waste
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California could ban Styrofoam
Takeout in California will never be the same. The state's legislature is halfway to forbidding restaurants and vendors from packing their products in Styrofoam containers: the California Senate's on board, and the House is supposed to vote on the measure by the end of the summer. The problem (besides that Styrofoam is an evil, atmosphere-killing […]
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Why wasting food wastes nature, too
Waste not, want not: In order to meet global food demand, we should decrease food waste instead of expanding agriculture.Photo: Christoph LupprichCross-posted from Cool Green Science. A new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations finds that globally, roughly one-third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. But […]
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Chris Christie takes a helicopter to a baseball game
I was going to put a joke in the headline, but is it really necessary? I mean, here are the facts without jokes: Chris Christie, the transit-killing, mall-building, climate-initiative-withdrawing governor of New Jersey, hopped on a state helicopter to go to his kid's baseball game — and once he alit, a private car took him […]
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Cup o’ woe: Ask Umbra on single-serve coffee alternatives
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I work in an office of serious coffee drinkers. We have a Keurig single-cup coffee brewer that everyone loves because it allows them to choose their own roast and flavor. But all those little plastic K-Cups add up to lots of waste fast! Is there a more […]
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New, ‘hidden’ source of renewable energy fights for tax breaks
Waste heat: It's everywhere, and we're wasting it. (Hence the name.) Giant industrial processes throw off enormous amounts of the stuff, all of it not quite hot enough to be usable in conventional power generation. That's where the waste heat industry comes in. Using liquids that boil at temperatures significantly lower than water, they've created […]
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Critical List: Senate wimps out on oil subsidies bill; solar storms loom
The Senate voted down a bill that would have ended tax subsidies for the five biggest oil companies. The bill had little to no chance of passing the House and becoming law, but the Senate wussed out on taking a stand even on a bill crafted only to score political points. In Maryland, "renewable energy" […]
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Bad in the sack: Ask Umbra on neighborhood recycling deviants
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, My neighbors do not recycle appropriately — they throw in frozen food boxes, bag their recyclables in plastic bags and who knows what else! Does that mean that all my efforts are in vain? Elizabeth Raley submitted via Facebook What can you do about a neighbor who […]
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Bayview Greenwaste provides fertile ground for San Francisco’s urban agriculture revolution
Just a few years ago, they were abandoned freeways, dilapidated back yards, and institutional dumping grounds. But today, thanks to San Francisco’s urban agriculture renaissance, many of these pockets of underutilized land are being transformed. And one local company — Bayview Greenwaste — is playing a key role, by transforming waste into mulch, and giving […]
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Winter from hell: Don’t panic about having enough food, panic about all the crap we throw out
Nowhere to go.Photo: Sarah Goodyear When extreme weather is in the forecast, people stock up. They storm the markets, sweep the shelves clean, and load shopping carts with bottled water, canned goods, diapers, corn flakes, milk, batteries, Pop-Tarts, you name it. There are only three days’ worth of food on the shelves of American supermarkets […]
