Look And Learn (We're Trying To Make It Easy)

Since we know reading environmentalist bullshit is boring, we're putting it with pictures of pretty girls to keep you interested:

Why you need to use your ‘environmentally friendly’ cotton carrier bag 131 times to be green:

Cotton bags offered by many supermarkets may be less 'green' than plastic carriers - and may cause more global warming, according to scientists.

As a greater amount of energy goes into making a cloth carrier than a polythene one, a cotton bag has to be used 131 times before it has the same environmental impact than its plastic counterpart.

And if a plastic bag is re-used as a bin liner, a cotton bag has to be used 173 times - nearly every day of the year - before its ecological impact is as low as a plastic bag on a host of factors including greenhouse gas emissions over its lifetime.

But most of us only use the bags around 51 times before they are thrown away, researchers found.

But, still, those that use them act as if they're morally superior to the rest of us.

Speaking of the we're-morally-superior clique:

San Franciscans not as green as they think:

San Franciscans have an over-inflated opinion of themselves? Say it ain't so!

It seems to be the case, at least when it comes to our ability to know which trash goes where. To help gauge how well city residents are complying with the mandatory recycling and composting laws, the Department of the Environment conducted phone surveys and focus groups testing our knowledge on the subject.

Fifty-nine percent of people said they're doing absolutely everything they possibly can.

"People said, 'I know what I'm doing,'" said Mark Westlund, spokesman for the department. "I know absolutely everything about what goes where."

But considering a third of what we send to the landfill could be recycled and another third could be composted, we're not as diligent as we'd like to think.

And they definitely "like to think" that.

O.K., since they're using the word "third" so often, here's more bullshit:

The gangs dumping your recycling in the Third World: Why that effort separating your rubbish may be a waste of time:

Thousands of tons of recycling carefully sorted by families in  Britain is being dumped illegally in the Third World.

A three-year investigation by the Environment Agency has uncovered a multi-million pound trade in shipping waste out of the country.

Investigators are now bringing prosecutions against 30 criminal gangs, with five cases already going through the courts.

The revelations come in the week it emerged that nearly 140 councils force householders to sort rubbish into five or more containers – with some insisting on as many as nine.

They are likely to raise concerns about EU recycling laws, which are blamed for creating the illegal trade. They also risk fuelling public cynicism about the value of recycling.

The value of recycling? Nine containers? Now where have we heard that stuff before?



And here's that The New York Times story they mentioned.

As for how much money we're wasting on this nonsense - during a recession - here's some good news that should give the tree huggers nightmares:

House votes 244-179 to kill U.S. funding of IPCC

Just before 2 a.m. on February 19, the war on climate science showed its grip on the U.S. House of Representatives as it voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Republican majority, on a mostly party-line vote of 244-179, went on record as essentially saying that it no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments.

So - while we know that won't be the end of it - in this one area, at least, we like what we're seeing.