September 17th, 2010

(The following is adapted from Lester R. Brown’s Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), which is available at the Earth Policy Institute website. Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute.)

As oil and natural gas reserves are being depleted, the world’s attention is increasingly turning to plant-based energy sources. These include food crops, forest industry byproducts, sugar industry byproducts, plantations of fast-growing trees, crop residues, and urban tree and yard wastes—all of which can be used for electrical generation, heating, or the production of automotive fuels.

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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.

That very likely makes San Francisco the continuing leader among U.S. cities for trash diversion. San Jose, Fresno, Long Beach, New York City and Portland are close behind. According to an independent ranking, those cities were all diverting at least 60 percent of their waste in late 2007. San Francisco led the pack back then at 67 percent diversion.

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June 18th, 2010

Trash. Turns out no one wants it. This week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) adopted a resolution that attempts to heave off some of the crushing load of waste that American consumers and manufacturers are generating.

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May 12th, 2009

By Laura Elizabeth May
Green Right Now

David Paterson, Governor of New York, issued an executive order May 5th restricting the use of bottled water at state facilities and promoting executive agency sustainability.

The order will phase out the use of state funds to purchase single-serve bottles of water. Eventually, the state will purchase cooler-sized bottles of water and state agencies will provide tap water fountains and dispensers. The order gives government agencies 180 days to develop and begin implementation of a plan to eliminate the use of single-serve bottled waters.

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March 2nd, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Stuff. It’s piling up in our garage. Stealing space in our bathroom closet. Lurking in the attic. We modern homo sapiens gather gadgets, what-nots, mementos and widgets like our forebears gathered nuts.

Except that, in winter, the ancestors ate the nuts. We’re just nuts about our stuff.

Now it’s time to get crazy about sharing that stuff, spreading the wealth, so our burnished treasures can enjoy a second life – just not in our living room!

America’s Freecycle is one way to give it away, it’s been hooking up people with junk to jettison with those who are tickled to get it for six years now, growing from a cottage industry in Tucson to 6.5 million members worldwide — despite the near certainty that your 1989 La-z-boy, your fake ficus and definitely your plaque with the fish singing the Macarena all have limited appeal (even with a price tag of zero).

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December 12th, 2008

By John DeFore

Despite efforts to increase recycling, landfills aren’t going away any time soon. But a process called “phytocapping” might drastically reduce their impact on the environment, according to a paper published in the first 2009 issue of the International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management. (The full paper can only be seen if purchased, but it is summarized here.)

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