It's a paradox: although backpackers, particularly those who are hardcore, are committed to "leaving no trace," and surely appreciate our natural environment, we still consume fossil fuels getting to our favorite trailheads, and damage, however minimally, the environments in which we hike. Most of us, also, are still totally into gear: backpacks, tents, and the like, which can consume resources, even petroleum, and can produce pollution through their production.

Although backpacking can be one of the most eco-friendly vacations one can take (let's face it, you're walking everywhere), can backpackers lessen their eco-footprint? Although environmentalism has always been on the radar of those who enjoy the outdoors, there are more and more options that allow backpackers and hikers to make greener choices to preserve the nature that they love getting away to.

First and foremost, getting to and from the trailhead can be a major source of carbon impact. Consider taking the train or bus instead of driving or flying. The Appalachian Trail has multiple sections that are serviced by train or bus, as does the Pacific Crest Trail, and the John Muir Trail. And if you take the train you don't have to worry about your car getting broken into while you are on the trail. If worse comes to worst, you can (gulp) offset your travel.

Second, remember to obey leave no trace principles. Sometimes, after a long day of elevation gains, unexpected rain, and blisters, you might not feel like packing out the leavings of washing dishes, or the thought of a roaring campfire trumps the knowledge that you probably shouldn't make one, or you feel like wandering off the beaten trail. It may seem like your actions don't really make a difference on your favorite trail, but according to Leave No Trace, backpackers have a significant impact on the wildlife, water sources, and vegetation of their favorite habitats.

Finally, keep an eye out for greener options when buying gear. Outside magazine recently released it's green issue and, in its yearly gear guide, included an entire section devoted to eco-friendly outdoor gear. Backpacker considers green gear when reviewing products for their magazine, and awards annual "Green Awards" for sustainable gear. Teko socks kept my feet dry and blister-free through a 21 mile overnight on the Colorado Trail, have eco-friendly packaging, and are made of recycled polyester. Patagonia has established itself as an industry leader in environmentally-friendly business practices, and much of their clothing is made of recycled materials and can be returned to the company (via a retailer or the company's website) for recycling. Chaco sandals were ubiquitous on and off the trail, and are produced using recycled rubber and water-based glues. Lafuma has a new hemp pack and a more sustainable sleeping bag, and Nau recently released its highly-anticipated line of on and off-trail clothing.

Image source: Washington University

Washington University in St Louis has made a $55 million dollar investment in sustainability, focusing on the development of the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES). the university annouced Monday.

I-CARES will foster "institutional, regional and international research on the development and production of biofuels from plant and microbial systems and the exploration of sustainable alternative energy and environmental systems and practices." The center will also focus cleaner processes for utilizing Missouri's abundant coal resources, as well as improved combustion processes and emission reduction.

I-CARES will create five new endowed professorships to attract top-tier research leaders in energy, environment, and sustainability. Research will also include international partner universities, all of which recently issued a "call to action" on energy and sustainability.

The program will also support a sustainability officer and the means to apply green technology to improve energy efficiency in the university's operations. Roger N. Beachy, president of the Danforth Center, which will collaborate with I-CARES, noted,

The I-CARES initiative is an outstanding commitment by Washington University to seek solutions for a critical factor that faces the world this century, namely creating abundant and environmentally sustainable energy sources. It also adds an important component to the regional initiative to establish St. Louis as a leader in the development of renewable energy.

Washington University is a member of Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which works to promote sustainability in all sectors of higher education.

Is there a more eco-friendly way to package milk besides plastic jugs and gable-top cartons? A UK company seems to think so. Greenbottle is a new two-part milk packaging system that was recently test-piloted in Asda supermarkets during a one-week trial. The bottles quickly sold out.

Designed by Martin Myerscough from Framlingham, Suffolk, the bottle consists of a pulped recycled cardboard outer (think cardboard egg cartons) and a corn-based bioplastic bag liner. After the milk is gone, the bioplastic bag can be removed and composted, and the outer shell can be recycled or composted.

The UK produces over 3 million metric tons of plastic waste each year, of which only 7% is recycled. The vast majority of plastic ends up in landfills.

