The public-private grant and loan program would invest in new and expanded supermarkets, farmers markets and other food stores in “underserved communities,” reducing the estimated 23 million Americans (8.5 percent) with limited access to full-service markets.

Officially called the “Healthy Food Financing Initiative,” this investment, shared between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of the Treasury builds in a $250 million New Market Tax Credit allocation program to encourage private investment in these communities.

A similar program was started in Pennsylvania in 2004. The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI) has supported nearly 80 projects to provide more than 400,000 Pennsylvania residents with healthier food choices. The program has also created or preserved 4,860 jobs and 1.5 million square feet of food retail space, according to The Reinvestment Fund (TRF).

Widely recognized for its innovative design, the Pennsylvania FFFI, championed by State Representative Dwight Evans, has served as a model for similar programs in other states including New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Louisiana and Colorado.

“Grocers and market owners across Pennsylvania deserve credit for making the PA program a success and a model, not just in the state’s urban centers, but in rural communities as well,” said Rep. Evans.

House representatives Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore) and Nydia M. Veleazquez (D-NY) and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) are spearheading the national initiative efforts.

TRF methodology was used to determine supermarket access and gap analysis.

The experiment involved adding three different kinds of fungi to both types of plastic and evaluating the growth after one year. The scientists claim that BPA helped improve fungal growth because it was an additional source of energy. Additional fungi allow the plastic to break down quicker.

This process also allows for the polycarbonate to be decomposed without the chemical being released into the environment.

BPA is a plastic additive used in the production of polycarbonate plastics. It helps provide durability and flexibility to plastics and is incorporated into products like food packaging and car bumpers.

Many of the products that use BPA are not recyclable with other plastics in curbside programs, and ScienceDaily estimates that 2.7 million tons of plastics containing BPA are produced each year. Finding a way to decompose this plastic would provide an alternative to recycling.

Last year, a similar process was discovered that used bacteria from mealworm beetles to help break down expanded polystyrene. This is another difficult-to-recycle plastic that is used in high demand for consumer products due to its light weight and ability to insulate.

“Electronics have always been popular searches on Earth911.com, but with the increased attention these devices have received, this past year was our highest yet,” said Corey Lambrecht, president of Earth911. “Also, overall recycling searches increased 12 percent over 2008, as consumers want to know more about how to dispose of these items.”

The top 10 products consumers looked to recycle in 2009 using Earth911’s Database were:

1. Computers
2. Batteries
3. Televisions
4. Paint
5. Aluminum Cans
6. Used Motor Oil
7. CFLs
8. Glass
9. Fluorescent Lamps
10. Christmas Trees

Earth911.com also discovered additional insights into recycling and consumer behavior. For example, 40 percent of respondents to a poll conducted on the Earth911.com homepage noted that when they buy a product, the “green” factor they are most concerned about is its recyclability. Also, 35 percent of Earth911 readers polled responded that their main challenge for adopting more green practices is money.

“Our Database of over 117,000 locations not only helps people find what’s available to them locally, but also is also distributed across multimedia platforms for the easiest access possible – at no cost to consumers,” said Lambrecht. “Along with Earth911.com, we also host our bilingual, toll-free hot line, 1-800 CLEANUP, as well as our free iPhone app, iRecycle.”

Earth911is able to provide this information through work with its business partners such as Call2Recycle, the American Chemistry Council and Masco Corporation.

The 2009 Annual Recycling Report also details the top 10 states that recycled using Earth911.com in 2009, as well as the top stories on the site.

If your city, municipality or organization runs a recycling program and would like to be listed in Earth911’s Directory, please visit Earth911.com.

This week’s episode featured Larry O’Donnell, president Waste Management. What we thought was going to be an exposé of crazy employee antics was actually a heartwarming story about working-class America.

