Check it out: Methane Digesters

So, I’m writing for EHow.com now, and this is one of the better ones I’ve written lately. Pretty cool stuff.

Cow power!

The Process

Strictly speaking, the animals on a farm are the methane generators, since it is the breakdown of their waste that produces this gas used to generate electricity. Well-established farm technologies, combined with a groundswell of interest in innovative energy sources, have led to the development of several systems that can harness the passive power of escaping gases.

Anaerobic decomposition, or bacteria breaking down materials in the absence of oxygen, generates volumes of methane. Historically, these and other waste gases have been allowed to merely evaporate into the atmosphere. But by collecting animal waste into covered lagoons and gathering the resulting gas, the waste can fuel a heat-powered electric generator. Excess energy not used for farming purposes can be sold to the local electric utility company and distributed out to the electric grid.

One Lancaster, Pa. farm, which recently completed a methane collection system, houses 1,400 head of dairy cattle and 250,000 broiler chickens. By converting collected gases, the farm produces 4 to 5 megawatts of electricity every day, most of which is sold back to the grid. This amount of electricity can power up to 200 homes per day.

How it Works

Barns are outfitted with flush tanks, which collect animal waste, which is then flushed to collecting tanks in a buried or covered pit, known as a lagoon. The lagoon complex usually includes one or more overflow pits per lagoon; this helps keep lagoon volumes and rates of gas production consistent. Waste breaks down best at temperatures between 40 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit, so concrete-lined pits in colder areas may be equipped with insulation and heaters to keep the temperature consistent throughout the year.

Bacteria present in the animal waste begins to break down the solids, releasing carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen sulfide, known collectively as biogas. An alternate design, called a plug-flow system, has concrete tanks with an agitator, which prevents solids from crusting and evenly distributes solids for uniform decomposition.

Waste gases are collected through an outlet tube at the top of the tank and are then fed into a generator system. Most engines generate power by burning the methane via internal combustion, which produces electricity. Since the hydrogen sulfide gas byproduct is corrosive to combustion engines, it is removed either through microbial pit filters or scrubbers in the generating plant.

Once biogases are removed, the remaining solids either continue to accumulate for later removal or are piped out and dried for use as fertilizer. Many of the leftover solids consist of nitrogen, phosphorous, copper and zinc, and with minimal treatment may be spread over cropland as a fertilizer.

Costs

Costs for installing a biogas collection and combustion system can be prohibitively high for small farms, which take much longer to recoup the costs than a larger farm. The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, which operates on a grant by the US Department of Agriculture, estimates that a 150-head pig farm might build an anaerobic methane generator system for $25,000, though a 5,000-head dairy farm system could cost upward of $1.3 million. Depending on the amount of electricity generated and sell-back rates, these systems can take three to seven years or more to realize a profit.

The US Environmental Protection Agency, in conjunction with other federal and state agencies, provides grants and other financial assistance for farmers interested in building a methane collection and electricity generation system.

Concerns

Methane and hydrogen sulfide are also poisonous gases, and in sufficient quantities can kill a human by asphyxiation in only seconds. Should the gas collection system somehow rupture, these gases are more or less safe as long as they disperse into the air. However, if a system failure requires maintenance in a closed, confined space, workers must observe proper safety measures, including use of a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).

Reference Links:

• North Carolina State University: Biogas Anaerobic Digester Considerations
• EPA Methane Recovery Workshop Summary
• Oregon.gov: Biomass Energy

Additional Resources:

• US Senate Agriculture Committee: Testimony of Luke Brubaker
• Anaerobic Digestion of Animal Wastes: Factors to Consider
• Cornell University: Hydrogen Sulfide Safety Fact Sheet

Article URL:

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5839767_methane-generators-used-farms-work.html

Turn Off the Faucet. It’s Not Cheap, It’s “Green.”

When I was a kid growing up, my dad was a conservation cop.

He’d incessantly lecture us to turn off the faucet when we were brushing our teeth. We were only to use running water to rinse dirty dishes after soaping them, rather than leave the tap on. He’d constantly berate us to turn off the lights whenever we left a room, and my mother’s cold bones got no comfort from his habit of turning down the thermostat even in the winter (in Germany!).

But as far as I can tell, my dad wasn’t concerned about the environmental costs of running water or burning lightbulbs — he was concerned about the pennies that added up to become extra dollars owed for each month’s utility bills.

