Waste

California Backs Away from Bag Ban

California was poised to pass the first statewide ban of single-use plastic bags in America when the legislation was defeated by a 21-14 vote on the floor of the California Senate yesterday. The vote disappointed many including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter of the legislation that had gained widespread support from a diverse coalition including [...]

Recent Posts

Using dairy manure for energy

Dairy cows at Fiscalini Farms in Modesto, California.

Instead of collecting thousands of pounds of cow manure in open holding ponds, Joseph Gallo Farms uses it in a renewable energy technology known as a methane digester. However, because both Gallo Farms and another dairy with a digester, Fiscalini Farms, are located in the San Joaquin Valley, an area with some of the worst [...]

No more cruise ship sewage for California

The federal Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it intended to ban all dumping of sewage by large cargo and cruise ships in California waters out to the three-mile limit. The state has been requesting the ban for five years. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/keeping-ship-sewage-from-the-california-coast/?src=mv

Britain and other countries face a collapse of their economies and loss of culture if they do not protect the environment better, the world’s leading champion of nature has warned.
“What we are seeing today is a total disaster,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. “No country has met its [...]

Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry’s standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.
The construction wave stretches from Arizona to Illinois and South Carolina to Washington, and comes despite growing public wariness over the high environmental and [...]

“These folks want to have a much more extensive cleanup than EPA has first put on the table, and I’m going to certainly try to help them with that,” the Democrat told the crowd.
The EPA’s plan calls for…polluted soil from around the rest of the site and the surrounding neighborhoods would be placed [...]

Thanks to Lynn Dirk for sharing yet another reason to veer away from meat:
“Pink slime” is the nickname earned by a formerly inedible byproduct of the beef industry. Once used in pet food, it’s now a cheap additive in ground beef.
via Ask Umbra on avoiding ‘pink slime’ in ground beef and flushing kitty litter | [...]

NATIONAL “PUBLIC LANDS” DAY, September 25, 2010

September 25, 9am-noon – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park, Alachua Co, FL – Farm Day
Help clean up along the trails, paths and around the historic buildings at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings historic farm, a National Historic Landmark. The work includes weeding and hoeing paths to the farmyard and [...]

Faced with hundreds of lawsuits and a deep need for experts, BP has been offering some Gulf Coast scientists lucrative consulting contracts that bar them from releasing their findings on the company’s massive oil spill for three years.
Some scientists say the contracts constrain academic freedom. A few signed the agreements, then changed their minds.
via Gulf [...]

Waka Waka Haiti

This is what American capitalism is doing to the world. Looks like fun, but please read between the lines. Thanks, Ewen and Nancy for sending this along:

Waka Waka Dance – Haiti from Jonathan Wooley/RTC Pictures on Vimeo.

I am so into finding new uses for glass. Love this!
“Have you ever ordered a drink at a bar or restaurant and wondered what happened to the bottle it came in?
On the Las Vegas Strip, these bottles may end up as the facade for buildings when mixed with recycled cement, according to the Las Vegas [...]

New York City to Recycle Clothing, Shoes, Textiles Starting This Fall | Ecouterre

Gotham officials have their work cut out for them. Over 190,000 tons of textiles made their way into Big Apple landfills in 2008 alone, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “You can open a black bag at the landfill and see what looks like new clothing,” Robert Lange, the director of Bureau of Waste [...]

Wondering what the oil spill looks like on the front lines? Lynn Dirk sent us this compelling pictorial:

Photo Gallery « Gulf Oil Spill Facts.

In this video, WKRG News 5 investigates the toxicity levels of local public beaches that have been populated with people swimming and children playing in the water in Alabama. Their search ends with some explosive results.
WKRG teams up with Bob Naman, an analytical chemist with almost 30 years in the field. Naman tested WKRG’s various [...]

Al Gore: Time for renewable energy!

These are 27,000 potential environmental catastrophes waiting to happen. We need action now – not only to make sure these wells are safe, but also to move away from fossil fuels, so no more wells need to be drilled.
This post originally appeared at Al’s Journal.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/27000-potential-leaks_b_649510.html

The Rich Catch Everyone Else’s Cutback Fever – NYTimes.com

Okay, let’s review: The economic model has led us to a horribly unsustainable situation whereby we are rapidly gutting our natural resources and polluting the planet with an overflow of junk created largely by poisonous petrochemicals. Creating a sustainable world depends on changing this model. We all need to buy less stuff and businesses need [...]

Another good reason to eat your vegetables!
“The overuse of antibiotics in farming may have significant health consequences for consumers, according to testimony from the Food and Drug Administration. Now lawmakers are looking to curb the use of antibiotics in raising livestock, a move that puts them at odds with agribusiness interests.”
via FDA Calls Antibiotic Use [...]

Oil Flow Stopped – For Now

NEW ORLEANS — Oil stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in nearly three months, as BP began testing the cap atop its stricken well, a critical step toward sealing the well permanently.
http://nyti.ms/9EpPfh

“If the administration sticks to its guns,” Mr. Price predicted, “mountaintop removal is going to be severely curtailed.”
“We can’t keep blowing up mountains to keep the lights on,” said Maria Gunnoe, an organizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and a director of SouthWings, which organizes flights to document environmental damages, a resident [...]