Posing as “Randy,” an entry-level worker trying new jobs at Waste Management, O’Donnell’s first stop on his weeklong journey was at a recycling facility in Syracuse, N.Y. He quickly learned just how hard a line worker’s job really is when he was tasked with separating cardboard recyclables from trash. But when he missed just one piece, the entire operation had to be shut down.

“I was sweating bullets because I know how expensive it is [...]” O’Donnell said. “I had no idea that this job was going to be so physically demanding and mentally exhausting.”

But the real shocker came during O’Donnell’s 30-minute lunch break when he found out that for every minute an employee is late after lunch, he or she is docked double.

O’Donnell went on to meet other workers that represent Waste Management on the consumer front – the real, backbreaking jobs. We met Walter, a landfill worker in Florida who has been on dialysis for 19 years. Even in poor health, Walter is able to efficiently do his job while juggling his illness.

Viewers also caught a glimpse of a true overworked, underpaid employee when O’Donnell worked under Jacklyn at a facility in High Acres, N.Y. As a result of cost-cutting measures that O’Donnell implemented himself, Jacklyn was doing the jobs of at least three workers and was still in jeopardy of losing her home.

But O’Donnell’s grimiest job by far was cleaning portable toilets at a local carnival in Texas. Working alongside Fred, O’Donnell was able to see just how hard (not to mention nauseating) of a job it is to clean 15 toilets in one hour. However, Fred was an exemplary worker, making even the worst of jobs seem interesting.

“He takes a job that most people considers nasty and turns it into something funny and fun,” O’Donnell said. “If we could all be that way, what a great company we would have.”

O’Donnell finished out his week riding alongside a driver named Janice on a garbage route. With a schedule that includes more than 300 households in one day, Janice was so concerned with time efficiency that she was urinating in a can. While O’Donnell was appalled, he understood her fear as Janice pointed out a white pickup truck that followed them throughout the day – an undercover route manager observing her every move.

“I feel terrible that I have created something that has made her not enjoy her job,” O’Donnell said.

After one week of living in the workers’ shoes, O’Donnell was ready to enforce change, starting on the highest level. As a result, employees are no longer docked double for time. Walter is now the company’s “health mentor” and is given paid time off to encourage others on dialysis. Jacklyn was given a higher salary and bigger staff. Fred has taken O’Donnell’s praise to heart and now works as a motivational speaker in hospitals. And O’Donnell is now working with Janice to make Waste Management a more female-friendly environment.

More and more products are hitting the shelves that are made of bio-based materials and/or are biodegradable. Simultaneously, confusion and questions about what to do with these products are rising at the same rate which they are landing in our grocery carts.

What do these terms mean? And more importantly, how do they affect you? Earth911 hit the streets to find out just that – and ended up learning a whole lot more.

Warning: This article is about to get a bit technical. But, we promise to distill it down the basics of everything you need it know. Put on your thinking caps!

Definitions You Have to Know

So, let’s start with a few terms you need to know:

Bio-based plastics or biopolymers – These are plastics made with materials that can be grown and are renewable. “‘Bio-based plastics’ means it’s made from a raw material that’s a renewable material,” said Keith Christman, managing director of plastics markets for the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Some bio-based plastics can be recycled in our current system, while others cannot.

Biodegradable – Some materials are biodegradable, meaning they are capable of being decomposed by the action of biological agents, especially bacteria. But don’t confuse these first two terms. “Some bio-based materials are not biodegradable,” Christman added.

For example, according to Christman, Dow is producing ethylene from sugar cane (used to make polyethylene or a component of plastic #1), and the material is recyclable in today’s current recycling stream, but not biodegradable. Most biodegradable plastics cannot be recycled in the current stream.

Compostable – This term implies that a product will break down in a composting environment (more to come on this), but typically implies that a product should be composted in an industrial facility, not at home. There are new products on the way that may defy this particular aspect of “compostable,” but for our discussions, keep this in mind.

Life cycle assessment – Also referred to as an “LCA,” these reports look at various aspects of a product’s production, such as solid waste, energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These reports, while they vary product to product, typically give us a full-circle look at what the overall impact really is of a product’s manufacturing.

