Recently, the Town of Smithfield received an inquiry about where residents can recycle cell phones. We wanted to let you know that there are two places that we know of:

DAV Thrift Store

Smithfield Square
1937 S. Church Street
Smithfield, VA 23430
757-365-9555

Smithfield Police Department

1613 South Church Street

Smithfield, VA 23430

757-357-3247

If you know of other places in Isle of Wight to recycle cell phones please don’t hesitate to contact us.

20 July 2010 Last updated at 06:29 ET

BBC Mobile

Statues of giant birds made from scrap metal have been erected at new recycling centre in Essex.

The birds are the work of artist Ptolemy Elrington who made his name producing nature-related metal art.

He made an owl, sparrow-hawk, kestrel, woodpecker and a tree-creeper and mounted them at Braintree’s new recycling centre.

Essex County Council commissioned the birds as part of a programme to raise the cultural profile of Essex.

Tracey Chapman, cabinet member for environment and waste, said: “I hope our residents find this public art a worthwhile addition to their community and that it encourages people to recycle even more.”

Read the full story here.

13NEWS / WVEC.com

Posted on July 13, 2010 at 9:54 AM

Updated yesterday at 9:54 AM

SUFFOLK —  The Suffolk Clean Community Commission is sponsoring a Recycling Drive on August 14, 2010, 10 a.m.- 3 p.m. at Creekside Elementary School. The school is located at 1000 Bennett’s Creek Park Rd. in North Suffolk.

Shred-it will be on hand to provide on-site shredding of Suffolk residents’ sensitive documents. There is a limit of three copy paper size boxes or three brown paper bags per person. Participants will be asked to stay with their documents until they’ve handed them to the Shred-it driver in the truck.

Residents are encouraged to bring the following to be recycled: Tires (12 per household), Electronics, All types of paper, including mixed paper (magazines, catalogues and newspaper), Cardboard and paper board, Steel and aluminum cans, Glass containers (bottles and jars), and All plastic bottles (#1 and #2).

Everyone who comes out to recycle receives a reusable shopping bag as the Commission joins forces with the community to say NO! to plastic.

For more information, please contact Hattie Lester, Litter Control Coordinator at (757) 514-7604 or via e-mail at hlester@city.suffolk.va.us

The Washington Post

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s decision to reverse his predecessor’s ban on the state’s purchase of individual-sized bottled water is coming under fire from those who claim that he might have made the decision at the request of his friends in the industry, the Virginia Politics blog reports.

Former Republican delegate Chris Saxman, board member of the International Bottled Water Association and employee of Shenandoah Valley Water Co., a major water bottler in Virginia, has served as an education adviser to McDonnell.

Corporate Accountability International, a Boston-based nonprofit organization which promotes strong public water systems, among other issues, alleges that Saxman’s company is the single largest recipient of state money spent on bottled water, including more than $101,000 in fiscal 2009.

But Saxman said Tuesday that his company primarily sells five-gallon containers of water, not individual water bottles. He also said that he did not speak to McDonnell or anyone in his administration about the decision.

To read the full story, click here.

Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch

– Associated Press

By Mike McPhate  |  July 13, 2010; 6:01 AM ET
Categories:  Virginia

Courtesy of FIGMENT

The winner of the City of Dreams Pavilion Competition 2010, the sustainable design of Ann Ha and Behrang Behin’s Living Pavilion, has been installed on Governors Island for the summer 2010 season as a temporary central gathering and assembly point for arts activity on the island.

The competition sponsors (FIGMENT, The Emerging New York Architects Committee of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (ENYA), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY)) worked with the winning team to have the Living Pavilion on Governors Island for the summer season.

Please make a tax-deductible donation to help us maintain the Living Pavilion throughout the summer!

Ann Ha and Behrang Behin of Living Pavilion imagine a future in which nature is brought back into the city – not replacing its dense vitality, but adding some ‘green’ to the mix. Technologies such as green roofs and green walls will reduce heat-island effect and mitigate storm water runoff. Urban farms will provide nutritious locally grown produce to urban dwellers while making them more aware of where their food comes from. These developments will not only have a positive impact on the city’s environmental footprint, but will also enrich the lives of New Yorkers: they will add a new dimension to the urban experience, making possible new forms of spatial and architectural expression.

To read the full story click here.

From Envirosax…

The Gulf Coast Oil Spill has become the worst oil spill in America’s history and Envirosax wants to help! Envirosax has teamed up with The Greater New Orleans Foundation, the largest and oldest philanthropic community foundation in the region. They will serve as a conduit between nonprofit partners to help the victims, animals and the extensive clean up of the wetlands and surrounding environment.

To help, Envirosax will donate a $1.00 for every BAG purchased from our Flora, Monochromatic, Oxford, Candy, Botanica and Retro Graphic Series and $5.00 for every POUCH from these series! That’s not all! We would also like to offer for every Pepsi Heritage Pouch purchased we will donate $5.00. Our Pepsi Heritage bags are made from RPET. The 45% Repreve® fabric in the ENVIROSAX RPET is made up of 100% recycled product, mainly plastic bottles from the USA. Helping the environment by turning waste into fashion! So let us dig deep, buy a reusable bag between July 1 and July 31, 2010, saving the environment and the Gulf.

By Jedd Ferris • June 28, 2010

Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine

Change starts from the ground up. That’s the attitude of these four innovative entrepreneurs who are looking beyond the bottom line to build community.

