A bottle bill typically achieves 80-90% recycle rate due to the refund involved, cleans up the waterways , highways, public areas, decreases landfill input, and feeds the recycle industry.  The deposits not claimed by consumers are used to manage the program and may be disbursed towards environmental issues of the states.

Stop the Plastic is currently drumming up a very wide email contact list of organizations and individuals to be contacted when the time comes to voice your opinion to the state legislators. You can sign up for e-action alerts, share plastic pollution pictures, or ask questions at http://www.plasticpollutiontexas.com. Look for the opportunity to come to one of their Informational Meetings in the near future.

The driving force behind this project is Sarah Mason, an environmental analyst with Mayor White’s Office.  When tasked to think of new recycling programs, Ms. Mason looked around for inspiration.  That’s when she heard about Dan Phillips and the Phoenix Commotion, a recycling project run in conjunction with the City of Huntsville that allows building contractors to drop off excess materials at a storage site for other people’s use, including the building of affordable housing.

She took Mr. Phillips’ basic idea and modified it to fit Houston’s needs.  Contractors can drop-off excess materials at the Reuse Warehouse which benefits them in three ways: 1) eliminates landfill fees, 2) provides a tax deductible donation, and 3) provides LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification points.  Citizens can also make donations.  The warehouse allows non-profit organizations to take the donated materials for their use.  This provides a direct benefit to the city in reduced landfill consumption.  The warehouse is equipped with scales to measure donations for LEED scoring and to track the amount of material diverted from landfills.

Long-term plans include finishing the office space and cleaning a second warehouse to host do-it-yourself classes.  Although the materials donated are building materials, the hope is that some non-profits, especially the ones that work with children, will take these materials and reuse them as birdhouses, dog houses or other such crafts.
The Reuse Warehouse opened on April 29, 2009, mostly to get inventory before the grand opening scheduled for June.  To make a donation call Project Manager, Jonathan Lohn at 281-814-3324.  Items accepted include cabinets, fans, sinks, showers, windows, concrete blocks, pavers, copper, doors, windows, flooring material, glass and gutters.  For a complete list and additional information, visit  http://www.greenhoustontx.gov/reuse.html.

Good news on electronic waste recycling! Because of state legislation passed in 2007 (House Bill 2714) that came into full force on September 1, 2008, all companies selling computers in Texas must offer free and convenient recycling of their old computer equipment. The state environmental agency has created a new website to help residents use the recycling programs: http://www.texasrecyclescomputers.org/.

Recycling is free, producer-paid, and applies to all monitors, laptops and desktop computers, as bought before or after September 1, 2008. Households and home-based businesses are covered in this law. We encourage Texans to use the new recycling systems and provide feedback so that improvements can be made.

TV recycling is making strides as well. Several major television makers (Sony, LG/Zenith, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba and Wal-Mart) are now offering free recycling for their products. As of Feb. 15, Best Buy stores are accepting computers and televisions (up to 32-inch screens) as well. To find out how and where to recycle your TV, visit http://www.texastakeback.com/.

The national switch to digital television signals has been delayed to June 12th, 2009. This gives Texas residents more time to prepare for the switch, and it gives television manufacturers more time to start recycling programs for their products. But you don’t necessarily have to recycle your TV — even if you have an old-style analog TV, you can continue using it if you have cable or satellite or get a digital converter box. To make sure your TV won’t go blank in June, visit http://www.dtv.gov/.

In 1994, the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality joined forces to organize “Trash Bash”. In 1999, the Trash Bash Steering Committee, comprised of local partners, took over the event. Since then, Trash Bash has received many local, state and national awards, including the Governor’s Texas Environmental Excellence Award, Keep America Beautiful Award, Keep Houston Beautiful Award, Mayor of Houston’s Proud Partners Award, Keep Texas Beautiful Award for Civic Leadership, and EPA Gulf Guardian Award.

Corporate sponsors are able to satisfy requirements of industry initiatives such as ‘Clean Industries’, ‘Clean Industries Plus’, and ‘Responsible Care’. In 2003, Trash Bash was also approved by TCEQ as an ongoing Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP)!