Polylactic acid – Also known as “PLA,” this material is a bio-based plastic that is typically biodegradable in a commercial composting system. It is one of the most prevalent biopolymers on the market currently.

These concepts represent a wide array of applications and innovation in the plastics market today. “A lot of these things show that plastics are innovative. They are carbon-based materials and can be made from a variety of carbon materials.

“In the U.S., we traditionally use natural gas,” Christman said, noting that approximately 79 percent of the plastics manufactured in the U.S. are made from this particular fuel source. And while biopolymers and biodegradable materials still constitute a fraction of the overall market, their presence is growing.

How Things Biodegrade

With all this discussion about “biodegradable,” the take-home message is that we should just be able to leave a bottle out in a park or bury it in the yard and it will decompose, right? Well, not exactly.

“When the consumer hears ‘biodegradable,’ often times they think it’s a material that you can throw out the window of your car and after one good rain, it will be back to nature, and it will fertilize the roadside,” said Richard C. Bopp, senior material scientist for Natureworks, LLC, one of the leading producers of PLA.

“Saying ‘biodegradable’ is not specific enough to be useful, and it leads to all kinds of misunderstandings,” he added.

Left to its own devices, PLA will not simply biodegrade on its own – which may be surprising, but is actually a benefit. “Thank goodness it’s that way [...] Otherwise you’d have a stability problem with your plastic – it’s like things going bad in your refrigerator,” said Bopp. Imagine mold growing on your cell phone, and you’ll understand why the basic concepts of “biodegradable” (a la the now-fuzzy fruit from last week’s lunch) don’t apply here.

So how does PLA actually biodegrade? Here’s how it works, according to Bopp:

• PLA cannot be metabolized by microbes. But the lactic acid, which is half of molecular unit, can very easily be broken down.
• In the environment of a compost pile, which is typically roughly around 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) and 90 percent relative humidity, bonds in the PLA molecule are susceptible to a process called “hydrolysis,” which means being broken down by water.
• Because of this, water molecules come in and sever these bonds, ultimately freeing the lactic acid in the PLA molecule, meaning the microorganisms in the pile now have food to consume.
• The lactic acid is metabolized by the microorganisms, and water and CO2 are what remain from the original plastic.

According to Bopp, these biodegradable properties make more sense in some plastic applications over others. “I often like to say ‘why would I want to turn a perfectly good piece of plastic into dirt?’ [...] Well, I’d want to turn it into dirt if the cost for recovery for recycling was just so high that it didn’t make sense to recover it as a plastic.

“For example, if I use the PLA for plates, knives, forks and spoons [...] it may not make environmental or economic sense to recover dirty plastic covered with rotten food. It may make more sense, as it’s combined with paper napkins, paper cups, food waste, to compost it. And especially at a place like a theme park where you have gardens and use that for landscaping, it makes a lot of sense to compost bioplastics in those situations,” he said.

And with today’s PLA, what would constitute a less meaningful use of the material?

For illustrative purposes, Bopp uses the example of the instrument panel on a car’s dashboard. “Of course, it’s a double-edged sword, because if you have an instrument panel in a car made out of Ingeo PLA, as it is today, and it’s parked in  Houston in the summertime, the interior of that car can get awfully close to [the conditions in] a compost pile,” he said. “For every 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature, most reactions double in rate, so temperature is very important. I’m not saying PLA will never be used for an instrument panel, but we’ll have to figure out some stabilization developments.”

What’s the Holdup?

So, to recap so far, we’ve learned the basics of what constitutes a bio-based material and how breaking down PLA works. And, we can grow all of the materials we need for plastic right here at home in the U.S. So why isn’t all plastic made out of plants?

Getting to a Commercial Composter

One major hurdle right now is that finding a commercial composting facility is difficult, as they are are not as widely available and few cities across the U.S. have composting services. And, according to the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), only 8 percent of Americans compost their waste, including residents in cities like San Francisco and Seattle, where composting is part of the general waste pickup.