It’s funny, though, because now when I go to visit my parents, my dad isn’t much different. He still unscrews lightbulbs in the bathroom vanity (there are four, and usually two are unscrewed — even though they are the power-saving variety). He still opens the doors in the early morning to let cool air into the house to delay turning on the air conditioning, and still asks me to turn off the water a lot. Thankfully now that I’m grown up, he no longer sticks his head into the bathroom while I’m in the shower to growl at me to “keep it short.”

He’s still frugal, but now he has an additional defense. As he turns off the kitchen faucet in the middle of dishes, he’ll chirp, “It’s eco-friendly to save water!” My dad, an unwitting environmental pioneer before his time.

There are innumerable articles and analyses of the “green fad” — how buying Product X “using more post-consumer materials” reduces your personal carbon footprint, or my recent personal favorite, Ziploc brand’s new line of resealable baggies with “25 percent less plastic made with 100% wind power!” Now you can have guilt-free resealable glee.

I think it’s great that grocery stores are pushing the whole reusable tote thing. But I’m with my dad on this one: if they were really so concerned about the environment, they’d be giving them away rather than trying to stick you for a buck to buy one. I have no sympathy for high-end retailers who are being “forced” to drop prices to lure newly destitute shoppers to buy their wares:

Starbucks dropped the price of a medium iced coffee last week to just under $2. American Eagle cut out the ribbon from the inside waistband of its khakis and lowered the cost. Pottery Barn launched a new “Comfort Collection” sofa that starts at $999.99, which is $300 less than the “Basic Collection” sofa. Even Rock & Republic, whose trendy denim has graced the backsides of celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, recently unveiled a line of recessionista jeans selling for $128, a 29 percent reduction. (Washington Post, May 12, 2009)

I’m sure there exists a detailed, convoluted doctoral thesis on how America evolved from the penny-pinching Recession-era survival habits of our grandsires into a culture of shopping-therapy addicts. But it’s ironic that the ongoing fiscal crisis is forcing many to dramatically change their habits, engendering new behaviors that mesh rather conveniently with the talking points of the environmental movement.

One “green tips” website suggests cutting out meat on weekdays, limiting carnivorous activity to weekend cookouts. The argument is that it will not only save you money, but mollify your carbon-guilty soul.

Consider also the broader effect.

• If more of us ate less meat, the big cattle and hog feedlots would inevitably feel the pinch.
• Some would close, or reorganize into smaller units for quality rather than quantity.
• Since we’d be eating more plant matter, more money will go towards farms and agriculture…
• …requiring a concerted, concentrated effort support local, sustainable farms, thereby limiting exposure to huge commercial agriculture–which has its own set of problems that are separate, but equal, to those of the commercial meat industry.

We absolutely do vote with our dollars.

It’s a stubborn problem because it requires pervasive, permanent changes in behavior. As a culture, we’d much rather buy our way out — patronizing products with claims of environmentally friendly manufacturing, or cars with batteries, or cleaning chemicals that are “all natural.”

A paper published in 2004 by Dr. Phillip Payne for the Australian Association for Research in Education studied 42 families in the Melbourne, Australia area to determine how they constructed their environmental commitments and behaviors. One key finding: many families’ attitudes towards frugal, anti-consumerist lifestyle choices — which tend to align with “environmental” tenets — are shaped by early and frequent international travel, exposure to different cultures, experiencing tolerance for differences, home farming, and generous opportunities for outdoor discovery as children. Families who also tended to make lifestyle choices that limit overall income reported that these choices increased happiness and contentment.

So is frugality the essence of a lasting environmental movement? By keeping your dollar in your pocket and making do with what you’ve got until it’s gone — is it these things, not buying the latest “green” item, are what will make the long-term difference? Thriftiness doesn’t have to mean you’re poor anymore — it increasingly means you’re green, if the title is what matters to you.

As the Depression-era adage goes: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

Purple Prisms vs. Emerald Ash Borer

After another long kid-related hiatus, I finally have some time to write, and I have luckily also come across a subject that piqued my interest after a simple walk in the neighborhood.

