I heard this neat little story on NPR the other day and couldn’t help but wonder why somebody had not thought of this sooner!

In a nutshell, San Francisco has mandated that everyone start composting their waste. This is really remarkable because many city recycling programs only apply to people in houses. San Francisco’s new law, however, also applies to people who live in apartments, businesses, and restaraunts!

Residents have received food recycling bins into which they will put their food waste. The bins will then be sealed, collected by the city, and the food will be turned into compost and sold back to community members.

So it’s going to…

1. Cut down on waste being sent to the landfill

2. Motivate residents to become more active in protecting their environment

3. Create revenue for the city

4. And create jobs

What’s not to love? I am very excited to hear about this project and will be following it closely as I have no doubt that other cities will soon be adopting these practices should they prove successful.

Click here to read (or listen) to the article as it was presented on NPR

Plastic bags cut into strips for Plarn

Plarn is my new favorite word.  It’s also my new favorite thing.  Ever.  Quite a while ago, I switched to using reusable bags when I go to the grocery store.  However, I still had this stash of plastic bags under my kitchen sink.  I’ve been trying to find something creative to do with them, and finally…I found it!

I’ve been submitting stories from this website to the All Things Eco blog carnival.  In reading through this past week’s newsletter, I found a website dedicated to taking materials like plastic bags and tape from cassette and VHS tapes and…wait for it…crocheting them!  It is awesome.  The website is called My Recycled Bags.com and the project I have decided to embark upon is the Ultimate Grocery Bag.  In this project, you take plastic bags, cut them up to create Plarn (plastic yarn) and then crochet it to create a reusable grocery tote.

Ball of Plarn!

So far, I have successfully created the ball of plarn – next step is to begin the crocheting process.  Stay tuned!