·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story in the Charlotte News & Observer.

Gov. Mike Easley asked the N.C. Building Code Council on Tuesday to help make North Carolina one of the most energy-efficient states in the country by requiring better construction techniques.

Easley sent his top policy adviser to tell the council to design an energy code — part of the state’s building code — that would require buildings to be 30 percent more energy efficient than those built to national standards.

Read the full post at Triple Pundit.

Pizza. From its humble beginnings in Italy, it has become a food enjoyed across the globe. And though the size, shape, and flavor may vary widely, one thing does not. The box. A sturdy utilitarian container, it does a good job keeping the pizza warm, safe, and easy to carry. Billions are used each year. And they’re slacking on the job.

Depending on the pizza, having a plate to set it on is a necessity. want to store what you don’t eat? Good luck, that bulky box often requires you to muscle other things out of the way to make room. What if the box could double as a plate? And triple as a compact post meal storage container? It can, using the same ol’ box, remixed. It’s called the Green Box.

Treehugger has an interesting post about Henry Ford’s experiments with bioplastics in the 1930s.

Read the full story at ENN.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are continuing their march toward creating a synthetic, gecko-like adhesive, one sticky step at a time. Their latest milestone is the first adhesive that cleans itself after each use without the need for water or chemicals, much like the remarkable hairs found on the gecko lizard’s toes.

Read the full post at Treehugger.

Just in advance of London Fashion Week next week Worn Again have launched their second collection of bags made from recycled materials. In the past we have been amazed at the variety of materials the Worn Again team have managed to reuse in their designs, from coffee sacks to fireman’s trousers and now airline seat covers! Yes, for the first time Worn Again have teamed up with a huge corporate brand to source reusable fabric. And we like it!

Read the full post at Treehugger.

A new series of stamps from the Royal Mail has been issued to commemorate ten endangered species in Britain. The almost-gone insects range from the stag beetle to the Adonis blue butterfly. They include the red-barbed ant and the hazel pot beetle. Then there is the noble chafer, the southern damselfly, the barberry carpet moth and the purbeck mason wasp. All of them vulnerable or endangered. They are part of the “Action for Species” series which highlights endangered species and were photographed from specimens in the collection of the Natural History Museum in London. It has a comprehensive collection of 28 million specimens.

Read the full story from WKZO.

Recent reports of a new invasive species in Lake Michigan have scientists trying to determine just how much damage might be done. Rochelle Sturtevant with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor says New Zealand mud snails aren’t new to the Great Lakes, but they are to Lake Michigan.

Read the full story at Westlifenews.com.

Businesses do not have to sacrifice profitability in order to have a social and environmental conscience.

That is the message that Rocky River brothers Dan and Pat Conway, owners of Great Lakes Brewing Company, want to get across to corporate America.

The Conways do business according to what they call the Triple Bottom Line, striving “to engage in economic, social and environmental practices that achieve a sustainable, yet profitable business.” Current brewery projects include the exploration of alternative fuels, recycling, vermicomposting and organic gardening and energy efficiency.

Read the full story at Digitaljournal.com.

Ecojustice has released an innovative green solutions report that could stop billions of litres of raw sewage from fouling the Great Lakes each year.

The report, Green Cities, Great Lakes: The Green Infrastructure Report, reveals that at least 89 Ontario municipalities have combined sewer systems, which is antiquated infrastructure that carries sewage and storm water runoff in a single pipe, frequently causing overflows of untreated sewage into local waterways during wet weather.

The report includes practical examples of green infrastructure techniques used in various cities, including Toronto, St. Catharines and London, Ontario, to reduce the frequency and severity of water contamination from combined systems.

Read the full story from Reuters.

Fashion trends come and go, but “green” is here to stay, say designers and sponsors at New York’s fashion shows this week.

Scores of lines boasting biodegradable fabrics, recycled thread or organic materials are sashaying down the catwalks and, if sales of the often more-costly clothing meet expectations, designers and labels will have profitable new revenue streams.

Read the full post at Sustainable IT.

Why settle for free cooling thanks to air-side economization when you can get free power and cooling from the sea — not to mention a nice tax break? That appears to the logic behind Google’s patented “water-based datacenter” design.

As reported this week by Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge, Google filed a patent back in 2007 for a floating datacenter that “would be located 3 to 7 miles from shore, in 50 to 70 meters of water,” Miller writes. “If perfected, this approach could be used to build 40MW datacenters that don’t require real estate or property taxes.”

Read the full story in the Nashua Telegraph.

Tossing out everything from plastic bandages and cotton swabs to hospital robes after a single use, the U.S. medical industry generates more than 2 million tons of waste per year, environmental advocates say. Some of that waste makes its way to incinerators and, when burned, releases dioxin, mercury and other toxins.

Is it ironic that the industry we trust to protect our health is releasing substances that may be tied to cancer, diabetes and other illnesses? Many health-care professionals think so.

Read the full story in Sustainable Industries Journal.

Education is power. That’s what two Oregon nonprofits are teaming up to prove.

Portland-based Earth Advantage, a green building advisory and certification group, together with The Energy Trust of Oregon, a Portland-based organization promoting energy efficiency, in July 2008 launched a scoring system intended to give Oregon homeowners, builders, real estate agents and mortgage lenders a way to gauge a home’s energy use and emissions.

Read the full story at Cleantech.com.

Researchers from Arizona State University and University of Virginia, in separate projects, pioneer new commercial scale algae opportunities.

Read the full story in Sustainable Industries Journal.

The amount of electronic waste or “e-waste” in the United States is growing at an alarming rate, and states such as Oregon and Washington want electronics manufacturers to shoulder the cost of implementing responsible “e-waste” recycling programs.