Danes Forget the First ´R´: Denmark is justifiably proud of its image as one of the world´s greenest countries. That´s partly why it was picked to host this week´s U.N. climate change conference. Recycling rates are sky-high there, and only about 5% of the country´s garbage is disposed of in landfills.

 

But Denmark is also, as the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday, the top per-capita generator of waste among the 27 nations in the European Union.

 

Denmark even tops the United States in this regard. According to the Tribune article, the average Dane produces 1,762 pounds of garbage a year; the average American produces 1,690 pounds.

 

L.A. Landmark: The city of Los Angeles this week reached a recycling milestone, having distributed blue recyclable bins to more than 400,000 apartment buildings in the last two years. According to city officials, that translates to more than a million apartment-dwelling Angelenos who are now able to recycle.

 

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa yesterday called the expansion of the apartment recycling program one of Los Angeles´ major environmental achievements, noting that up until two years ago, the city provided recycling bins only to single-family homes and multifamily buildings containing four units or fewer.

 

Los Angeles currently diverts 65% of its waste from landfills. Villaraigosa has set a goal of 70% by 2013, which will be his last year in office.

 

Fools Indeed: It´s been a long time since we paid a visit to the fake-news pile. Here´s an interesting recent tidbit from The Onion: "Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds Of Secret Arctic Lairs."

 

It seems that an unforeseen benefit of the reputed melting of the polar ice caps is that it has exposed several ne´er-do-wells´ hideouts. Climatologist Anders Lorenzen notes, "In August alone we discovered 44 mad scientist laboratories, three highly classified military compounds, and seven reanimated and very confused cavemen. That´s more than twice the number we had found in the previous three decades combined."

 

And a man identified as Dr. Raygun, "a self-described psychotic mastermind," laments that a giant ice sheet recently broke off and severely damaged his underground complex: "Now millions of dollars in state-of-the-art doomsday devices are gone -- all because of the environmental carnage wrought by the human race. You spend your whole career concocting a brilliant scheme to wipe out all of mankind, and what happens? They bring about a major global catastrophe completely on their own, those fools!"

 

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

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