Spontaneous Rebellion Against Starbucks

A Canadian blogger was taking some pictures of a Starbucks and an employee ran out and told her that she can’t take pictures of Starbucks! An argument ensued.

A large group of tourists overheard this exchange and decided to rebel against Starbucks by taking a whole lot of photos!

Kate writes:

“However, the large tour group standing outside had heard all this and started collectively grumbling “you can’t take a picture of a starbucks? it’s public property!” and they all whipped out their cameras and started snapping shots, while the manager looked at us from inside the store, quite clearly in a huff.”

A fun story!

Biogas in Nepal

The World Bank is promoting a program in Nepal that endorses the use of biogas in villages. It’s all about improving the lives of the poor by providing cheaper fuel while helping the environment through lowered emissions.

“The project promotes the use of biogas as a commercially viable industry in Nepal by expanding its use for cooking and lighting in rural households. The biogas units will be sold at a non-commercial price to poor households and displace fuel sources traditionally used for cooking—fuel wood, kerosene and agricultural waste—with gas from the treatment of animal and human waste. Each household biogas unit can reduce almost five tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually.”

Gross Bio-diesel

Some Kiwis have found a way to turn sewage into bio-diesel. I wonder how it smells.

“Marlborough-based Aquaflow Bionomic yesterday announced it had produced its first sample of bio-diesel fuel from algae in sewage ponds.

It is believed to be the world’s first commercial production of bio-diesel from “wild” algae outside the laboratory – and the company expects to be producing at the rate of at least one million litres of the fuel each year from Blenheim by April.”

Non-Plastic, Plastic Bags

Around the World nearly on trillion platic bags are produced each year. A vast majority of those bags end up in landfills. Now, more than ever, large companies are noticing how much of an impact they are having on the environment and working to change that. Mountain Equipment Co-Op is one great example. As a company that sells outdoor recreation products it seemed only natural to continue their eco-friendly trend as an organization. So MEC’s national sustainability manager has now helped the company make the switch to corn-based, compostable platic bags in their stores.

MEC alone goes through over half a million bags per year which is a lot especially when you consider that an average plastic bag can take up to 100 years to decompose. The new ones will begin to break down within 2 weeks in a landfill.