Married couple was told to drive 400 yards to recycle

A couple who tried to walk to their local recycling tip were turned away for health and safety reasons and told to make the 400 yard journey in their car instead.
David and Katie France thought they were being "doubly green" by taking their waste to the rubbish dump on foot.
But on arrival they were told it was unsafe for them to walk onto the site in case they got run over by a car.
Mr. France, 67, left his wife and the rubbish at the gate while he walked back home to get their Toyota Avensis car.
When he reached the depot he picked up his wife, loaded the vehicle with the recycling, drove onto the site and disposed of the rubbish before driving home.
Mr. France said: "It was farcical. I thought we were being doubly green by taking our recycling there on foot.
"But whatever good we did in recycling our waste was probably counteracted by the CO2 emissions we used up in our car."
The council responsible for tip said that because there is no "dedicated pedestrian access point" it was unsafe for people to walk there.
The couple, from Blandford, Dorset, had bits of unwanted scrap metal to get rid of so thought it best to take it to the nearby recycling centre.
Mr. France said they were met at the gate by an attendant in a fluorescent jacket who told them they weren't allowed in.
He said: "We didn't want the metal to scuff the upholstery in the car and we felt it was silly to take the car such a short distance.
"When we reached the tip we were met at the gate and told we couldn't come in.
"We asked why and the blanket phrase of health and safety was given as the reason.
"I can only assume we might have got run over by a car had we entered the tip on foot,
"So I had to leave my wife there while I dashed home to get the car. Katie jumped in at the gate and we unloaded the scrap metal.
"As we did so, another worker there offered to help us. You couldn't make it up."
Mr. France, a retired radio producer, said: "It is patently absurd that anyone without a car, or anyone who wishes to be 'green', is barred from the site.
"There is no logic here because people in cars have to get out and walk to unload their recycling.
"The signs outside the center make no mention of 'no pedestrians'. This was a job worth having his moment of power."
Mr. France has since written a letter of complaint to Dorset County Council about the episode but said he has received no proper explanation or apology.
A council spokesman said: "In general terms, the household recycling centers are designed for access by car and do not have dedicated access points for pedestrians.
"If residents have walked with the waste from their home then they will be allowed access on foot but will be advised against this practice on safety grounds."
He said the council will look into providing access for pedestrians when looking at the design of future recycling centers.
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Waste Cooking Oil Candles

Filt "Waste Oil" Candles combine useful recycling with nice packaging to make a product that looks good, smells good, burns well, and is made almost entirely with recycled waste literally within reach of the creators.
Filt’s unique concept is that the materials and design, minus the wicks, come from within walking distance of their studio. Filt’s creators are also involved with Gaimgraphics, which accounts for the nice graphic design, with their office sitting atop Chubby, their stylish and spacious cafe in Setagaya Ward in Tokyo. Chubby’s size makes it ideal for events and rotating art showcases, but it’s also the source of Filt’s main ingredient: Used cooking oil, which they filter, color, and scent with vanilla.

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CLUNKERS - Last Day

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Chevy Volt to Get 230 MPG Rating

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General Motors said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt electric car could get 230 mpg in city driving, making it the first American vehicle to achieve triple-digit fuel economy if that figure is confirmed by federal regulators.
But when the four-door family sedan hits showrooms late next year, its efficiency will come with a steep sticker price: $40,000.
Still, the Volt's fuel efficiency in the city would be four times more than the popular Toyota Prius hybrid, the most efficient car now sold in the U.S.
Most automakers are working on similar designs, but GM would offer the first mainstream plug-in with the Volt, which seats four and was introduced at the 2007 Detroit auto show.
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Global Warming Cloud Ships

The cloud ships that could cancel out effects of global warming this century for £5.3bn.
Special ships that create clouds by spraying seawater into the air could be the most cost effective way of tackling climate change, new research has found.
The technique, known as marine cloud whitening, would create clouds above the Pacific Ocean that would have a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight away from Earth.
A wind-powered fleet of nearly 2,000 ships would criss-cross the sea, sucking up sea water and spraying it upwards through tall funnels.
'When you spray saltwater into the air, you create nuclei that cloud condenses around, creating bigger and whiter clouds, thus bouncing more sunlight back into space,' said David Young from the think-tank that commissioned the study.
　

Lonely as a cloud:

A flotilla of 1,900 ships would cruise the Pacific creating clouds to reduce ocean warming

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The paper by Professor Eric Bickel and Lee Lane looked into the costs of potential climate engineering projects. It was commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center that advises governments how to spend aid money.

