Shopping online? Getting your packages shipped to your door. Saves you driving out to the mall and back, and with companies like FedEx making efforts to use greener vehicles and cut fuel consumption, surely having them handle the delivery must be the environmentally sound thing to do (assuming, of course, you really need what you ordered!).

I thought so too. And keeping fuel costs to a minimum not only makes sense for the planet, but should also help FedEx save some money. Then I saw a tracking record for a package that was being shipped to me from a city around 40 miles from my home:

According to Google Maps, the FedEx Oakland location that the package arrived at last night is 7.5 miles from my home, the package’s destination. Around 6:30am today it left there, and I assumed it would be on one of their delivery trucks heading here. But no, look where they sent it – Memphis, Tennessee!

Somebody at FedEx in Oakland actually loaded a package for delivery to an address less than 10 miles from where they stood on to a plane, and then flew it approximately 1800 miles to their hub in Memphis. At some point today, probably without even considering the stupidity or cost (to the planet and to FedEx) of these actions, another worker at FedEx in Memphis will load the package back on a plane, and send it back to Oakland – another 1800 miles.

So, my little package will have travelled around 3600 extra miles. Nothing green about that, and no matter how fuel efficient your vehicles, this is never going to be the right thing to do.

I actually called FedEx to see whether this was some kind of mistake. Perhaps the web site tracking information was wrong, or perhaps the parcel had accidentally been put in the wrong box. But no, from what the very kind customer service person told me, it seems that it is normal to route packages through their hub in Memphis like this.

Do other shipping companies work this way too?

Here’s a great idea, though sadly not well executed in this instance: a Sloan dual flush mechanism for commercial toilets.

Many new flush mechanisms for residential use are coming with a dual flush option that can be used to save water. Typical modern single flush toilets will use 1.6 gallons of water per flush (gpf), or 6 litres. That is already a big saving on older units that could use as much as 5 gallons per flush). A dual flush unit adds a 0.8 gpf option for flushing liquid waste.

While the savings at home can be significant, the savings in a commercial installation are much higher since we spend so much more awake time at work than at home in general. So, installing dual flush options for office facilities and in other commercial buildings makes a lot of sense. If done right.

The photo shows the sign affixed to the wall above a new, eco-friendly flush unit installed in the building where my office is located. All sounds good, but I have two problems with this particular installation:

1. The reduced flush option is activated by pulling the handle up, which means most people will continue to use the full flush without even thinking about it.

2. It was fitted to a urinal, which should never need the ’solid waste’ option.

The combination of those two flaws makes this particular installation essentially useless. A regular 1 gpf urinal flush mechanism would probably have been a better choice for this location, especially since most people will press the handle down.

BioBag makes a range of bio-degradable, compostable plastic bags from corn. Bags that you can use for your kitchen waste, cleaning up after your pets or even storing your vegetables in the fridge since they breathe without leaking.

Supermarket Bags
If you own a store that uses plastic shopping bags, why not switch to BioBag shopping bags? You’ll be able to do something good for the environment, without needing to persuade your customers to change their habits! If you work for a store, try suggesting to your employer that they switch to these greener bags.

Composting System
In addition to making compostable bags, BioBags also has a solution to help make composting your organic kitchen waste a little easier, and odour free.

[Via The Daily Green]

Amazon Green, a new store from Amazon, focuses on listing environmentally friendly products. Included already are eco-friendly cleaning products, EnergyStar approved lighting products and office electronics.

Currently, they’re also asking customers for their Green 3 products: the three green products that they wish everybody had. The current top three are reusable shopping bags and a couple of different CFL bulbs (fourth is a push reel lawn mower).

One of the most innovative companies in the green space is TerraCycle. Initially producing natural fertilizer from worm poop, and bottling it in old plastic soda bottles that they pay schools to collect, the company has now branched out into all kinds of innovative products made from trash.

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It goes by a number of names, but essentially what we’re talking about here is power consumed by devices while they’re switched off. How can devices use power when they’re switched off? Well, most modern devices, especially those with remote controls, don’t really switch off – they just go to sleep or stop displaying anything. But they’re still on really – waiting for you to press that “power” button on the remote.

In some countries the outlets have individual switches, making it simple to really switch off equipment. For countries where this is not the case, think about using a simple power strip with a switch on it as a way to avoid having to keep unplugging things.

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A good lawn is green, but what about the lawn care products that you use to keep it looking great? Here’s a round up of a few products that can help to make your lawn care as green as your lawn.

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