Platinum ($5,000) Sponsors are: H-E-B, The Greensheet, Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority, Port of Houston Authority, Republic Services, Inc, Bastrop Bayou Watershed Program, and Houston-Galveston Area Council. Gold ($2,500) Sponsors are: Harris County Watershed Protection Group, KBR, Rohm and Haas, Shell Oil Company, City of Houston, Nestle Waters. Silver ($1,000) Sponsors are: Air Products, Inc., American Acryl LP, Calumet Penreco, Chaparral Stevedoring Company of Texas, Galveston Bay Estuary Program, Houston Pilots, J. Simmons Group, Kirby Corporation, Lubrizol Corporation, San Jacinto River Authority, South Coast Terminals, Texas Outhouse, Texas Petrochemicals, TOTAL – Bayport HPDE Plant.

Mobilize your family, school, church, neighbors, and organizations to remove tons of trash and debris from your community – the Galveston Bay watershed. Groups of six or more are encouraged to contact their site coordinator for special instructions that will ease registration. For more information visit http://www.trashbash.org, call the Trash Bash Hotline at 281-486-9500, or e-mail swinformation@h-gac.com.

The city of Houston has suspended its curbside recycling for a few more weeks so that those crews and trucks can be devoted to picking up hurricane debris. If you’re one of those people who are convinced that it is a mortal sin to put something that could be recycled in the trash, there are options that don’t require you to keep all that stuff until the city program resumes.

If you like valet parking, you’ll love the recycling center at 5900 Westpark in Houston. It offers deluxe service. When you drive in and turn off the motor, people come to your car and take your stuff away. You don’t even have to sort it. This center takes nearly everything a household would have to recycle – plastic containers; cans; car batteries, motor oil, paint and antifreeze; cardboard; computers and other electronics; glass bottles and jars; all kinds of paper; and used tires. This facility also houses the ReSTORE, which is a book swap, a recycling information library, and a repository for items of post- consumer and post- industrial scrap for use in art projects.

The Westpark facility is easy to get to. It is midway between Chimney Rock and Fountainview/Renwick, just south of the Southwest Freeway. It is open from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday though Saturday.

On the Thursday before Hurricane Ike, I took my recycling to Bellaire’s recycling center, which is at 4402 Edith (at Newcastle). This is a nicely kept facility, with shopping carts to help you take your material in from the car, extra bags for your newspaper, and a trash can for the leftovers. It is open from 8 am to 5 pm every day. Bellaire’s curbside recycling has resumed. For details about what can be deposited there, go online.

The most interesting drop-off spot I’ve encountered is RecycleXpress, the West University center, at 5004 Dincans. This is between Bissonnet and Westpark, a block west of Kirby. This is open 24/7, except that they ask that glass not be deposited between 11 pm and 7 am, so the noise of shattering glass doesn’t disturb the neighbors. What makes it interesting it the diversity of people coming to recycle. Last weekend, where there was a traffic jam, I saw one person arriving on a bicycle, a nicely dressed woman toting her plastic in an Ann Taylor bag, and several children diligently carrying boxes as big as they were. West U’s curbside service is back in operation too.

The HEB stores in my part of town don’t take much recycling, but they do take any kind of plastic bag, including dry cleaner bags. However, the stores that are more suburban have big containers set up to take paper, cans and plastic.

These depositories do not care if you are a resident of their city, but the Houston center does not take anything that is not from a residence.

For information about other recycling depositories in the region see H-GAC’s website or check out Earth 911.

Houston made the New York Times Tuesday, and not in a flattering way. The Times said that Houston recycles just 2.6 percent of its total waste, citing a survey conducted by the trade publication Trash News. The national average for large cities is 32 percent. San Francisco is the leader, diverting 69 percent of its waste. Dallas recycles 11.5 percent of its trash and San Antonio recycles 4 percent. The Times story and an accompanying video can be seen on the Times website. Warning – it might raise your blood pressure.Houston’s curbside recycling program began as a pilot program in 23 neighborhoods in 1990. Now curbside recycling is available to 162,000 homes in more than 260 neighborhoods, however, in 2006, only 16% of the homes used the service. At that time, the program lost money. The city spent more to collect the trash than it made by selling the material and saved on landfill costs.

