Everyone hates a paper straw

Greener Living special edition: Luxury lifestyle with a fraction of the guilt [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( [By Kira Bindrim for Green Daily]( Happy Saturday, readers! I’m [Kira Bindrim](, guest editor for a [special Greener Living takeover]( of Pursuits in Bloomberg Businessweek. (All the lifestyle with a fraction of the guilt.) My focus: what you as an individual can do to combat climate change. You might be thinking, “Excuse me Kira, but what do you mean what I can do to combat climate change? Isn’t this a problem for governments to solve? Aren’t [just 20 companies]( responsible for a third of emissions? Wasn’t the very idea of a carbon footprint [made up by Big Oil](?” Yes! OK! Geez, tough crowd. It’s true that when it comes to emissions, individual actions are a small drop in a large and very oily bucket. Depending on where you are in the world, the best and most important thing you can do for the climate is vote for candidates who prioritize it. But I’d argue the worst thing you can do is throw up your hands. To feel individual agency against a challenge this vast is to plant the seeds of collective agency, and collective agency is crucial. (Also, no one likes a fatalist at a dinner party.) While editing [Greener Living](, I’ve also stumbled across a misconception baked into the carbon-footprint backlash: the assumption that changing how you live in the interest of the climate is synonymous with sacrifice. That decarbonizing always means downgrading. I call this the Paper Straw Conundrum, because few products do more than paper straws to convince people sustainability means embracing solutions that suck. No cocktail is complete without a straw (that works). Photographer: Isaac Solomon The good news is that, just like its namesake, the Paper Straw Conundrum is falling apart. Every year, more companies are devoting more energy to products that emit less carbon, use less plastic and produce less waste; in turn, those products are starting to go mainstream. Take Degenerates, [sneakers made by Unless Collective]( out of decomposable plants and minerals. Brand co-founder Tim Liedtke’s last gig was head of global brands at Adidas, where he turned Yeezy into a billion-dollar business (before, [you know](). Unless Collective’s Degenerate sneaker can be mailed back to the company for recycling, or even buried in the ground. Photographer: Frank Frances for Bloomberg Businessweek Shifts like this are playing out all over. A [push for plastic-free paint]( created an opening for companies like Graphenstone, which binds its paints with graphene and collaborated with Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum on 16 shades inspired by works of art. The [movement to green surfing]( is yielding high-performance surfboards and gear made without petroleum, while reconnecting the sport to its ancient Hawaiian roots. The [quest for quieter lawnmowers]( has finally brought us autonomous electric options, which give off zero emissions and look like badass Roombas that snuck outside. Autonomous electric lawn mowers save time and cut carbon. Source: Husqvarna If you ask people whether they’re willing to change their buying habits in the interest of helping the planet, most of them will say yes; many will even say they’d spend more money to do it. In practice, though, it really helps if a “sustainable solution” also costs less, is more convenient or is simply cool to adopt. Fortunately, more products in more places are moving in that direction. Connect with Kira on [Twitter]( Greener Living’s greatest hits​ [The World’s Largest 3D-Printed Neighborhood Is Here]( If it can scale, the 3D-printing process promises to deliver energy-efficient and climate-resilient homes that can be built faster, in novel designs and with minimal construction waste. [Nest Co-Creator Wants You to Pay $33 a Month Not to Trash Your Food]( Matt Rogers helped create the smart home. Now he wants to reinvent your kitchen garbage. [Beer Could Convince Americans to Drink Recycled Wastewater]( To help consumers get over the yuck factor of consuming treated wastewater, advocates are turning to craft beer as a strategy. [Heat Pumps Need Better Branding]( Three design studios offer fresh visions for what is a truly powerful, clean energy fix. [Can You Identify the Everyday Products That Contain Plastic?]( More than half of the world’s plastic has been created since the early 2000s, and the material now shows up in more places than you think. The road ahead No green technology better epitomizes the shift from climate-friendly to climate-friendly and cool like electric cars. That future generations will default to EVs seems a foregone conclusion, even as the auto industry irons out some growing pains. What kind of growing pains, you ask? Here are a few that might sound familiar: Americans want EV range exceptionalism. US buyers of electric cars are demanding 300 miles of range, [more than anywhere else in the world](. Electric car names still need work. Naming a new car is a billion-dollar branding exercise. But when it comes to EVs, the results so far [have been a bit of a mess](. [Toyota’s bZ4X electric car]( Toyota’s bZ4X electric car looks great, but its name is a mouthful. Photographer: Nathan Leach-Proffer/Toyota EV chargers keep breaking. Auto electrification needs public chargers, but one in five EV drivers in the US [say they have been unable to charge at a public station](. New cars could become zombie cars. A crowd of unproven EV startups are leaving buyers to wonder [what ownership looks like]( if your carmaker goes under. Illustration: Andrea Chronopoulos for Bloomberg Extreme heat will cook an EV battery. On a chemical level, heat is akin to a mellow and slow-moving form of cancer for car batteries, [one that irreversibly curtails range](. Good luck finding a hotel with a charger. A recent survey of 17,000 hotels in the American Hotel and Lodging Association found [only about a quarter offer EV charging.]