Green Options

The climate change finger-pointing hit a new level of insanity when a paper was published recently that links overweight people to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Did you know that San Francisco spends approximately $3.5 million dollars every single year to unclog our sewers? Commercial restaurants and household kitchens are the largest controllable sources of Fats, Oil and Grease (FOG) in the City’s sewer system. Although most individuals don’t produce very much used cooking grease, collectively what we pour down our drains all adds up and makes a disgusting unhealthy clogged mess in our city’s sewers.

Before and after photos of a San Francisco sewer encrusted with used grease

Would you like a stroke with your cheeseburger? Scientists have found that your chances of having a stroke may actually be related to how many Burger Kings and KFCs are operating in your town. Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that the risk of stroke increases with the number of fast-food restaurants in a neighborhood. In the study, Texas residents with the highest number of fast-food restaurants had a 13 percent higher relative risk of suffering strokes than [...]

Ok now, we all know the dangers of eating fried foods and food loaded with trans fats, sugar, and other unhealthy ingredients.  Right?

Well apparently there are still plenty of people out there who either don’t know…or don’t care.
When I first saw this website I was shocked by the foods on it, it’s a meat-filled calorie bomb photo gallery you wont believe! (Who knew you could batter and fry just about anything imaginable, and/or cover it in bacon?  Yuck.)

This week at ZapRoot: Is Google destroying the planet one search at a time? The recycling market has gone bust. And check out “That’s Just Weird.”

A recent study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found a strong correlational link between “active transportation” (defined as the percentage of trips taken by walking, bicycling, and public transit) and obesity rates in 17 industrialized nations. It appears that the more we sit on our butts and drive automobiles, the fatter we all become.

In the category of “Things I’d Rather Never Read About Again,” we’ve found a winner.

A plastic surgeon in Los Angeles has discovered that he can use the fat he liposuctions off of his patients to provide all the biodiesel he needs to power his and his girlfriend’s SUVs. Not only that, he says he has extra. I wonder if he’s willing to share?

Got the heebies yet?

Alan Bittner, a high scale Beverly Hills doctor, has been making the liposuctioned human fat into biodiesel for some time now. There are lots of rendering firms in the US — like Tyson Farms, for instance — that already take similar waste, such as poultry fat, and turn it into biodiesel, but I’m imaging that Bittner is the first guy to actually turn human fat into fuel.

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Slimy

Actions speak louder than words. I can write no more scathing an attack on the leader of the opposition than he can achieve merely by being him. So it was that the man who instinctively knows where the camera is cycled to work whilst his chauffer followed just out of site driving a pair of shoes.

Fatuous, slimy, ultimately laughable. A joy to read. Silly boy.

So, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s ponder on cycling here in the UK.

In my first exploration of the issue of by-catch in commercial fishing, I looked at the devastating effects of fishing not simply for the "target" species, but on those animals who are unlucky enough to be caught in the lines, traps, hooks, and nets not meant for them. In this second part, I further explore this issue and take a look at how the dolphins, sea turtles, and seals - animals for whom

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