After a 10-month-long contest among civic clubs to raise participation in curbside recycling, that number rose to 23%. That competition ended in April of 2007. The participation rates for different subdivisions can be seen online.

In contrast, between 2006 and 2007, El Paso jumped from a recycling rate of 2.5 percent (from six drop-off sites) to a recycling rate of 16 percent after it instituted curbside recycling, according to a March 3, 2008, article in Trash News. In a study done a several months after curbside recycling began, 85% of the residents in the neighborhood studied were using the program. El Paso gave its environmental services department about $400,000 to spend on an education and outreach campaign to promote the new curbside recycling program.

Houston is making some improvements in its recycling program. It has just signed a contract with Living Earth Technology to recycle yard waste beginning this fall and now picks up a broader selection of plastics. Now #1-5, and #7 plastics can be recycled. Look for the number in the triangle. Examples of the kinds of plastic that can’t be recycled curbside include toys, packing materials, flower pots, styrofoam, plastic bags, or plastic furniture. A good review of the “Dos and Don’ts of Houston Recycling” is online.

Although there are about 25,000 households on a waiting list for curbside recycling, the city appears to be reluctant to discontinue serving any neighborhood. It was not until last month that Houston’s solid waste director notified the residents of the 23 neighborhoods with less than 10% participation in curbside recycling that the service might be suspended next year unless participation increases. That letter cites saving landfill space as the reason to recycle.

See also INCENTIVES COULD BOOST HOUSTON RECYCLING, ADVOCATES SAY.

I was more than a little surprised to see a large display promoting the ‘greenness’ of Fiji bottled water at the grocery store. The display explained that Fiji will be carbon negative by 2010, it’s bottled in a better kind of plastic, and the company is helping save the Fijian rain forest. The display included reusable grocery bags and compact fluorescent light bulbs, but it will take a lot of other conservation efforts to mitigate the environmental costs of bottled water.

If Fiji is greener than any other bottled water, and it might be, that is still damming with faint praise. There are better ways to make your trip to the grocery store green.

Consider shopping at a store that is close to home or is on your way home from some other trip. I started doing that a few months ago, mainly to save time, and have found most of what I want at whatever store I am in.

Park in the first open space. Driving at parking lot speeds gives worse gas mileage than driving 80 mph. And idling – 0 mpg.

Buy local. Some stores highlight their Texas products, but at some you have to look at labels. And local isn’t just in the produce department. It’s easy to forget that Texas is an agricultural state, but check out the Texas Food Directory. Blue Bell ice cream, Arrowhead Mills flours, several rice brands, Falfurrias Butter, and on and on. A local or Texas-owned store is more likely to have regional products.

Avoid any product that is sent by air. If it’s perishable and not in season, then it probably was sent by air.

Don’t put your produce in separate little bags.

More and more genuinely eco-friendly products are showing up in mass-market stores. It is shocking to realize that many common cleaning products are classified as hazardous household waste and should not be put in the trash, but even Clorox has launched GreenWorks, a new line of products that are safer.

There is a new line of insecticides from EcoSMART that is made with plant oils and is safe enough that it doesn’t require any warning labels. I thought I would never get my mother to give up her can of Raid, but she’s very happy with the EcoSMART flying insect killer.

Whenever possible, buy the largest package you can use before it spoils, even for one person. A family size bag of frozen vegetables allows you to scoop out a single serving, instead of a box that has two servings and just creates leftovers.

Examine products that come in plastic before you buy them to see if the plastic can be recycled. A container that is a number 1 plastic and is easy to recycle looks a lot like a container that is a 6 and is hard to recycle. Look on the bottom of the product. Plastic cups also come in number 1 or number 6 plastic as well. There are always gizmos that claim to be better for the environment – I bought a set of bowl covers that look like little shower caps so I don’t have to use foil or saran wrap or find the right lid – but what really helps the environment is to consume less, shop mindfully, and plan your trip.