The color purple was chosen for its wavelength--adult emerald ash borers (and other kinds of insects) are attracted to the color, and the smell of a bait oil the traps are doused with.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a strange, three-sided purple whatsit hanging in a tree. I was mystified, but my best guess was that it was some local artist’s public display, since it makes sense for the kind of neighborhood I live in. Two weeks later, I saw two more of them hanging in a park well removed from my artsy locale, so I finally gathered my wits to figure it out.

Turns out, those purple prisms are baited, glue-covered traps designed to attract the emerald ash borer, a beautiful jewel of an Asian beetle whose larvae have a knack for slowly and very effectively killing ash trees. The traps don’t bring the ash borer to the area — evidently, the beetles spread very slowly on their own — but the traps draw any adults present in an area so state forestry offices can try to pinpoint the “leading edges” of existing infestations.

I mentioned that the bug doesn’t really get far on its own. As far as the people in charge of tracking the insect can tell, the two main methods of spread are from people bringing firewood with them from home when they go on a camping trip, and affected nursery stock being shipped to places where the insect wasn’t before.

The emerald ash borer made its first public appearance in the United States in Michigan around 2002, having stowed away in wooden packing material from Asia roughly 10 years earlier. Despite a federal quarantine on shipping ash out of the state, the borer showed up in Fairfax County in 2003 after a Michigan tree nursery illegally sold infested ash saplings to a Prince George’s County nursery, which were then planted at a Fairfax elementary school. The county briefly got rid of the borer by chopping down several hundred trees in the affected areas, only to have it show up again in 2008, putting Virginia solidly in the “affected” category. Other states with EAB infestations and quarantines include  Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin, and parts of Canada. And on May 14, 2009, Minnesota discovered the insects for the first time in the St. Paul area.

Adult emerald ash borer.

The USDA’s Forest Service writes:

Ash occurs extensively in the natural and urban forests of the Eastern United States. In 2001, ash accounted for more than 149 million cubic feet of timber products nationwide. It is estimated that more than a billion ash trees are growing in the United States, and about 800 million of these occur in Michigan. As of 2005, at least 15 million ash trees have died from EAB in Michigan alone. This loss is especially noticeable in urban areas where ash, once considered a hardy shade tree, was used to replace American elm trees after their demise from Dutch elm disease.

According to Minnesota’s Natural Resources Division, the state “has one of the highest volumes of ash on forestland in the U.S. with an estimated 867 million forestland ash trees,” and is also used frequently as an urban street tree for its beauty and hardiness. Separately, a 2007 paper studying the economic impacts of a 100 percent loss of Ohio’s ash cohort (over 4 million trees) estimated that to cut and replace dead and dying trees would cost the state and its citizens between $1.8 and $7.6 billion –that’s just one state, and just one type of pest.

There are some efforts underway to figure out what to do with all the dead wood — as there will surely be. Benches, baby furniture and baseball bats are a few of the things I came across.

Wondering if you have any ash trees that might be affected? The main sign is defoliation at the edges of the tree, along with the presence of “D” shaped exit holes where the larvae-turned-adult borers dig their way out from beneath the bark.

Tip defoliation of young ash trees, and vigorous suckering at the lower levels of the plant.

Adults leave a telltale D-shaped exit hole.

Or wondering what an ash tree even looks like? Maryland’s Department of Agriculture has a useful identification site.

So today’s moral is:

Actual billboard in Iowa.

Virginia Gets Progressive with Renewable Energy. Folks Still Aren’t Satisfied.

Several of the Mars Hill Mountain wind turbines in Maine.

Imagine my surprise today, after seeing nary a published word regarding anything Virginia has done for the environment lately, when I stumbled across something that has passed Virginia’s General Assembly and only awaits Governor Tim Kaine’s signature to make it law: easier permitting for renewable energy power generators.

Mainly, this means wind farms, though the law provides the same guarantees for a more lenient permitting process for sources that include “sunlight, wind, falling water, wave motion, tides, or geothermal power,” and, on a smaller scale, electricity generated by biomass or municipal solid waste.

Opponents, though, say the law is only designed to provide a tax shelter for big electrical interests, and worry besides that it will allow for mammoth (read: unsightly) turbine farms on the mountaintops of western Virginia — since the law is aimed at encouraging creation of wind farms with a capacity of up to 100 megawatts, considered by legislators to be “small-scale renewable.” Biomass power plants would be restricted to a 20-megawatt production capacity. The main voice of opposition to the bill, University of Virginia scientist Rick Webb, also cites concerns about the environmental impact on wildlife by the turbines themselves.

