Plastic bags, and books bags--gettin' green

Here's a suggestion from a European college teachers' union: shut down the universisites to save energy. Not altogether, just shut 'em down during the coldest months and stay open in the summer. Course, they've never been to Tempe or College Station in August. Meybe here in our more southerly U.S. we'd have to measure heating energy needs v. air conditioning. Sure makes sens in places like Edinburgh and Aarhus, though. Of course, in summer in the southern U.S. there'd be lots of solar power if the universisites were more solar....

The same proposal suggests universities make it easier for students and faculty to use bikes or walk, rather than having to drive to campus.

On the bag front, plastic bags are under assault. Not just in those activist hotbeds of San Francisco and New York City. Nope, now London is considering control of the plastic bag which is a universal presence in that city right now. When I lived in London store clerks seemed insulted when you refused their unnecessary plastic bag for your pack of gum or magazine. In some other parts of Europe shoppers regularly carry cloth shopping bags or even wheel around upright carts. In Estonia andsome other EWuro-nations you have to pay for plastic bags at the store. People often carry reusable bags instead.

But here comes a warning shot that should have the plastic bag makers quaking. Bulgaria has an activist town mayor who's out to stop the white crud from covering his town in a non-biodegradable layer. Yes, that Bulgaria.

This could be a trend.