The Canadian edition of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" -- to be released later this month as the fifth book in J.K. Rowlings' phenomenally popular series -- has been printed on chlorine-free, 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. With a first print run of 935,000 copies, this is by far the largest recycled printing in Canadian history. Rowlings endorsed the move with a note in the front of the Canadian edition and urged other publishers to follow the lead of Raincoast Books, her Canadian publisher. Nicole Rycroft of Markets Initiative, an environmental coalition in British Columbia, says 35 …

A growing number of California businesses are taking steps to become more eco-friendly, and are saving money in the process, according to a new survey conducted by the Sonoma County Economic Development Board. One example is the Price Pump Co. in Sonoma, which has switched to more environmentally conscious packaging, using brown boxes instead of bleached-white ones and eliminating use of nonbiodegradable foam packing material -- moves that are cutting costs by about $40,000 a month. "My motivation is to stay in business and make money," said Bob Piazza, president of Price Pump. "If I can do that and be …

Dear Umbra, I was thinking of buying a scooter with the idea that (in addition to being fun) I would be using a more fuel-efficient means of transportation on days when the weather was good. Then I got the edition of the Daily Grist telling me how dirty motorcycles are. Now I'm worried: Are scooters the same? I'm talking about a Vespa-type thing. Please tell me that's not as polluting as a Harley! Thanks (even if the answer isn't what I want to hear!), PatriciaAudubon, Penn. Dearest Patricia, The answer is not what you want to hear. To continue our …

Dear Umbra, I recently read a claim that "motorcycles produce far more pollution per mile than your typical car, truck, or SUV." Is that true? I've got a friend who's currently making her (bad-ass) way across country on a Harley -- 60 mpg, baby -- and we are both curious about the environmental impacts compared with a car. BillyBrooklyn, N.Y. Dearest Billy, Bad news for your friend and her bad behind. If she's getting 60 miles per gallon, that's about three times better than the average car these days, and certainly far better than the 1984 Nissan Rustbucket that I …

Dear Umbra, We have a six-year-old daughter, a three-year-old daughter, and -- surprise! (well, not completely) -- a new baby girl due in the next two months. Our fuel-efficient car cannot fit two car seats and a booster across the back seat, and according to Washington state law ("six-years-old and 60 pounds"), my petite six-year-old will remain in her booster for some time. I've been looking into minivans but am discouraged by their poor mileage. Through much Internet research, I've determined that Toyota makes a hybrid minivan (Estima) and that it will be a cold day in a warm place …

Some years ago, I was part of a group that set out to create a community where we could work toward living with less impact on the environment. One of the first steps we took was to write down a list of principles to guide us as we worked to turn our vision into reality. At the top of the list were "community" and "sustainability." (The others, if you're curious, were "unity," "beauty," and "equity.") The village people: Cobb Hill community members. Photo: Cobb Hill Cohousing. As I was one of the chief drafters of these principles, I took them …

It sounds like a bad movie. Wait, it IS a bad movie. A bad DVD, to be precise -- at least from an environmental standpoint. A division of Walt Disney this August will begin selling DVDs that self-destruct after 48 hours, dubbed EZ-Ds. After an EZ-D's plastic packaging is opened and it's exposed to oxygen, the disk plays perfectly for 48 hours; then a chemical reaction makes it unreadable and consumers can toss it in the trash. Environmentalists are not impressed. "It's unintelligent and illogical to take a durable, reusable product like a DVD and turn it into a product …

Macadamia-nut shells will soon be the source of electricity for more than 1,200 Australian homes. Construction began this week on a biomass cogeneration plant in the northern Australian state of Queensland that will produce renewable energy by burning more than 5,000 tons of shells generated by the nation's native macadamia nut industry. "This project ... could be replicated across a range of other industries, including peanut, timber, meat, wheat, and grain processing, where waste streams could generate heat, electricity, and revenue," said Kate Skilleter of Ergon Energy, the state-owned company behind the venture. The plant, the first of its kind …

Every winter, on the outskirts of Appleton, Wis., the world's strangest subdivision suddenly appears. Thousands of shacks, each about the size of a two-hole outhouse, proliferate on the frozen expanse of Lake Winnebago. Dick Koerner in his shack on Lake Winnebago. Photo: Erik Ness. Early in the morning on Feb. 8, Dick Koerner jockeyed his pickup along the frozen track to his weather-beaten shelter. He unloaded his truck and unlocked the shack. The windowless, flat-black interior accentuated the glorious green light flowing from a rectangular hole cut in the ice. Koerner closed the door, completing the immersion in that transfixing …

Pennsylvania State University has undertaken a massive new recycling program -- not for paper or plastics or food waste, but for the mammoth piles of stuff that students leave behind at the end of every school year, from sneakers to TVs to sofas. The end-of-term junk problem grew into a major headache on U.S. campuses during the 1990s, as students brought more and more stuff with them to school. Many colleges and universities just toss the left-behind items into dumpsters, but Albert Matyasovsky of Penn State couldn't bear to see all those useful goods sent to landfills, so last year …