• With My Own Two Wheels: “The story of four people whose lives have been deeply changed by bikes.”
• One Plastic Beach: A pair of artists “have collected plastic trash along a one-kilometer stretch of beach near their home in Northern California”. They make art from the debris, which they collect at a rate of up to “35 pounds per hour.”
• Chasing Water: “Photojournalist Peter McBride sets out to document the flow of the Colorado River from source to sea.”

More information is available on the Festival tour website.

It happens in every college town at the end of the academic year. As students move out of their apartments for the summer, possessions that are no longer needed or that won’t fit in the car are left on the curb. Or in Savannah’s case, in the lane. While some of these items will be claimed by passers-by, a summer showr can render upholstered furniture, electronics and other things pretty much useless. A program underway now will help divert some of what’s left behind from the landfill to a more beneficial destination

“In coordination with the City of Savannah and Keep Savannah Beautiful, the SCAD design for sustainability program is co-sponsoring an end-of-the-year collection of furniture, clothes, appliances and other household goods from all students who live off campus. All collected items will benefit Goodwill Industries. Donate from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. each day until June 4 at the old Sears building on Henry Street between Bull and Drayton streets. Also, look for dump trucks that will make rounds from Habersham Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., and Henry Street to East Waldburg Street.”

For more information, call the City of Savannah Public Information Office at 651-6410.

WTOC’s story hinted that the next area of expansion would be to apartment complexes. A worthy goal for sure, but there’s tons more room for additional progress. From The New Home Economics blog today comes news of a “pay as you throw” garbage hauler in Minnesota that charges based on the weight of trash. That way, folks who generate more trash pay more to have it trucked to the landfill. Meanwhile, an incentive is provided to those who recycle, compost and consider packaging and other waste disposal impacts before making purchases. Charging by weight instead of flat fee also allows the use of  smaller trucks.

I ride my bike past Scott TV repair just about every workday. Sometimes there are television carcasses sitting out front on the sidewalk. Sometimes I can see people moving around inside. Sometimes it’s open. More often it’s not.

A bigger mystery than Scott TV’s business hours is this: Who takes a television in for repair anymore? And perhaps an even more important question: Can a modern television set even be repaired by a local shop?

When ride past Scott TV, I usually think of Mr. Jalopy, who I wrote about last year on my other blog. A leader in the “Makers Movement,” and creator of the “Maker’s Bill of Rights,” Mr. Jalopy has become the standard-bearer for a new generation of workshop tinkerers and inventors. There’s one passage in the Maker’s Bill of Rights that speaks to everyone, even those of us who can’t read a schematic or turn a wrench or use a soldering iron without making a subsequent trip the to the ER. This is it:

“Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.”

That means even if I’m not capable of repairing something I buy — if Mr. Jalopy’s standard is followed by product designers — there’s a chance someone in my neighborhood probably could. And this presents business opportunities for local folks, who have the skill and equipment to repair consumer products. I think it’s much better than the alternative, which is fretting about how to recycle unrepairable (at least locally) consumer products.

What if these items were designed and manufactured to be serviceable and even upgradable, instead of disposable? What if a slight malfunction meant a trip to a local repair shop instead of a trip to the landfill? Clearly there are many high technology items that cannot be serviced outside of very exacting environments. But there are many others that could be, if they were designed with serviceability in mind.

Knowing that a product could remain functional and useful with locally sourced repair and maintenance would allow consumers to follow another of Mr. Jalopy’s maxims: “Buy your first to be your last.”

“We’ve been working with the city on developing natural walking trails at Bacon Park Forest for years,” said Diane Houston, President of the Savannah Tree Foundation.  “While this day marks the beginning of the trail installation process, it’s also the culmination of a great deal of time spent by our organization and staff from the city’s Leisure Services Bureau to develop the concept and design.  This is a great moment for all of us.”

And volunteers are needed on Saturday, June 6 from 9 a.m. until noon:

Volunteers should wear long sleeves shirts, pants and close?toed shoes with socks, and should bring work gloves, bypass pruners and pruning shears if they have them.  Refreshments, community service hours, tools and T?shirts will be provided.  Onsite parking is available near the intersection of Skidaway Road and Bonna Bella Drive.

More information on the event is available here.

In a press release, hospital President and CEO Paul P. Hinchey said, “If a system our size can do it, anyone can, I would like to officially challenge Savannah businesses and every other large commercial waste customer to join the city’s single stream recycling effort.”

Hospital officials credit employees with originating the idea and asking management to create a recycling program. By partnering with the city, the hospital expects to reduce its solid waste costs by 25 percent. Starting such a program from scratch could have cost more than $200,000, according to estimates from St. Joseph/Candler’s.

Will Hinchey’s challenge be answered a by other local businesses? A casual observer can see corrugated cardboard and other recyclable materials piling up in or near Dumpsters at commercial operations of all kinds. What role can employees and customers play in convincing other businesses to “get with the program,” as they did at St. Joseph’s?

Even before the City of Savannah began disclosing the details of its single stream curbside recycling program late last year, the complaints started rolling in. Additional grumbling ensued after the launch of the program earlier this month. From insistence that the program should pay for itself to griping about the color and size of the carts to fretting about the environmental impact of the trucks that would collect the materials, Vox Populi callers and message board posters and letter to the editor writers took their shots.

Most of these critics, it appeared to me, were subjecting the recycling program to rigorous criteria I doubt they would apply to any other local government activity or service.

Are they outraged that the Truman Parkway is not generating a profit? Of course not. Are their aesthetic sensibilities, so offended by the the recycling carts, similarly aggravated by dreadful streetscapes, invasive billboards or eviscerated tree canopies? They probably didn’t notice. Are the folks concerned about the carbon footprint of the recycling collection trucks also worrying about local parking and transportation projects that encourage automobile use? Don’t be silly.

No, recycling is held to a higher standard that is conveniently relaxed when it comes to almost everything else our local governments do. Me, I had only one expectation of the recycling program: that it would happen. And yesterday, one 311 report, one phone call to the recycling center and more than two weeks after the scheduled pick up date, the contents of my completely full recycling cart were collected. Things can only get better.

Along with the start of curbside recycling, Savannah also initiated its yard clipping collection last week.

By state law, yard waste cannot be commingled with household waste in a landfill. Separating it allows the city to compost yard waste.

Yard waste is collected on the day after recycling and household garbage collection. It can be placed in a container of up to 32 gallons in volume, stacked in neat bundles of no more than 4 feet in length, 12 inches in diameter, and 40 pounds, or placed in yard bags.

A city survey indicated the bags are available at these locations:

– Publix – Twelve Oaks and Largo Plaza.

– Home Depot – Abercorn Street and Victory Drive.

– Kroger – Abercorn Street, Mall Boulevard and Ogeechee Road.

– Lowes – Abercorn Street.