( What else I’ve been into If there’s one thing covering climate change requires, it’s the ability to compartmentalize. And that, dear reader, is how I spend my days chronicling the potential heat death of the planet and my nights wondering whether love is blind. Here are a few of my favorite distractions. Television. Are yachts epically bad for the planet? Yes! David Geffen’s 450-foot megayacht, for example, [spews as much carbon-dioxide equivalent]( per year as about 800 Americans. Does this stop me from devouring every iteration of Bravo’s unscripted Below Deck franchise? It does not. Come for the scenery, stay for the entitled guests and yachtie drama. (The complete list: [Below Deck](, [Below Deck Mediterranean](, [Below Deck Sailing Yacht](, [Below Deck Down Under]( and [Below Deck Adventure](). Books. My reading list doesn’t exclude climate content entirely. At least three recent books—[The Parrott and the Igloo]( by David Lipsky; [Ice]( by Amy Brady; and [Not Too Late](, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua —tackle the subject without devolving into existential dread. Consider them [climate boots fit for the beach](, while Lydia Millet’s [A Children’s Bible]( is both a climate parable and a tense thriller. But I never begrudge myself the need for a proper escape. Some recent favorites include [Children of Time](, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (humans must terraform a planet populated by super-intelligent spiders), [Beware the Woman]( by Megan Abbott (Rosemary’s Baby vibes) and [All the Sinners Bleed]( by S.A. Cosby (delicious noir). Fitness. Living with climate change can feel like a loss of control; devoting time to your body is one way to claw some back. I think the key to [fitness]( is finding something you actually like doing, then committing to it instead of riding the mercurial waves of “motivation.” For me that means working with a trainer who has helped me get [stronger than I’ve ever been]( while also offering guidance on everything from [nutrition]( to [building confidence](. So, you had some questions... And we’ve got answers! Whatever the topic, keep them coming for next week via our [Bloomberg Pursuits Instagram]( and [e-mail](mailto:askpursuits@bloomberg.net). Which plastics can I actually recycle? If you’re in the US, most of the plastic items that come into your home have a triangle made of arrows with a number stamped in the middle. Recycling facilities almost universally take rigid plastics with a 1 or 2 (water bottles, laundry detergent containers). For more guidance on what to recycle (and what not to), check out [this handy cheat sheet](. [What Can Be Recycled Cheat Sheet]( Illustration: Joi Fulton for Bloomberg Green What’s the deal with “greenwashing”? Greenwashing [has no legal definition](—and some industry fund groups [hope to keep it that way](—but the European Union has [identified some words and phrases]( consumers should look out for. These include “climate neutral,” “carbon neutral” and “100% CO2 compensated,” which can hide a company’s reliance on [dodgy carbon offsets](. Also deserving of side-eye are companies touting superlatives (“the greenest you can buy!”) or listing reduction targets (“50% fewer emissions by 2030”) without giving a point of comparison—50% compared to what? Last but not least, you should scrutinize any claim that a product is “biodegradable,” “compostable” or made of “bio-based” plastic; it might not be in all circumstances. This ad from Lufthansa was banned in the UK for misleading climate claims. Image courtesy of the Advertising Standards Authority How do I get into composting? There are [a few different ways to compost](. If your community has a composting program, it usually involves getting a dedicated bin that is picked up on a set schedule, often weekly. (Here’s [one tool]( to identify programs and pickup points near you.) Many cities also have drop-off services that allow people to leave their compost at bins on the street, or in locales like farmers markets and community gardens. If you don’t have access to community collection or drop-off locations, that doesn’t mean composting is out of reach: There are a growing number of private residential composting services, and you can also go DIY. Lomi is a fast, compact and stench-free way to make your own fertilizer. Photographer: Takamasa Ota for Bloomberg Businessweek If you have a yard or other outdoor space, that means getting a dedicated bin to put food scraps in and figuring out the right ratio of “greens” (food scraps) and “browns” (leaves and cardboard) to ensure your materials break down relatively quickly and without stinking. Done right, it takes three to six months for everything to break down and the pile should have an earthy smell. New for subscribers: Free article gifting. Bloomberg.com subscribers can now gift up to five free articles a month to anyone you want. Just look for the "Gift this article" button on stories. (Not a subscriber? Unlock limited access and [sign up here](.) 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