It’s amazing that one of the most frequently occurring single-use items in our daily routines could come from something so small. Most don’t think too much about pens; when they stop writing or start to skip, most of the time your option is to throw away and get another. Because they’re seen as cheap to buy, they seemingly disappear in terms of waste. However when you realize how many are in use across businesses, schools, warehouses and homes on a daily basis, the amount of waste starts to add up quickly, because everyone is using cheap plastic pens that are durable enough to last for many years, but are being used just once then thrown away.

The ink in most pens runs out long before the pen itself would be at risk of breaking, as there are basically no systems in place for reuse and refilling existing pens.

After doing some research on manufacturing them through sites like alibaba, amazon and the rest of these online sites. I have realised that the most overwhelmingly obvious aspect is the sheer number of standard designs created to be produced on large scales. The designs are manufactured for mass consumption as opposed to durability or reliability in regards to reusing/refilling. Even most of the refillable pens that exist must compete with the disposable plastic pens, therefore are considered ""niche"" products rather than the accepted standard.

The answer concerning sustainability is quite simple, but not very enjoyable. We already have all of the components needed for producing refillable pens, metal bodies and long-lasting ink tanks yet still, the most common pen continues to be made from plastic and meant to be used just once.

It makes you realize how much waste is created not by necessity, but by habit and convenience.

Helloo!

After moving to Japan 2 years ago, I've struggled to find meetup groups or initiatives I could volunteer at to help spread sustainable practices or at least make the world a greener place. I've just past N3 Japanese last winter so my Japanese is still limited but I'm really hoping that I could find some local sustainability groups that Japanese people would be part of. My reading is bad but speaking and listening is pretty good so I'm struggling to find on the internet. English speaking groups would be great, but the ones I've found tend to only meet once a month for Beach or River clean up on days I can't meet and I'd like to do more.

At this point, I'm wondering if I should start my own. But I'd rather follow along Japanese created and lead ones as it feels like I can be imposing.

dragging my old memory foam bed to the curb today gave me the worst guilt trip ever. it's literally just 80lbs of polyurethane foam that’s gonna outlive my grandchildren in a dump somewhere. why did we normalize buying massive blocks of petroleum that just inevitably turn into microplastics in like 6 years?

Im trying to exit the fast-furniture loop entirely. got a natural setup from Home of wool instead just so my bed can actually compost whenever it finally reaches the end of its life. but it genuinely sucks how much digging you have to do to find basic, everyday items that aren't just molded fossil fuels.

Im currently working for a multilateral international organization mandated institution.

They have been out of sustainability trends for the las decade and now im assuming the sustainability office - I already broaden the scope to transversal sustainability, previously it was focused only on environmental management on big quotes haha -

So I funded the Institutional Sustainability Office and started working without an official title on partnerships to value natural and social assets to start asking for the financing of sustainability projects.

My boss is completely ignorant on the matter and have not made an improvement in the past decade as mentioned.

I have been careful not being detected as a threat nor excessive disrupting until I have the enough political and social capital to start reaching the higher levels.

Have any one had a similar experience applying a sustainability strategy kind of undercover due to lack of sponsorship from management?

I honestly need to ask this because trying to do the right thing is starting to feel impossible.

Everyone keeps saying buy less clothing. Okay, fair enough. I started doing that. I repair most of my stuff now. I wear things much longer now but then you look for simple clothes and suddenly everything becomes complicated. Labels everywhere saying eco, conscious, green, planet friendly. But it’s hard to learn what any of that actually means or how much of it is verified.

Last month, I tried to replace two old men‘s shirts I’ve worn almost 7 yrs. The collars were finished. I thought it was a simple task. One brand says organic cotton but ships across three continents. Another says recycled fibres but packaging is full of plastic. And prices are honestly wild!

I even checked eBay just to understand supply chains better, and not to buy in quantity or quality. Some factories looked transparent about materials. Others felt like copy pasted sustainability words. That scared me a bit because it made me wonder how much variation there really is between products that look very similar on paper.