A Jan. 30, 2009 story in the Augusta Free Press quotes a number of researchers and cautionaries who say the legislation is poorly designed and will have a whole host of unintended consequences. They stress consideration of one item in particular: that a facility with a 100-megawatt capacity can in no way be defined as “small-scale.”

A newsletter article by UtiliPoint, Inc., an energy industry consulting and research firm, spends some time exploring what, exactly, a megawatt is, and uses a wind farm’s potential capacity as an example:

A megawatt (MW) is one million watts and a kilowatt (kW) is one thousand watts. Both terms are commonly used in the power business when describing generation or load consumption. For instance, a 100 MW rated wind farm is capable of producing 100 MW during peak winds, but will produce much less than its rated amount when winds are light. As a result of these varying wind speeds, over the course of a year a wind farm may only average 30 MW of power production.

Okay, that’s nice. But how much acreage does a 100-megawatt wind farm occupy?

In Bangor, Maine, the First Wind company just celebrated the opening of their second large-scale wind farm, a 57-megawatt, 38-turbine farm along the Stetson Mountain ridgeline. The first project, comprising 28 turbines with a production capacity of 42 megawatts, opened several years ago on Mars Hill Mountain, so the two projects total about 100 megawatts.  While I couldn’t find even an estimate of the acreage required to build a 100-megawatt wind farm, an analysis of European wind farms by the World Resources Institute estimates that adequate spacing would demand anywhere from 270 to 810 hectares, or 650 to 2,000 acres.

(Another reason I love Google: to get an idea of a how big a 2,000 acre city is, I typed in “2,000 acres city” and came up with this story:  “TradeWind Energy Leases 2,000 Acres for Wind Farm,” Kansas City Business Journal, Sept. 15, 2008.) You could fit 2.5 of New York’s Central Park into 2,000 acres, for instance.

In Maine, they’ve situated the farms along mountain ridges that were previously cleared by logging activity, and are in close proximity to existing powerline transmission systems.

This could also be accomplished in Virginia; maybe even West Virginia could get in on the game by siting wind farms on mountains and ridges have already been cleared by strip mining or logging. I doubt that wind farms will just start sprouting in everyone’s back yards in the mountains — besides, the Virginia bill provides for hefty fines (from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars) for violations of permitting as well as environmental impacts, and still mandates a a public comment period before any permit is issued for a turbine farm.

Full text of the Virginia renewables bill is here (S.B. 1347) , for you legal eagles and masochists out there.

Will Proposed Septic Tank Law Finally Put Some Teeth in Chesapeake Protection? (Updated Again)

A satellite view of the Chesapeake Bay estuary and tributaries.

Late Update: Maryland’s General Assembly passed the bill discussed in this post on April 13.

While I’m usually really annoyed by NBC Washington News Channel 4′s website coverage of, oh, generally everything (horrible typos, bad headlines, Wonkette blog posts masquerading as news), a little story posted yesterday caught my eye and made me wonder if a friend of mine had already heard of this legislation under debate:

Yesterday’s headline blared “Eco Friendly Poop Next For Chesapeake Bay?”  It’s a smug little headline for such a simple and critical issue — overly heavy nutrient loads in Chesapeake waters. However, the story concisely outlined the potential impacts of a bill that would begin the process of overhauling septic systems in close proximity to the Chesapeake’s waters (within 1,000 feet of the Bay or its tributaries.) As far as I can tell from looking at the online status of the bill, the Senate is on board.

Here’s what my friend had to say in response to my most recent post on Asian oysters:

I still think our local babies could make it. It would take a serious commitment. We’d have to pick a few large swaths of the Bay or nearby coastal estuaries. Any compromise on the location could doom the project. Make them absolutely off limits to development, wake, jet skis, anchoring, oystering, dragging, dredging. In other words, give them a real sanctuary, and two backups in case the first one is compromised.

Then put serious thought and money into overhauling sewage systems. Replant marshes and riparian buffers in those areas. Provide incentives for reforestation, permaculture, and no-till, low fertilizer methods. Examine the economics that make animal protein cheaper than vegetable protein even though production costs and environmental harm are greater.

While it doesn’t look like oysters are getting a Do Not Disturb sign yet, if the septic effort passes the House side by the time the Assembly adjourns on April 13, it’s one real and effective piece of action that would begin to alter what gets into the Bay.