It found that cloud whitening would effectively wipe out the effects of climate change this century for no more than £5.3billion. This is a fraction of the £150billion that leading nations are considering to spend cutting CO2 emissions each year.
It is also more than 25 times cheaper than the £140billion cost of developing the alternative of stratospheric aerial insertion. This scheme would mimic the cooling effect of volcanoes by creating a hazy layer of particles like soot, which would scatter and absorb sunlight creating a cooling effect for at least a year.
The final suggestion considered was the plan to deploy tiny sunshades into space to shield Earth from some of the Sun's rays. However, this was discounted due to its astronomical cost of £236trillion.
The authors also compared the overall cost of the schemes with the cost benefits that reducing temperatures would have. These would include the human costs on health, impact on different industries such as agriculture and tourism and the effect of flooding.
They found every £1 spent on stratospheric aerosols would reap £15 of benefits, however every £1 spent on cloud whitening would bring £2,000 of benefits.
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Man cleans up river and gets £480 bill

A man who hauled 120 tires out of a polluted river has been told to pay £480 to get rid of them.
Both council and environmental officers have refused to accept responsibility for the rubbish. And Roy Hart, 63, was told it will cost him £4 for each one to be legally disposed off.
Farmer Roy, a keen angler, and three volunteers acted after seeing dead fish in the polluted River Crouch at a park in Wickford, Essex. He got permission to act from the Environment Agency and Basildon Council.
But afterwards Agency officials said the tires were the responsibility of the land owner - the council.
But the council argued it was a "pollution control" matter for the Agency. Mr Hart, a parish councillor, now has a mountain of tires outside his home in Battlesbridge. He said: "I'm being punished for showing community spirit."
Agency chief Peter Rickett claimed Mr Hart did not ensure the council would take the rubbish. He added: "We are only responsible for clearing rivers if there is a flood risk.

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Store owner takes on litterbugs

A village shopkeeper is marking wrappers and drinks bottles with the names of children who buy them in a bid to discourage them from littering.
Yvonne Froud, 52, took action after becoming fed up with the rubbish collecting in Joys Green in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.
She said the village, particularly the children, had taken the campaign on board.
"It's made a great difference. The whole village is a lot cleaner."
"We had a good old clean up with the help of the council," she added.
Campaign working
The shopkeeper said the children understood the reason behind the clean up when it was explained to them.
She said: "It is just a question of taking responsibility. It is just a bit of education and it seems to be working. Nobody has really complained. If they do, we'll take it into account.
"On the whole the feedback has been good."
The clean-up campaign began four weeks ago when the children were encouraged, with the incentive of an Easter egg, to pick up sweet and crisp packets.
Mrs Froud said if named wrappers were found on the streets, she had a chat to the "offender" who was temporarily banned from the shop or asked to pick up some litter as a consequence.
She said the campaign would continue "because it is working".
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Microwave popcorn popper

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Micro corn popper is a reusable alternative to popcorn bags. The removable lid/strainer melts butter into the 2.5-quart container while corn pops for all to see. In minutes, a perfect batch of everyone's favorite snack for movie time, or anytime, is ready. Cuts down on the uncooked kernels or burnt disasters of microwave bags.

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Environmentally Friendly

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Recycling Labrador

Recycling more than 20,000 plastic bottles in six years is good going for even the greenest resident.
But it's even more of an amazing feat for Tubby because he's a Labrador.
Twice daily he goes out for a walk and usually picks up at least six plastic bottles from wherever he can find them.
He then happily crushes them in his mouth and takes them back to his owner Sandra Gilmore, of Cadoc Road, West Pontnewydd, who recycles them in her black box.
She estimates that in Tubby's lifetime he could have collected up to 26,000 bottles.
"He has got a real nose for them and has done ever since he was a puppy," she said. "He'll dig them out from anywhere and go under bushes and even into water to fetch them.
"Tubby must be the keenest, greenest recycling canine around. I like to do by bit by recycling as much as I can - Tubby helps me to do an even better job."
Mrs Gilmore, 51, believes her family pet is attracted to bottles because of the noise they make when he crushes them in his mouth.
"He does a great job for the recycling crews as they come already crushed," she said. "However, it can be annoying sometimes as there is often something left in the bottle when he brings it over and it then goes everywhere."
To recognize Tubby's efforts, Torfaen Council's recycling mascot Dan Can the Super Recycler will present him with a bone.
Councillor John Cunningham, Executive Member for Operational Services, said: "It's no wonder we are the best performing recycling authority in South Wales with such enthusiastic pets as well as residents," he said.
"I'm glad he got a nose for bottles rather than bones and I hope he keeps up the good work."
Torfaen Council currently recycles 42 per cent of its waste.
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Global Warming?

