Last week, Office Max had a printer deal too good to pass up. The Lexmark Prevail Pro-705 printer was on sale for $129.00 and if you traded in an old printer for recycling, they would knock off another 50 bucks. So we brought in a broken printer and picked up a green printer for about $80.00. We wanted a printer for our home office that would automatically print on 2-sides to reduce our paper consumption by 50%. Activating the Eco-Mode button takes care of that and other tasks. Other features we were looking for included durability, WI-FI, a recyclable unit,
This 5-minute documentary is about a community recycling company, WyeCycle, in England. The staff is dedicated, motivated, positive and inventive. For example, they turned old mini-vans into recycling trucks that run on bio-diesel that they make themselves. But they work under difficult circumstances and their future is uncertain. I feel bad for these inspiring recyclers because they don't appear to have the financial support they need to do their work without struggle.
A Popular Science article entitled "Out of the Garbage Pail and into the Fire" (February 1919) by Joseph Brinker exploded any idea I had that waste-to-energy plants are a fairly new concept. It's about an experimental plant designed by E. L. Culver of Chicago. He used a mixture of garbage, coal dust and tar to produce 2 lb. bricks which, when burned, gave the same, or better, heat as lignite coal. This method also did not produce the gasses that coal-fired electrical generation plants did. Culver's plant was successful and produced all of the heating units needed by Austin, Texas to power the city.
The U. S. Army Environmental Command has published Earth Day posters yearly since 1997. Check them out on the video we posted on our new You Tube channel. The recurring symbols on the posters link environmental protection with patriotism and national security.
