Seattle - America's First Zero Waste/Carbon-Neutral City

This gave me quite a kick! Its the first city in America thats on its way to being carbon neutral. The city is applying all the common sense principles possible to make this happen. Now this is how true conservatism works.

Here's a sampling of what they are doing (some of these you could directly implement at your homes and offices too)


- Food waste is collected weekly and gets used for compost. Bye Bye Methane (emanating from garbage dumps and landfills causing more global warming)

- Incentives for product stewardship (a.k.a. "extended producer responsibility"). This means producers are responsible for recycling and disposing off of what they produce. They get a financial incentive for this.

- Reduce garbage by banning non-recyclables (eg plastic bags and styrofoam cups and other dinning hall culprits).

- Expanding reuse and recycling to include back programs for products like pharmaceuticals, paint, and electronic products.

- Expanding recycling to take care of construction and demolition waste

Complete article from Yes! Magazine at http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/richard-conlin/waste-not-seattles-road-to-zero-trash?utm_source=wkly20100820&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleConlin

DIY: Things you didnt know you could recycle, or how to!

Did you know of http://www.earth911.com/ ? Its the one place you can go to figure out how to recycle things you wish you could recycle instead of dumping in the trash... atleast I hope you feel that way everytime you reach for the dumpster:-)


Here are a few things you may not know you could (or how to) recycle/reuse.
- Wine Corks
- Foam Packing Peanuts
- Bras
- Carpets and Rugs
- Prescription Medicines
- CDs/DVDs/Books
- Shoes
- Holiday Lights

The article below shows you how to recycle them.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-recycle.html