Rates of Decomposition for various forms of litter

Paper 2-5 months
Orange Peels 6 months
Milk Cartons - 5 years
Filter Tip Cigarettes 10-12 years
Plastic Bags 10-20 years
Leather Shoes 25-40 years
Plastic Containers 50-80 years
Tin Cans 100 years
Aluminum Cans 200-500 years
Styrofoam NEVER

Companies that make the world a better place (if you are a programmer)

This organization actually certifies that a company makes the world a better place. They even have a job board where companies that are certified can post their jobs.

9 Tech Companies Making the World a Much Better place

Here are my thoughts on them...

Change.org
I really like Change.org's cause which is to facilitate change on a global scale, but starting with communities. I like their work-life balance and 5 weeks paid vacation. The question is do I want to move to San Francisco?

Etsy
Etsy sounds like a great place to work for their work-life balance and gentle atmosphere. I don't see myself moving to Brooklyn though.

Rally Software
Really awesome that starting out I would get 3 weeks vacation PLUS between Christmas and New years, and the standard US holidays. They really seem to embrace time off. They pay 100% medical and offer Sabbaticals. They are all about Agile. Several locations to choose from. Several US locations to choose from and also some around the world like London. I like how transparent they are, they post their benefits and values online. As far as working for a software company this seems like a great place to work. I don't really see that they do much for making the world a better place other than their green efforts and their respectful attitudes and their charitable giving of 1% of profits. They do have a UK office, but it appears to be for Sales only.

AZAVEA
They offer a lot of nice benefits also like 4 weeks vacation and truly subsidized healthcare. They plainly say they believe in having time to be with family and friends makes you more productive. It is in Philadelphia. I'll have to check out the city. I like that their product has a bit of BI or AI and make GeoSpatial data and also believes in open source.

Okay, so I didn't finish the list. It turns out that these are all great companies, but I will have to move if I want to work for them. I'm not ready to do so. So, I looked to see if there are any in Arizona specifically. As it turns out there are a handful. Here is a link to the Certified B Corp in Arizona. In 2015 there will be even better things happening like businesses can actually be a legal entity called B Corp. Things will start to change then and there should be more options.

Here are the 5 AZ companies that are B Corp certified to choose from as of right now:

Goodmans Interior Structures
Goodmans is a furniture company and doesn't seem to have much need for developers right now.


Carter Law Group is a law firm
Here is their new website. They seem to be a good company and reasonably close, but they don't appear to have a job board or us IT a lot judging from their simple website and industry. I can't seem to find their job page.

Technicians for Sustainability
I really like the idea of working for a solar company. I wish they were based in Phoenix, not Tucson.

Veritable Vegetable
I think one step nicer than a solar company would be an organic produce company. Unfortunately, no IT here that I can tell, and it is in San Francisco, not AZ.... GRRR!!!!

Manzimvula Ventures, Inc
They are in Chandler, AZ and reasonably close to my home. They seem to be consultants for businesses and they want to leverage technology, but I cannot figure out a single job listing for them anywhere.

So, for now B Corp Certifications seems to be a dead end until they are really a thing in Arizona. So, it looks like my timing is off and should maybe wait another 6 months to a year. I can make that work for me.

Just looking around, here are some companies that I like.

Glassdoor.com
I like the transparency they bring to the employment process. I like what they offer from a benefits package with the company: Unlimited vacation days, flexible work schedules, etc. I would have to move to San Francisco though. Sigh.

Tangent:
Job Titles and their salary ranges on Glassdoor.com
Data Scientist -$80K - $146K ($115 Average)
Senior Web Developer - $65K - $112K ($90 Average)
Solutions Architect - $72K - $140K ($105 Average)
Senior Software Engineer - $75K - $130K ($100 Average) ($66K - $109K, $90K Average for Phoenix)


33 Entrepeneurs Who Make the World a better place
This may be a good place to start looking for companies that make a difference.

Why Recycling?

DID YOU KNOW?

• Recycling reduces the need for landfills, but it also does much more. By recycling, you are conserving natural resources, such as trees, metal ores, minerals, oil, and water. You are also reducing the amount of pollution and greenhouse gases released into the environment, and you are conserving energy. Recycling can be fun and easy, and by recycling, you are helping yourself and your community, and you are setting a good example at the same time.

