the Sunday bulletin in that parish. Feel free to use them for your church.
Consider giving experiences rather than things:
As we enter the holiday season, consumers flock to malls, department stores and outlets in droves to search for that perfect gift, that one card that says it all, that tree to end all trees. But as we feast, give gifts, decorate and travel, we also consume lots of resources and generate lots of waste. A recent report noted that the amount of household garbage in the United States generally increases by 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, from 4 million tons to 5 million tons.
Think about what you can do to stop the impact of the holidays on earth. The people we love will most enjoy spending time with us; think about how you could do this instead of buying more things.
When decorating this Christmas think green:
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Indigenous Peoples in Latin America call for an end to destructive mining December 3rd, 2010
Thanks to Earthworks for this information:
Lima, Peru — On Tuesday, Nov 23, Indigenous Peoples from across Latin America released The Lima Declaration, a unified position calling for an end to large-scale surface mining by transnational companies on Indigenous Peoples’ lands. Indigenous representatives from the Andes, the Amazon, and Central America drafted the Declaration after a three-day Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Mining, Climate Change, and Well-being. EARTHWORKS, a US-based organization that works to protect communities and the environment from destructive mining impacts, attended the meeting at the invitation of an Indigenous Peoples’ coordinating group in Latin America.
Click here to read more »
Nobel Laureates Urge End of Nuclear Weapons November 17th, 2010
The Dalai Lama and other Nobel Peace Prize laureates from the last four decades gathered last week in Hiroshima to urge the end of nuclear weapons. The Nobel laureates issued an appeal on November 14th for China, the United States, Egypt, Iran, Israel and Indonesia to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without delay.