“In terms of getting products to a commercial composting system in the U.S., there’s only a hand-full of communities that have collections for those kinds of materials right now,” Christman said.

Since PLA is not recyclable in our current system, these bottles can end up getting thrown out. Lilienfeld notes that in order for anything to break down, including biopolymers, light, water and heat are required – exactly elements that “landfills are designed to keep out,” so they won’t break down as they are designed.

Overall LCA Impacts

The cumulative effect of the production of biodegradables and biopolymers are important as well.

“There’s no silver bullet,” Bob Lilienfeld, editor of the Use Less Stuff Report (ULS) tells Earth911. “There isn’t a single product that solves every issue out there. You have to constantly balance the functionality of the product, the cost of that product and then finally the perceptions of that product [with its overall lifecycle impact].”

According to Lilienfeld, in terms of solid waste, energy consumption and GHG emissions, “There’s really no biopolymer that outperforms a nonbiopolymer on those LCA measurements.”

On the other hand, Bopp notes that “PLA has the lowest carbon footprint and the lowest use of fossil fuel energy of all the commercial plastics,” through the process of pelletizing the plastic – the step before the plastic is molded into an actual product.

“While these are important areas of innovation, [the use of PLA] needs to be teamed with products that are most suited to their applications [...] and looking at their full lifecycle inventories,” said Christman.

“The other part that’s important there is the use of lifecycle inventories to make sure they [PLA plastics] do reduce environmental impact or not,” he adds. “There are cases where you can put more energy into making a renewable material into a package than you can save.”

What Really Matters

No matter which side of the fence you’re on, the most important considerations with these materials is to understand what they are and how you can (or can’t) use them in your area.

“The overall theme is that [bio-based materials and biodegradables] are innovative, but we need to be careful about it and we need to do some careful analysis,” said Christman.

Lilienfeld agrees. “Ultimately, like it or not, it’s all about the numbers. It’s not about making people feel good. Sometimes, natural gas may be the better source. On the other hand, if something grown domestically reduces our need for foreign oil and our need to defend ourselves, then that’s an important consideration too,” he says.

“Nature doesn’t care if you feel good about what you do. If what you do actually increases GHG gases [...] it’s ultimately a negative.”

If you use bio-based materials that can be recycled in today’s current stream, such as Coke’s new Plant Bottle or Dow’s sugar cane-based resins, then the answer is simple: Toss it in the recycling bin. But if you do buy compostable plastics, be sure to seek out an industrial composting facility near you.

From paint and batteries to wine corks and hair (really!), a little patience (and a search on Earth911.com) can make recycling these items a little easier. The list of qualified recycling candidates was long, so we figured we would feature a few more.

Blue Jeans

You know the regular routine. When you no longer need, like or fit into your jeans, you can always donate them to a charitable resale organization like Goodwill or The Salvation Army.

You’ve heard it a million times, so let’s not make it a million-and-one. We’re actually talking about physically recycling your jeans. After all, some clothes are just too far worn or damaged to head to a resale shop and deserve a proper [recycling] burial.

Enter pioneering companies like Green Jeans Insulation and Bonded Logic, which manufacture insulation products from recycled denim and cotton fibers. Based in Madison, Wisc., Green Jeans Insulation accepts donated jeans from the public, which are recycled into natural fiber insulation used for interior and exterior walls and ceiling applications.

The “Cotton. From Blue to Green” campaign works with schools and retailers to collect denim for processing into UltraTouch Natural Fiber Insulation, manufactured by Bonded Logic, and is donated to help rebuild communities in need. To date, they have received more than 180,000 pieces of denim, used to insulate homes with Habitat for Humanity.

Automotive Fluids

Are you a DIYer when it comes to car care? Many of the fluids that power your car are actually recyclable once you change them out, most notably used motor oil and antifreeze.

