The holiday season is quickly approaching and environmental conscious consumers should be thinking about ramping up their efforts to conserve and reduce waste.  The holiday season (which most define as the period that begins around Thanksgiving and concludes after New Year’s) is a period of excess for many: we spend a lot, we eat a lot, we drive a lot, and we produce a lot of trash.  By even the most conservative estimates, the average household creates about 25% more trash during the holiday season.  As a result the holiday season has a significantly higher adverse impact on the environment.  However, the upside of this is that environmentally conscious consumers can have the biggest impact during the holiday season.

There are a variety of organizations that offer holiday waste control programs and we will see them starting to pop up on some of our favorite blogs and sites on the web in the upcoming months.  One such holiday program that I am involved in is the HolidayLEDs.com Christmas light recycling program.  This is our third year operating the program and we are looking forward to another successful year.  The program accepts all kinds of used incandescent Christmas lights for recycling. All those who participate receive a coupon for 15% off the purchase of energy efficient LED Christmas lights at HolidayLEDs.com.

In order to ensure that our program is as environmentally friendly as it can be we are asking participants to consolidate shipments of recycled lights with friends, family, members, church groups or other organizations.  Consolidating the shipments reduces the impact that shipping the lights to HolidayLEDs.com has on the environment.  We also encourage people to first look for local recycling solutions.

Our program is just one of several that will be offered this holiday season to help consumers reduce the amount of waste they create this holiday season.  Keep your eyes open for details on other programs that can help you reduce your footprint this holiday season.

In further celebration of Earth Day, Holidayleds.com will be donating $1000 to a qualifying environmental non-profit organization chosen by popular vote. Any U.S. 501(c)(3) organization with a mission related to sustainability, environmentalism, the fight against global warming or any other environmental cause is eligible.

Right now, HolidayLEDs.com is seeking suggestions for qualified charities. The site will be accepting suggestions for the next 14 days. All suggested charities who meet the minimum requirements will be placed on a ballot. Upon closing of the suggestion period, HolidayLEDs.com will conduct an online vote to determine which charity will receive the donation. The date for the official vote will be announced at a later date and will also be posted on this blog.

Please visit the site and suggest a worthy charitable organization.

Spring is just around the corner (a very long corner for those of us who live in the north.)  Americans are very concerned about their lawns.  Each year we spend millions of dollars on fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals and services to make sure that our yards are greener than the neighbors.   There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a nice lawn, but its important that we consider the effect that our lawn care efforts have on the environment.

Apparently, there was enough concern about this and our practices had a significant enough impact to warrant special consideration.  In 2002, the National Lawns and Environment Initiation was founded.  The goal of this initiative is to encourage environmentally responsible lawn care and landscaping practices in residential design and maintenance.  The initiative is run by a committee of governmental and non-governmental organizations including the EPA, USDA, the National Gardening Association, and the University of Florida.

The initiative has develop several useful resources for home owners and landscape professionals.  Particularly useful is the list of 10 Guiding Principles for Responsible Lawn Care and Landscaping.   I think this guide is the best place to start if you want to learn about some things you can do to minimize the impact your lawn care practices have on the environment.   The first guideline on the list is probably the most important.  The #1 guideline is to spend the time to learn about your lawn.  If you want to improve your practices to minimize their environmental impact you have to first understand the environment.

Take a walk around your yard.  Look carefully at the types of plants and wildlife inhabit your outdoor living space.  Try to identify all of the plants and do some simple online research to learn as much as you can about them.  Do the same for the wildlife that inhabits your yard.  Learn about what types of habitats the various creatures that live in your yard like.  All of these things will create a good foundation of knowledge that will help you make decisions about yard care that are both effective and not harmful to your environment.   I think it also makes sense to take a walk through the woods or other unimproved habitat closest your house.  Look around and observe the types of plants and animals that live in this natural environment.  Carefully analysis the habitat.  This information will help you create a lawn and landscape plan the fits into the natural environment.

Once you spent the time to learn about your yard go back to the guidelines and use them to help you prepare a plan for caring for your yard.  If you use a lawn care service make sure to discuss your plan with the company you use.  In many places there are lawn care and landscaping companies that specialize in environmentally friendly lawn care.  Seattle, San Francisco, and many of the other larger cities on the west coast have a number of companies that specialize in green lawn care.

A quick update on the results of my companies’ holiday recycling program…Although we extended our Christmas light recycling program into a year-round operation and the lights are still trickling in, the bulk of the participation is over.  We estimate that we had over 5,000 participants and that we received approximately 3,000 pounds of Christmas lights.   We we really please with the participation.  Quite frankly, we thought we might receive a handful of lights and that would be the end of it.  I suppose we underestimated the willingness of people to make that extra effort to do the right thing for the environment.

We sent a free set of LED Christmas lights to the first 100 participants and the remaining participants who submitted their lights to us before January 31, 2008 will receive a coupon.   For those of you who participated, thank you for helping us make the program a success and you can expect your coupon to arrive via email or regular mail within the next month.

