Pollution in the Amazon

The Amazon is an area of South America best known for its diverse rainforest, lush jungles and one of the largest rivers in the world.  (See picture above.)

Chevron is one of the world's six "supermajor" oil companies and it operates in more than 180 countries.

For the last 17 years, the South American country of Ecuador has been trying to get Chevron to clean up environmental damage in the Amazon caused by .  This damage is said to be the world's second largest environmental disaster other than the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

What kind of damage?

* Pollution to large areas of the Ecuadoran jungle
* Up to 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater dumped into waterways
* Up to 17 million gallons of crude oil contained in unlined pits

What were the results of this damage?

* Death of food crops and livestock (farm animals)
* Increased health problems like skin disease and cancer
* An estimated $27 billion in damages

A legal battle as been going on for almost two decades and recently a judge ordered the company to pay at least $8.6 billion in damages.

Chevron has stated that it has no plans to provide any money at all for cleanup.  Ecuador does not have the same laws as the United States about protecting the environment and so it will be very difficult to force Chevron to pay any money at all!

If you or I made a big mess, we'd have to clean it up!  Why does a giant oil company get away with it?

REMEMBERING YOUR THREE R's

Over the years, people have gotten into a lot of bad habits.  We use things once and then throw them away.  And why not?  There are so many things that are SUPPOSED to be used just once and thrown away.  Every day and in little ways, I try to think of new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle all sorts of objects.

* Every morning, my dad makes a cup of coffee for the ride to work and puts it in a disposable cup.  One cup a day times hundreds of days equals lots of cups.  What a waste!  For just a few dollars out of my piggy bank, I bought dad a brand new stainless steel coffee container.  He never spills coffee in the car anymore and I helped him to greatly reduce his cup waste!

* I cleaned my room this week and found a whole bunch of books that I didn't want anymore.  My friend Nick said, Throw them away!"  But what a waste!  I went to my local library and asked if they were accepting book donations.  They were!  I may be too old for some of those children's books, but plenty of kids at the library would just love to reuse them!

* My mom came home with some clothes from the dry cleaners.  Each shirt and dress was wrapped in a long piece of plastic to protect the clothing.  Off came the plastic bags and into the garbage they went.  But what a waste!  I pulled the bags out of the trash--I knew they could be used again.  My friend Ashley was having her room painted painted this week.  Instead of buying plastic at the store, Ashley used the dry cleaner bags to cover her rug, lamp and carousel horse collection while her parents painted the walls!  What great a great way to recycle one thing into something else!

What are some ways YOU have learned to reduce, reuse and recycle?

WATER CONSERVATION - SHOWER OR BATH?

Rub-a-dub-dub!  What do we do in the tub?

Which uses less water?  Taking a shower or taking a bath?

Here’s a simple experiment you can try at home:  The next time you take a shower, plug the drain and let the water collect.  When your shower is over, see how much water is in the tub.  Compare it to how much water you would use to take a bath.  Which uses more water?  A bath or a 2-3 minute shower?

A NUCLEAR ENERGY UPDATE

United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and President Obama announced this week funding for the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Georgia.  This facility will be the first nuclear power plant in the United States to be built in thirty years!

Environmental activists do not often support nuclear energy, but this plan may be a step in the right direction—a direction away from fossil fuels.  Remember that nuclear energy results in no carbon emissions!  This new power plant will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared to a coal-fired power plant.

However, the one major problem still to be solved with this type of power is how to get rid of nuclear waste.   President Obama says we must “accelerate our efforts to find ways of storing this waste safely and disposing of it.”  Secretary Chu has said that he is “convinced that the nuclear waste issue is solvable” and has talked about ways that nuclear waste can someday be recycled.

More information on Nobel-prize winning Energy Secretary Steven Chu to follow!

A WORD ABOUT THE PLASTIC BAG

Did you know that each American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year?  Most of these bags are used only one time (some of them for mere seconds!) before being thrown away.

Did you know that only 1% of plastic bags in the U.S. are ever recycled?

Did you know that it takes 10-20 years for a single plastic bag to decompose?  Of course, this is only if it gets caught in a tree branch or sits on your lawn all that time.  Plastic bags buried in landfill can take up to 1,000 years to decompose!

Did you know that when garbage items (including paper products) are buried, their decomposition slows almost to a halt because they are not exposed to air or sunlgiht?  In digs through old garbage dumps, newspapers from the 1930s have been found that are still completely legible!



If you really want to jump aboard the “green” bandwagon – you should start using canvas bags when you go shopping!  Keep some in your car, your garage, your trunk, your desk, or inside your carry-all bag so you never forget to bring them with you!  

Make a pledge that you will make this green change today!  Don’t be embarrassed to carry reusable bags!

And the next time a cashier asks if you’d like a bag to carry that single item to your car, don’t feel weird to say, “No, thanks!” We should all start feeling weird when we waste!