Used motor oil can be re-refined into brand new product that can go back into your car, recycled into clean lubricant or burned as fuel. As long as the used oil hasn’t been contaminated with other fluids, most oil change service companies or auto parts stores accept used motor oil for recycling from the public.

Used antifreeze can also be recycled by filtering out contaminants such as lead, then restoring the original properties through stabilizing additives. The recycled product is not only excellent quality, but it can also be less expensive to purchase and has a smaller carbon footprint. Antifreeze should never be left out or dumped as its sweet taste can poison animals and children.

Gift Cards, Hotel Key Cards and Wallet Waste Galore

A five minute clean-out of your wallet, purse or junk drawer is likely to yield a lot of plastic, from used gift cards to old library cards. Insignificant as they may seem, those cards are typically made of a plastic resin called polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is infinitely recyclable yet most often landfilled, contributing to more than 75 million pounds of PVC entering the waste stream each year.

In the past, the magnetic strips in the cards made recycling a challenge, but more companies are beginning to accept the PVC cards to convert into new ones. Cleveland-based Earthworks System accepts PVC cards for recycling from consumers and retailers via collection and mail-in programs. The PVC cards are chopped up and melted into PVC sheets which are then sold to create new cards.

Cooking Oil

Cooking oil recycling has grown leaps and bounds in the last few years as its value to the biofuel industry has increased. While it may seem natural to pour your leftover cooking oil and grease down the drain, it can actually be harmful to wildlife and the environment and damage your pipes and local sewage systems. In fact, cooking oil and kitchen grease in our plumbing is the No. 1 cause of stopped-up sewer pipes.

Commercial facilities already contribute substantial amounts of used oil to alternative fuel programs, but there are household cooking oil recycling programs as well. Make a designated waste oil container, label it and add to it each time there is leftover oil from your cooking. Then search for a recycling location on Earth911 or contact local restaurants to see if they accept the cooking oil for recycling.

Six-Pack Beverage Rings

Those plastic six-pack beverage rings have definitely received their share of criticism over the years. Like any packaging material, however, they are not meant to end up in waterways or public spaces at end of life.

The rings are made of plastic #4 (LDPE) and can be recycled in programs that accept low-density polyethylene resin. If your curbside recycling program is limited to plastics #1 and #2, or limits the types of LDPE accepted, consider getting a group collection together and participating in the Hi-Cone Ring Leader Recycling Program.

Hi-Cone’s Ringleader program will accept the six-pack rings in large quantities for recycling through various school programs, as well as through the mail. The company has worked with more than 12,000 schools and groups to collected and recycle the used rings.

A little known fact: Six-pack plastic beverage rings are actually photodegradable. Federal law has required the rings to be 100 percent photodegradable since 1989, meaning that, over time, the sunlight will break down the plastic into tiny pieces.

Makeup Containers

If you’re anything like said author, you have makeup in drawers and cabinets that you haven’t touched since the crimping iron was a regular part of your morning routine. OK, bit of an exaggeration there, but the truth is that many of us keep makeup around long after its expiration date has come and gone. (Check out our “360: Cosmetics” to find the average shelf life is for your makeup products.)

Cosmetic and toiletry bottles, tubes and containers are commonly made of plastic #5, which is not a common material collected for recycling.

Origins was the pioneer nationwide cosmetic company to offer consumer cosmetic packaging recycling, regardless of brand. Empty cosmetic tubes, bottles, lipstick covers, jars and caps can be brought to an Origins retail store or department store counter nationwide for recycling or energy recovery. As an added bonus, customers will receive a free sample of an Origins skincare product for bringing in their empty containers.

MAC cosmetics accepts its packaging back for recycling either in-store or online, and you receive a free MAC lipstick with the return of six containers.