We are going to expand the program next year and substantially increase the number of sets we give away.  We are also looking for people or organizations who may be interested in participating in next years program.  We will be looking for groups willing to set up collection sites as well as sponsors who may be interested in helping us develop a Christmas light exchange program.   Please contact us if you or anyone you know may be interested.

I own an e-commerce company and we do a lot of shipping and receiving. We work hard to minimize our packaging waste (in fact we don’t use any packaging material.) I see a lot of waste coming in from various vendors and to be fair some it simply seems hard to eliminate. In other cases, the waste is just ridiculous.

There is one example in particular I think warrants recognition. We occasionally purchase shipping supplies from Uline because they offer next day shipping. Every time we order from them they send us a 1 inch thick glossy print catalog with our order. And just in case we lost the catalogs they sent us with our orders they kindly send us another one in the mail. Over the course of 4 months we collected about 50 pounds worth of catalogs from them. We never ordered from the catalog–we always ordered online. (Its almost as bad–if not worse–than the AOL CDs that used to be everywhere.)

We are considering adding a print catalog to our business this year but we are only going to send the hard copy upon specific request and where the customer can not be convinced to accept an electronic version. I also got a lot of other good tips from Ecowriter’s post about green ad materials so we’ll try to minimize our impact there too.

We are going to do what we can to minimize the ad waste that we create but we are also going to look for suitable alternative vendors who make reasonable efforts to do the same.

Presumably anyone reading this article is interested in making environmentally sound decisions and living a low-impact lifestyle. Many of us are willing to make an extra effort, go that extra step to do something that we perceive is better for the environment. But the question that many people are now asking (and we all should be evaluating) is what is the environmental impact of those extra efforts? Is it possible that the efforts we make to be “green” are actually more damaging to the environment to the alternative behavior? And if so, where do we draw the line? Is there some value in the effort itself that mitigates any potential net loss from the perceived green behavior?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue while evaluating our companies’ recycling program and environmental policy. For the most part our programs have worked well and we’ve had a lot of participation within our organization and from our customers. I think a big part of the effort is just getting people in the mindset of looking for ways to conserve resources and produce less waste. However, I think that once an individual or organization has obtained this awareness it is important to shift focus and attention to refining the underlying processes and programs. For example, we are looking at implementing central collection points for our recycling program so the lights do not have to be mailed to us.

I use this example only because it is one that is familiar to me and to illustrate the point that we need to be cautious in evaluating the net impact of our efforts. This is not to say that we should over analysis this matter and waste untold resources trying to determine which option is more green. In some respects I think there is a substantial and immeasurable benefit to fostering a mindset in consumers towards environmental awareness–even if the net benefit is questionable.

We all need to develop an awareness of the impact our lives have on our environment and the cost of gaining this awareness may mean that some of our efforts fall short of a net environmental gain. However, it is important that we do not loose site of the ultimate objective during the development of this new awareness.

Even to the average lawyer, patent law is a bit of a mystery. I confess, I am a lawyer and it is almost as foreign to me as the practice of medicine. (I image the specialty of patent law in the legal community is like neuro-surgery in medicine.) In any event, I’ve been doing a bit of research on patent law which I haven’t dealt with since I took an introductory intellectual property law course in my second year of law school. My renewed interest in the subject was spawned by some recent research I was doing about corn gluten. I have a friend who is an organic lawn care professional and I also have a relative who is a gardener and entrepreneur who is thinking about selling corn gluten. Since both of them were talking about this product I thought it was worth spending 20 minutes on Google checking it out. I learned, as I am sure you organic gardeners know, that corn gluten is a natural herbicide. (*Corn gluten is a natural powdery by-product of the corn milling process.) The product is completely organic and not only is it a effective weed preventive it also contains a high percentage of nitrogen and is a great fertilizer.

What surprised me about this was not that a corn by-product was a natural herbicide and also acted as a fertilizer; I was surprised that our patent law system allowed a Iowa State University researcher to patent the use of corn gluten as a herbicide. I understand the basic policy behind patent law: to encourage people to expend their time and energy developing new products by rewarding them with exclusive rights to the fruits of their labors for a period of years. This makes sense to me and I think it is generally a good system in most cases, but sometimes it just seems to go to far.

Take corn gluten for example, this is a product that has probably been around for thousands of years. People have used it for a number of different uses, the primary use being feed for livestock. Sometime in 1985, a scientist at Iowa State University is claimed to have discovered that the product can also be used as a herbicide. Shortly thereafter he filed for, and obtained, a patent for the use of corn gluten as a herbicide.

So I’m a little bit torn about this. The lawyer in me says, “well, without the protection of the patent law system Dr. Corn Gluten and Iowa State wouldn’t have any incentive to discover new uses for products and it may have never happened.” The normal person in me thinks, “what the fu@%!, its corn meal mush! How can you patent that?!” I understand the policy from an intellectual standpoint but is seems that in some cases (like this one) it goes a bit too far.

The part about this that I think most concerns me is that I’m not sure if the patent system actually achieves its intended result. At least in this case (and the case of my relative) the fact that the patent exists will likely prevent him from producing and selling corn gluten. I am sure there are several other potential marketers of this product who will be deterred from bringing a environmentally friendly alternative to toxic herbicides to market because they do not have the capital to pay Iowa State licensing fees to sell it.

