Archive for the ‘"Green" Dallas’ Category

The city collects trash twice a week for most Dallas residents; however, with the new budget being released, the rest of the city is expected to also segue to once a week pick up which will affect 240,000 customers effective October 1.

Far North Dallas and Northwest Dallas are already on this schedule with good results.

Additional benefits is that monthly trash fees will decrease and there is less fuel utilized so that is financially and environmentally good for the city.

Dallas-based Mary Kay has launched a major recycling program by having their consultants collect thousands of old plastic makeup compacts from customers.

However, the compacts cannot be recycled until the glass mirrors are removed and this is where the Citizens Development Center steps in.

The center’s disabled employees have been hired to break apart the compacts in a large warehouse off Stemmons Freeway and dozens of workers in safety glasses and blue plastic gloves got to work as soon as the pink compacts arrived yesterday.

There are 35,000 Mary Kay sales force members attending the cosmetic company’s annual seminar at the Dallas Convention Center kept them coming.

As part of the “Pink Doing Green” program, Mary Kay has gathered 300,000 compacts since January 2008.

The workers range from recent high school graduates to people in their 70s.

Once the workers are finished, a supervisor counts the number of compacts each has disassembled. Most workers can receive up to $8.58 an hour.

The center plans to stop collecting the compacts after the seminar ends Saturday. Mary Kay now sells a new, refillable compact, officials said.

But that won’t end the center’s relationship with Mary Kay.

As luck would have it, on the day the new robust Dallas non-smoking ordinance kicks in, Ft. Worth and several counties to the west have had major fires to contend with since yesterday. The haze in Dallas was thick last night and the smoky smell was prominent.

In other smoke-related news, the new smoking ban is in effect! While there are some die-hards that are miffed about the ban, far more are looking forward to going out to the clubs to embrace socializing without having to deal with the second-hand smoke haze, stinky hair & clothes at the end of the evening, etc.

A great article about the perks to the smoking ban can be found in this Dallas Voice article.

Today is it — the last day you can smoke in bars and pool halls in Dallas. Further, the ordinance is becoming even stronger by making it possible for the venues (including restaurants) to be cited in addition to the smoking patrons.

This has been a long time coming and kudos to the Dallas City Council for making these much needed changes — FINALLY we can go out and enjoy ourselves and not come home wreaking of cigarettes!

Americans threw away nearly 26 million televisions in 2006 - and if you place those TVs side by side, they would circle the Earth. With the switch to digital this year, that number is expected to escalate; however, a landfill is not your only option.

In Grand Prairie, there is a quasi-heaven for TVs at the company Monitex. At Monitex, used-up TVs and monitors are ripped, stripped, cut and ground. What’s left is resold to make new electronic equipment, much better than the alternative according to the Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) because four to eight pounds of lead is in your typical TV or computer monitor which causes a massive problem to the environment.

With the conversion to digital television, some estimate as many as 80 million TV sets could be headed to landfills across the country and many feel the government has been too slow to anticipate the environmental impact.

Now, there’s a grassroots effort to pressure the Texas legislature to require all manufacturers to take back old TVs and more than 35,000 letters have been generated out of the TCE’s Dallas office alone in 2008.

Many cities in North Texas are offering free TV recycling problems to keep toxins out of area landfills; however, the endless stream of used-up electronics that Texans toss out, less than 20 percent gets recycled which poses serious health & environmental concerns for years to come.

60 million passengers per year visit Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and there’s no better place for a family lay­over(DFW) according to a recent survey that placed DFW 7th on the list.

With two 600-square-foot play areas that feature padded airplanes, taxis, and luggage for climbing, plus a TV showing kids’ cartoons, it’s great for family layovers.

DFW also scores high for its green fleet. Of the airport’s 580 vehicles, from buses to lawn mowers, 540 are hybrids or run on compressed natural gas.

And thanks to restaurants like Tequilerias, which serves nutritious options such as jicama and mango salads, the airport stands tall in PCRM’s food rankings.

In a fantastic move by the Dallas City Council , a plan has been approved to toughen the city’s smoking ordinance.

We know some people are going to be all fired up about this - no pun intended - but a number of major cities have already enacted this type of legislation. It will be nice for non-smokers to be able to go out and not come home reeking of cigarette smoke.

It bans smoking at bars, taverns and pool halls. It also bars smokers from the vicinity of most business entrances.

Violators would face fines, and bar owners also could be fined for non-enforcement.

The vote was 10-5 in favor of the stronger regulations; Council members Vonciel Jones Hill, Steve Salazar, Tennell Atkins, Sheffie Kadane and Mitchell Rasansky opposed the measure.

The revised ordinance takes effect April 10.