The City's Giving Away Free Toilets

No shit (woops, bad pun): Seattle Public Utilities will replace your "water-guzzling" toilet with a free, hyper-efficient (1.6 gallons per flush versus the current 3.5 gallon average) model if you're willing to take the plunge (woops, another bad pun). Call 206-448-5751 for more info.

Topics: Environment

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Eric Scigliano Can Finally Sleep at Night

His decade-long campaign in the pages of the Weekly to get a year-round, oil-spill-prevention tugboat up at Neah Bay has finally borne fruit.

Topics: Environment

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How Green Art Thou Sofa?

The battle over who can out-green whom has moved into the arena of furniture. A saleswoman at Crate and Barrel tried to sell my husband and I on a tomato-red couch (seen above in a leather version) over the weekend by telling us that it was “green.”� Promotional materials boast of its “sustainable”� hardwood frame (whatever that means) and its “soy-or plant-based”� cushions (made of exactly what if not soy? roses? thistles?). Well, that’s great. But how “sustainable”� is the couch in terms of living up to family life? Our saleswoman knew a lot less about that.

Topics: Environment

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Big Win For Garbage Man

CleanScapes' Chris Martin 

The anti-garbage garbage company, CleanScapes, looks likely to win its first municipal garbage collection contract. Shoreline's Public Works department announced today that it is recommending that the scrappy, greener-than-thou trash hauling and street cleaning company handle the city's garbage collection starting March 1. The $5-million-per-year contract, subject to city council approval, would encompass garbage, recycling and yard waste collection for both residential and commercial sectors over a seven-year period. Up until now, Georgetown-based CleanScapes has collected garbage only for individual property owners and business districts—not an entire city. (Read last month's cover story about the company.)

In vying for the contract, CleanScapes went up against the two largest waste hauling companies in the country: Waste Management and Allied Waste. CleanScapes is competing with those very same behemoths in Seattle, where it hopes to win one of several garbage collection contracts with the city. (Seattle Public Utilities is due to announce its recommendation on October 23^rd .) In choosing CleanScapes, Shoreline said that the company's leadership "is not tied to the out-of-area corporate systems used by their two competitors" and that "they have given a lot of thought to changing the way solid waste collection occurs." It probably also didn't hurt that CleanScapes was the low bidder. "We bid aggressively to get into our first contract," says CleanScapes president Chris Martin, who declares himself "very, very pleased."

Topics: Environment

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What is this thing in my motel room?

In case you're wondering what that glowing, out-of-focus miasma is—don't worry, it's not a ghost. It's much, much worse.

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Topics: Environment

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Must See HDTV

These days, you can buy a big-ass flat panel HDTV for under a grand, but if you still need an excuse to drop the money, I give you Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth" series, airing Sundays at 8 p.m. It's been compared to Jacques Perrin's "Winged Migration," which is apt in terms of their cinematography, but the comparision doesn't do justice to "Planet Earth's" grandiosity and sheer visual awesomeness. I watched the first episode last night, and while it's not perfect (the narration is pedestrian; the film sacrifices depth in favor of breadth—we're talking the entire planet Earth, after all; and the directors are a little too quick to toot their own horns), I was transfixed for two straight hours (the infrequent commercials also helped). It would take me thousands upon thousands of words to try and describe some of the scenes, but just about every shot was amazing, and I was left with a sense of wonder, marvelling at the fact that I actually inhabit the same world depicted on television. Anyway, I can't imagine watching "Planet Earth" without high-def, but it doesn't mean you should skip it if you've got regular TV.

Topics: Environment and TV

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Shower With a Buddy

After a week on the fritz, I got the KEXP preset button on my crap '85 Volvo stereo to work on the way home from playing hoop tonight, and was subsequently greeted by Mayor Nickels' global warming PSA. In a script obviously authored by station promotional staff, the mayor encourages listeners to "take shorter showers," and ends his message with the line: "showering with a buddy helps, too." Quite obviously, "buddy" in this context is meant to cutesily refer to a romantic partner. But I must say, my mind jumped to a couple twenty-something hetero guys out of college taking the mayor's "shower with a buddy" message to heart. "Hey, bro, care to join me in the shower before we head out to Peso's? I'll soap up your upper back for you." Good times.

Topics: Environment

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The Greening of Ballard

Ballard, long one of the city's industrial pillars, has been recognized by Natural Home magazine as one of America's 10 best "eco-neighborhoods." The greening of Ballard has been written about before, but it's good to see Sustainable Ballard and their enviro-kin getting a little national pub. Read the full press release after the jump.

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Topics: Environment

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