I guess I’m still not entirely certain about how I feel about this. I guess there is just some part of me that feels like ti is unfair to let someone of exclusive rights to any use of something as common as corn. From a legal prospective, I think the fundamental flaw in our patent law system is that it assumes that the patent holder will do a good job of bring the product to market or finding those who will. That doesn’t always happen and as a result we are deprived of use of a valuable product until the patent expires.

The incandescent bulb has been the standard in lighting since it was introduced over 100 years ago and we switched from candles. Incandescent lights are very inefficient as they expend a large portion of the energy needed to power them on heat. In the last few years compact fluorescent lights have become widely available and are now a common and easy to find replacement for standard incandescent bulbs. Although compact fluorescent lights are much more efficient than incandescent bulbs they are not suitable for all applications and are not as efficient as some emerging lighting technologies. The other problem with compact fluorescent lights is that they contain mercury which is toxic and difficult to dispose of.

One lesser know alternative to compact fluorescent lights for people looking for energy efficient replacement for their incandescent lights are LEDs or light emitting diodes. LEDs are very efficient as they waste very little energy on heat. LEDs can also easily be recycled and contain no toxic components. LED lights will also outlive even a compact fluorescent lamp by thousands of hours. The downside is that LEDs are still a bit expensive and the technology has not developed entirely so that it is a suitable alternative to incandescent or fluorescent.

However, it has been effectively adapted and applied to lighting applications such as Christmas lights, rope light, and landscape lights. The technology for use of LEDs has been developed well for use in these applications and the cost of these products in an LED is still higher than incandescent but is not unreasonable given the cost savings.

LED alternatives are also available for other lighting types as well. LED replacement bulbs are currently available for MR-16 type lamps that are commonly used in track lighting. LED lamps for the common PAR style bulb are also now available online but have not made it into big box stores and do not quite pack the same punch as their incandescent ancestors.

Lots of cool things are happening in lighting and most of us don’t get exposed to all the options because they haven’t hit the big box stores yet. However, if you do a little research and look around a bit online you can find some great lighting solutions that are more efficient than CFLs and better for the environment too.

A lot of people who think about  the environment and efforts to improve sustainability think about “big ticket” items.  However, it really isn’t about the “big ticket” items like landfills or oil spills.  The bulk of the damage we do to our environment is done on the individual level and then magnified by millions or billions.  That’s why it is important for all us to look at our day-to-day activities and try to find ways to reduce our impact on the environment.

One common area we can all seek to improve our impact is lawn care and landscaping.  For many suburbanites the absolute goal of the summer is to have a lawn that is greener than the Jones’ at all costs.  So each spring we can find an army of suburbanites dumping pounds of harmful chemicals and nitrates on their lawns.  I’m sure that most of these well-meaning home owners have not considered the cost and impact their ultra-green lawn has on the environment at large–and it is probably not feasible to try and convince them.  The better solution is to teach them how to achieve maximum greeness and neighborhood domination without the use of harmful chemicals.

The recent revival of the environmental movement has spurred the growth of a cottage industry of green lawn care companies.   This movement, largely pioneered by Seattle landscape companies and other progressive landscape companies has been gaining traction.

“This is not something that is driven by the marketing efforts of landscape and lawn care companies,” said Andy Nicholls of Ecoyards, LLC based in Seattle, Washington, “this is driven by a very strong consumer demand for environmental responsibility in all services and goods.”

Environmentally sustainable lawn care can be as simple as recycling rainwater for irrigation; use of natural pesticides; and implementation of a compost program.

The transition away from the 100 year-old incandescent light bulb continues to gain steam.  LizardLighting.com, a new e-commerce company, will be launching its new website featuring a full line of energy-efficient LED landscape lights March 1, 2008.  The new LED landscape lights consume about a 1/4 of the energy of a comparable halogen light and will last six times as long—up to 60,000 hours.

“We are very excited about the new Lizard Lighting line of LED landscape lights,” said Andy Nicholls,  a landscape contractor and owner of Ecoyards.  In response to customer demand, many landscaping companies, like Ecoyards, are focusing on environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional landscaping and yard care practices.  “I had the opportunity to see the new LED lights by Lizard Lighting and they are impressive.” added Nicholls.  “There are some LED products on the market now but this is the first product I’ve tested that has light output that meets that of a halogen lamp,” Nicholls concluded.

The Lizard Lighting LED landscape lights utilize state-of-the-art LED technology which can produce 100 lumens per watt or more.  Unlike a traditional incandescent lamp or halogen lamp which produces a tremendous amount of heat, the LED lamp produces very little heat as all of its energy is directly transformed into light.  Additionally, the solid state LED lamp contains no fragile filament and is therefore much more resistance to shock and other impact damage.  “When you have a solid-state lamp with no fragile components that produces less heat you end up with a light source that will last a very long time,” said Michael J. O’Connor, co-owner of LizardLighting.com.  Lizard Lighting’s LED landscape lights are rated to last for 60,000 hours or more.

Lizard Lighting’s ecommerce store will be open March 2008 and will offer a full line of LED low voltage landscape lighting and solar landscape lights.