April 22nd, 2013

I remember 2007, when we started this website. People were tip-toeing toward greener behaviors. Activists were writing kids’ books explaining the greenhouse effect and urging tots to turn off the faucet while brushing their teeth. Scholars had assembled tomes, politely pointing out that we’d be running out of oil pretty soon. How things have changed on this Earth Day 2013…

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April 19th, 2013

You know those righteous 20-somethings you see on the news inveighing about how they’ve got the Earth on their shoulders and have to pick up the pieces of their wanton, consumerist elders? They do have a burden unlike any previous generation. God help ‘em. But here’s a little secret, they’re no greener than those elders, in fact, the Boomers out-green their kids in significant ways, according to a new survey by DDB.

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April 16th, 2013

Can one person make a difference? Each Goldman Environmental Prize recipient has. But it wasn’t easy. These grassroots environmentalists faced down pollution, mining and drilling interests, entrenched officials and even assassination their efforts to save and restore natural lands, stop air pollution and encourage recycling. Read on for inspiration…

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August 9th, 2012

When last we left them, the kids of Sun Valley Elementary in San Rafael, Calif., had petitioned Crayola to take back their used markers.

It just got really easy to decide which art markers are the greenest.

It was a straightforward ask by people in the single-digit age range who’d noticed that other companies were taking back goods and probably also that their parents were slinging recyclables to the curb every week. So they spoke candidly to Crayola about the corporation’s markers, which they worried end up in the land fill after they are used.

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August 6th, 2012

Our kitchen chairs were a sturdy forest green, solid and enduring after 17 years.

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May 16th, 2012

Elementary school kids in San Rafael, Calif., are asking Crayola to initiate a recycling program for the millions of markers the company produces every year.
The children, who participate in a green group called Kids That Care, decided to petition Crayola through Change.org after realizing that many plastic products, including spent markers, wind up in landfills, said the group’s advisor Land Wilson.

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September 10th, 2010

I’ve heard many wonks say we won’t be on track with a new energy economy in this country until we get competitive about it. Not just with other countries, but with each other.

We Americans, the theory goes, need to aim to be the best conservator of natural resources on our block instead of the biggest collectors of plasma TV screens.
Symbols of wealth and even excess carry great allure in this country, and so this will obviously require significant shifting and re-prioritizing.

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September 9th, 2010

San Francisco knows how to not waste an opportunity. In case you missed the news, the Golden Gate city recently surpassed it’s goal of diverting 75 percent of its trash from the landfill by 2010. It’s already at 77 percent trash diversion by the city’s last estimation.

The side of a Recology truck makes the point that "Recycling changes everything." In San Francisco, it has dramatically changed how much trash goes to waste. (Photo: Recology)

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August 25th, 2010

Landfill trash (Photo: D'Arcy Norman)

If you are dutifully recycling as much as possible, and your neighbor isn’t, you obviously aren’t getting the same share of trash collection bang for your tax buck. That inequity – not to mention overflowing landfills – is causing some communities to give their not-so-green members a not-so-gentle nudge in the right direction. The solution is “trash metering,” requiring residents to pay by the bag for curbside collection.

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August 3rd, 2010

Image: H2Orange.com

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April 22nd, 2010

The recycling service, Reconnect, set up by Dell and Goodwill Industries, is expanding to collect more than PCs and computers.

Now the free collection service, available at nearly 2,000 Goodwill locations, also will accept Microsoft entertainment products like Xbox, Zune and their accessories, Round Rock, Texas-based Dell announced today.

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March 8th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Garbage Dreams is the paradoxical title of an upcoming PBS documentary on Egypt’s Zaballeen, or in English, ‘garbage people’. The Zaballeen collect the trash in Cairo. They are born into the job and live on the city’s outskirts, within the large garbage village composed of Cairo’s waste.

Egypt's Zaballeen are born into the garbage business

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