By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Used books — what a great and cheap way to cultivate green practices. My eldest son and I visited the flagship Half Price books in Dallas over the weekend, prowling for music, plays and health books. (We didn’t have time to roam for literature.) I shed about two dozen used paperbacks, garnering a $4 credit, and we found, well, a bit of this and that to take back home.
The Half Price in near North Dallas is an awesome place the size of at least two gymnasiums. On a Saturday, the parking lot is packed, the indoor coffee shop overflows, the massage chair is occupied and there’s a continual line at the intake desk where workers decide what they’ll pay for your trade-ins. There’s an abundance of good cheer and you can always strike up a chat with someone in “History” or “Drama” or especially in the children’s section, where recommendations fly. And you’ll always fit in, somewhere in there, whether you’ve got a beard, a cane, a dozen tattoos, a half dozen kids, a passion for Henry James or Lemony Snicket.
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December 13th, 2008
By Julie Bonnin and Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
At this time of year, when many municipalities are gearing up for holiday tree recycling programs, the city of Houston is dealing with something far more monumental – more than 5.6 million cubic tons of tree waste left behind after Hurricane Ike swept through Southeast Texas in early September.
The city turned some of the debris into mulch, but launched a contest in October, Recycle Ike, to spark ideas for keeping the remaining tree waste from simply being disposed of in landfills.
The winners, announced last week, are a Rice University team of students and scientists who will create a biomass charcoal from the tree remains. The group was among more than 200 entrants from around the world that submitted ideas.
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Related Topics: · biochar, biomass, Carbon sequestration, green waste, Houston, Hurricane Ike, methane capture, pyrolysis, Rice University
October 20th, 2008
By Julie Bonnin
Attention all recycling innovators: they city of Houston has launched a nationwide contest designed to create 
new markets for recycled tree limbs and make use of the mountains of woody vegetation left in Hurricane Ike’s wake.
With enough tree trunks, branches and other tree remnants to fill Houston’s Astrodome nearly four times, the debris- 5.6 million cubic yards — far surpasses what can be used locally for mulch.
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Related Topics: · Houston, Hurricane Ike, mulche, Recycle & Reuse, Trees
September 19th, 2008
By Julie Bonnin
With virtually no Houston streets untouched by Hurricane Ike’s monumental devastation, crews from the city’s waste department, aided by waste removal workers who have come from other cities to help, have their work cut out for them.
City spokeswoman Marina Joseph says the numerous uprooted and downed trees and branches collected from the nation’s fourth largest city is expected to amount to 4 to 7 million cubic yards. (In 2001, following Hurricane Alicia, about 1 million cubic yards of tree waste was collected in three months time).
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Related Topics: · Houston Zoo, Hurricane Ike, Tree Recycling
From Green Right Now Reports