Oregon’s electronics recycling program is doing better in its second year, collecting 11.9 million pounds of old computers, TVs and monitors so far this year. State Department of Environmental Quality officials reported that the Oregon E-Cycles program has collected about 2.4 million pounds ...

Kristina Salmi Klotz was known as the Lavender Laundress back in Vermont, where she once earned a living as a craft soap-maker. Now happily ensconced in a modest North Portland home with her husband, 4-year-old daughter Beatrix, and a huge Newfoundland dog, Salmi Klotz saves money by making her ...

Every day, Jennifer Freda-Cowie dumps her family’s food scraps into a small covered bin in the kitchen of her Southeast Portland home. Later, the scraps are brought outside and deposited into a large yard-debris cart placed near the curb. Freda-Cowie’s household in Portland’s ...

Of course we’d like to wash our laundry in cold water. Between 80 and 90 percent of the energy used to wash clothes comes from heating the water. So a typical Portland family washing four loads a week could save $50 a year on their electric bill simply by switching from warm-water to ...

Joan Ottinger set out to transform her featureless parking strip in Northeast Portland into a beautiful and productive vegetable garden, and discovered it can grow more than just plants. “This is good for knowing your neighbors,” Ottinger says of the hours she spends outside tending ...

It’s a dilemma whenever the economy sours: How do you choose between jobs and the environment, between pocketbook and sustainability concerns? Well, you don’t have to choose. Here’s a dozen ways to lighten your expenses while doing good for Mother ...

When Charles Fox visited Haiti in June – just six months after a devastating earthquake – he was struck by Haitians’ belief that they would rise from the rubble a stronger country. Fox, founder of a new local company called Pacific Green Innovations, shares this conviction. He ...

Sustainability is a logical goal at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the Wilsonville prison that houses Oregon’s entire population of female convicts. There, inmates help reduce costs by reusing materials and growing their own food. And, through environmental stewardship, they are gaining ...

Quick: What’s Oregon’s official beverage? Take a seat at the back if you blurted out "beer." And sorry, Stumptown aficionados, but you’re out if you picked coffee. Actually, it’s milk, as wholesome as Mom and apple pie, brought to you locally by the farmers of ...

Osprey, fish, deer and herons aren’t the only ones playing around Ross Island lately. Over the past two years, water-sport enthusiasts who’d otherwise be windsurfing at the Gorge, surfing at the Oregon Coast or dragon-boat racing at the Rose Festival are now hanging out here, near Oaks ...

Portland resident Resa Thomason-Schnacky recently hosted an “eco-party,” where people gather to swap sustainability tips around the home. She invited eight people to her Southeast Portland home – and 18 showed up. “People shared ideas; that was the great part,” she ...

Greenies working in the state office building near Lloyd Center used to pack their lunchtime food scraps and bring them home to bury in backyard compost piles. Not any more. Thanks to volunteer employee efforts, some 1,200 workers in the 12-story office building can now stow compostable waste in ...

We have high expectations for our sunscreens. We expect them to sink into our skin and not sit like a white, greasy blob on our noses. Most of all, we expect them to protect us from harmful ultraviolet A and B rays, so we don’t become one of the one million new cases of skin cancer expected ...

Portland Mayor Sam Adams told Sustainable Life last year that he favored a ban on plastic bags in the city, and he tried to have a committee work on the issue. But then the issue was dropped when the recession hit. Adams said in February 2009 that it wasn’t the time to impose a 5- to 20-cent ...

The climate-change conference in Copenhagen was a bust. Cap-and-trade bills to lower greenhouse gas emissions are stuck in Congress and the Oregon Legislature. And Americans are more worried about jobs these days and more leery of aggressive actions to avert climate change. But Portland State ...

For many years, the idea of going “off grid” was a goal of hippies, survivalists and UFO believers living in battered Airstream trailers on remote mountaintops. They dreamed of living self-sufficient lifestyles without depending on utilities to supply their energy and other needs. As ...

My EcoThought is to place a park atop the Columbia River Crossing bridge planned between Portland and Vancouver. The park roof will pay for itself by replacing an expensive stormwater treatment facility. It will greatly reduce the bridge’s carbon footprint. It will create public park space ...

Michelle Poyourow finds it a painless way to help the environment and lower carbon emissions. Steve Kinchen notices it cuts his utility bill and makes his clothes smell fresh. Terri Jensen says it makes her bed cozier. They’re all “line dryers” — folks who prefer hanging ...

It’s not that Pete Colt hates dogs and cats. He insists he doesn’t. But he believes keeping household pets is about the most unsustainable thing urban dwellers can do. A medium-sized dog has a carbon footprint — or paw print — twice that of an SUV driven 5,000 miles a year, ...

“Deep Green” doesn’t have super heroes, flying monsters, 3-D, big stars, love interests or comedy of questionable taste. What it does have is energy, passion, imagination, funny animated trees and singing Chinese environmentalists. Matt Briggs’ new documentary ...