And, of course, we have great farmers’ markets, co-ops, community gardens, and gardening classes here. Check out Central City Co-Op and Urban Harvest.

If you want to make your holidays green, there will be no shortage of ideas coming your way in the next few weeks. Magazines, TV shows, e-mails, and newspapers will feature stories like “12 Ways to Have a Green Thanksgiving” “Dreaming of a Green Christmas? Shop Debra’s List” and “Eco Friendly Holiday Gifts.”

A look behind the headlines reveals that a lot of the ideas involve buying something – and gadgets, even solar powered ones, still need to be manufactured, packaged, shipped and merchandised. And I find it hard to believe, even after reading the Union of Concerned Scientists message on LED lights, that I am giving the environment any help by getting rid of outdoor mini-lights and replacing them with LED lights, considering the short time I use them.

Moreover, some goods that claim that to be made of exotic, renewable resources actually are not. A recent New York Times article about a line of pricey yoga clothes reports that the label on one item says it contains seaweed, but the newspaper’s tests found no seaweed.

All holiday over-consumption can’t be blamed on buying and wrapping presents and decorating our homes. Shannon Buggs, the Houston Chronicle’s personal finance writer, recently suggesting making a holiday spending plan. She directed, “For every holiday on your calendar between now and mid-February, write down what you will do to prepare for and celebrate it. Will you:

Buy new clothes, shoes and accessories?
Get your hair styled or cut?
Buy presents for others?
Decorate your home?
Prepare a meal?
Invite relatives to stay in your home?
Entertain others at a restaurant or bar?
Travel to visit family or friends?”

Buggs calls each of these activities “opportunities to overspend.” She means money, but these activities are also opportunities to overuse resources.

Here are some ideas for a sustainable holiday season that don’t involve wrapping gifts in newspaper and giving everyone memberships in the Sierra Club – not that these are bad ideas, but they may not be your style.

Don’t forsake your everyday good habits like composting, recycling, and carrying a tote bag to the store, just because there is more to do.

Think about taking the bus for some of your shopping excursions. Busses run to most malls. Drive to a convenient parking spot on the bus line to avoid congested roads and large parking lots. That kind of slow, stop-and-go driving really lowers your gas mileage.

Tell your child to ride the bus home from college or catch a ride with friends. If you are driving somewhere new, get directions before you set out. And take them with you. If you are using a computer program, check the directions with another source. Getting lost can easily cost an extra 30 minutes of driving. Carpooling isn’t just for work. Share a ride to go shopping or to a church performance or the ballet.

If you’re hosting a party, choose reusable plates, cups, linens and utensils. These can be rented, and can be returned unwashed as long as the food is rinsed off.

Making wreaths and other decorations is easy. Before you buy magazines for instructions, see what the library has.

How about not having an office holiday party? Give your employees an afternoon off to go shopping and have a party after the holidays.

Make holidays less about things, more about values. Instead of gifts, plan a family excursion. CEC member groups offer all kinds of interesting outings. Make a donation to a group or cause that is near and dear to your giftee’s heart. Instead of “Shop ‘til you drop,” make this season’s motto “Reduce, reuse, recycle, rebuy, repair, reweave, reknit, regift, resale shop, and resist.”

And remember, even though the Grinch stole all the food, decorations, and gifts, the Whos still had a merry Christmas.

Article about LED Christmas Lights

Toxic Toys on the Web

Spending plan makes post-holidays brighter

Texas Recycles Day, a campaign to educate Texans on the environmental and economic benefits of waste reduction and recycling, is Thursday, November 15. The campaign is managed by Recycling Alliance of Texas in partnership with Keep Texas Beautiful and its local chapters.

The slogan for this year’s campaign is “It all comes back to you”. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, on average, each Texan generates about seven pounds of garbage every day. Recycling paper, metal, plastic, and other materials, helps reduce waste, helps conserve energy, and preserves natural resources.