MARK LILLY
mobile farmers market

If you live in the city gridlock, it’s often hard to make it to the farmer’s market. But if you live in Richmond, Va., Mark Lilly will bring it to you. Lilly is the owner of Farm to Family, a business he runs out of a 1987 school bus that’s been converted to look like a country store on the inside. At the beginning of the week, Lilly drives out to small farms in central Virginia and fills the bus with locally grown fresh fruits and veggies. Then he spends the rest of the week taking his mobile market to different spots in Richmond’s busy urban areas. He’s been at it for less than a year, but brisk business proves Lilly is on to something. He provides the missing link for those who feel stuck with corporate grocery options. Read more here…

MATT MAHLER
bags from bike scraps

With a little perseverance, Matt Mahler has turned a nighttime hobby designing new products with reusable materials into a thriving independent business. Mahler is the owner of Tierra Ideas, which makes high-quality messenger and travel bags out of recycled bike inner tubes.

Mahler, who still works as a full-time air quality engineer for the state of North Carolina, was inspired while visiting his sister at Earthaven Ecovillage, an intentional community located across the state in Black Mountain. There he visited a building constructed entirely out of wood from recycled apple crates, and he immediately became fascinated with making products from reusable materials. Back home he bought a sewing machine on Craigslist and took lessons on threading the needle. Then he started experimenting with bike tubes in his garage for five frustrating months until he successfully made his first bag. Read more here…

CHARLEY WILSON
organic mechanic

Fixing cars is a dirty business, but Charley Wilson doesn’t mind taking a few extra steps to clean it up. Wilson runs the Organic Mechanic—an innovative auto repair shop in West Asheville, N.C., that’s found ways to reduce the greasy grimy impact that comes with working under the hood.  Wilson relies especially on bioremediation—using naturally occurring organisms to clean up grease, oil, and other pollutants. His permeable concrete lot directs any runoff to a deep gravel bed where bacteria break down any remaining contaminants. He also has a strict recycling policy. Instead of an industrial-size dumpster, he only generates one residential garbage can of trash every two weeks. He even recycles oil, which is sent off to be re-refined so he can use it again.

“This is a business that constantly deals with contaminants, so my goal is to make sure they don’t get beyond my shop.” Read more here…

JOE FOX
green-living dirtball

Joe Fox was sick of seeing jobs disappear from his native North Carolina, so he’s bringing them back, one recycled t-shirt at a time. Two years ago, Fox started Dirtball Fashion—an eco-friendly apparel company with products made solely in his home state. Fox spent 10 years as a professional race car driver. When he decided it was time to slow down, he found his calling from an old buddy, who made him a hat with the Dirtball logo. Soon Fox was getting constant inquiries about where he got it. From the response, he decided to go back home to Hickory and start a company that could help the local economy.

Dirtball’s funky t-shirts are made with 65-percent recycled cotton and 35-percent recycled polyester. The poly is made from recycled water bottles. For every 100,000 shirts that he produces, 400 tons of carbon emissions stay out of the air, 500 barrels of oil aren’t used, and seven full-time manufacturing jobs are saved. Read more here…

Ever heard of Breezesta?

From their website…

Breezesta is part of the environmental solution. 20 Vibrant Colors and Every One is Green.

Breezesta is made of plastic milk jugs and water bottles that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Until Breezesta Poly Outdoor Furniture, the great outdoors wasn’t so great on outdoor furniture. Metal rusted. Wood splintered. Webbing tore. Aluminum frames bent.

In the end, the whole bunch of it was out with the trash and off to the landfill. There had to be a better, more durable and environmentally-friendly way. With Breezesta, there is.

Breezesta 100% poly recycled plastic furniture removes hundreds of thousands of petroleum-based HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) plastic bottles from America’s waste stream.

Not only is Breezesta made of recycled products, it IS a recyclable product. Any member of the Breezesta family can be recycled when (and if) homeowners are finished using the product. But they won’t be done with it because of a product flaw or breakdown. Our products are built to last. Only the hardware needs to be removed from the recycling process.

Recycled plastic is safe and clean
Making safe and clean products using post-consumer waste begins with proper sorting. The material is then thoroughly washed and decontaminated. The base plastic material is processed at our Pennsylvania plant and converted into sturdy poly lumber. The plastic is decontaminated to a high purity level, thus ensuring it is safe for use. The purified recycled plastic is formulated with Ultra-Violet (UV) stabilizers and color pigments, creating colorful, eco-friendly, maintenance-free products.

Breezesta is manufactured by an Eco-Friendly Company
Casual Living Products doesn’t just make green products. We are a green company:

• We reuse scrap.
• We ship products fully assembled, to reduce packaging.
• Most marketing materials are printed on recycled paper

by STEVE ALBERTS KVUE News

kvue.com

Posted on June 26, 2010 at 6:25 PM

Updated Saturday, Jun 26 at 10:18 PM

California could become the first state in the nation to slap a ban on one-time use of plastic bags in stores.  A bill outlawing them passed the State Assembly, and is expected to pass the State Senate. Could Texas be next?

There are more and more proposals being drawn up at the local and state level to ban or place a tax on plastic bags.

Critics say plastic bags are bad for the environment. Most are produced using oil, and, by some estimates, 90 percent end up dumped in a landfill or clogging up streams. Those free bags can also cost you money, even if you don’t use them.
The Austin City Council wants to find out how much. Members passed a resolution directing the city manager to determine the cost to Austin taxpayers of processing plastic bags in the waste stream.

“In other cities they have found they cost tax payers up to 10 to 17 cents per bag,” said Ruben Hayslett a member of the Austin Zero Waste Alliance. “We want to see what that see what that looks like in Austin and come up with some green solutions.”

The city tried to cut the number of bags going into landfills in half with a voluntary program last year but very few people participated.

The City Manager has three months to report his findings to Council.

Click here to see the story.