In this tight economy your city may be looking for new ways to more efficiently spend your financial resources and attract green jobs, while making your community more livable. You might want to take a look at what San Francisco is doing. continue

 Want to make yourself crazy? Next time you’re driving, pay attention to the astonishing number of plastic bags on the side of the road. In the trees, hanging on fences, floating lazily through the air on a summer breeze, clogging storm drain grates. continue

A note from Alpha Energy:

Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA recently hired The Alpha Group, Alpha Energy to install a 21kW solar power system to be commissioned on October 3.

“It is exciting to see educational institutions getting involved in renewable energy projects like this,” said Drew Zogby, President and COO of Alpha Technologies. “By showing their own commitment to going green, Whitman College is leading by example and encouraging their students to follow the same path. By providing Whitman with high quality system design, installation and innovative monitoring systems, Alpha Energy is demonstrating our own commitment to the best at what we do. This turnkey system is something Whitman and their students can be proud of.” continue

Engineering firm Wight & Company announced Tuesday that the 9^th District Police Station in Chicago, a new facility located along S. Halsted St. from W. 31^st St. south to just past W. 32^nd St., achieved LEED Gold certification. The facility includes a 250-car parking structure, up-to-date holding cells, a secure viewing and line-up area, community room for group functions and a fitness room for officers and staff. One of the unique aspects of the project is its water management design that Wight & Company’s civil engineering group devised. A rain garden was constructed at the north end of the building to help implement this aggressive approach. Building on the city’s green initiatives, another notable achievement for the project was the diversion of over 97% of construction debris from landfills. This number surpassed the city’s requirement of 50% and was able to earn an Innovation point under LEED for going above and beyond. continue

Are you a California business, government or organization that is particularly proud of your sustainability efforts? Would you like to tell the world about those efforts?

Well, the California Sustainability Alliance can help. continue

Anyone who lives or works near a landfill is intimately familiar with methane, the gas that produces that readily identifiable “landfill smell.” Created by decomposing organic matter, methane is 20 times better than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. But those same properties make it a fine source of energy, as more and more local governments are discovering. continue

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week overwhelmingly passed what is likely the country’s most comprehensive recycling and composting ordinance. The Board voted 9-2 to require residents and business owners to sort recyclables, food waste and trash for weekly collection, in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, make the city landfill- and incinerator-free by 2020.
The ordinance, which will take effect this fall, provides fines for failure to comply with the recycling/composting regulations. continue