Image: South Australian Zero Waste

As of 1 January 2009, South Australian retailers and shoppers have four months to become accustomed to life without lightweight checkout style plastic bags. The government in that state will as of 4 May 2009 impose fines of up to $5,000 AUD on retailers using that form of bag. Even 100% degradable plastic bags will be banned, as they just break down into smaller plastic shards of plastic anyhow.

Although there were moves for this to be a national campaign (like that of the world first incandescent bulb ban), only South Australia had the balls to follow through on the bags issue. Coincidentally it also the only state in the country to also have a functioning container deposit legislation (CDL) [PDF], whereby beverage bottles carry a refundable deposit (of 10 cents) atop their purchase price, to encourage the return of the container for recycling.

We just talked about libraries experiencing a booming business thanks to the recession. And it looks like the crummy economy could lend a helping hand to another business - toy rental.

Rent-A-Toy is a new company that helps parents cut cost and clutter by renting out toys.

Photo via cpchannel

California wants to get tough on power-hungry LCD and Plasma TVs, telling retailers that they can only sell energy efficient models starting in 2011.

But that push doesn't come without some shoving back from the TV makers.

photo from IQ2

Intelligence Squared organises debates on high profile issues with the biggest names around. Chaired by a well-known moderator, the panelists are knowledgeable, wittty and always in top fighting form. Now IQ2 is turning its talents to an investigation of climate change and bringing together speakers from around the world.

Among the brightest thinkers taking part are: Mohan Munasinghe, Vice Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who shared the Nobel peace-prize with Al Gore in 2007, TIME Magazine Hero of the Environment, Christine Loh, Jeremy Leggett (Solarcentury CEO) and former Director of Friends of the Earth, Tom Burke. To add a dash of controversy, and a chance for some fighting words, Philip Stott, famed anti-climate change proponent will also be there.

Honda Accord Runs on Trash
We’ve got excited about waste gasification before, especially at news of the first US waste gasification facility. We’ve even got excited about DIY wood gasification. But howabout the folks at All Power Labs creators of the open source Gasifier Experimenter’s Kit in Oakland, California, who have converted their Honda Accord to run, cleanly they say, on anything from walnut shells to wood chips? Read on to learn how they did it…

Photo: Flickr

The Good Ol' Book is Back in Vogue
When green advocates talk about product service systems (PSS), many might be left scratching their heads (if that's you, check out the linked Wikipedia page). Yet we're all familiar with public libraries, a great example, and when times are harder economically, people increasingly turn to these alternatives to owning stuff. Read on for more.

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Labels and standards are a touchy and confusing subject. Who sets them? What do they cover? TreeHugger readers have seen companies just calling themselves green, companies inventing their own labels (like SC Johnson), Companies going to third party labels-for-hire to certify what they think is important but may not be, (Like LG Eden and SCS) Labels that cover only one aspect (like Energy Star and Greenguard), and labels that let the manufacturer submit data for claims without verification (like EPEAT).

Then, for the last hundred and sixteen years, there have been Underwriters Laboratories. They are a pain. They are expensive if you have a product you need certified. They are expensive if you want to buy a copy of a standard. They are rigorous and thorough and slow and did I mention expensive? But when a product has a UL label you know it has been put through the wringer. And now they are going to certify products and tell us if they are truly green.

photo: David Silver

You may have missed it over the holidays of the past ten days but the BBC ran an interesting piece on the sort of transformation that will be required in the 21st century to feed a projected world population of 9 billion by 2050, without continuing to simply pump more chemicals into fields to replace what has been lost by intensive industrial farming. Professor Tim Lang of the UK government’s Food Council described our current agriculture system as one which “was laid down in the 1940s” and then went on to describe his vision of the future: