I'm a lasagna boy!

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, Part Two

San Francisco's Recycling program has broadened the variety of plastic containers it can process. The general recycling guidelines are part of the San Francisco Environment web site. I recently started using corn-based self-composting garbage bags, and part of their appeal is the exorbitant retail cost. It provokes me to reflect back down the supply chain: I think before throwing out anything, before composting items, and before recycling. Where did the item come from? How might I avoid throwing out similar items in the future? Might I reasonably reuse what I am about to discard? Might someone else? Where did this item come from, and how much packaging, fuel, and byproducts are associated with it?

... we are pleased to add plastic tubs and lids to the ever-increasing list of products we accept. Check beneath the tub or lid: if you see the numbers 2, 4 or 5 in what looks like a "recycle" symbol, then you can put it in your blue cart along with your other recyclables. These tubs and lids are the ones customarily used for yogurt, margarine, cottage cheese, sour cream, and other food products-just make sure you've eaten or composted any leftover food from the container.

The plastic tubs and lids go to a local manufacturer that makes a durable garden edging product called Bend-A-Board. Plastic items collected in San Francisco also get made into auto parts, carpeting, clothing, and of course into new plastic bottles. It's good to buy products made from recycled content because it allows us maintain a market for the recyclables we collect; it's not so good to use products that are not recyclable or compostable.

San Francisco: a clean city.

In which the grass is greener

Pittsburgh shows its progressive attitude: "We need to make transit equal with highways." quoth Mayor Tom Murphy.

The project will extend the light rail system from Steel Plaza to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and, through twin tunnels under the Allegheny River to the North Shore.

As part of the full-funding agreement, the agency must demonstrate its ability to operate and maintain the light-rail system for the next 30 years to get capital improvement funds -- not an easy task when the governor has been forced to transfer millions of dollars in highway money to forestall record fare increases and service cuts.

And meanwhile, The Chronicle's John King props up London (again):

Livingstone's speech here Friday concerned his 2003 imposition of a charge any time a car enters an eight-mile-square chunk of central London. As a result, 50,000 fewer cars now enter the city on a typical weekday. Many commuters instead ride the 3,000 new buses that make mass transit more enticing.

But this unabashed socialist also has used his office to help clusters of towers sprout in central London -- including a slender glass pyramid that will rise 1,000 feet smack next to London Bridge. That way you keep the financial service firms close by (the better to tax them with). You put a dent in London's estimated demand for 30,000 new housing units a year. You even cut down on traffic -- people can walk to work.

I have Sind.

Puns get in my sind:

peccavi (pe-KAH-vee) noun

An admission of guilt or sin.

[From Latin peccavi (I have sinned), from peccare (to err).]

The story goes that in 1843, after annexing the Indian province of Sind,
British General Sir Charles Napier sent home a one word telegram, "Peccavi"
implying "I have Sind." Although apocryphal, it's still a great story.