Chickens, PepsiCo, and the greening of our future

Is it possible that greenies have finally shouted loud and long enough about saving the planet that business is being forced to pay attention? Is green manufacturing (at least to some degree) becoming a marketing necessity?

Hmmmm...

I had lunch yesterday with my friend, green activist and WMRA listener Pat Foreman who, I think it's safe to say, is helping save the planet with chickens.

Pat, I hasten to add, can back up whatever she says with both experience and data. She is the author of  the fabulously readable and inspiring City Chicks and the about-to-released third edition of Chicken Tractor.

Pat Foreman also co-hosts, along with the Chicken Whisperer, the weekly blogtalk radio show, Backyard Poultry.

I always find it impossible to have lunch with Pat Foreman and not have my respect for chickens increased. These birds, it seems, not only produce eggs and the best garden fertilizer, they are also two-legged clean plate clubs. If I had chickens, Pat said, they would happily eat all the left-overs I don't.

True to her mission to fuel chickens and thus help save the world, Pat took home my lunch leavings to feed her flock. "Potato chips," she says, "are a real treat!"

Chicken on potato chips?  drawing by Pat Foreman

So anyway, after lunching yesterday with Pat, I was thinking about the creative use of left-overs as I turned on today's Morning Edition. And lo-and-behold, there was Linda Werthheimer informing me that PepsiCo, (whom I assume would be unmoved by other than market pressures)  has done something with its own left-overs that has huge potential to help save our sweet old world.

Here the PepsiCo ta-da!, according to FoxNews.

PepsiCo Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a bottle made entirely of plant material, which it says bests the technology of competitor Coca-Cola and reduces its potential carbon footprint. 

The bottle is made from switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and other materials. Ultimately, Pepsi plans to also use orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its food business.

Left-overs again;  I would bet this time being recycled solely in the interests of a multinational company's bottom line.

Thirdage.com reports this truly giant step in the greening of American society this way:

Pepsi bottles have gone green by using 100% non-plastic, plant-based material that they say reduces their carbon footprint. ...They add that their new bottle bests the efforts of Coca-Cola, which only uses 30 percent plant-based material in their bottles. 

"This is the beginning of the end of petroleum-based plastics," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council and director of its waste management project. "When you have a company of this size making a commitment to a plant-based plastic, the market is going to respond." 

Rocco Papalia, senior vice president of advanced research at Pepsi, adds that the bottle is “indistinguishable” from traditionally-made plastic bottles.

So, we are to have our "plastic," our corporate profits, and get a bit greener, as well? It's almost too good to believe, isn't it?

In November of last year, Martha Dudley held forth from atop WMRA's Civic Soapbox about  the evil inherent in a plastic water bottle. She focused on two points:

First: It never goes away but spends its eternal life in our landfills. In 2008 seventy percent of plastic water bottles went to those landfills. No one seems to be counting how many ended up clogging our waterways, floating in our oceans, and killing marine life. 

And second: Plastic is made from the very same oil that spilled so disastrously in the Gulf of Mexico. 

I think we can all agree that the future of our planet looks a tiny bit greener today, thanks to PepsiCo.

Not to mention, Pat Foreman and her chickens. . .

"Charlottesville's Recycling Possibilities," an essay by Mary Buford Hitz

Martha note: It's Civic Soapbox Friday.

Come next spring, Charlottesville will be facing a decision on curbside recycling. If you are as confused as I was about what we are doing now and what our options are, keep listening.

Earlier this year we were told that the city had signed a contract with Pete van der Linde, who runs a state-of-the-art recycling center nearby at Zion’s Cross Roads, so I assumed that this contract was for C’ville’s curbside recycling. It is not, because the city already had a recycling contract with Allied Waste Services. The van der Linde contract is for city trash.

The city’s recyclables, placed in the bins at curbside, include glass, tin, aluminum, paper and plastics. We are still being asked to separate out only plastics 1 and 2 for recycling. This is a major pain in the neck, as it is often difficult to read the number, and some grocery stores cover the number with a label.

The city turned out to be my best source for information about recyclable materials – where they go and how they are dealt with – as getting information from Allied is like pouring blackstrap molasses in December.

Particularly if you say you’re trying to gather information for a media article, you’re handled like an unexploded land mine. Repeated calls to the Allied office in Charlottesville went unreturned. Finally I was told the man I was trying to reach, David Outing, “Doesn’t handle calls like this. They have to go through corporate.”

The parent corporation turns out to be Republic Services in Phoenix. Their automated phone system did not have an operator available. I was urged to leave yet another message.

Just the opposite is true when you contact Pete van der Linde. An avalanche of reasons to use his facility to handle ALL of Charlottesville’s trash and recycling needs pours forth. “We want it and we want it all,” he said, “just get it to us.”

In my phone conversation with him, van der Linde explained that he has installed new technology that is capable of separating trash from recyclables, including all plastics. This allows the comingling of waste, even food and dirty diapers, with recyclables in a dumpster. Van der Linde then sells the processed recyclables to various manufacturers.

Finally, Steve Lawson, Director of the Public Service Works Administration for the City, is able to shed light on what happens with the curbside recycling that Allied picks up. Ironically, it also goes to Zion’s Cross Roads, to a facility near van der Linde’s, where genuine recyclable material is separated and then sent on to Tidewater Fiber, in Chester, Virginia.

On the subject of only 1 and 2 plastics, Lawson says, “Allied’s hands are tied because they can only recycle what Tidewater Fiber can use. It is possible, though, that Allied may be able to change that.” Lawson went on to say that the city has not decided which way to go when the Allied contract comes up for renewal in April.

When the moment of decision comes whether or not to send both trash and recycling to van der Linde or to keep doing business with two separate companies, it seems to me it should depend on which company can deal with the largest number of recyclables at the lowest cost to the city. Since Charlottesville citizens are paying their bill, it would be nice if Allied were as forthcoming with information about cost and available services as van der Linde is.

-- Mary Buford Hitz is a writer living in Charlottesville