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sabato 14 maggio 2011

Washington, DC goes green-ish


May 14, 2011
While Congress has turned anti-science and anti-environmental, the district itself, however, is making small strides in becoming a greener city. Its residents are sharing bikes, eating locally grown fruits and vegetables, and working in some of the greenest buildings in the country.
This CAP cross-post describes a few of the initiatives Washington, D.C. is undertaking in a quest for a cleaner future.

The bag tax

Deemed controversial by some, the district implemented a 5-cent bag tax for paper and plastic bags given out by retail food establishments and liquor stores in January of 2010. Just three months after the tax went into effect, the number of bags given out dropped from a monthly average of 22.5 million bags to around 3 million bags.
The law encourages shoppers to use reusable bags that create less waste, and the revenue from the tax is being used to clean up the Anacostia River, recently named one of the most polluted rivers in the country. The tax raised $2 million for cleanup efforts in its first year.

to be continued