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Tag: Recycling

  • Keira Knightley is the Ultimate Recycler

    Keira Knightley is the Ultimate Recycler

    Keira Knightley sets a fine example for recyclers everywhere. In fact, she wore a recycled wedding gown when she wed her musician beau James Righton back in 2013. Knightley donned a recycled pale pink Chanel wedding gown for her big day.

    The actress and model first wore the gown back in 2009 at a pre-BAFTA party. She was spotted wearing it this past December, too, at a charity gala.

    So why a pre-worn gown on her wedding day? Surely Keira Knightley could have bought any wedding gown she wanted. Designers would have clamored to create the perfect gown for her rail thin frame.

    “It was something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. I had something old, which was the dress. But it’s a dress that I’ve always had a brilliant time in,” Knightley said.

    “Every time I’ve worn it they’ve been brilliant nights. I wanted to be able to dance the night away and you can definitely dance in that dress,” she added.

    Keira Knightley went on to explain that her recycled wedding gown wasn’t the only quirky part of her wedding day. In fact, she had a mishmash of sources who contributed to her wedding ensemble.

    “The shoes and jacket were very beautifully designed by Karl Lagerfeld and made especially for me, so they were very new! I had my friend’s ring for something blue and another friend’s necklace for something borrowed,” she said.

    It’s becoming rather popular for celebrities to recycle their expensive dresses. Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, is also known for re-wearing key pieces from her wardrobe. This was something that struck the royals a bit strangely about the young duchess shortly after she wed Prince William.

    Certainly this type of recycling isn’t about the money. If one can afford a Chanel gown to begin with, cash is surely not an issue.

    What’s your take on Keira Knightley recycling her wedding gown?

    Image via YouTube

  • BPA Miscarriage: Possible Link Discovered By Study

    LiveScience via Yahoo News reported yesterday that the common plastic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to miscarriage risks in pregnant women.

    The study is to be presented at the meeting of International Federation of Fertility Societies and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Boston. In order to determine a link, scientists collected blood samples from 114 different women between 4 and 5 weeks of pregnancy.

    After dividing their sample population into groups, researchers concluded that women who had the highest BPA levels were 80 percent more likely to have a first-trimester miscarriage than the group with the lowest BPA levels. However, the study failed to conclusively prove that BPA was the cause of miscarriages because other variables may have been at work.

    Although BPA could not be proven to be a miscarriage cause, the scientists also analyzed miscarried fetal chromosomes, discovering that BPA exposure increased the risk of both genetically normal and abnormal miscarriages. Dr. Kenneth Spaeth, medical director of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Center at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System of New York, said that “Given how widespread its use is…I think we have to take these kind of studies very seriously, and make sure we’re doing everything we can to better characterize the risk.”

    Dr. Ruth Lathi, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University’s Medical Center and one of the study’s authors, said “I don’t want to alarm prospective parents… Lots of women with detectable [BPA] levels have healthy babies [and] there is no harm in trying to reduce [BPA] exposures.”

    BPA slowly leeches into the food and beverages contained in plastic and cans. Dr. Lathi has several recommendations for those who would seek to lower their risk:

    • Avoid cooking in plastic, because BPA can leech into the food as a result of high temperatures.
    • Avoid canned food, as BPA may lurk in the lining.
    • Don’t drink water from that bottle you left in your car in the hot sun. The sun has caused the BPA in your water bottle to leech into the water!
    • Try to avoid plastics with recycling code numbers 3, 6, and 7 as these are most likely to contain BPA.

    [Image via an AP YouTube report]

  • Water Bottles Used For Graduation Attire At MTU

    All of us are trying to reduce our carbon footprint and take better care of the environment that surrounds us. According to Cleanair.org, 26-41% of 2.4 million tons of PET plastic (what water bottles are made out of) are discarded every year. Unfortunately, this type of plastic does not decompose in a landfill and continues to pollute our planet. With this in mind, I am sure you have seen recycling bins either at your work or school that helps encourage patrons to recycle the water bottles they have just used.

    With this water bottle issue, Michigan Technological University has taken on the challenge to put used water bottles to good use, and have the recycled remnants used for the fabric of their graduation gowns and caps at the university’s upcoming commencement ceremonies in late April. The graduation gowns and caps will not be made out of actual plastic, but out of a yarn called Repreve (made by Unifi, a leading raw materials company) that is converted from recycled water bottles. It takes 27 plastic bottles to make the yarn for one gown.

    An example of what a Repreve-based gown and cap looks like is shown in this article’s header image of MTU student Emily Baker.

    Vice President of Student Affairs’ Assistant Beth Pollins exclaimed the following statement to Newswise about this year’s graduation “environmentally friendly” attire:

    “We’re excited about this. We’ve wanted to do this for quite a while, and it has finally come together. It’s part of our strategic plan to enhance our commitment to sustainability, so this is a great demonstration of our efforts.”

    Since 27 water bottles are made for one commencement gown, with approximately 1,000 graduates involved at MTU’s upcoming commencement ceremony, 27,000 empty bottles will be put to good use instead of laying forever in a landfill. After the upcoming April commencement, graduates can donate their gowns/caps to be recycled once again, because this will now be the standard graduation attire.

    What do you think of this environmentally friendly move? Be sure to leave your response below in this post’s comments section.

  • E-Waste Recycling Turns Phones Into Gold

    E-Waste Recycling Turns Phones Into Gold

    We throw things away. It’s just part of being a consumer culture. If a phone breaks or we’re done with the current technology, we can either sell it or throw it away. Unfortunately, the majority of American seem to think they can only throw away that old cell phone.

    Today’s infographic from Server Monkey seeks to inform Americans of all the technology they’re throwing away and how to reduce their e-waste. From computers to keyboards, it seems that the majority of consumer technology that Americans use is thrown away every year. The stats are somewhat alarming considering just how many computers are sold every year. What does the average consumer do with their old computer once they buy a new one? Well, according to this infographic, only 39.7 percent of Americans actually recycled them. That’s a majority of computers in this country just being thrown away to end up in some landfill.

    The amount of precious metals in cell phones is the most surprising though. Your phone is a veritable gold mine that also contains silver, palladium and copper. Although your phone has to be part of a mass recycling of 1 million cell phones to get 50 pounds of gold, it doesn’t seem that much when you consider how many cell phones there are in the world right now.

    Of course, the main problem when it comes to e-waste is the pollution and poisons that seep out of them over the years. It’s especially worrisome considering that rain can bring these poisons into rivers which can get into our drinking water. Some of the worst materials to come out of e-waste are mercury, lead and arsenic.

    While you probably learned the three Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) in elementary school, e-waste goes by the RRS (Repurpose, Recycle and Sell) method. I personally suggest going with the sell tactic especially with all the great deals coming from retailers who want your old iPad 2 on the eve of the new iPad launch.

    The Growing E-Waste Epidemic [Infographic]
    Infographic via: ServerMonkey.com, the Industry Leader for Refurbished Servers