Green The Style

Turning the fruits of a recycling program into tangible results has proven hugely successful for the Chicago Park District and the city’s residents.

Chicago’s 563 parks are now being covered in garbage. But it is in the form benches, playground barriers and other items composed completely of plastic donated by residents in the city’s Plastic On Parks (POP) program.

At the start of the two-year-old project, 400 pounds of plastic was being collected each week, said Fred White, director of recycling for the park district. Now, more than 40,000 pounds of plastic are brought to the city’s 260 recreation centers every week.

“When you contribute to a project and can see what your efforts are creating, it’s a lot easier to get excited about it,” White said. “They know their plastic bottles are becoming useful items.”

Under the program, residents bring their empty plastic milk, water and pop containers to their local city recreation ..

Source: recycling

The first ever “tree clause” in a book contract allows environmentally minded authors to symbolically replace the trees used in the printing of their works.

Harper & Row in San Francisco developed the clause at the request of Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead music group, for his book, Drumming at the Edge of Magic. To research the book — a history of ancient musical and rhythmic customs — Hart traveled extensively and became concerned about the environment — rain forests in particular.

Hart approached Harper’s, asking if the publisher would be willing to plant as many trees as were felled to produce the paper for his book. Harper’s not only agreed, but also offered to double the number of trees.

The first printing of 50,000 copies of the book represented 45 tons of paper. Quick calculations revealed that 765 trees would meet their demise. With additional printings of the book, the ..

Source: tree-planting programs