The Earth Is Not a Trash Can

Karim Kadim / Associated Press Iraqis cover their faces during one of Baghdad’s increasingly frequent dust storms. Officials say decades of war and mismanagement, compounded by two years of drought, are wreaking havoc on the ecosystem.
Now-frequent dust storms are just one sign of the man-made damage that has taken the country from Middle East breadbasket to dust bowl, they say. By Liz Sly
July 30, 2009 Reporting from Baghdad — You wake up in the morning to find your nostrils clogged. Houses and trees have vanished beneath a choking brown smog. A hot wind blasts fine particles through doors and windows, coating everything in sight and imparting an eerie orange glow.

Dust storms are a routine experience in Iraq, but lately they’ve become a whole lot more common.

“Now it seems we have dust storms nearly every day,” said Raed Hussein, 31, an antiques dealer who had to rush his 5-year-old son to a hospital during a recent squall because the boy couldn’t breathe. “We suffer from lack of electricity, we suffer from explosions, and now we are suffering even more because of this terrible dust.

“It must be a punishment from God,” he added, offering a view widely held among Iraqis seeking to explain their apocalyptic weather of late. “I think God is angry with the deeds of the Iraqi people.”

The reality is probably scarier. Iraq is in the throes of what some officials are calling an environmental catastrophe, and the increased frequency of dust storms is only the most visible manifestation.

By FELICITY BARRINGER Published: July 29, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Returning to their ranch-style house in Sacramento after a long summer workday, Jon and Kim Waldrep were routinely met by a wall of heat.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

A white roof has helped cool Jon Waldrep’s Sacramento home.

“We’d come home in the summer, and the house would be 115 degrees, stifling,” said Mr. Waldrep, a regional manager for a national company.

He or his wife would race to the thermostat and turn on the air-conditioning as their four small children, just picked up from day care, awaited relief.

All that changed last month. “Now we come home on days when it’s over 100 degrees outside, and the house is at 80 degrees,” Mr. Waldrep said.

Their solution was a new roof: a shiny plasticized white covering that experts say is not only an energy saver but also a way to help cool the planet.

Just a few hours ago, the first ever Connecticut exotic animal amnesty day ended on a high note. Before the event opened at 10 am, people were waiting in line for the chance to hand over their exotic pets in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” scenario. The event was co-sponsored by the Beardsley Zoo and Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event personally but had the opportunity to conduct a phone interview with Dennis Schain, Communications Director of the CT DEP.

According to Schain, the amnesty day was such a success that the DEP will be considering future events of its kind. At this time it is not known what other states have held such an amnesty day with the exception of Florida. In fact, the DEP has been in close communication with Florida about pulling off this event which is extremely important for the well being of the animals as well as public safety.

Thursday July 23,2009

By Katherine Fenech

LIKE an old Wild West sheriff, Sandra White is determined to clean up her town.

Every day she spends three hours collecting discarded bottles, cans and fast-food debris, and removing litter from gutters and grass verges.

She has even spent £70 from her own pocket to hire a window cleaner to wash the shelters in the bus station in Spalding, Lincs.

It was a tidy town when Sandra, 67, and husband Tony, 68, first went to live there in the Sixties.

Since then she has watched litter mount. In the last six months alone she has collected 500 bags of rubbish.

Now she is appealing for volunteers to help her in her war on litter louts.

She said: “The council street cleaners are fine, but they can’t do it all on their own.”

Published online on Monday, Jul. 13, 2009 By Jim Guy / The Fresno Bee $javascriptRequire = new miScriptScheduler(); $javascriptRequire.scriptCheck = window.mi_story_tool; $javascriptRequire.scriptPath = “http://media.fresnobee.com/…s/story_tools_oo.js”; $javascriptRequire.scheduleScript(); #mlt {margin: 0 10px 5px 10px; float: right; font-size: 11px;} #mlt b{font-size: 15px;} #mlt {/*background-color:#F8F9F9;*/ color:#444444; width: 240px; float:right;line-height:20px;padding:3px;border-color:#ccc;border-style:solid;border:1px 1px 1px 1px;} #mlt a {color:#34486C;} #mlt a:hover {color:#34486C;} #mlt h3, #nav h3 {color:#888; padding:0; margin:0;} #mlt_title { background:transparent url(http://media.fresnobee.com/static/mercur…) no-repeat scroll -40px 0; color:#34486C; font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:15px; font-weight:bold; text-transform:uppercase; height:26px; margin-left:-2px; margin-top:-5px; padding:8px 0 0 8px; width:236px; } #mlt_bullet {width:5px; float:left; margin-left: 5px;} #mlt_item {margin-left: 15px;} .story1 #story_body #assets_ad {clear:right;} $(document).ready(function() { $(‘#mlt a[tooltipId]‘).each(function() { thisDiv = “#” + $(this).attr(‘tooltipId’); myText = $(thisDiv).html(); $(this).qtip({ content: myText, show: ‘mouseover’, hide: ‘mouseout’, position: { corner: { target: ‘rightMiddle’, tooltip: ‘leftMiddle’ } }, style: { width: 250, background: ‘#EEE’, color: ‘#222′, textAlign: ‘left’, border: { width: 3, radius: 5, color: ‘#777777′ }, tip: ‘leftMiddle’, name: ‘dark’ // Inherit the rest of the attributes from the preset dark style } }); }); });

Authorities arrested a Three Rivers man who they say held a machete as he demanded several people pick up paper that had blown out of their Jeep.

Tulare County sheriff’s deputies said the 18-year-old man became irate Saturday when he saw the litter fly from the Jeep and followed the vehicle to a convenience store, where he ordered the Jeep’s occupants to go back and pick up the paper. The occupants apologized but refused to comply.

When the people drove away, the man followed them to a campground on Northfork Drive, where he pulled out the machete and threatened them, deputies said.

The man was booked into the Tulare County jail on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and making terrorist threats.

Trash Planet: Germany

by Marie Look

The Trash Planet series highlights various countries around the world and how they handle their waste.

Germany leads the European nations in recycling, with around 70 percent of the waste the country generates successfully recovered and reused each year. To put that figure into perspective, consider this: In 2007, the U.S. was able to recover only about 33 percent of the waste generated that year.

To operate such a successful waste management system nationwide is certainly no small feat, but for the past several years the Germans have made it look easy. So how do they do it?

“Recycling is very important in Germany,” says Günseli Aksoy, a 24-year-old mechanical engineering student at the Braunschweig University of Technology. “The people here are very conscientious.”

Germany’s recycling rate is one of the highest in the world – an respectable 70 percent. Photo: Faa.gov

And while the country’s conscientious waste management strategy requires cooperation from the government, the industry and the citizens, it starts at the very beginning of the waste creation process – with the product manufacturers.

There are three simple components the manufacturers must consider: waste avoidance, waste recovery and environmentally compatible disposal.

By incorporating waste avoidance into industry, much of Germany’s waste management becomes “invisible,” as corporations are forced to re-think every aspect of manufacturing. Packaging, processes and disposal of items are all engineered with recycling and elimination of waste in mind.