During the test run, the milk in Greenbottle's jugs cost the same as milk in traditional containers, although the packaging cost the company 30% more to produce, although they expect that margin to drop significantly as the packaging's distribution expands.

Renowned University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler said in a speech Friday that children are our best hope for slowing climate change.

Speaking at the Trails To Sustainability conference on environmental education near Calgary, Schindler said,

"By the time people who are six to 12 years old now are grown up, we're going to see a different political landscape and a different environmental one."

A world-renowned expert on climate change and fresh-water ecology, Schindler was the 2001 winner of the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Canada's highest scientific honor. Schindler also noted,

"We're all pretty set in our ways and I think looking at people who really don't get it - who leave their cars idling while they're in the grocery store for an hour in the winter and things like that - we're not going to reach those folks. We can reach their kids."

Schindler, who also teaches environmental decision making at the University of Alberta, also said that while today's generation and their elected leaders have refused to deal with looming water shortages and global warming issues, unavoidable change is coming.

Proving that sustainability is a priority for today's young people, two colleges are incorporating sustainability into their graduation ceremonies. Grads at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania took pledges of sustainability at their commencement, while Ohio's Oberlin College took the first step in a five-year plan to make Commencement/Reunion Weekend completely carbon neutral.

At Dickinson, grads signed sustainability pledges, vowing to recycle more and conserve resources. Those who signed pledges, about a fifth of the graduating class, wore green ribbons on their commencement gowns to signify their committment to sustainability. Dickinson itself has significantly increased the amount of sustainabilty measure the university is taking, and even boasts an alumni group specifically committed to sustainabilty on campus. The school has operated an environmentally-friendly apartment complex, dubbed the "Tree House", for fifteen years, and has a Campus Sustainability Specialist on staff.

Oberlin wants to green its actual commencement ceremony by implementing such changes as printing graduation programs on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, biodegradable tableware and local and organic food at dining events, available carbon offsets for travelers, and CFLs in outdoor lighting. Oberlin students will also have green ribbons on their gowns signifying their committment to sustainability. Future measure include widespread composting for all food and tableware waste over the course of the weekend, and university-fascilitated ride-shares for those travelling to and from Oberlin. Oberlin even has a "sustainability portfolio", documenting the campus's committment to sustainability.

For those that believe that young people today are focused only on themselves, measures like the ones at Dickinson and Oberlin are visible reminders of this generations committment to creating a sustainable future. With college and university presidents pledging to fight climate change, it's inevitable that other schools and students follow suit.

During our energy unit, I had a student tell me that her family was going to install compact fluorescent bulbs in their home, but they were worried about the mercury. Huh? I hadn't heard anything about this, and I had been using CFLs for years. I decided to investigate further.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that mercury exposure is a common misconception when it comes to CFLs. Fortunately, these myths are easily debunked.

Myth: There is a large amount of mercury in CFL bulbs.

Fact: Yes, there is mercury in CFLs. Generally, this amount is about 4 milligrams of mercury per bulb. To put this in perspective, a mercury thermometer has 500 milligrams of mercury in it, and older thermostats can contain as much as 3000 milligrams.

Interestingly enough, the use of CFLs can actually prevent mercury from entering our air. Burning fossil fuels produces more mercury in the air we breathe than any other source. Since CFLs use less energy, hence, fossil fuels, less mercury is put in the air. The EPA calculates that a power plant will emit 10 milligrams of mercury to produce the electricity needed to power an incandescent bulb over the course of its lifetime, but only 2.4 milligrams of mercury to power a CFL for the same amount of time.

Myth: There are no proper disposal guidelines for CFLs that have burned out.

Fact: CFLs are not technically considered hazardous waste by the government, but it is recommended that you use proper precautions when disposing of burnouts or breaks. Earth911.org can give you specific directions for disposal in your area. In general, you should dispose of CFLs like you would batteries, paint, or oil.

Myth: If a CFL breaks in your home, it will cost thousands of dollars to properly clean up the mercury released.

