Garbage Is Good... For Something

So, word on the street is: Canada is getting all eco-friendly. At least, in one (big) small part of Alberta. According to news reports today, a bio-fuel plant in Edmonton is being built, and will be operational in late 2011, which will take non-compostable non-recyclable refuse and turn it into ethanol, which will then be used as an additive for fuel.

That's good news, no?

And this coming soon after I heard about this wonderful invention, sponsored by the United Nations University, which can turn garbage into fuel. The premise is that plastic comes from oil, so why not turn it back into oil, which can be used for fuel? After all, most of the plastic is actually not recycled, or even recyclable. It ends up in landfills. We're running out of room to put our crap. Seriously. Remember garbage island? Or how about shipping it?

I would love to find a way personally to bring this sort of technology to every single town, or at least every county. The science is there. It's possible.

Good News Sunday

I've just had a brainwave... pretty remarkable for someone who specializes in brain-farts. (Don't be so surprised. You knew it had to happen.) That brainwave is: looking at good news. Now, it IS hard to find at times, especially when the news industry focuses on sensationalizing disasters and terror and Things To Worry About. Actually, all these are the reasons I don't watch the news and only occasionally glance at headlines on the internet or even the local paper... which, on a tangent, is very Pollyannish and seems to be more PR stuff about the town rather than actual news. (Boy, the news people can't make me happy, can they? First it's too depressing and then it's too nice.)

But that's the thing. It's depressing, isn't it? I mean, when the Gulf Oil Spill (yes, it does deserves to be capitalized... it's a thing now) happened, I was all "What? When did this happen? Weeks ago?" And then I remembered I don't watch the news, so of course I was behind. But then, if you believe everything you read, you'd soon come to realize that this spill means the end of civilization as we know it. It affected trades, tourism, economy, politics, everything. One of our lowest moments in years. Something that affects the whole globe and it seemed like nobody was taking responsibility or really jumping on cleaning it up. The clean-up appeared to be taken over by... people. Ordinary people. People jumping in and doing something. Not governments per se. Not BP per se. But people. (And that's why I sometimes am reminded to still believe in the good in people....)

But that's another tangent.

So, worries that the world as we know is ending keeps me away from the news. But then...

I find something cool. Unique. Great stuff to hear and think about. And then if you take a look at the global scene, you realize that when it's all put together it's something wonderful and marvelous. Take a peek -- some new news I'm pretty happy to hear. The world is taking care of itself, by itself, and with the help of people... who after all, are only borrowing the earth to live on.

MIT invents a swarm of sea-skimming, oil-collecting robots. (Who doesn't like a good robot story?)

And if that doesn't do it for the underwater plumes of oil that are not reached by the surface skimmers, there's the Oil-eating bacteria that have started to clean the Deepwater Horizon spill.

And these are just two examples of how the oil spill is being dealt with.

Other people have great ideas too. Apparently there have been solutions for this all along, arising from previous experience with other large spills, such as a (hushed-up) Saudi spill that was pretty big. I didn't know. Or how about these two dudes who are just plain ingenious?

How many people get to hear about the solutions? Now, maybe these aren't the answers necessarily, but it's a great change to hear good stuff coming from people... not just murder, mayhem and destruction. (As the mother of a preschool-age boy, I get the last two on a daily basis. I don't need to hear it coming from anyone else.)

And to get off the topic of oil for a moment (sort of), how about solar flight technology being realized? Sounds pretty darn awesome to me.

And that's just the start of the good news I'm finding, if I just look for it.

Now, I'm not ever going to be a Pollyanna... somehow I have my feet stuck too firmly on the ground for that, as well as being a fatalist... but I am looking for the good news for a change. At least, if not for anything else, to balance out the bad.

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Here's one last (completely unrelated) piece of good news to share...

Why not share it? What's the good news you've heard lately?