Green

Mark Searcy Precision Castparts is the aerospace and weapons manufacturer nestled along the river between Milwaukie and SE Portland. Two years ago, they got a D- minus environmental rating from one research institute. Currently, they fall near the top in a ranking of the nation’s 100 most toxic companies. Those are what’re called warning signs, […]

For this week’s print edition, I jumped into the surprisingly complicated world of bottle and can collection. The House passed an expansion of the landmark Bottle Bill last week and the economics of those nickel bottle deposits are actually pretty interesting. I wrote up this little by-the-numbers sidebar for the story, but a quick explanation […]

The new designs released last week for the Oregon Sustainability Center show that the building is no longer slated to be a sexy cylinder with a giant leaf-shaped solar panel on top (subtle, guys), downsizing to a more traditional, boxier shape that also hacked $11 million off the project cost. The Sustainability Center and its […]

Attention drunks! Here is a piece of politics that actually affects your life: Oregon was the first state to pass a law creating a deposit on bottles and cans which is then returned to consumers who recycle. Forty years later, the Bottle Bill has led to much improved recycling rates and, of course, the familiar […]

Last week I was swearing at Del Monte for selling plastic-wrapped bananas and thereby turning the fruits into ocean trash. This week, QFC is takin’ it up a notch! I present: Individually plastic-wrapped potatoes: 100 percent less environmentally-friendly than those drab unplastic potatoes.

Have you seen this shit? Del Monte is now wrapping bananas in plastic. The plastic second-skin gives bananas a couple extra days before they rot and, conveniently, says a big “fuck you” to nature at the same time. This week I reviewed the documentary about plastic waste, Bag It, which was surprisingly good and creates […]

Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer is madder than if someone filched his bowties. He Twittered this morning: Egads! It’s true. One of the first actual boots-on-the-ground things the new GOP majority has done is roll back the environmental measures introduced to the House cafeteria since 2007. So goodbye compostable utensils and trays, which some complained were […]

Cool news from Portland State: A minority of students and faculty now drive alone to campus. Look how students are getting to campus: According to the school, the rate of students and employees driving to school alone is now half of what it was 10 years ago. How’d they make the change? Investment, investment, investment, […]