My first instinct was to put them in the recycling bin along with everything else but it seems the City of San Diego doesn’t accept them for recycling. After some further research online it looks like I’m not the only person having this problem:

Environmentalists have been worried about CD jewel case disposal ever since compact discs first became popular in the 1980s. Jewel cases are made out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and has been linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and neighbors where it is manufactured. Also, the lead often added to strengthen PVC can contaminate water, soil and air around PVC manufacturing sites.

Worse yet, because it contains a variety of additives and lacks a uniform composition, PVC is far less recyclable than other plastics. Its quality degrades after only two or three “cycles.” Greenpeace has identified PVC as the least recycled of the six major common plastics. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that less than one percent of total post-consumer PVC is recovered or reprocessed.

As a result, most municipal recycling centers do not accept PVC products, meaning that millions of CD jewel cases either take up room indefinitely in landfills, where they won’t biodegrade, or are incinerated. And unfortunately, the burning of PVC creates airborne dioxins.

While options for recycling CD jewel cases and other PVC plastics are limited, the Sammamish, Washington-based GreenDisk company will take jewel cases for a fee of $5.95 for up to 20 pounds. GreenDisk then turns the resulting raw materials into GreenDisk-branded office supplies including, you guessed it, CD jewel cases containing at least 76 percent post-consumer waste content.

Another way to make use of old jewel cases would be for art’s sake. They can be used as picture flames or to show off collections of miniature items, such as coins, stamps or dried flowers. CONTACT: GreenDisk, (800)305-DISK, www.greendisk.com.

E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2005 by John O’Dwyer, Bianca Hoffman

I really want to do my part for the environment but it looks like I’m going to end up throwing them in the trash… sorry Mother Nature!

The idea behind Surface isn’t revolutionary, and the final product has a long way to go before it’s as easy to use as shown in the videos. Devices will need to have standardized protocols and file formats; I foresee RFID tags playing a big part in the future of devices that work with Surface. A company like Microsoft certain has the ability to drive the adoption of new technologies, and I hope they do it right. My advice to them: don’t create a closed system. Don’t force people to buy your products, but rather open your systems so that other companies can create products to work with yours.

I did find it really funny that next to the display of a healthy lung vs. a smoker’s lung there was a large bin where people had thrown in their lighters and cigarettes. After seeing that, I really appreciate my lungs being pink instead of black!

Understandably so, a lot of people don’t know what Net Neutrality is. Even less have probably even heard of it, or care about how it affects them. But this is an issue that affects all users of the Internet, not just Americans. A huge part of the Internet backbone is maintained by companies here in the US; what they do with their services propagates throughout the entire ‘net. Letting AT&T and Verizon chare Google, YouTube and other content providers more money simply because they use more bandwidth is wrong. Google isn’t out to take over the world, just change it. And as a long-time user, I can’t recall a single time that I’ve been charged for using any of Google’s services. The same goes for YouTube — do you think they’d be the video juggernaut they are now if the cost of bandwidth had increased proportionately with their usage?

The bottom line is that people need to be educated about this issue, and need to make their thoughts known. Check out the very educational video over at Save the Internet! and learn about what’s really going on. And when you’re done, take the time to sign the petition and contact your local lawmakers.

Current energy consumption, vastly from fossil fuels, has dangerous environmental consequences. The quantity of energy we use will only go up in the near future. Here are 10 possible sources of energy to help meet this need…

Check out the full list at Will Blog for Experience: Patrick. Not only is it a glimpse of things to hopefully come, but if his blog gets a certain amount of traffic he’ll get to go to Washington, D.C. for a job shadow at the Department of Energy.