If passed, the new law would require all new septic systems within the “Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Critical Area” to be equipped with modern nitrogen-removal technology — basically, all properties within 1,000 feet of Bay and tributary waters. A property owner repairing or replacing an existing septic system would also be required to install nitrogen-capture systems as part of the upgrade. Currently, doing this is voluntary — no law exists that would compel property owners to install nitrogen-filtering upgrades to onsite sewage systems.

A property owner found in violation could face a maximum fine of $8,000 — but the bill provides for state-based assistance to pay for any upgrades, out of the Department of Environment’s Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund, as long as adequate funds exist.  The new law would go into effect on October 1, 2009.

The Fund’s annual report, posted in January, has a wealth of information on the status of Bay initiatives, and relevant to this topic, the report notes that as of Sept. 2008, $21.6 million was available in the septic system upgrade fund.

For an idea of how much it might cost a homeowner to install current nitrogen-filtering technology, a Google search revealed a technology called Nitrex, offered by the Massachusetts-based wastewater engineering firm Lombardi Associates. They claim their method removes roughly 97% of nitrates from household and industrial septic field wastes. And the cost?

For a typical residential septic system installation (3-4 bedroom home) the NITREX filter will cost approximately $4,200 – $5,000 (plus shipping and local installation costs). The pretreatment system materials costs are typically $8,000 – $12,000. With installation usually $4,000 – $6,000, a complete NITREX system cost would be $16,000 – $22,000.

So, while that’s a pretty steep cost, consider the impact of a 97% reduction in nitrogen runoff into bay waters. Alternately, consider the price if nitrogen runoff were not reduced by those volumes–especially since the Bay Restoration Fund estimates that there will be approximately 18 million people living within the Chesapeake watershed by 2020.

Additional info dredged up today (March 29): Virginia evidently just passed a bill during its 2009 session that makes grants directly available to homeowners and individuals to upgrade their home septic systems through the Virginia Natural Resources Commitment Fund. Previously, grants had only been available to

local governments, soil and water conservation districts, institutions of higher education and individuals who propose specific initiatives that are clearly demonstrated as likely to achieve reductions in nonpoint source pollution; (full bill text)

So, while this is good — it doesn’t go nearly as far as Maryland’s mandate.

Update: Chesapeake Bay Asian Oyster Trials Abandoned

Oyster fishermen on a Chesapeake Bay skipjack emptying their haul onto the deck.

Even before Virginia made a decision on the matter of introducing Asian oysters into the Chesapeake Bay, the folks over at the Virginia Seafood Council (VSC), the industry group that was running the trials, jumped the gun and decided to withdraw from the project.

On March 25, the Newport News Daily Press reported on a meeting of the Virginia Marine Resources Council (VMRC), at which the Virginia Seafood Council’s executive director, Frances W. Porter, appeared to withdraw the group’s application to introduce the non-native species to the bay. VSC had been looking at the possibility of farming Asian oysters to help boost state’s oyster industry, which has been sagging of late due to declining numbers of native Virginia oysters from overharvesting and chronic disease.

The VMRC had no comment, according to the Daily Press’s account of the meeting, nor does the VSC have any mention of the project on its website. The Virginia Seafood Council does, however, tout its efforts as supporting local seafood that is “Wild, Sustainable, and Available,” as any good lobby group should.

Maryland opposed the project outright; evidently the Army Corps of Engineers hasn’t made its final determination yet, but the Daily Press story hinted that VSC’s Porter had an inside tip that the Corps was going to recommend against introducing the Asian oysters, effectively dooming the effort.

A Mar. 20 story in the Salisbury (Md.) Daily Times reported that other Northeastern states have contacted the Corps to oppose the project:

Delaware, New Jersey and New York sent a letter recently to the corps opposing the introduction. The states said that even if batches of sterile oysters are introduced, they may inadvertently contain fertile oysters which could create a breeding population that could outcompete the native oysters in the Chesapeake. If that happens, even stringent bio-security measures may not be able to stop its spread, which Delaware said could threaten its restoration efforts in the Delaware Bay.

A final note, that has little to do with this specific issue but is an interesting factoid in its own right: The Virginia Seafood Council reports that the state is the 4th largest “producer of marine products” in the United States (estimated value: $500 million annually), and the VSC has a $250,000 annual budget for marketing the state’s seafood industry.