Paper and Cardboard

• Recycling a four-foot stack of newspapers saves the equivalent of one 40-foot fir tree.
• One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.
• One ton of recycled paper saves 3,700 pounds of lumber and 24,000 gallons of water.
• Making paper from recycled material uses 60% less energy than making virgin paper.
• If every household in the U.S. reused a paper bag for one shopping trip, about 60,000 trees would be saved.
• Recycling one ton of cardboard saves over nine cubic yards of landfill space.
• Every ton of newspaper recycled saves enough energy to power a TV for 31 hours.
• Recycling corrugated cardboard cuts the emissions of sulfur dioxide in half and uses about 25% less energy than making cardboard from virgin pulp.
• If all morning newspapers read in this country were recycled, 41,000 trees would be saved daily and 6 million tons of waste would never end up in landfills.

Aluminum and Steel

• Enough energy is saved by recycling one aluminum can to run a TV set for three hours or to light one 100 watt bulb for 20 hours.
• Making cans from recycled aluminum saves 95% of the energy required to produce cans from virgin material.
• Recycling a soda can saves 96% of the energy used to make a can from ore and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.
• An aluminum can recycled today will be back on the grocery shelf in about 90 days.
• Recycled steel is used to make new steel products including packaging, cars, lawnmowers, appliances, and construction materials.
• Making new steel products from recycled steel instead of virgin ore reduces water use by 40%, water pollution by 76%, air pollution by 86%, and mining wastes by 97%.
• For every ton of steel recycled, 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 pounds of coal and 40 pounds of limestone are preserved.
• Enough energy is saved each year by recycling steel to supply the city of Los Angeles with almost a decade worth of electricity.

Motor Oil

• Motor oil never wears out; it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again, reducing our reliance on imported oil.
• Certified Used Motor Oil Collection Centers pay 16¢ a gallon for used motor oil.
• Motor oil that is poured onto the ground or dumped down a storm drain pollutes groundwater and the surrounding bodies of water.
• Used motor oil can be refined into fuel oil. One gallon of oil, when reprocessed, can generate enough energy to meet the electricity needs of your home for half a day.

Glass & Plastic Bottles

• Making glass from recycled material uses 50% less energy than making virgin glass.
• Recycled glass generates 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than making virgin glass.
• Glass never wears out - it can be recycled over and over again.
• Over 41 billion glass containers are made each year.
• Over a ton of resources is saved for every ton of glass recycled - 1,330 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone, and 151 pounds of feldspar.
• Producing a ton of glass from 100% raw materials creates 384 pounds of mining waste. Using 50% recycled glass cuts this waste by about 75%. Plastic
• Five recycled soft drink bottles make enough fiberfill for a man's ski jacket. Thirty-six recycled bottles can make one square yard of carpet.
• Recycled soda bottles can be spun to make fiber filling for pillows, quilts and jackets.
• Five soda bottles yield enough fiber for one extra large T-shirt.
• It takes 25 two-liter bottles to make a sweater.
• It takes 35 two-liter bottles to make enough fiberfill for a sleeping bag.
• HDPE (detergent bottles, milk jugs, plastic yogurt containers) can be recycled into plastic pipes, plastic lumber, flowerpots, trashcans, or bottles used for non-food applications (for example, soaps).

Green Waste

• Yard waste is collected and ground up into mulch or composted into useful soil amendments.

Other Facts

• Recycling all of your home's waste newsprint, cardboard, glass, and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 850 pounds a year.
• Recycling generates jobs and revenue.
• 75% of our trash can be recycled.

Make Every Day Earth Day

April 22, 2010 marks the 40^th Anniversary of Earth Day. But every day can be Earth Day if each of us does our part to preserve the environment.

Did you know?

• The garbage in a landfill stays for about 30 years.
• Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day.
• One bus carries as many people as 40 cars!
• More than 1/3 of all energy is used by people at home
• Most families throw away about 88 pounds of plastic every year
• We each use about 12,000 gallons of water every year
• 1/3 of all water is used to flush the toilet.
• The 500 million automobiles on earth burn an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day.
• Each gallon of fuel releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
• Approximately 5 million tons of oil produced in the world each year ends up in the ocean.
• The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a traditional light bulb for four hours
• For every 2000 pounds of paper (1 ton) recycled, we save 7,000 gallons of water free from chemicals.
• Recycled paper requires 64% less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp, and can save many trees
• Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees
• The amount of wood and paper we throw away is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years
• Earth is 2/3 water. But all the fresh water streams only represent one hundredth of one percent.
• 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year
• It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones
• 5 billion aluminum cans are used each year
• 84 percent of all household waste can be recycled.
• Computers pose an environmental threat because much of the material that makes them up is hazardous. A typical monitor contains 4-5 pounds of lead.
• Each year billions of used batteries are thrown away in the United States. This constitutes 88% of the mercury and 54% of the cadmium deposited into our landfills
• One gallon of motor oil can contaminate up to 2 million gallons of water. So dispose it properly!
• Here is an example of the water we use everyday:

