Good Ink for Methane: A recent article in Discover Magazine extols methane from landfills as "an alternative energy whose time has come."

 

Wal-Mart officials may have a different opinion on the subject. Reuters reports that the retail giant has closed a store built atop a former landfill in Garfield Heights, Ohio, citing "safety issues, including a slipping foundation, raw sewage backing up into the store and unstable methane gas levels."

 

They Know the Drill: As the offshore oil drilling debate plays out in Congress, it will be interesting to see how coastal states react. Some will surely warm more readily than others to the idea of oil companies drilling off their shores.

 

New England, for one, appears to have a strong lobby of environmental groups and fishermen mobilizing to fight the measure, according to this story from the Boston Globe.

 

Recycling´s Romantic Side: In South Berwick, Maine, some of the residents have been a little (or a lot) resistant to recycling. That should change in January, as the town has instituted a pay-as-you-throw program. "Tough love," a local newspaper has dubbed the program. It may not be hockey-mom-pit-bull-level clever, but I got a smile out of it.

 

Pete Fehrenbach is managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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