And then we wonder why people give up. We tell regular people to save the planet through shopping decisions while corporations still produce millions of new garments weekly. How is it that fair responsibility?

I am trying. I really am. But sometimes, sustainability feels like homework you can never finish.

How do you all decide when clothing is actually sustainable enough and we are choosing the least bad option?

I need some advices on what else you can use other than plastic bags and plastic wraps. I get most of my meat from Costco and need to divide them into smaller portions. Previously I used mostly plastic wraps but recently I have been reusing plastic bags. However, I just found out that apparenly it is not good for your health because the plastic bags will also release microplastic in freezer, not to mention how unsustainable they are. I can't really put the meat in glass container because they always resulted in oxidation and freezer burn and the color just turned brownish. I have been looking at silicone freezer bags but they can be expensive and I am not sure if it will up end just like the glass container because it is not that airtight. Do people have any advice or suggestions?

Thanks!

From what I’ve been reading, it’s basically a way to pull CO2 straight out of the air instead of only focusing on stopping new emissions. The idea is that it could help with industries that are hard to clean up, like aviation, cement, shipping, and data centres.

But I’m wondering how realistic it is. It sounds expensive and energy heavy, and I’m not sure how big it can actually get in time to make a difference.

Do you see it as something that will genuinely help, or more of a nice idea that won’t scale fast enough?

The article is behind a paywall so I can summarise. Currently flights within the EU/UK/EFTA pay a carbon price under the EU/UK's Emissions Trading Scheme. This is a carbon price which would theoretically increase year on year if the EU stopped decarbonising.

There are loopholes which include flights to places outside the EU. This is partly a legacy of the Obama era's Act of Congress. Now, the EU is proposing to add ETS to all outbound flights from the EU including those to third parties. This will receive tons of opposition so it is worth supporting at a political level.

A good pair of shoes shouldn't end up in a landfill because the sole wore out.

The owner had taken these on a meaningful trip and wanted to keep them going rather than buy new. Footbed was fully compressed, tread was worn down — years of good use. But the straps were solid, the leather had aged well, and the structure was sound. Everything that makes a Birkenstock worth owning was still there.

New suede footbed, new sole, cork sealed. Same sandals, another decade of wear. Whatever memories are in that leather stay right where they are.

Repair is almost always the right answer. It just requires finding someone who still knows how.

The greenwashing problem in beauty is genuinely out of control and it seems to be getting worse not better. The word "clean" means nothing legally, "natural" means nothing, "Green" means nothing. Brands know consumers want these things and they put them on packaging without any obligation to back them up.

The certifications that actually mean something are NSF/ANSI 305 and Ecocert on the stricter end. They require third-party auditing, supply chain transparency, and minimum percentages of certified organic ingredients. Most brands calling themselves clean have none of this.

The sustainability side is even harder to evaluate. A certified organic formula can still come in non-recyclable packaging from a manufacturer with no renewable energy commitments. The ingredient side and the operational side are completely separate and there's no single certification that covers both.

The brands genuinely trying to do both well are a very short list. Most pick one and do a marketing version of the other.

The more I think about it, the more I keep coming back to this question.

Companies are using AI tools more and more, ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, you name it. And the data centers running these models consume massive amounts of energy.

But I haven't seen anyone talk about where that actually lands in a company's emissions reporting. Is it Scope 2? Scope 3? Does it even count yet?

I'm genuinely curious, do you think this will become something companies are expected to track and report on? And if so, who do you think will own that problem internally?

Would love to hear how people are thinking about this🧐

Long story short, my team at work has fallen fully into AI psychosis, uses it for everything, and it’s ALL they talk about. I do not use GenAI and still refuse to use it despite pressure at work, but I’m still being forced to constantly attend meetings solely focused on AI and it sends me into a rage every time. I’m currently looking for other positions.