Snack Wrappers, Drink Pouches and Chip Bags Galore

Any idea what material candy wrappers, drink pouches and chip bags are made of? If you answered “no,” you’re not alone as this is a common question we get asked a lot. This confusion is usually what makes these wrappers and bags so difficult to recycle. These items tend to be made of mixed materials, making the recovery of useful plastics and other materials difficult and expensive. In other words, most recyclers don’t want to touch the stuff!

But upcycling company TerraCycle has made a name of creatively reusing these snack wrappers, drink pouches, candy wrappers and chip bags. The company turns them into school supplies, bags, toys, pet products, household cleaner bottles and even materials for your garden.

Consumers can make some extra cash by sending in their “trash” to Terracycle. Drop it off at one of the thousands of participating locations or join a brigade to raise money for a school or nonprofit organization.

Sports Items

Similar to clothing, we all know the drill. There is always an organization or school out there that is eager to accept your unwanted sports items. But what about those old tennis balls that have simply lost their bounce? Or those running shoes you know wouldn’t make it past the sorting area of your local thrift store?

Tennis Balls: Rebounces accepts old tennis balls for recycling and refurbishing. The company will even e-mail you a prepaid shipping label to cover your expenses. Those brightly colored tennis balls should still be of reasonable quality, and you should wait until you’ve saved up a large amount.

Golf Balls: According to Arizona-based Dixon Golf, more than 300 million golf balls are discarded in the U.S. each year. That’s enough golf balls to make a solid line from Los Angeles to London! You can bring in golf balls to a Dixon Golf retail location or mail them in for recycling. Added bonus: Recycling Dixon brand golf balls will earn you a $1 towards a new ball (or 50 cents for other brands).

Ski Equipment: When your skis or snowboards just aren’t cutting (or carving) it anymore, consider recycling them instead of tossing them. Vermont-based Green Mountain Ski Furniture will recycle those old skis and snowboards and turn them into furniture and art. If you happen to live in Vermont, they’ll even pick up your old equipment for you!

Colorado Ski & Golf aims to keep obsolete ski equipment out of the landfills by accepting skis, snowboards, bindings, boots and poles for recycling or refurbishing. Also, newer organizations like Montana-based Ski Recycling and Promotion (SKRAP) are growing in popularity as sustainability and landfill diversion awareness grows in the industry.

Appliances…Recycle Them While They’re Hot

In case you haven’t heard, Cash for Appliances is the next government-funded program offering cash incentives for green improvements. If you trade-up your dishwasher, refrigerator or clothes washer, know that the old one is recyclable. In many cases, power companies offer free pick-up of your old appliances and provide you a cash rebate in return.

Appliances are largely comprised of steel, which is the most commonly recycled material in North America, according to the Steel Recycling Institute. In the recycling process, the appliances are shredded and the metal is removed for reprocessing. In some cases, the plastic components are turned into new material, but they can also be used as landfill cover.

The key challenge with appliances is the presence of Freon, which is DuPont’s trade name for the gas that cools appliances like air conditioners and refrigerators. For appliances that contain Freon, there can be a fee to properly remove it.

Keys

Keys, keys and more keys. We have keys for our front door, our cars, filing cabinets and more. And most of us are guilty of throwing them in a junk drawer or tossing them in a box in the garage when we move or change locks. Keys For Kindness is a small, family-run program designed to raise money through metal key recycling for the Multiple Sclerosis society. Though the shipping expenditure is on your own dime, we’re sure the good karma will be worthwhile.

Starting on Feb. 12, a projected 5,550 athletes from more than 80 countries will participate during the 17 days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Game events, drawing 3 billion television viewers worldwide. In anticipation of the event, Earth911.com has been keeping an eye on the latest eco initiatives that will be implemented in Vancouver. Here’s a snapshot of the coolest things we can expect to see.

The Stories We Love

The Vancouver 2010 Sustainability Stars program, set in place by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), celebrates leading innovations in sustainability made by Games sponsors, partners and organizers. More than 60 sustainability stars have been awarded, but here are a couple of our faves:

Olympic Torch Relay Footprint Reduction – Racing a lit torch and its accompanying volunteers and staff around the world can be pretty straining on resources. The Vancouver 2010 relay reduced the emissions and waste footprints associated with this trek in some simple ways, including taking advantage of smarter transportation options and using recyclable materials.

