San Francisco Watches Its Waste Line.By Matt Baume, Grist, 10/12/10. “In San Francisco, garbage is treated like a resource that shouldn't be wasted. And that means formulating a plan to reduce the city's garbage output to zero... thanks to the country's toughest mandatory recycling and composting laws, the amount of refuse that San Francisco diverts to recycling and compost is nearing 80%, and keeps on climbing each year… San Francisco's zero-waste quest was touched off by AB 939, a 1989 law that required California towns to divert 50% of their trash away from landfills. Inspired, San Francisco decided it could do even better.

"Randy Hayes, then president of San Francisco's Commission on the Environment, saw a unique opportunity. The city worked with its exclusive waste hauler, Norcal Waste Systems (since rebranded as Recology) to run a dozen experimental pilot programs, augmented by community outreach meetings and teams dispatched to train businesses and residents. In 2000, a three-stream system was established: blue bins for recycling, green for compost, and black for landfill… Hayes said, ‘The planet's survival depends on our ability to reuse resources… Waste is something we need to virtually eradicate from our society.’”

Chinese Freeze on Rare-Earth Elements Prods Japan to Mine Electronic Wastes. By Hiroko Tabuchi, NYTimes, 10/5/10. “Rare-earth elements and other minerals that are crucial to many Japanese technologies and have so far come almost exclusively from China, the global leader in rare earth mining. Recent problems with Chinese supplies of rare earths have sent Japanese traders and companies in search of alternative sources… Hopes for a mining comeback lie not underground, but in what Japan refers to as urban mining -- recycling the valuable metals and minerals from the country’s huge stockpiles of used electronics like cellphones and computers.”

Consumers Buy More Efficient Refrigerators, but Keep the Old Ones Humming. By Leora Broydo Vestel, GreenInc,March 19, 2010. "Each year millions of Americans with old, inefficient refrigerators in their kitchens buy new, energy saving ones. That may sound like an efficiency boon, but what's vexing efficiency advocates is that an increasing number of consumers don't actually get rid of the old fridge. Instead, they move it to another area of the house and keep using it -- increasing their energy usage over all."

Paying for Plastic Bags. By Melissa Eddy, AP, February 22, 2010."For decades the standard question at U.S. grocery store check-out counters has been 'Paper or Plastic?' But since January, consumers in the U.S. capital have faced a different question: 'Will you pay 5 cents for a bag?' Europeans have long accepted the idea of providing their own baskets, bags or nets to carry their purchases, or paying for bags. But in the United States, where retailers go out of their way to cater to customers' needs, being given a free paper or plastic bag to carry purchases is largely taken for granted... While one major city, San Francisco, has banned plastic bags, Washington's law is the first of its kind in the United States. It is being carefully watched by activists who hope that one strong success will prove the tipping point for a program aimed at reducing litter, pollution and waste...

"According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 3,960 thousand tons of plastics waste, including bags, sacks, and wraps was generated in 2008. Of those, barely 1% were recycled... San Francisco enacted its ban in 2007 and similar legislation is to take effect in July in Los Angeles, where shoppers will be charged 25 cents for a paper or biodegradable one. But attempts by other U.S. cities and states to curb the predominance of plastic shopping bags have been rejected, most notably in eco-friendly West Coast city of Seattle, where voters last August overturned legislation to charge 20 cents per bag."

5 Cent Bag Tax Having Great Results in Washington DC. By Matt Yglesias, ThinkProgress, January 25, 2010. "There's a supermarket on my block and I'm a terrible planner, so I go to the supermarket a lot. Consequently, I've had plenty of opportunity to gather anecdata on the impact of DC's new initiative to impose a five cent tax on plastic grocery bags. My key observations are that I hear a ton of whining about how terrible this new tax is, and also a lot of people engaging in tax-avoiding behavior -- canvass bags, cramming stuff into backpacks, carrying items by hand. In other words, it looks to be a stunning success! The five cent fee is actually very small but people really hate paying it. Apparently it's led to something like a 50% reduction in bag usage."

Recycling Old Phones in Germany. PopFi.com, May 7, 2008. "In an age of cell phones, ye olden dial phone with the curly cord is quickly becoming a thing of the past. So what to do with all those useless coils of cord. How about creating a flock of sheep... The art was created by Jean Luc Cornec and has been displayed in the Museum For Communications in Frankfurt Main, Germany."

'Zero Waste' Recycling Gains Support. By Leslie Kaufman, NYTimes, October 20, 2009. "Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as 'zero waste' is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations. The movement is simple in concept if not always in execution: Produce less waste. Shun polystyrene foam containers or any other packaging that is not biodegradable. Recycle or compost whatever you can. Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth's atmosphere."

Ireland to Double Tax on Stores' Plastic Bags. AP, September 24, 2009. "Ireland was the first nation to tax plastic bags as a way to stop them littering the countryside. Now the Emerald Isle plans to double its levy to a punitive 44 euro cents (59 U.S. cents) per bag. The 7-year-old policy has already generated more than euro120 million ($175 million). It also has sharply reduced Irish reliance on throwaway bags -- once running at 1.2 billion per year, or more than 300 for every man, woman and child. The Department of the Environment announced Thursday that the charge will be doubled to ensure a 'sufficient deterrent' to shoppers who arrive at checkout counters with no shopping bags of their own. The tax will be doubled from 22 euro cents as part of an environmental bill being published next month."