Free Republic

Carbon dioxide pouring from smokestacks hardly has a reputation as a valuable commodity. But one company has launched a series of projects to see if it can use the refuse of the industrial economy to breathe new life into tired oil fields. How well Denbury Resources Inc.'s projects go will be closely watched not just by environmentalists but other oil producers. For decades, companies have pumped naturally-occurring carbon dioxide from geological basins into existing oil wells. The gas acts like a solvent for the oil, removing it from rock formations.

Residents of the US capital may have to dig a little deeper into their pockets when they go grocery shopping once the city slaps a five-cent levy on each plastic bag issued at the checkout line. The measure, which takes effect on January 1, 2010 and is the first such initiative in the United States, seeks to make consumers bear the brunt of clean up costs for the bags which currently are dispensed for free with a customer's purchases.

Recycling posters featuring the picture of US President Barack Obama have reportedly been spotted on garbage cans at the Estonian capital's airport. Obama's photograph is encircled with the three arrows that symbolize recycling and encourages consumers with his campaign slogan "Yes, We Can," Russia Today (RT) reported citing a report at delfi.ee. Eesti Pakendiringlus, an Estonian recycled packaging company, is stressing on the “can” with a pun on the word's other meaning tin.

Thrift-driven Americans are fixing up, making do and reusing so much to cope with the recession that the drop in throwaways means less fill for landfills. To deal with the drop-off in dropoffs, landfills are laying off workers, reducing hours of operation and hiking disposal fees, with the increases passed along to cities, businesses and consumers. "You can look at waste and see what the economy is doing," said Tom Houck, manager at the Defiance County Landfill in northwest Ohio. He's watched the amount of trash arriving at the landfill plunge 30 percent in the past year. With consumers cutting...

The film Recycle delves into the conscience of a jihadist – and brilliantly troubles our ideas about Islamic radicalism, writes Thomas Hegghammer In the mid-2000s, one of the most pervasive buzzwords in counter-terrorism circles was “radicalisation”, referring to the process by which more or less ordinary individuals become terrorists. Scholars and analysts around the world pored over biographies of militants, deployed statistical tools and conducted in-depth interviews, all in the hope of finding the drivers of radicalisation so that policymakers could address them. Some important discoveries were made, among them the fact that people are usually drawn socially into radical...

53-year-old Eddie House of San Carlos, California recycles, composts, and finds homes for his discarded items. He reduced his household waste to the point that he cancelled his garbage pickup service last year. His reward is a lawsuit from the city! The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims House broke the city’s municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties...

"Every city has a contract with their (waste) hauler and it depends on the revenue-sharing agreement," said Braicovich, adding that he would support the bill. Scavenging through other people's garbage and recycling bins is illegal in many Inland cities and existing state law already requires identification from anyone selling recyclables valued at $100 or more, said Don Drysdale, a spokesman for the CALIFORNIA Department of Conservation. There is also a limit of 500 pounds of aluminum cans that a person can sell per day. "That's a heck of a lot of cans," said Danny Frankel, president of Riverside Recycling.

SUFFOLK Police have filed more than 150 charges against three people accused of stealing dozens of catalytic converters from vehicles in Suffolk and Chesapeake.Late Friday, police announced that the three were arrested Wednesday, after a Suffolk officer saw them near a car at King’s Fork Middle School, city spokeswoman Debbie George said.David Christopher Bone, 27, and Nicholas Edward Villi, 26, both of Windsor, and Tiffany Nicole Holt, 22, of Chesapeake are being held without bond at Western Tidewater Regional Jail, a jail spokesman said.Bone and Villi each face 27 criminal charges in Suffolk; Holt faces 12 charges. All were charged...

Many people don't realize that shooting sports offer their own unique recycling opportunity. Check out this "Geeks On Caffeine" cartoon to see how shooters can be earth friendly and make a political statement at the same time! However, keep this in mind: This is probably not something your average "greenie" would appreciate! NOTE: THE AUTHOR OF THIS COMIC HAS REQUESTED THAT THE CARTOON NOT BE PASTED WITHIN THE BODY OF THIS POST. PLEASE VISIT THE SITE TO SEE THE CARTOON.

