new york

This week New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's new mission to require food composting made headlines. The plan to begin collecting food scraps across the city has been called ambitious by some, though other cities like Seattle and San Francisco have had success with food compost programs. The intention of the proposed program is to decrease residential food waste.  Initially the program will be voluntary but Bloomberg's administration is hopeful that within a few years it'll become mandatory. Sanitation officials said more than 5 percent of households in the city would be on board voluntarily by next year, and more than 600 schools will take part as well.

Last Friday the New York Times announced that it's eradicating their green blog. My first reaction? Boo! Hogwash! That's a bunch of crap! In all seriousness though my worry is that this cut is sending a message that environmental issues just aren't that important. While times are certainly tough for print publications these days, and cuts may be necessary this is a big blow to the Times eco-minded readers. Though in hindsight the demise of the green blog isn't all that shocking given that in January the Times announced that it was dismantling their Environment Desk team. The New York Times managing editor for news operations, Dean Baquet said, "Today, environmental stories are partly business, economic, national or local, among other subjects," Baquet said. "They are more complex. We need to have people working on the different desks that can cover different parts of the story." Not an unfair point but let's be real here...