waste
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Critical List: Texas drought creating baby animal shortage; Keystone XL doc on Oscar shortlist
The Texas drought has meant fewer births of adorable baby animals. Maybe the new climate lobby can include all of the internet.
Also joining the climate fight: yuppies and freelancers. Starbucks is worried about the future of its business model, as rising temperatures threaten coffee crops.
Democrats aren't the only ones who back clean energy projects that don't end up saving the world. Orrin Hatch, for instance, backed a company trying to develop a hybrid Hummer, which collapsed under the weight of its own irony.
China wants to dominate the global wind-turbine market, as well as the solar market.
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Ask Umbra: What's up with plastic made from plants?
Grist's new head honcho can't get his head around compostable, plant-based plastic. Umbra breaks it down.
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Company that created Alaskan ‘dead zone’ has to pay to clean it up
Dumping buckets of fish guts into the ocean turns out not to be so good for the ecosystems involved. Basically, the more dead fish you put in the water, the fewer live fish can survive there. Off the coast of Alaska, one seafood processor has created "a massive wasteland of fish guts about 50 acres or more … a dead zone."
The processor, Seattle-based Trident, now has to pay $30 to 40 million to clean up its mess (plus, stop dumping so many damn fish innards into the sea). -
Google gets carbon offsets from hog poo
In its recent report on the company's carbon footprint, Google said that it offsets its emissions with high-quality offsets. We are happy as a pig in shit about that. Which is appropriate, because here's one example of what that means: energy powered by pig poop.
The company has invested in a North Carolina project which collects the methane from the waste of 9,000 hogs. A power plant burns the methane to create power for 35 homes a year. -
Wicked wicks: Ask Umbra on paraffin candle disposal
How to dispose of toxic tapers? Ask Umbra burns the candle at both ends to find out.
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Liner notes: Ask Umbra on ditching garbage bags
What if making more waste just isn't your bag? Ask Umbra gets trashed to find out.
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How to turn raw sewage into profit
For most people, having a open stream of sewage running past your backyard is a problem, not an asset. That how Keshav Tavre, who lives in Bhiwandi, India, saw it, until he decided to set up a homemade filtration system. With a series of walls and layers of soil, he was able to filter the sewage until it was clean enough to use to grow crops. Later, he sold water commercially do local dye industries.
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Human excrement is killing all your coral
You know how when you go snorkeling, the guide tells you not to touch, breathe on, or even think about getting anywhere near the coral because it's really sensitive and also a great marine resource? Well, it's all true, but on a macro level, humans haven't been paying attention to those instructions and instead have been spraying the coral down with water contaminated with our waste. So basically we have been POOPING ON THE CORAL, which is kind of the opposite of not touching it. And human waste infects coral with something called white pox disease, which causes lesions and has led to a 90 percent decline in elkhorn coral, a key player in reef building.
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Critical List: A second leak in Shell's North Sea rig spurting oil; Chinese protest chemical factory
A second leak at the Shell oil platform in the North Sea is proving harder to stop than the first.
A Chinese protest against a chemical factory was one of the largest in three years -- at least 12,000 people -- and may herald a shift towards more public action in the country.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is exchanging ideas with leaders in Rio about greening their cities.