Keep Houston Beautiful is partnering with Abitibi-Consolidated and H-E-B to encourage Houstonians to recycle at one of the 28 area HEB stores that has recycle bins for plastic, paper, aluminum, and metal. Some H-E-B stores in Pasadena, Alvin, Missouri City, Deer Park, Spring, Tomball, Kingwood and suburban Houston have the bins. A list of those stores and a map is online

The H-E-B/Abitibi partnership began in October. Abitibi-Consolidated, a Canadian firm, is among the largest recyclers of newspapers and magazines in North America, diverting approximately 2 million tons of paper from landfills each year. It operates in 70 countries. To Houstonians, it is best known as the company that puts the big yellow and green “Paper Retriever” bins in school, church and library parking lots. In 2006, Abitibi contributed more than $4 million to schools, churches, and not-for-profit organizations for their paper recovery efforts.

Abitibi also collects and sorts curbside recycling for the city of Houston. The bins at H-E-B stores are to reach people who don’t have access to neighborhood recycling. Abitibi vice president Sylvain Longval says the company did a study of residents’ recycling habits.

“What’s preventing people from recycling a lot of times is the availability of a way to do it easy, every day during the time they do their daily routines. So when the offer came over from H-E-B to look at doing something with recycling at their stores, it just made a whole lot of sense,” he said.

In Pearland, Texas Recycles Day will be celebrated early, on Saturday, November 10, at the Pearland Recycling Center, 3423 Harkey Rd, from 8 am to 1 pm. At this event, almost everything except the kitchen sink will be accepted. In addition to the usual – plastic #1 and #2, paper, and cans; the center will accept cartridges for printers, faxes and copiers; cell phones; rechargeable cell phone batteries and accessories; scrap metal; large appliances; all colors of glass; and electronics.

On Saturday, the Pearland Recycling center will also collect and pass along gently used books, eyeglasses, and used or new pet supplies, and will also collect items for the Salvation Army. Volunteers will help unload your car. For more call Keep Pearland Beautiful at (281) 652-1659.

Baytown Recycles Day is also Saturday, November 10. The event will be from 9 am to 3 pm at Lowe’s on Garth Road. Items are accepted only from individuals and include newspapers and magazines, tires, batteries, car batteries, oil, filters and antifreeze. Volunteers will assist people with removing the recyclables from their cars. Baytown will have curbside recycling early next year. For more information, call (281) 420-5384 or visit Baytown’s website.

Cy-Fair College will kick-off its campus recycling program on Thursday, November 15 at 11 am, at 9191 Barker Cypress Rd. For details, call Esther Robinson at (281) 290-3994. In League City, Goforth Elementary is having an aluminum can drive on Thursday.

It is not too late to organize a Texas Recycles Event of your own. The Texas Recycles Day site has materials to help.

The report “An Analysis of Toxic Chemicals Released in Communities across the United States”, recently released by Environment Texas, is fascinating, in a horrifying kind of way. Many products that I thought were environmentally positive, rayon, for example, are produced by intensely polluting methods. However, many of these products are common consumer products, so individual buying decisions really can make a positive contribution to reducing air and water pollution.

According to the report, ”The chemical industry released the most developmental and reproductive toxicants to air and water in 2004.” The cellulosic manmade fibers (acetate and rayon) sector of the chemical industry was responsible for the most pollution.

For developmental and reproductive toxicants, the second most polluting industry is the rubber/plastics products industry. These products include meat packaging materials, sponges and scouring pads, and rubber gloves.

The printing/publishing industry ranked third in emissions of developmental toxicants. Food packaging, wallpaper, wrapping paper, magazines, and greeting cards are usually printed with toluene-based ink.

The industries that produce the largest amounts of suspected neurotoxicants such as methanol, ammonia and hydrogen fluoride, are (in order) chemicals/allied products, paper/allied products, and electric/gas/sanitary services.

The nitrogenous fertilizers sector of the chemical industry was one of the largest air and water polluters, releasing large amounts of ammonia and methanol. This sector manufactures ammonia fertilizer compounds and anhydrous ammonia, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate and nitrogen solutions, urea, and natural organic fertilizers.

Methanol is released in large amounts by pulp, paper, and paperboard mills. It is a byproduct of the pulping and washing processes.

