27.Video: Making opalescent glass

This short Science Channel video shows how old manufacturing methods and common minerals are used to make uncommonly beautiful glass.  To preserve raw materials, glass trimmings are recycled back into new batches of molten glass.  Skilled workers must work fast and carefully so we can enjoy stained glass windows and other art glass objects. 

26. Garbage Dreams: Hard recycling in Cairo

We have this award-winning 2009 documentary on order via inter-library loan and will report back.  It's about the Zaballeen ("garbage people" in Arabic) in Cairo that find their jobs in jeopardy by progress. 




There is more information about the film on PBS.  Conditions are probably much worse after the recent upheavals.  

25. Renters' Right to Recycle Act (CA) 2011

We are fortunate in that our apartment complex offers recycling services (cans, plastic and paper products) on site. We just have to bring our stuff to the maintenance room each week.  No bins. No driving to a drop-off center.  The system has been in place for years and it works. Therefore it was an eye-opener to read that roughly 3-million apartment-dwelling Californians only recently got the "right" to recycle when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the "Renters' Right to Recycle Act" in July.  Previously, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had vetoed a similar bill. Why didn't he like the bill?  

24. November 15: America Recycles Day

Next week is America Recycles Day.  This is a good day to renew our commitment to recycle each day. The sponsoring organization has a pledge to sign as a means to remind us to keep going.