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POPSHow Does San Francisco Keep 70% of Their Trash Out of Landfills?
“When we look at garbage, we don’t see garbage. We see food, paper, metal, glass.” The 70 % diversion rate includes recycling, composting and source reduction (meaning reusing things instead of throwing them out.) The city has 12 recycling streams, or programs, devoted to different materials, including regular garbage, construction debris, furniture and paint. For example, much of the concrete from demolished buildings is recycled in new sidewalks. Unwanted paint is blended it in 55-gallon drums: resulting in 3 colors — off-white, beige and green — are packed in 5 gallon tins and sent to local nonprofit organizations, schools or charitable institutions in Mexico. They can collect scrap paper to re-sell because of low levels of glass contamination. Garbage trucks can compress mixed loads of paper, cans and bottles without breaking the bottles. Compare 2006 diversion rates: Chicago 55%, New York City 30.6%, Milwaukee 24%, Boston 16% and Houston 2.5%.
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POPSCool Globes Public Art Exhibit: Hot Ideas For a Cooler Planet "Cool Globes" is public art with a purpose – to increase awareness about and motivate people to implement simple solutions in their day-to-day lives to help combat global warming. I am showing you the 2007 Globes from Chicago: To remind you that from April 17 to September 1, 2008, a selection of globes will once again be on display in Chicago, Washington, DC and San Francisco. Cool Globes debuted in Chicago on June 1, 2007 with over 100 sculpted globes. Cool Globes was launched in Chicago because of the City's leadership and dedication to promoting environmentally sound policies. For the 2007 globes, there was a charity auction of select large and mini-globes from the Cool Globes exhibit. The auction raised $500,000 to fund the expansion of environmental education programs.