3-7 gallons for toilet,
25-30 gallons for tub,
50-70 gallons for a 10 minute shower,
1 washing machine load uses 25-40 gallons,
1 dishwasher load uses 9-12 gallons

• Here is an example of how long it takes some things take to break down:

plastics take 500 years,
aluminum cans take 500 years,
organic materials, take 6 months,
cotton, rags, paper take 6 months.

Let’s do our share.

It is okay, it is biodegrable, so it isn't littering, right?

It has come to my attention that not everyone (including someone close to me) understands what an effect they have on the environment when they throw food on the ground and walk away. The claim I heard is "It is biodegradable, so it isn't littering." That makes no sense to me. I find that attitude to be like "Someone else will clean up my mess." This is the same attitude that got us into the environmental mess in the first place.

Let's assume for a minute that biodegradable in this argument means in the soil where the necessary bacteria and other microorganisms.

Below is a list of some common items that fall under this argument

Most directions for making a home compost pile advise against adding hard-to-break-down food waste, such as cherry seeds. Cherry and other fruit pits can take up to 10 years to completely decompose. Reference

Banana Peel 2-5 weeks Reference Reference 2 Reference 3

Apple Core 2 months Reference

A cigarette takes 3-10 months to mostly decompose and some say it can take up to as much as twelve years; however, the filter which is made of acetate will NEVER fully break down. Reference Cigarette butts: 1-12 years Reference

Paper: 2-5 weeks Reference
Orange peels: 6 months Reference
Cotton rags 1-5 months Reference
Plastic or cardboard milk carton: 5 years Reference

Okay, so you may be thinking to yourself, that isn't bad. Well consider this. If you properly bury the materials these times are about right. However, if you put them in a landfill they process is greatly slowed down. To the tune of decades and tens of decades before they biodegrade. Researchers have found 25-year old apple cores and newspapers in near perfect condition, found in landfills with garbage from thousands of other households. Reference

Here is the reality of what happens.

What happens when you throw something in the street of your favorite city you may be wondering. Here are some options.

1. It gets washed down a storm drain by a rain. I live in Arizona, so not likely. This can clog, pollute, and create other crazy problems depending on the stuff that makes it into the storm drain.

2. A street sweep comes by and picks it up. This eventually ends up in the landfill where we don't want it either, but not any worse than putting it in your household trash.

3. It may be blown away by the wind if it is small or light enough. Sign me up to inhale trash or watch trash go tumbling down the street. That always makes me feel good about where I live.

Let's assume that you think it is ok to pay taxes to have street sweepers sweep up your mess. Maybe there should be an item on everyone's tax return that the abusers can check to INCREASE their tax because someone has to pay for using the landfill, the street sweepers, the guys that drive the sweepers, the guys that compact the trash, etc. How many people do you think would check that box on their tax return. NONE. Nothing is free in this world. There is a cost for everything. Take care of your own trash.

Let's assume there was no cost to clean it up. Let's assume it biodegrades in a couple of weeks. Well, we need a place for it to biodegrade. I suggest the front yards of all the people that want to throw it on the ground in the first place. I would love to hear their argument when their entire front yard is covered with all the stuff that is just biodegrading. My comment to them would be, "Don't worry it will biodegrade in two weeks if you are lucky. Be sure to turn it so it does that properly. Otherwise it may take a lot longer. Don't mind the smell or the flies or other insects that it attracts. This is natures way after all. Oh and be sure everything is 100 natural. Even then extreme concentrations of anything can become toxic. I hope you aren't doing any home growing in your yard. I don't think I want to eat a carrot from 5 million melted hard candies and gum (yes it is just a made up number, but we have a big city). Better yet, how about they drive around with this stuff in their cars. I bet they'll make some friends.

I write this after being quite pissed off at how people treat our planet. The tone of this is harsh, but I think people need to think and understand the implications of their actions. I'll admit I don't compost, but I do reuse then recycle, and I try not to waste much of anything. Someday I would like to try composting, but in the meantime I'll settle for just picking up my own mess and not making it somebody else's problem. If we all did that our streets would look a lot better. Who knows maybe the IRS will give us a credit if we can prove we pick up our own trash instead of throwing it on the ground. (yeah right ;)