Coca Cola’s Waste Diversion Program – A worldwide partner for the Games, Coca-Cola, is ensuring that 95 percent of waste generated during the Games will be diverted from landfills. Recyclables like shrink wrap and cardboard trays will be taken to Richmond, British Columbia recycling center. The company will also reduce its carbon emissions and purchase Gold Standard carbon offsets (as recommended by WWF-Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation).

Panasonic Video Contest: Offsetting and Eco-Ideas Exhibit – Panasonic’s contribution to the Games will be three-fold: The electronics giant will be co-sponsoring a youth digital video contest, offsetting its 2010 Winter Games carbon footprint (an estimated 416 tons of carbon emissions) and creating an “Eco-Ideas” exhibit for sustainability initiatives. Panasonic was our winner for the most standout company at this year’s Consumer Electronics Convention.

Accommodations to Knock Your Woolly Socks Off

For Athletes Only – More than 3,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes will call the Millennium Water development in Vancouver their home for two weeks in February. The athletes’ village has been constructed to meet LEED Gold certification by the Canada Green Building Council, as well as the new LEED for Neighborhood Development pilot program.

The village will be the first phase of a model sustainability community project, which will transform a former brownfield site into a sustainable living showcase. According to Planet Forward, innovative developments include a “district energy system” that will will use residual heat from the city’s sewer pipes to warm the water that feeds into the village’s heating system. Also, hidden drains will siphon rainwater to be used on rooftop gardens in the summer and will be enough water to flush the toilets in the fall and winter.

But We Didn’t Forget About You – Listed as one of our top winter eco destinations, the Listel Hotel in downtown Vancouver is one of the city’s most eco-friendly hotels, awarded four keys by the Hotel Association of Canada’s Green Key Eco-Rating Program. The hotel utilizes unique geothermal heat capture technology along with solar panels for hot water heating, dramatically minimizing its natural gas consumption. The hotel also purchases power from a wind and low-impact hydro power energy company and composts all post-consumer food products, including meat.

Want to know what the environmental cost is for attending the Games yourself? Calculate and offset your trip before you go. Here’s a quick sample of what you can expect: Round-trip air travel from New York City to Vancouver, a seven-night stay in a hotel and attendance to five events round out at 1.3362 tons of carbon, which costs about $30 to offset.

The Coolest Medals We’ve Ever Seen

After a two-year-long design competition, the 2010 Winter Olympic medals were chosen last October. But design isn’t the only cool part. Weighing in at a record 500-576 grams, the medals are made from recycled electronics.

Canadian Aboriginal designer and artist Corinne Hunt, along with designers from the Royal Canadian Mint, Teck Resources Limited and VANOC, collaborated on the project resulting in some of the heaviest medals in Olympic and Paralympic history.

After shredding, separating and heating end-of-life electronic components, the byproducts are combined with other metals to create the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Medals.

Each medal was hand-cropped, ensuring no two are alike, which is a first in Games history. The unique medals feature wavy forms evoking scenes of British Columbia’s mountains, sea and snow.

Teck Resources, a Vancouver-based diversified metals company, supplied the materials for the medals, much of it coming from end-of-life electronics.

“Our employees worldwide are honored to supply the metals for the medals that will be cherished by the world’s best winter athletes in 2010,” said Teck’s President and CEO Don Lindsay. “We’re also excited that these medals will contain recycled metal recovered from end-of-life electronics, consistent with the sustainability philosophy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

The Most Efficient Venue in History

According to the Vancouver 2010 Sustainability Report, previous Games have relied on about 600 portable diesel generators to provide backup and additional power in order to service the unique needs of the Winter Games.

