New recycling plant may help Mexico cope with litter and landfills Mexicans lead the globe in gulping sugary drinks, but recycle only a thin sliver of the 9 billion PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles they use every year. Hoping to jump-start a national culture of recycling, Environment Minister Jose Luis Luege attended last week's opening of a new recycling plant near the city of Toluca, which will handle 90,000 PET bottles an hour, or 25,000 tons a year. Luege hopes to see about 2.2 billion of the nation's discarded PET bottles recycled in 2005. Mexico has barely begun to deal with …

Greens urge boycott of Harry Potter's U.S. publisher J. K. Rowling and a coalition of eco-Muggles are giving props to Canadian publisher Raincoast Books for printing Rowling's hotly anticipated sixth novel -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, being released tonight -- entirely on recycled paper. Canadian conservation group Markets Initiative estimates that Raincoast's good green citizenship will save 28,221 trees -- more than would fill New York City's Central Park -- while increasing costs no more than 5 percent. Meanwhile, U.S. publisher Scholastic, the world's biggest Potter publisher, declines to reveal how much paper used in its 10.8-million print …

Salt Lake City played host to mayors getting up to speed on climate issues. City leaders from around the U.S. were treated to a rare bird's-eye view of the environment earlier this week at the Sundance Summit, a three-day mayors' retreat on climate change hosted by Robert Redford in Salt Lake City and at his 6,000-acre resort nestled beneath Utah's Mount Timpanogos, near Park City. In between briefings on "The State of the Science" and "Why You Should Care," and tutorials on emissions-trading programs and retrofitting public transport, a bipartisan troupe of 46 mayors representing nearly 10 million U.S. citizens …

I can't go outside anymore in Seattle without seeing a Toyota Prius -- actually make that several. To escape the onslaught, I ducked into a movie theater this past weekend to watch War of the Worlds. Just as I was thinking it would be just me, Tom, Dakota and a few alien friends, Mr. Prius showed up on the big screen to remind me that he's watching me. Is there no escape!?

Dear Umbra, OK, I hate lawns. But for a number of reasons, I have to move into a town where lawns are the law, and mowing a necessity. Can you give me the scoop on the most eco-friendly lawnmower that will still cut decently? (No, I can't have goats.) My old reel lawnmower never did a decent job, and I doubt I could talk the rest of the family into it. That leaves, as far as I know: electric (corded and cordless), solar, and (gasp) gas. My husband has ancient knowledge of electric mowers and what a terrible job they …

Seth Heine. With what environmental organizations are you affiliated? I'm the president of CollectiveGood and RIPMobile.com -- mobile phone recyclers. What do your organizations do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute "mission accomplished"? CollectiveGood recycles mobile devices (phones, pagers, PDAs) and all of their related accessories, usually in partnerships with charities, companies, and/or governments. We also just launched a new division, RIPMobile.com, which buys used mobile phones directly from the public, paying people for their phones in the form of content (music downloads, ring tones) or gift certificates from companies like Circuit City -- making recycling fun and rewarding …

Dear Umbra, I have a top-loading washing machine that's nine years old. I've heard that front-loading machines are a lot more efficient and use less detergent, so I'm thinking about taking the plunge, even though my old machine works fine. How much less water do the front-loading machines use, and why? And is it true that they use less detergent? (I just switched to an environmentally friendly detergent, but boy, is it expensive -- so less would be good.) Do they hold as many clothes as a top-loader? And can you recommend a website or other source where I can …

What liberals and their allies in the environmentalist wacko movement fail to understand is: their message has gotten out. Their anti-capitalist, socialist, gloom-and-doom, fear-based, lunatic ravings have been amplified -- and Americans understand exactly who they are, and what they're about. As the "Mr. Big" of the vast right-wing conspiracy, I am proud, ladies and gentlemen, to play a major part in the exposé leading to their depression.- Rush Limbaugh April 25, 2005 Currently, about 20 million people tune in to Rush Limbaugh every week. His lingo is now conservative lingua franca. Limbaugh figured out that if you repeat your …

Remember when you first heard about that big hole in the ozone? Remember how they called it "the ozone hole"? Man, life was good then. Raise your hand if you're sure ... what you're talking about. Now everyone's talking about global warming. Or, actually, climate change. Or ... uh ... anthropogenic forcing? What we've got, to most people's ears, is global gibberish. This scientific lingo isn't just confusing the way, say, particle physics is confusing. It's also politicized beyond belief. Industry groups, politicians, scientists, and activists battle over terminology, wresting phrases from each other left and right. Onlookers are left …

Dear Umbra, I just read your response about men's shaving, but what about women? I don't see many women shaving with straight razors, plus we have the depilatory cream and waxing options too. What's our best option, especially for those of us who just hate dealing with it, but must? CatherineAppleton, Wis. Dearest Catherine, Although I pledged to avoid the widget this year, I am failing -- for the widget's size belies its magnetic pull. As soon as I addressed that male shaving quandary, women -- and men who shave outside the beard region, and men who love women who …