Fact: This is a myth that actually has an interesting story behind it. It apparently started when Steve Milloy published a story on Fox News claiming that a woman named Brandy Bridges broke a CFL in her child's bedroom and was concerned about spilled mercury contaminating the carpet. When she called Home Depot, her local Poison Control, and finally the Department of Environmental Protection for the state of Maine, she claims they recommended a $2,000 carpet cleaning. Milloy used one line out of the original story about Bridges, published in Maine's Ellsworth American, and neglects to mention that the story goes on to say that there is a simple, inexpensive, and safe method for cleaning up a spill such as this, and the DEP has now said that it "isn't necessary to hire professionals at all" for a CFL break. Read a more thorough debunking here (via Treehugger).

In short, don't believe the hype. You can breathe easy when it comes to using CFLs in your home.

I recently profiled the success of TerraCycle, the New Jersey corporation selling worm tea from vermicomposting in reclaimed plastic soda bottles. Looks like bigger corporations are starting to notice Terra Cycle–and not in a good way.

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has filed a suit against TerraCycle, claiming their plant food bottle looks too much like their own Miracle-Gro bottles; both bottles, though dramatically different, both have yellow and green on their lables along with pictures of flowers and vegetables. Interestingly, at least 120 other lawn and garden products currently on the market also have green and yellow packaging.

Scotts is also demanding that TerraCycle hand over results of scientific tests conducted at Rutgers University that support the eco-friendly company's claim that their plant food is "as good or better than the leading synthetic plant food", although Scotts has refused to hand over their own similar study to TerraCycle.

Further investigation notes that Scotts, whose annual sales total an estimated $2.2 billion, has sued 20 different competitors for infringement of intellectual property in the past ten years. TerraCycle, whose annual sales came in at an estimated $1.5 million, has started a blog documenting the David versus Goliath drama. You can find more information there, including information on how you can help.

Bill McKibben's highly successful Step It Up campaign may have overshadowed the release of his latest book Deep Economy, which probably overshadowed the recent paperback re-release of one of McKibben's earlier books, 1995's Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth. Luckily, this second edition of Hope (Milkweed Editions), largely in part because of a new afterword by McKibben, remains relevant, and, like its title says, hopeful.

The book discusses, in four sections, pockets of civilization that can give us hope for sustainable communities and environments. McKibben starts with arguably the driest section, chronicling the regrowth of wildlife in New England despite our best efforts to completely destroy it. Although the most tedious of the book, I found this section full of promise because it reminded me that in our quest to "save the environment", we are really saving humanity: the earth will continue to bounce back long after we're gone.

The second two sections discuss two local solutions to global problems in the communities of Curitiba, Brazil and Kerala, India. In the first, ambitious city planners in Curitiba use practical, yet ingenious solutions to the city's problems to create a sustainable city where people's desires are met, no matter what their income, and residents feel a strong sense of community. For example, Curitiba's favelas, or slums, were constantly overwhelmed with trash piling up. Local officials started a program where residents of the favelas could exchange bags of gathered trash for equal-weight bags of food purchased, by the city, from local farmers who had a surplus. A model public-transportation system, based on buses owned by private companies, but with fares and routes dictated by the city, had, in twenty years, grown from 25,000 riders per day, to 1.5 million. City planners changed much of the downtown business district into pedestrian-only areas.

Kerala's story was different, but no less remarkable. In a region where people survived on, at the time of first publication, $330 per year, life expectancies were equal to those of Americans, there was virtually 100% literacy, and education was a community priority, for adults and children alike. Keralites have been able to avoid the abject poverty that pervades much India, due to their leaders committing to putting people first, and breaking down socioeconomic barriers such as race, class, and gender through community commitment to problem solving.

The stories of these communities are so completely intriguing, mainly because of their innovative, yet practical approaches to solving problems that also plague us here in America. It indicated to me the glaring ethnocentrism that we sometimes demonstrate when it comes to looking outside our own country for answers to problems.

The final original section of the book covers McKibben's reflections on the first three, although I found the afterword much more fascinating, as McKibben reflects on the original text ten years later. Were Curitiba and Kerala able to sustain the successes they had achieved? How have NAFTA, the WTO, and 9/11 affected sustainability? Are we doomed, or does hope still exist? McKibben doesn't have all the answers, but I was left with hope that those answers are out there, waiting for us to discover them.

