Department of Pesticide Regulation Director Mary-Ann Warmerdam provides video commentary released July 28 on pesticide container recycling. The piece highlights SB 1723 (Maldonando) which would require pesticide dealers to participate in an existing recycling program or develop their own. Pesticide dealers would pay for program costs while DPR would oversee it.

Pesticide containers made of rigid, nonrefillable, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) of 55 gallons or less would be fall under the specifications of SB1723. 

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Solar power, a native plant garden, recycled rice straw insulation, permeable granite pavement, and beams of recycled wood are just a few of the features that make an Orange County home "green." From Kelly Garrison of the Orange County Register:

Steps wind around a nautilus-shaped stairwell and down its sporadically angled walls. Each room of this house is coated in hues from cream to plum with nontoxic paint. It fully heats, cools and energizes itself with earth elements. Pipes rush hot water below the concrete floor, warming the surface and rooms above. Light reflects off of abalone shells fitted into rocks on the fireplace.

The kitty door – a paw-print-shaped hole in the kitchen wall – lets two cats meander outside at their leisure.

Christopher Prelitz and his wife, Becky, call this organic structure home.

"The solutions are easy and don't cost a lot," Becky says.

Their house was built into a funnel-shaped lot in Bluebird Canyon in Laguna Beach. A native and edible plant garden sits at the foundation of the three-story home.

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What You Can Do:

• Learn more about how waste reduction curbs greenhouse gas emissions.
• Green up your home with CAW's Living Green.
• Conserve up to 70% of energy used in your home with compact flourescent bulbs.

Debris is becoming a hot commodity in some areas as the U.S. power industry seeks to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels amid growing global-warming concerns.

With renewable energy taking off, wind and solar power are hogging the limelight, but biomass-fired electricity is quietly making a comeback after a decade-long slump. Biomass is animal and plant wastes used as a fuel source.

Technology in biomass fuel has opened new doors toward alternatives to greenhouse gas-producing waste sites. It is a priority for CAW, however, that new energy technologies do not induce further harm on the environment.

What You Can Do:

• Learn more about how greenhouse gas emissions are affected by our waste stream.
• Calculate your carbon footprint with CAW's Living Green.

The most-watched piece of state environmental legislation in the country, AB 32 (Núñez), continues to receive flak from fearful businesses.  In an optimistic opinion piece, Kent Stoddard, vice president of public affairs for Waste Management, sees jobs and an economic boost on the green horizon, emphasizing a resource rarely tapped elsewhere: waste.  From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

CALIFORNIA'S RECENT heat wave painfully demonstrated the potential impact of global warming and the urgent need for state leadership. During these last two weeks of the legislative session, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders will respond to this need as they hammer out the final details of the most important environmental bill of the decade. AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (authored by Speaker Fabian Núñez and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills) would require California industries to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent by the year 2020.

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What you can do:

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