It Takes A Village ….

The EPA (Enviromental Protection Agency), has released the 2007 recycling report. It takes two years for the EPA to gather the data and crunch the numbers.

Last year Forced Green reported the 2006 numbers with hopes of bettering those very good numbers in the 2007 report. (more…)

The trash you throw away today may just turn into your future home, if the concept behind the Bitublock takes off. Designed by engineer John Forth, of the University of Leeds in England, the blocks are produced with a mixture of waste materials, including crushed glass, pulverized fuel ash, incinerated sewage, steel slag, and other waste products that would normally wind up in landfills or, worse, wherever they happen to be discarded. Further, less energy is required to make the Bitublocks than is needed for concrete. These products are bound together by bitumen, (a byproduct of crude oil distillation used widely in road construction), before compacting it in a mould to form a solid block. (more…)

If you do not think that there is a movement beginning, you are wrong!

A little town very close to me here in deep East Texas, Lindale, has decided
they need to develop some opportunities to grow the city.  They are now working
with Decker Energy International, Inc., a Florida based privately held company,
to assist them in building a 35-50 megawatt wood-fired biomass power plant.
This plant will have 25 full time jobs.  Along with more jobs to build it. Yeah!

The proposed site is 43 acres that is currently owned by the Lindale Economic
Development Corporation (LEDC) which will also be part of the Lindale
Industrial Park.  This project will cost the city about $130 million. (more…)

Starbucks addresses water wastage following tabloid indictment

Following the revelation in British rag-mag The Sun that constantly running
dipper wells waste a humongous amount of water, a Starbucks spokesperson confirms, “Stores will be instructed to switch off the dipper well tap and will wash
spoons after use.” And the plot thickens: According to PRWeek.com, a senior-
level source at an unnamed PR agency claims, “We warned [Starbucks] several
years ago that their usage of water was not good for their environmental
credentials and could be a potential problem for them. They listened, but
they didn’t do anything about it.” Starbucks has tried to polish its green
image, saying that by 2010 it wants to source 50 percent of its energy from
renewables, use green-building practices in all new stores, and “reestablish” (more…)

Since Hurricane Ike, the City of Houston has been trying to figure out how
to recycle the wood debris.  From Galveston to North of Houston, there is
plenty of wood debris to be collected but not sent to the local landfills.

So the City has come up with a nationwide contest in hopes of someone coming
up with a recycling idea that will get rid of 5.6 million cubic yards of
tree waste cleaned up from households and front yards. (more…)

Bostonians might be the only ones who gained from the summer’s record high fuel prices.
In an effort to save fuel and lower emissions, the city piloted a program that shortened
red lights to reduce the amount of time cars sat idling. The test was such a success that
Boston is now considering expanding the program to the rest of the city.

The results, released last week, show that shorter red lights will help Boston’s drivers
regain 135,000 hours each year that would normally be wasted waiting for a light to turn.

Traffic delays during the 60-intersection trial decreased 29 percent, while vehicle (more…)

The American coffee shop chain Starbucks has been accused of wasting more than 23 million
litres of water each day because staff are told to leave taps running non-stop.

The bizarre policy, which is aimed at preventing germs developing in the taps in its
10,000 stores worldwide, has outraged environmental groups.

Every Starbucks branch has a cold tap behind the counter providing water for a sink
called a “dipper well” used for washing spoons and utensils and the staff are banned from
turning the water off under “health and safety rules”, an investigation claims. (more…)