Tag Archives: environment

Bug market, big returns

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Sure, you could listen to the experts about what the stock market will do.

But how reliable is that?

The return of the cicadas this summer — now that’s something you can bank on.

These locusts make their appearance in mass every 17 years in the Northeast. And when they do, stocks go up nearly 21 percent on average. That’s double the historical average. And that’s been the case since 1928, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Howard Silverblatt, a market data whiz, saw the cicada correlation but, according to the Journal, warned against reading too much into it.

“You can prove nanything you want,” he told the Journal. “Start with your answer, and I have the data to prove it.”

Ya, but 85 years of stock-rising coincidences? That’s hard to swat away.

Cloth diaper comeback

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Are you a new parent who would like to save money big-time and help the environment at the same time? Then consider using cloth diapers, says Joy Herbert of Duluth.

Herbert should know.

She’s saved up to $4,000 using cloth diapers with her young son and daughter and has started her newborn on them as well. And with each child on cloth diapers, 1.5 tons of disposable diaper waste is kept out of landfills, says Herbert who, with her husband, owns Little Neetchers, a home-based business selling cloth diapers.

And what better time than Earth Week to spread the word. So Little Neetchers will host a free Cloth Diapering Expo Friday at the Inn on Lake Superior in Canal Park.

The expo, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., will teach parents about the environmental benefits of using cloth diapers as well as the money savings. During the event, cloth diapers and diapering accessories will be given away.

 “We will also show off all the new types of cloth diapers and show parents how to use and wash them,” Herbert said. We want people to come and learn and see if cloth diapering is a green way of living that they would like to try.”

Modern cloth diapers don’t require the pins and the smelly soaking of years ago. Today’s washable diapers come in different styles and colors, with different absorbent linings with a cover that’s waterproof but not plastic. Some are washed separately, others come in one washable unit. Some have Velcro-style closings, others have snap closings to accommodate babies as they grow. And, Herbert says, they look cute on babies.

Little Neetchers, founded in 2009, last year won a prestigious Joel Labovitz Entrepreneurial Success Award in the micro-entrepreneur category. For more information about Little Neetchers, visit www.littleneetchers.com

 

 

Waste not

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Who would have guessed that if we wasted less food, we would help the planet big time.

Americans waste nearly 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States, while recycling only 3 percent of it, according to Jonathan Bloom, who wrote “American Wasteland.”

That means 97 percent is ending up in landfills. And that’s not good.

“When we send food to landfills, it rots and emits methane which is a greenhouse gas that’s more than 20 times as potent as trapping heat as carbon dioxide,” he said. “So essentially we’re aiding climate change through our waste bins.”

The solution, of course, is to waste less food  and compost what food we do waste. Besides Mother Earth, there’s another good reason to do that. You’ll save lots of money.

The average family of four throws away $2,200 worth of food a year, Bloom said on a recent Clark Howard consumer show on the Headline News channel. That’s about $185 per month lost and one-half pound of food wasted per day.

So reduce your food garbage and you’ll save money. For those who can’t resist the urge to keep the fridge stocked, he offers these tips:

—Keep everything in sight in the fridge.

—Use clear containers.

—Put older foods in front and newer foods in the back.

—Use shopping lists at the store and stick to them.

—Put notes on food items, noting their costs, as an incentive to use them.

 

MCCU is making green pay off

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A Twin Ports credit union is paying more than just lip service to help the planet.

Members Cooperative Credit Union has made changes at its buildings and business practices in an effort to reach a zero net balance in its carbon emissions.

And it’s resulting in big savings.

“We’ve discovered that making changes that are friendly to the environment are also friendly to our bottom line,” said Ralph Hamann, MCCU’s vice president and chief financial officer. “We have more work to do, but we are on our way to becoming a carbon neutral organization.”

To that end,  MCCU has:

–Switched to more efficient lighting at its Cloquet branch office. Savings: $1,800/year in electrical costs.

–Switched from battery-powered hand towel dispensers to manual ones. Savings: $600/year, plus batteries are kept out of landfills.

–Switched from compressed air keyboard cleaners to vacuum-style keyboard cleaners. Savings: $800, plus harmful hydroflourocarbons aren’t released into the environment.

–Installed a sophisticated heating, ventilation and cooling system in MCCU’s 8,000-square-foot call center. The system pulls heat from its large data servers and sends it to employees’ work stations, cutting heating costs to less than $150 per month in winter. Savings: $10,000/year.

Although MCCU started making sustainable practices a priority in 2004,  it boosted its efforts this year after staff completed seven months of training with Sustainable Twin Ports, a non-profit grassroots group dedicated to furthering sustainability through education, networking and action.

Hey, we’re here, too!

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Yesterday’s blog post hailed Bay West Inc.’s setting up shop in Duluth as a big deal since it’s the No. 4 environmental services firm in the state, according to rankings by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

Since then, we’ve heard from Edina-based Barr Engineering, which is No. 1 in the state, pointing out that they also have a presence in Duluth.

Make that a big presence.

Barr has an office with 50 professionals in the Providence Building, 332 W. Superior St. Not only that, Barr is expanding its office space there to accommodate more employees, said office manager Sheryl Filby Williams who noted that Barr is the second largest consulting firm in the area and also has an office in Hibbing.

But there’s more.

A check with the phone book and we learn that No. 3-ranked Mavo Systems of White Bear Lake has an office in Proctor.

And…  it’s a big deal that they are ALL in the Twin Ports area.

(No.2-ranked Pace Analytical Services based in Minneapolis had an office in Superior, but it has closed).

Firm’s move to Duluth is big deal

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When a St. Paul firm set up a branch office in Duluth this summer, it was news because they were the “winning bid” to move into Park State Bank’s original flagship building in Morgan Park.

The quaint 90-year-old bank building had been offered rent-free for two years to a business that would bring six jobs to the site to help energize the neighborhood. Bay West Inc. bettered that by buying the building outright and opening a branch office.

The move was all the more sweet because the company — which investigates and conducts environmental cleanups —  got its start in Duluth in 1976 but left in 1987, after which it grew and grew.

But Bay West’s reestablished presence in Duluth became a bigger deal when Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal came out with its Top 25 List of Environmental Services Firms in Minnesota.

Bay West is No. 4, up from No. 7 in 2009, based on the number of professional environmental employees it has in the metro area. Bay West has 100 professional employees in the Twin Cities and $22.2 million in revenues, according to the Journal.

Bay West was topped only by Barr Engineering of Edina with 273 professional employees, Pace Analytical Services of Minneapolis with 220 and Mavo Systems of White Bear Lake with 177.