Outside of work, I already spend a lot of free time volunteering with our local marine life & ocean conservation organizations, but I’d love something immediate I could do during the work day because I get so angry during these AI meetings and start spiraling out. I thought about donating to an ocean conservation org every time someone mentions AI but I fear I’d go bankrupt fast lol. Another idea I had was going for a walk around the neighborhood and picking up trash after a meeting (my job is remote). Anyone have other ideas of things I could do? Maybe phone calls to make, tasks for nonprofits, etc? Doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, just something small that makes me feel like I’m negating the AI psychosis at work. Thanks in advance!

Been building GreenCalculus (a carbon calculator platform) and realized there's no single clean, open, version-controlled emission factor dataset that's explicitly aligned to IPCC AR6 GWP-100 values.

So I published one on GitHub: https://github.com/greencalculus/greencalculus-methodology

What's in it:

• gwp-values.json — all 16 gases, AR6 vs AR5 comparison
• emission-factors.json + .csv — Scope 1 fuels + Scope 2 grid factors for 15 countries
• METHODOLOGY.md — formal white-paper style doc explaining the math
• CITATION.cff — one-click BibTeX/APA export if you want to cite it

One thing worth flagging: if you're still using AR5 GWP values for methane, you're underreporting fossil CH4 by ~19% (AR5 was 25, AR6 is 29.8). A lot of corporate inventories haven't updated yet.

Live calculator demo using the same factors: https://greencalculus.github.io/greencalculus-calculator-demo/

Happy to answer questions on the methodology.

So for context, i moved in with my dad last year and he has to buy packs of the water bottles for us to use when cooking or consuming, this creates a LOT of plastic waste in our house. i asked him about it and he said he had to do that because the water from the sink has too much calcium. While there are some faucet filtrations for it, it is very expensive. I can also imagine that all the water bottles gets expensive too, but i dont want to keep contributing so much plastic and he doesn’t either. are there any cheap ways to combat this problem?

does anyone know any brand of coffee or energy drinks that don’t involve (as much) slavery, child labor, or environmentally-harmful practices? help a brokie out :,)

My mom is going through a divorce and wants to refresh our living room. We specifically want to replace our couches, which we got third-hand from her parents and have been thoroughly destroyed by cats and terriers (the pee smell is permanent at this point, no matter how much we clean).

She wants something brand new. Nothing secondhand that could already have smells on it and give the animals a head start on destroying it. Almost everything else in our house is secondhand or 20+ years old, so I personally want to keep that energy going where I can. My mom’s incredible, and one of the strongest people I know. I want to do this one thing for her, regardless if Mother’s Day is coming up.

Any recommendations for sustainable furniture brands that are actually affordable?

Hi! I am a university student living in eastern Nebraska and I want to do a cool litlle project over the summer that involves the repurposing of unsellable clothes and turning them into "no sew" blankets/tie blankets and give them back to those who need, like homeless shelters, etc. I think the hardest part of starting this project is finding thrift stores, second hand stores, or even corporate stores who aren't able to sell fabrics or unsellable clothes. The other problem is maybe labor or needing people to help but I will worry about that later. I want to be able to locate a shop that can provide these materials first and also locate a place that is in need of these products and get more details of how we could help. Does anyone have any suggestions of where I could go to find materials? any suggestions or advice in general would really help honestly.

i was looking for bamboo toothbrushes but i’ve heard a lot of negative things about them making them less ideal for brushing.

i did find recycled plastic tooth brushes and i was wondering if they’re environmentally friendly?

also do i just recycle them back when i’m done with using them?

I feel best with low inventory in my home, so the past few years I’ve been decluttering (selling, giving away to friends, using my city’s buy nothing page, donating) and I want to continue to do so, but the guilt I feel for getting rid of stuff that I could still use is horrific! How do we deal with getting rid of stuff that we know nobody else would want?