Mayor of Houston, TX Annise Parker joined with Solid Waste Management Department Director, Harry Hayes, to announce that 54,000 new households in the Houston area will be the recipients of 96-gal recycling wheelie bins as part of a new community scheme, rewards-for-recycling by RecycleBank. RecycleBank runs programmes across the US designed at helping jumpstart neighbourhood recycling in cities across the nation. The company rewards residents with points for every time they recycle. The more points a household earns is dependent upon how often that household recycles. Points can be redeemed for items at retailers, grocery stores, chemists, and restaurants. Houston City Council ... Full Story

The Vancouver winter Olympic Games may have already come to a close, but for those athletes that took home the prized medals will have a piece of that victory to carry with them forever. Although the athletes medals represent a personal victory, the medals now also represent a small victory in eco-friendly recycling. This year, for the first time in the history of the Olympics, the medals were made using recycled metals which were salvaged from discarded e-waste. A Canadian mining company, Teck Resources, was hired by the Olympic Committee to construct the medals using recycled gold, silver, and bronze from ... Full Story

Oxfam's Trading Director, David McCullough has responded to today's announcement that M&S will move forward in the next stage of the Plan A sustainability journey. The trading director said that Oxfam is thrilled to be partnering with M&S and is encouraged by the ambitious focus of Plan A's next phase. The company has donated four million items to the shops to help British shoppers begin purchasing recycled clothing, he added. Clothing that would have otherwise ended up in various landfill sites around the country. The donated clothing has helped to raise £2 million which is in turn used for charitable causes helping ... Full Story

According to a new report, the U.S. airline industry currently generates over 880 million tons of waste each year. Of that waste only a very small percentage is actually recycled by these airlines. The recycling report card, which graded each airline for recycling habits, revealed that no airline was doing an A job. Topping the list for best recyclers included Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, and Delta. However, United and US Airways managed to fail miserably. Even with some of the airlines coming in first on the list, not a single US carrier rated above a B-. The report, entitled What Goes Up ... Full Story

According to a report conducted by Green America, airlines across the globe are producing over 800 million pounds each year in waste. Although 75% of that waste is technically recyclable, the report indicates that only 20% of it is actually being sent to recycle. The consumer watchdog, Green America, just released the findings from their Responsible Shopper report conduction a review on airline recycling habits and the findings may shock airline passengers. Victoria Kreha, one of the lead authors on the report, stated that it was vital the public be made aware of the negligence in airline waste management. She added ... Full Story

Even though most of the scientific world agrees that global warming is not only real but poses a direct threat to human life, there are still those who think that it is merely a scare tactic and that the changes in weather patterns are part of the natural cycle of the earth.  The global warming skeptics were given fodder for their cannons last month when a study about the rapid decline of the Himalayan glaciers was found to be exaggerated at best and completely false at worst.  Since then the United Nation's Climate Change Panel has been under fire for ... Full Story

Over the last two years the European Union has outlined specific directives for its member nations to reduce waste and increase recycling rates.  The rules have been effective in some cases as countries in the EU have raised their recycling rates and many have decreased the size of their landfills.  Even though most countries have made some strides towards these goals, there are many, like the United Kingdom who is still lagging behind in their efforts to achieve these goals.  Because of this there are some within the EU who believe that the nation needs to do more to increase ... Full Story

Leading up the UN climate change summit which took place last December, leaders around the world talked up the importance of the summit as a way to jumpstart real changes for the environment.  The summit was considered a failure by most accounts but did succeed in getting some agreement about how carbon emissions would be treated, as well as raise awareness about the importance of the issue.  Some world leaders expressed disappointment that a binding resolution was not signed by all countries and since then there has been a lot of finger pointing about who to blame for the failure.  ... Full Story

Recently a scientific body of the United Nations was embarrassed when they had to admit that a dire environmental prediction that they made was not true.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was red faced when they had to admit that their prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035 was completely wrong.  The IPCC admitted that they used old evidence to make their claim and that the evidence had not been properly peer reviewed.  Using this evidence as it basis a summit of Nepalese officials met during the Copenhagen climate change summit to raise awareness about the ... Full Story

Most people involved say that the UN summit on climate change was a complete failure as it failed to produce a binding resolution that would make it law for countries to lower their carbon emissions.  Since the failed summit leaders have been pointing fingers and trying to figure out exactly what went wrong in their attempt to set realistic goals.  Several prominent members of the UK government blamed China for the failure saying that it was the Chinese refusal to budge on any issue that forced the summit to dismiss without a resolution.   The European Union, along with the United ... Full Story

2009 was a year marked by many things and a lot of change around the world.  Two wars still rage in the Middle East, the economy has taken a global downturn, and issues of the environment became the topic of everyday conversation around the world.  For the United Kingdom the issue was recycling and waste management, as it was revealed that the UK ranked near the bottom in those categories among its European counterparts.  The UK has stepped up its recycling efforts with some success but in the aftermath of the failure in Copenhagen it will take renewed leadership for ... Full Story

One of the things that Barack Obama promised during his campaign for the presidency of the United States was that many of the environmental issues that had been put on the back burner by the former administration would now be made priority once again.  Although the United Nations summit on climate change in Copenhagen was not as successful as many hoped, it did put the spotlight on those countries which produce the most waste and pollution.  Even though the summit did not produce any binding resolutions, it definitely put pressure on countries to act, which is one of the reasons ... Full Story