“Many of these generators were running continuously or idling, ready to kick in at a moment’s notice,” the report says. “They were burning fuel, creating noise and releasing greenhouse gases. Definitely not the kind of power solution [Paul Toom, VANOC's director of energy] envisions for the 2010 Winter Games.”

Toom describes the ideal power source for the 2010 games as “quiet, no odor – just the sounds and smells of nature. That’s the experience we want to provide for spectators and Games participants. It’s all achievable through making the right choices.”

And the right choices have resulted in a reduced need of portable generators. Supplied by BC Hydro, the solution is two separate underground power lines combined with an automatic switching system, meaning that if the power is lost in one feed, it will transfer the power to the second feed.

The result? A whopping 90 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as compared to previous games, saving millions of dollars.

But the new energy system is just the tip of the iceberg. Vancouver’s Sustainability Report is 32 pages filled with eco initiatives – and that’s just the “snapshot.”

Lori Brown contributed to this article.

“In the economy in which we find ourselves, the overall demand for materials is down, so there is a corresponding decrease for recyclable materials as well,” says Mike Linder, who works for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which implements recycling programs in communities throughout the state.

This decrease in demand for recyclable materials makes it difficult for communities to make up for costs in transporting and collecting recyclables.

Curbside recycling in Longview costs $29,000 extra annually, the difference between the $49,000 paid to city workers to collect and the $17,000 the city would be paying regardless to take the waste directly to the landfill.

According to Linder, despite the extra cost, it’s important that communities everywhere continue to implement and not throw away their recycling programs because waste programs may not generate cash upfront, but it is important for the inherent value of the community.

“When you take recyclable materials and always throw them away, you never have a chance of making money, let alone break money, which a well-run recycling program can do,” he says.

Regardless of monetary value, higher recycling levels result in lower emissions and play a major role in climate change.

“Curbside is one way that anybody can make a difference in greenhouse gases and climate change issues,” says Steve Thompson, program director of Curbside Value Partnership.

In 2008, the U.S. recycled 83 million tons of municipal solid waste, according to the EPA.  This reduced the country’s annual rate of carbon dioxide emissions by 182 million metric tons – comparable to removing the emissions of 33 million passenger cars.

But the bigger question may be what the future holds for the iPad and its effect on the newspaper, magazine and book industries. In 2008 alone, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 340 pounds for every person in the U.S. That same year, a record-high 57.4 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling.

A widely recyclable and highly collected material paper may be, but could electronic replacements be the answer to reducing our waste consumption?

It’s no secret that the print journalism industry is feeling economic pressure, but would consumers be more apt to subscribe to these publications if they were easily accessible (and still affordable) in tablet form?

“The iPad’s got a lot of potential for newspapers and magazines,” says Allan Hoffman, CEO and founder of Web100.com. “Plenty of newspapers – and magazines, too – are online now, but the iPad means they’ll be able to offer an experience that’s a lot more like that of flipping through the pages of a newspaper or magazine.”

“In fact, the iPad may provide an experience that’s even better – and one you can hold in your hand, carry on the train or read in bed,” he continues. “It will be like reading a print publication, yet also add great options for audio, video and other multimedia features.”

Like Hoffman, some believe that the iPad truly has the potential to change the publishing industry as we know it, but others are more skeptical.

“The iPad appears to be a much more flexible and comfortable format than the Kindle for reading newspapers and magazines, but not as good for reading books,” says Sascha Segan, managing editor of PC Magazine.

Despite conceding to the iPad’s bright, colorful graphics and the impact this may have on the layouts of newspapers and magazines, Segan was quick to issue a caveat against the iPad’s usefulness for longer texts, namely books.

“But the iPad’s TFT LCD display is far more tiring on the eyes than the Kindle’s e-ink display,” he says. “Looking at the iPad is like looking at a laptop or an iPhone, with a backlight glaring up into your eyes. That doesn’t really matter for the amount of time it takes to read a newspaper or magazine, but there’s still an advantage to restful e-ink for long-form, text-only reading.”