July 25, 2008
Disposable Grocery Bags May Carry a Fee in Portland.
The next thing you might hear at the cash register is: "Paper or plastic? That'll be extra." On the heels of San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles, Portland may impose a fee on grocery bags by next year to reduce waste and encourage people to shop with reusable sacks...
(read more)

July 13, 2008
Polystyrene Recycling Has Left the School Building.
Recycling is typically thought of as a good thing. Except when the product you're dealing with is polystyrene -- considered environmentally taboo because its chemical makeup means it takes centuries to decompose. That's why Larry McIntyre decided to turn out the lights on his food service product business...(read more)

May 20, 2008
Giant Cardboard Kangaroo Helps Climate Study
CANBERRA, Australia - Scientists hope a giant cardboard image of a white kangaroo, photographed from space on Tuesday, will help them better understand how the earth reflects sunlight and give them new clues about global warming's impact on ice caps. (read more)

May 18, 2008
One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country’s Meal
Eliminating food waste won’t solve the problems of world hunger and greenhouse-gas pollution. But it could make a dent in this country and wouldn’t require a huge amount of effort or money. The Department of Agriculture estimated that recovering just 5 percent of the food that is wasted could feed four million people a day; recovering 25 percent would feed 20 million people. (read more)

March 11, 2008
18 Years Later, Banned Polymer Lingers
Despite effective law, many say polystyrene use still can be cut.
In 1989, the city of Portland banned polystyrene foam, what most people call Styrofoam. Why then, you may wonder, is there
still so much of it around? (read more)

March 7, 2008
Greener Cell Power Presents Challenges
When wireless industry technicians speak of "green" cell towers these days, they're not just talking about making them look more like trees.
They're talking about towers powered by wind turbines or solar panels, antennas that get backup energy from hydrogen fuel cells and geothermal cooling for computer equipment. (read more)

January 30, 2008
Papa's Got a Brand New Old Bag
Banned in Bangladesh. Outlawed in Italy. Taxed in Ireland.
Charged for in China. Meet the plastic bag. Despoiler of environments. Destroyer of worlds. (read more)

January 25, 2008
Winter X Games Get Fans to Help Green Effort
Recyclers get prize tokens; composting, new trees also part of strategy
ASPEN, Colo. - The cups and plastic ware are made of corn, the plates and napkins from a sugarcane byproduct. The leftovers will become compost and grease from the kitchen will be turned into biodiesel, which will power the buses and snowcats. (read more)

December 26, 2007
The Year ‘Green’ Went Mainstream and What to Watch in 2008
2007 will be remembered as the year "green" went mainstream. No longer just the province of "treehuggers" — consumers, corporate America, and politicians from both red and blue states embraced “green” initiatives and ideas…(read more)

December 24, 2007
Worry Grows Over Nalgene Plastic
The chemical BPA, also found in other plastics, has some retailers pulling products. Worries about a hormone-mimicking chemical used in the trendy sports accessory led a major retailer based in Vancouver, B.C., to remove Nalgene and other polycarbonate plastic containers from store shelves in early December… (read more)

October 8, 2007
How to Cut Your Carbon Paw Print
Derrick Mains, 34, of Mesa, AZ considers himself a green kind of guy.
Mains, an environmental consultant, still feels eco-guilty.
That's why he buys his two rescue dogs, Copa and Lola, all-natural, organic food. And instead of plastic bags that wind up in landfills,
he's using a biodegradable box to scoop up their waste. Next on the agenda? (read more)

October 7, 2007
The Drive for Biofuels
The Northwest, home to just a handful of petroleum refineries, is verging on a biofuels refinery boom.
Pacific Ethanol touched off the rush in Oregon with Friday's christening of an ethanol plant at the Port of Morrow, near Boardman. Promoters call the plant, capable of producing 42 million gallons a year, the "first major fuel refinery ever built in Oregon." (read more)

October 1, 2007
Trying to Turn Mr. Clean into Mr. Green
Forget about a little dirt! Consumers are concerned about toxic ingredients…
Robin Freedman hasn’t bought a cleaning product in five years. But it doesn’t mean her house is dirty. Instead, the Seattle mother makes her own homemade cleansers, using traditional combos as vinegar and water to clean her floors and bathroom. (read more)

August 17, 2007
Hillsboro slated for Livin' Green Festival Sept. 8
A Rocky Mountain breeze is headed for the basalt outcrops of the Civic Center plaza…the event will feature 17 acoustic musicians and information and product booths from vendors dedicated to advancing sustainable lifestyle and product choices. (read more)

August 14, 2007
Less waste in plastic
It's a dilemma: A good person always cleans up after the dog. But I always feel strange putting the world's most, uh, biodegradable material into a plastic bag, and then tossing it in the garbage, where it will sit in a landfill forever. (read more)

July 27, 2007
Reorganization Saves Recycled Gardens
Due in large part to the public outcry that resulted when POPPA's Board of Directors announced early in July that Recycled Gardens would be closing forever, a reorganization has been negotiated (read more)

July 12, 2007
Altar alternatives
Eve Harley and Ryan Hunter live a green lifestyle. They reuse and recycle and eat organic. (read more)

June 08, 2007
The Most Plastic of Arts
An enthusiastic crowd…
On a recent Sunday night, an enthusiastic crowd packed the Madrona Hill Cafe in North Portland for the opening of a highly untraditional art exhibit, the theme of which could be boiled down to a single word:
Plastics. (read more)

June 7, 2007
Green Guilt Trip
Too Lazy To Recycle? Here’s How Much You’re Wasting.
Don’t you love it when the auto industry starts talking in corporate tongues? The most astonishing idiocies come out of its collective mouth: No, no, no, we couldn’t possibly put in seat belts. Air bags? Who’d want to pay for air bags?
And the latest, from a representative of nine carmakers, that California’s goal to cut tailpipe emissions (pending a federal green light) “will have no impact” on global warming.
How’s that again? (read more)

May 17, 2007
Paper or plastic?
Which bag is the best choice for the environment?
Each has pros and cons. Your best move?
Reuse the ones you already have.
That familiar choice in the grocery line – paper or plastic? – is guaranteed by Oregon law. Although most stores use plastic, state law says they must offer paper bags, too. But does the choice really matter for a state that prides itself on green living? Yes, it does. But maybe not the way you think. (read more)

April 22, 2007
In her groundbreaking book "Silent Spring," Rachel Carson
jolted a prosperous post-war America — a country confident that science and technology were leading the way to a future in which disease and hunger could be overcome, in no small part thanks to a new generation of powerful pesticides.
Carson's work also led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and without her pioneering efforts, we might not be marking Earth Day.(read more)

April 20, 2007
E-waste not. Environmental awareness is the cause of
Even if Earth Day weren't this Sunday, you'd have to be walking around with a nonbiodegradable bag over your head not to notice that environmental awareness is the cause of the moment…(read more)

April 19, 2007
First-of-its-kind service builds on the past
There's a great boneyard on the west end of the Burnside Bridge. No, not that kind. It's a construction boneyard, where heaps of materials are set aside for new uses.(read more)