LOCAL council bin police wearing head lamps are prowling neighbourhoods in the middle of the night to check whether residents are recycling. At least one contractor hired by the City of Monash in Melbourne has been threatened with the sack after peering into rubbish bins by torchlight and spooking elderly homeowners at 1am. It is understood several other councils pay bin cops to hunt down rogue recyclers. City of Monash spokeswoman Jodie Harrison confirmed a "rubbish auditor" had been warned to switch to more reasonable hours after "freaking out" residents. Disturbed householders have discovered bin police kitted out with miners'...

WASHINGTON - Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005. The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed. "When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn...

The whole issue of recycling has been clouded by green ideology. The EU set it targets for increasing recycling back in 1999 without properly questioning whether that is always the best way of disposing of rubbish... Recycling your plastic bottles may make you glow with virtue, but if they have to be carted halfway around the world to be recycled, and then large quantities of energy are consumed in the recyling process, it is far from obvious that you are doing the planet a good turn. Alternatively, your plastic bottle could be burnt in a power station, its stored energy...

SAN FRANCISCO - Most Americans think they're helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But chances are they're contributing to a global trade in electronic trash that endangers workers and pollutes the environment overseas. While there are no precise figures, activists estimate that 50 to 80 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the U.S. each year ends up overseas. Workers in countries such as China, India and Nigeria then use hammers, gas burners and their bare hands to extract metals, glass and other recyclables, exposing themselves and...

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil 17:44 26 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas. All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers). Key to GRC’s process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific...

Australian state leader says he must recycle drinking water because of drought The Associated PressPublished: January 28, 2007 CANBERRA, Australia: An Australian state will become the nation's first to introduce recycled sewage to its drinking water, and the rest of Australia would follow suit as a record drought threatens water supplies around the country, a state leader said Monday. Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie announced his government had scrapped a referendum planned for March on whether Australia's third most populous state should introduce recycled drinking water. Beattie said falling dam levels left his government with no choice but to introduce...

THOUSANDS of householders are facing the prospect of paying Britain’s first domestic rubbish tax under an Environment Agency proposal to trial the system in councils across England and Wales, writes Jonathan Leake. The scheme would see householders charged according to the weight of all non-recyclable waste they put out for collection each week. Green waste — recyclable paper, metal and glass, for example — would still be taken away for free. The agency’s “pay as you throw” proposal is aimed at breaking a deadlock between government departments that has held up attempts to “green” Britain’s waste disposal system. Tomorrow, the...

Everyone's talking about the environment these days, whether it's Al Gore's army of global warming slide show presenters or billionaire Richard Branson's quest for alternative fuels. I'm nostalgic for the old days when all the environmentalists wanted was for us to recycle. In class a few years ago I was lecturing on the economics of environmental protection. As I described the market's surprisingly robust ability to conserve natural resources, one student asked me "Do you recycle?" "No," I answered. "Thanks for the effort," he replied sarcastically. He then angrily marched from the room. I detected that most of the remaining...

State officials announced Thursday that California has finally achieved its goal of reducing landfill waste by 50%, thanks to diligent recycling by residents and businesses. The milestone culminates a 16-year campaign by the state to persuade people to separate recyclables out of the trash. The state passed a landmark law in 1989 mandating that communities establish waste-management plans for residents and businesses that would ultimately divert at least 50% of all recyclable trash from landfills. California was supposed to reach the goal in 2000, but preliminary data released Thursday show that the goal wasn't reached until last year. A total...

<p>Dear Etta: I need your help to let the Jacksboro area squirrel hunters know Mepps still buys squirrel tails. Every year it gets tougher to get the tails we need to dress our spinners, but we know from experience a little ink or air time is always a big help. Details are below. Any assistance you can offer, Etta would be sincerely appreciated. Should you need additional information please contact me.</p>

BAGHDAD, Nov. 10, 2005 – "Fire in the Hole, Fire in the Hole, Fire in the Hole." Within seconds of that radio announcement, a fiery blast shoots skyward. Second, third and fourth blasts follow in rapid succession. Only then does the concussion hit spectators a mile and a half away -- not as sound but as a shock wave. In less time than it takes to regain equilibrium, smoke plumes coalesce into a thick cloud rising hundreds of feet over the desert. Twelve separate detonations have destroyed roughly 100 tons of munitions that will no longer pose a threat to...