About 80 percent of all hydrogen fluoride released into the air in 2004 came from the electric/gas/sanitary services industry. Almost all of this pollution comes from the combustion of coal, which contains small amounts of fluoride compounds that form hydrogen fluoride when burned.

The largest amount of suspected respiratory toxicants were released by the electric/gas/sanitary services industries. This sector reported releases of 683,233,869 pounds of suspected respiratory toxicants in 2004. The next ranking industries, chemicals/allied products and paper/allied products, reported releases of approximately 210,000,000 pounds and 180,000,000 pounds (respectively) of these chemicals in 2004.

Nine of the 10 facilities releasing the most respiratory toxicants were power plants. Coal contains trace amounts of chloride; so coal-burning electric utilities release chloride into the air, where it combines with hydrogen to form hydrogen chloride. Upon contact with water, the hydrogen chloride forms hydrochloric acid.

Dioxins are so toxic that the EPA requires facilities to report their dioxin releases in grams rather than pounds. They are produced in chemical facilities, pulp and paperboard mills, petroleum refineries, and large coal-burning power plants. According to the report, in 2004 the chemical industry released the most dioxins to air and water, accounting for almost half (49 percent) of all air and water emissions of dioxins. The electric power sector and paper industry followed, together accounting for almost a third (31 percent) of the dioxin releases.

The report says, “A relatively small number of communities often experience the bulk of the air and water pollution.” According to the report, almost a quarter of all air and water releases of carcinogens occurred within just 20 U.S. counties; Tennessee, Texas and Illinois accounted for more than 40 percent of the nation’s developmental toxicant releases and more than 70 percent of the reproductive toxicant releases in 2004. Two-thirds of all air and water releases of dioxins reported occurred within just 20 zip codes.

That makes it easy to miss the link between air pollution and the products we use, but when we reuse our wrapping paper, we are not just saving a tree, we are giving the people in Dickson, Tennessee, toluene-free air to breathe.

The full report is at Environment Texas’ website (pdf).

The Harris County Watershed Protection Group unveiled the “HazMobile” yesterday. The HazMobile is a 36-foot-long gooseneck trailer specially designed to haul household hazardous waste items such as lawn and garden chemicals, paint products, household chemicals, and automotive fluids to a facility for proper disposal. Custom flooring is installed to make sure that hazardous materials are safely contained during transport. The HazMobile will have its first pick-up at the Leon Grayson Community Center, 13828 Corpus Christi St, Houston, 77015 on Saturday, Feb. 10 from 9am to 12pm. There will be experts on hand to assist families on proper methods of disposing the items brought to the community center. After this event the HazMobile will be available for collection events to Harris County groups such as homeowner’s associations, civic clubs and churches. To reserve the HazMobile, contact Cheryl Burton-Fentress at (713) 290-3000 or cburton@swq.hctx.net.

In British countries, the first weekday after Christmas day, generally December 26, is a public holiday called Boxing Day. When I was a child we lived in a Crown Colony and I thought Boxing Day was the day you rewrapped gifts you didn’t want and gave them to someone else – not quite the way Worldbook.com explains the holiday. It says, “The traditional celebration of Boxing Day included giving money and other gifts to charitable institutions, needy individuals, and people in service jobs. The holiday may date from the Middle Ages but the exact origin is unknown.”

It seems to me that recycling fits right into the spirit of Boxing Day. There’s plenty to recycle – the unwanted gifts, the towels that have been replaced with new ones, and the half-roll of wrapping paper you now hate. And it’s a start on a New Year’s resolution to be more green in 2007.

If you are in doubt as to whether an item you don’t want has a second (or ninth) life, check out the wish list for several local nonprofits. One group would appreciate a laptop and some monitors. Another would like a digital camera. Places that have education programs for children appreciate simple items such as 2-liter bottles, buttons, egg cartons, fabric scraps, flat cardboard, meat trays, nature magazines, neckties, shoeboxes, and wrapping paper scraps. Shelters for people and pets need bedding, clothing, and personal care items.