Some Canadians Say No

PET Project: Coke's Big Recycling Plant

Roughly 75 percent of plastic soda and water bottles end up in landfills, by some estimates. What a waste. We could argue about whether to blame lazy consumers, governments that fail to promote recycling, or the beverage industry. We could debate whether bottle bills will solve the problem. (They won't, by themselves.) We could try to persuade people to give up bottled water. (They won't.) Or we could look for market-based solutions, and see if they have the potential to scale.
That's what the The Coca-Cola Co. is doing. This week, Coke stages a grand opening for the world's largest bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C. (The plant's been running at less than full capacity for months.) The facility is a $60 million joint venture of Coke and the United Resource Recovery Corp. (URRC), which calls itself the world leader in transforming waste bottles into new ones. URRC has a patented process for recyling food and beverage containers made of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET.
The plant will have the capacity, when fully operational, to produce 100 million pounds of recycled PET plastic chips—enough to produce 2 billion 20-ounce bottles of Coke or Dasani or whatever.

Rock dust is at the root of a garden fortune

A couple who transformed the infertile soil of their Perthshire croft by adding rock dust to it have developed the process into an export business. Former schoolteachers Cameron and Moira Thomson saw their first shipment of the crushed quarried rock leave Scotland for Slovakia on Friday.
The Thomsons' once-exhausted land now produces football-sized cabbages, massive onions and normally delicate fruits the size of a fist. 'The dust we use has more than 78 minerals and trace elements, and that benefits the produce,' said Moira Thomson, who with Cameron set up the center for Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration (Seer) in 1997. 'It's been said that we need to eat five apples to get the same nutrients we used to get from one apple 40 years ago. But when we had one of our carrots analyzed and compared with a shop-bought one, it had 10 times as many nutrients.'
Cameron Thomson said using rock dust mimics the earth's glacial cycles. 'Modern soils are relatively barren and artificial fertilizers are needed, but rock dust accelerates that natural weathering process,' he said.
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ECO-FRIENDLY GARDENING AND FARMING WITH ROCK DUST

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In the News

NY election mix-up: 'Osama' on the ballot
Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for "Barack Osama."
The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as "Barack Osama" and "John McCain." In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.
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Retailers start eco-friendly packaging as cost-saving measure
Due to the soaring prices of raw materials, retailers are trying to cut costs with measures to reduce packaging, such as simplifying plastic wrapping and abandoning the use of polystyrene trays.
Retailers also hope that this new positive attitude toward garbage reduction will appeal to eco-conscious consumers and thereby boost sales.
Convenience store chain FamilyMart is changing the way it packages about 70 percent of its lunch boxes. Although the entire box used to be covered in plastic wrap, the company is planning to now only cover the area where the box meets the lid, a move that could reduce the amount of plastic wrap used by about 60 percent.
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Starbucks wasting 6 million gallons of water a day

A U.K. newspaper is reporting that coffee-giant Starbucks wastes about 6 million gallons of water each day because stores are told to keep water running in their sinks.The water is kept running as part of a company policy to keep utensils clean and wash away food. It’s enough daily water "for the entire 2 million strong population of drought-hit Nambia in Africa or fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes." The investigation started after it was tipped off by an employee and then a letter was sent to Starbucks confirming the policy to keep running water constantly into dipper wells. The practice is done in both American and U.K. Starbucks stores to maintain health standards.

Plastic Bottle Greenhouse

"This year, Americans will drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water. To raise awareness of the alarming problem of plastic waste, Jasmine Zimmerman created the Bottle House - an open-roofed greenhouse made from hundreds of recycled plastic bottles.
It’s an excellent example of recycle a harmful and overlooked material into one that will grow vegetation, and Jasmine plans to exhibit the greenhouse in empty lots, rooftops, parks, and vacant buildings to help spread the word."

Electric power car

While this pyramid-shaped car might look pretty goofy, it’s actually an energy-efficient electric vehicle which laughs in the face of today’s gas guzzlers. And with gasoline costing upwards of $4 bucks a gallon these days, anything that runs on alternative energy seems like a welcome change.
Created by Sugar Grove, Illinois inventor Greg Zanis, the Dream Car 123 tools down the street at up to 40 mph. A single 3.5 hour charge provides about 240 miles of driving for only about $5 in electricity cost. Take that gasoline!
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Dream Car 123