How Green Is the College?

How Green Is the College? Time the Showers - NYTimes.com:

"Oberlin’s new sustainability house — SEED, for Student Experiment in Ecological Design — a microcosm of a growing sustainability movement on campuses nationwide"

U.S.P.S. goes green

U.S. Postal Service goes green with free mail-in recycling service for electronics

"In 10 metro areas across the country, the United States Postal Service has launched a new pilot program that allows people to submit old inkjet cartridges, toner cartridges, and small electronics for proper disposal and recycling via free pre-paid mailers that customers can pick up at Post Office branches. If the program is successful, it could be expanded nationwide by this fall."

Three Wet Bins

That Newfangled Light Bulb

Now, the question is how to dispose of these compact fluorescent bulbs once they break or quit working.

Unlike traditional light bulbs, each of these spiral bulbs has a tiny bit of a dangerous toxin — around five milligrams of mercury. And although one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million compact fluorescents were sold in the United States last year. That is already a lot of mercury to throw in the trash, and the amounts will grow ever larger in coming years.

For ‘EcoMoms,’ Saving Earth Begins at Home

Move over, Tupperware. The EcoMom party has arrived, with its ever-expanding “to do” list that includes preparing waste-free school lunches; lobbying for green building codes; transforming oneself into a “locovore,” eating locally grown food; and remembering not to idle the car when picking up children from school (if one must drive). Here, the small talk is about the volatile compounds emitted by dry-erase markers at school.

A Hazardous Afterlife

Americans have a voracious appetite for new technology, but it comes with a cost not included on the price tag: electronic waste is the fastest-growing part of the garbage stream. Much of the equipment contains toxic substances, like mercury, lead and cadmium. And once in landfills and incinerators, the poisons are on their way into soil, water tables and the air. The problem can be controlled, but only if everyone commits to recycling.

R.I.’s environmental landscape

Rhode Island needs to do significantly better in recycling its wastes. It now recycles only about a third of the wastes considered recyclable, and that is causing the state’s Central Landfill to fill too rapidly.

To read the report, go to http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Documents/GreeningRhodeIsland.doc.

Our Fetid City

The garbage — thousands of tons of it — has gone uncollected for three weeks, because all the available landfills are full.

China: Crackdown on Plastic Bags

The State Council, China’s cabinet, banned the production of thin plastic bags and will forbid China’s supermarkets to offer them free beginning June 1, saying they cause pollution and waste resources. The council said shoppers should return to using cloth bags. The Chinese use up to three billion plastic bags a day and the country has to refine 37 million barrels of crude oil every year to make plastics used for packaging, according to a report on the Web site of China Trade News.

Bottled Water

When it comes to bottled water, she said, “when are we going to say enough is enough of this product?” (Berger had previously explained her position on water this way: “The product is zilch! You’re buying a friggin’ container!”) Now she handed me a bottle from a little collection she kept. The brand was called Oregon Rain; its slogan, “Virgin Water Harvested From Oregon Skies.” “This is my poster child,” she said. “It’s laughable.” Then to prove this, Berger laughed.

On Gadget Overload

Faced with a house about to implode, our only choice was to start recycling. Even if I didn’t live in California, one of seven states that has banned the disposal of electronics in landfills, I would feel guilty about tossing all that lead, mercury and plastic laced with flame retardants into a garbage dump.

My good intentions turned out to be more difficult to act upon than I had expected.

In the Netherlands, Eat, Drink and Be Monitored

Some studies will focus on waste — one-third of all food is thrown out in the Netherlands, Mr. Koster said. On a tour of the restaurant’s many secrets, he pointed out a storage tank beneath the lawn. Kitchen waste will be kept and taken to a farm, he said, to be mixed with animal dung to produce biogas.

If this works, the solution could be used in large institutions like schools, hospitals or prisons, he continued. “We’ll call this an experiment in green catering, if you will,” he said

"You and Yours" Podcast

Latest news from BBC Radio 4 on 'green' consumerism from taxes on aviation to food miles to availability of grants to insulate the home. Investigations into energy policy and carbon offsetting.

Seattle’s Recycling Success

"What goes in as yard waste and food scraps will emerge two months later as a mountain of loamy compost sold by the bag at garden centers throughout the Pacific Northwest by Cedar Grove Composting. In the process, the waste is ground up, piled up, aerated, dried and sifted. The space-age fabric covering the piles allows air to enter but keeps pungent odors from wafting over the countryside."

Battery Recycling

"One thing everyone agrees on is that all batteries should be recycled, and most communities offer battery recycling sites. For rechargeable batteries, you can log onto www.call2recycle.org, or call 1-877-2-RECYCLE (1-877-2-732-9253) and find the location of a local site that collects rechargeable batteries, including those in laptops and cellphones."

“No Idling Zone”

"The school pickup line has become the latest front in a growing school-based environmental movement that has moved far beyond recycling programs and Earth Day celebrations to challenge long-accepted school norms."

Save the Planet: Vote Smart

"I want to get greener, what should I do? New light bulbs? A hybrid? A solar roof?"

The Farther East River

Mushrooms in Manhattan

Q. At a construction site on West End Avenue at 70th Street, mushrooms (yes, mushrooms!) are growing underneath the construction fence. What kind of soil is necessary for mushrooms to grow?

A. Ah, resilient nature. Roy Halling, curator of mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, said in an e-mail message that he would not expect to encounter mushrooms in a construction site because the soil is mostly mineral. The mushroom fungus requires living or dead organic material to live: for instance, compost, dead wood, manured soil and wood chips. “However,” he added, “at the edge, where some organic material has been pushed aside, it does happen. Just exactly which ones those might be — it is impossible to say.” And not even an expert can tell, sight unseen, whether they are edible, so don’t sample them.

The Green-Collar Solution

“You can’t take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back,” said Mr. Jones. “So we are going to have to put people to work in this country — weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college.” Let’s tell our disaffected youth: “You can make more money if you put down that handgun and pick up a caulk gun.”

How Green Is My Garden?

"If the government wants to reduce its dependency on imported oil and, in the words of the Department of Energy, “foster the domestic biomass industry,” it has only to stop by my backyard with a pickup."