And then there’s the electronics – as quickly as the latest television, computer, digital camera, cellular phone, video game console, or mp3 player is unwrapped, the older model is discarded.

A study by the National Recycling Coalition found that about 1.5 million computers are taken out of service in Texas each year, but only an estimated 162,000 are recycled. Many electronics contain hazardous materials and should be disposed of as hazardous waste if not recycled.

A newly formed Houston nonprofit, Techs & Trainers Incorporated, reuses old computers as training tools for special needs workers. The refurbished computers are then used to bring technology to people with disabilities. The group can be reached by calling (713) 839-7177 or sending a note to techs1234@yahoo.com.

For the holiday season, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality updated its list of places to recycle electronics. The list can be found at TCEQ’s website (pdf).

Matt Baker, director of TCEQ’s Small Business and Environmental Assistance division, says, “Even if your computer is several years old, it is still valuable. An average personal computer typically contains 40 percent steel, 30 to 40 percent plastic, 10 percent aluminum and 10 percent other metals, including copper, gold, silver, cadmium, and platinum—all recyclable.” Baker also suggests that computer and mp3 buyers ask manufacturers if they have a take-back program.

The City of Houston will provide Christmas tree recycling drop-off sites throughout Houston from Dec 27 to Jan 9. See the City’s website. The city will also pick up trees from houses that have yard trimmings pick up.

The Houston Westpark Recycling center, 5900 Westpark, is close to a one-stop shop for recycling. It accepts Christmas trees and electronic waste as well as other recyclables. It also has an area called The ReStore, which is a book swap, a recycling information library, and a repository for items of post-consumer and post-industrial scrap for use in art projects.

The Houston Galveston Area Council’s recycling guide for our 13-county area is available on their website and the Bellaire Recycling Committee also has .a list of places to recycle.

Last Sunday afternoon, there was not much traffic on the Houston Ship Channel. A few huge ships were moored and one was being guided up the channel. Mothers For Clean Air organized this trip so that passengers could get a close-up look at chemical plants, but floating trash and sea gulls also competed for my attention.

As the boat left the turning basin, sea gulls followed its wake, swooping down to catch fish that were too small for us to see from the boat. Occasionally, other birds could be seen perched on pilings or chunks of rock. Some small black ducks floated by. My birding skills are very limited, but I saw one bird that I think was a brown pelican and several that might be herons. I saw at least six different kinds of bird — a surprise. My expectation has always been that the Ship Channel is a barren place that doesn’t support wildlife.

Something green trying was trying to grow everywhere along the channel bank that wasn’t concreted over. Brady’s Landing Restaurant and some of the industrial facilities had lawns, but sunflowers and trees were sprouting whenever there was a bit of dirt.

Looking down at the water, the most visible feature was trash. Plastic water bottles and bits of Styrofoam dominated. Recent rains had washed discarded cigarette butts, soda cans, plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, and litter from Houston streets through storm drains into the water of the channel. Unless cleaned up or caught on the banks, the trash will end up in Galveston Bay and move on out into the open sea.

A bright pink skimmer boat called the Mighty Tidy works five days a week to skim trash from parts of Buffalo Bayou and the Ship Channel. It was put into operation in 2003. The Mighty Tidy is managed by the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and is a project of the Harris County Flood Control District, Harris County, and The Port of Houston. Cleaning up the trash gives the area a better appearance but it also removes a source of pollution and lets flood waters flow more easily. Objects carried by floodwaters can damage the bayou’s banks.

Plastic is a serious problem in the world’s oceans. Last week, Greenpeace reported that there is a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The area, which can grow to the size of Texas, is not far from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The Greenpeace report, “Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans” said at least 267 species — including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish — are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.

The boat’s announcer didn’t mention the trash, and one boy (not from the Mothers for Clean Air group) tossed his pink soft drink can over the side.

The trip took us from the Turning Basin to the Washburn Tunnel. There was some activity at some of the chemical plants, and a pervasive smell of sulphur in the air near the end of the route.

The Port of Houston offers free Ship Channel tours on the Sam Houston several times a day with advance reservations.