Carrot & stick: who walks the walk, who's nothing but talk

CARROT TO

Six former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chiefs--five of them Republicans--for urging the Bush administration to impose mandatory controls on greenhouse gases as a way to curb global warming. The call was issued in January 2006. "You can't wait until you have certainly on these issues," said Lee Thomas, who led the agency under President Ronald Reagan. "Then it's way too late." Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation's global warming campaign dubbed the move "an unprecedented wake-up call."

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TerraCycle of Trenton, NJ, for developing organic liquid plant fertilizers sold in 100-percent-recycled (and recyclable) soft drink bottles. To make TerraCycle Plant Food, worms are fed trash; the resulting manure is then reformulated and packaged in bottles collected from schools, churches and nonprofit organizations. The plant food began selling in Home Depot and Wal-Mart stores this spring. Because the fertilizers are made from garbage, the "more of it we make, the less waste there is," a TerraCycle spokesperson says. (For more on natural fertilizers, see "Composting 101 ," p. 48.)

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) for establishing a National Tap Water Quality Database, available free of charge to the public. Posted in December 2005 an EWG'S website (ewg.org/tapwater/findings.php), the database includes information on drinking-water contamination collected over more than two years from almost 40,000 utility companies in 42 states. This user-friendly site enables you to find out what's in your water supply.

STICK TO

Ohio State University for bragging about closing its chimpanzee research program while still offering what the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) calls "the most inhumane summer course ever taught." The course, dubbed Cruelly 101, "subjects 189 rats and 80 mice each year to multiple painful surgeries, lab procedures and distressing behavioral exercises after the injuries," the PCRM says. It's commendable that the school is retiring its chimps, but hypocritical to boast about it while teaching students to injure the spinal cords of other animals.

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The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for defying congressional efforts to stop the killing of horses for human consumption. In November 2005, legislation eliminated federal funds for inspecting equine slaughterhouses--required before horse meat can be sold--which would halt production. But in February, the USDA approved an earlier plan allowing slaughterhouses to pay private inspectors for the service, after which the horse meat can be shipped abroad. Forty members of Congress protested that the USDA has no authority to rewrite laws "at the request of the horse-slaughter industry."

Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). It's hard to pick on New Orleans, but as rebuilding continues, a huge recycling opportunity is being missed. Instead of salvaging masses of building materials (bricks, cinderblocks, cedar planks, roof tiles), it's all being dumped in landfills. John Rogers, Louisiana's DEQ recycling specialist, says there's no time to formulate a plan for the material. But environmentalists worry that the city will face more problems as landfills swell.

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