The county’s top seafood producer, as anyone might guess, is Alaska. Note the value of the salmon harvest, on its own:

Over 4.46 billion pounds of seafood was harvested from Alaskan waters in 2000, comprising approximately 48% the entire U.S. seafood harvest. In the same year, Alaska salmon harvester earnings reached $272 million, comprising 91% of the value of all salmon harvested in U.S. waters. (Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development)

If you guessed that Alaska’s seafood marketing budget would be correspondingly large, you win a cookie. Alaska’s seafood industry council (also promoting itself as “Wild, Natural and Sustainable” — I smell a conspiracy!) has a budget 100 times that of Virginia’s: $25 million annually.

How can little Virginia oysters compete with money like that?

Bans on Plastic Bags Left Hanging.

To the handful of loyal readers (thanks, family and friends!) I apologize for the delay in posting anything new, but life has, as usual, gotten in the way, and I’ve been forced to reprioritize for a while to figure out how to handle everything that comes up in a typical day with a growing baby.I’ve been meaning to write a quick note on something interesting which has already been shot down in Virginia: a ban on plastic bags.

They’re ubiquitous: the ones you get in spades when you go to the grocery store to pick up bagels and cheese (one bag for each item, probably!) On top of being very handy to line bathroom trash cans and take your lunch to work, they’re also found in prominent public places: as flapping, tattered flags in the tops of trees, wound up among logjams of river debris, lodged in the bellies of sea turtles which have mistaken them for a jellyfish dinner, etc.  In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that somewhere between 500 million and 1 trillion bags are used worldwide each year.

Virginia’s General Assembly introduced a bill that would ban the bags, for reasons ranging from the bags being general environmental nuisances to acquiescing to cotton farmers’ complaints that the bags mucked up the cotton bales. But the plastics lobby had their way with things in Richmond, and legislators killed the bill. Critics have also said that paper bags, the dominant alternative to plastic grocery bags, are a far more serious environmental concern and are more expensive to produce, besides. In a quick scan of reports by various media outlets, there hasn’t been too much mention of the growing popularity of reusable bags–themselves frequently made from recycled plastic. Plus, in other states where bills have been introduced to ban or tax the use of plastic bags by large retailers, legislators cite economic woes as a reason why consumers just won’t put up with a 5 cent fee for each bag they use at the store. C’est la vie, right?

Not so fast. A number of other places have managed to ban bags altogether. And we’re not just talking San Fransisco, but some bureaucratic behemoths: The BBC reported that at the beginning of 2008, China outlawed the bags, encouraging its citizens to return to more traditional methods of hauling groceries, like baskets and cloth bags. Bangladesh has also banned plastic bags, after studies showed that drainage passageways blocked by the bags were the “main culprits” in severe countrywide flooding in 1988 and 1998.

Another way of discouraging the use of plastic bags is a tax or fee on bags, and one of the longest-running success stories is in Ireland. The 15 cent tax per bag enacted in 2002 has reduced bag use by 90 percent, according to a BBC report. In the first year, the country raised €3.5 million.

For its part, New York state has enacted a law requiring big retailers to recycle their bags, and violators face a fine — a pretty paltry one, at that, slapping big retailers first with a warning, then a $100 fine, then up to a $500 fine for “knowingly and intentionally” violating the law. I’m sure Wal-Mart is shaking in its shoes at the prospect of parting with that kind of money.

Maryland is in on the game, too: Montgomery County state delegate Alfred Carr, Jr. introduced a 5 cent-per-bag tax on every bag–paper and plastic (excepting the tiny plastic ones)–given out by businesses across the state. No word yet on whether it will pass; the state’s General Assembly doesn’t adjourn for another month.

The prospects aren’t looking too good, as jurisdictions are just trying to survive the current recession.

And as a final note, news outlets across the globe have started sounding death knells for the recycling industry: recycled cardboard waste has gone from a high of $135 a ton last September to $35 a ton today. Plastic, which used to fetch 25 cents per pound, now only gets 2 cents a pound. Some municipalities’ recycling programs have even started to restrict the kinds of recyclables they’ll accept: some only take paper, some only plastic. Fox News put together a comprehensive little piece on how this bottoming out is affecting cities and towns across the country.