Are you a eco-conscious college student seeking to expand your activism? Green cleaning products company Seventh Generation and Greenpeace are teaming up to form a environmental/social justice leadership training program for young people.

Dubbed Change It, the second-year program is recruiting 200 student leaders between the ages of 18 and 24 to take part in a week of grassroots environmental and social justice education. Selected students will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC in July. Participants will learn about topics such as systems thinking, action media, nonviolence, and campaign strategy, and will actually participate in real campaign work.

Last year's Change It participants were responsible for a nonviolent global warming campaign in front of the US Capitol, where participants created a giant human arrow pointed towards the capitol with the phrase "Global Warming Starts Here" and delivered photographs of the event to their respective representative.

Interested in applying? It's all online here. Even those applicants who aren't selected will still receive an action kit with tools to help them become strong campus leaders. Not eligible to apply? You can check out applicants online and even vote for your favorite. Readers can also submit ideas for how they'd change things to improve the environment, which will be published on ChangeIt's website.

Recycling is probably one of the most widely-practiced, common-knowledge, things you can do to live a greener life. There are now over 9,000 curbside recycling programs nationwide. However, myths still surround the actual benefits of recycling and the rationale for the need for recycling in general.

Myth: We are already recycling what we can.
Fact: Hardly. Although recycling has grown tremendously in the past thirty years, we should be able to recycle as much as 80% of our what currently goes into our landfills. Half of landfill contents is good old paper–easily recyclable.

Myth: We are not running out of "room" for our trash, so landfill space is not a problem.
Fact: In many areas of the country, there is plenty of room for trash. Not so in some heavily-populated areas of the East Coast, where landfill space issues have translated into higher landfill costs. Landfill space could be used for other things than trash, like the natural habitats landfills often displace.

Myth: It takes just as much energy to recycle as it does to produce "virgin" materials.
Fact: When comparing the impact of recycled vs. raw, you must compare the impact over the life cycle of the product. It almost universally uses less energy to recycle waste into materials than it is to produce the same materials from raw resources. More energy is needed to extract, process, and transport raw materials than is needed for collection, processing, and remanufacturing of recycled products. For example, aluminum production saves 95% of energy costs when the aluminum is recycled as opposed to produced with raw materials

Myth: It's okay to throw something away if its biodegradable.
Fact: The breakdown of organic material in a landfill is largely anaerobic. It can take hundreds of years for "biodegradable" items to truly break down, if at all. Research by William Rathje, author of Rubbish: The Archeology of Garbage, has shown that newspapers have been found intact and readable from as early as the 1960s.

Myth: Recycling is not cost-effective for communities.
Fact: It may not be profitable, but neither is typical waste-management, unless you are Tony Soprano. It's fascinating that in many communities, people pay for their trash through fees and taxes, but most places don't have (and would probably never think of charging) a recycling fee. Plus, since comprehensive recycling programs are fairly new, efficiency can only increase as the industry matures. Cities of all sizes, including Seattle, Cincinnati, San Jose, Portland and Austin are reporting per-ton recycling costs that are lower than per-ton garbage collection and disposal costs. This doesn't even acknowledge the economic benefits of the recycling industry to communities.

Myth: Recycling is no cleaner than landfills.
Fact: Using recycled materials instead of raw results in a net reduction in ten major categories of air pollutants and eight major categories of water quality indicators and water pollutants. Using recovered/recycled materials also generates less solid waste than using virgin products. Landfills also produce large amounts of leachate (trash juice, if you will) that must be treated by municipal sewage treatment plants, and landfills and incinerators produce a huge amount of greenhouse gases such as methane.

Kelli says: Seriously, even if we "have" the space, do we want more of our common areas taken for…trash? Take one visit to a landfill during a typical workday and see just how much trash is vomited out of the constant stream of trucks…trust me, you'll see the value of recycling. Personally, conservation starts at home; by avoiding waste to begin with, composting, and reusing. However, I like how my college town of Kirksville, MO promoted recycling: free curbside service for as much as you put out, but you only get one free bag of non-recyclables per week–you have to pay for ever bag after that.