News from the Zero Waste Network

A local woman is joining a grassroots movement to help clean up the Gulf Coast oil spill. She's doing it with the hair from her dogs and cats.

Michelle Gloss of South Bend will shave her pets and ship the hair south to be used in booms that will soak up the oil. She heard about the movement from a friend over the weekend.

In the very near future, coal and fossil fuel-sourced electricity will be gone with the wind for Southwestern University in Georgetown.

The college, which is the state's oldest higher education institution, signed an agreement Tuesday to purchase all of its power from 151 West Texas wind turbines. The City of Georgetown will purchase the wind through American Electric Power subsidiary AEP Energy Partners and sell power to the university for at least 18 years.

The school needs the equivalent of about 450 homes worth in energy. Georgetown Assistant City Manager Jim Briggs said pricing is comparable to the traditional electricity grid and is locked in for the life of the 18 year contract.

Tossing food scraps in your garbage can is a crime - at least in San Francisco. A brand-new city law requires residents to discard food waste in a separate bin.

It's the first program of its kind in the nation, and so far, it's a mandate San Franciscans seem to relish. In fact, many residents and landlords began implementing the law before it took effect, using their city-provided food recycling bins to separate waste.

"Composting your food scraps is probably the single most effective thing you can do as a citizen in the United States today." - Jared Blumenfeld, city environmental officer for San Francisco