On Friday, an article by Katy Rank Lev of Mother Nature Network highlighted recent environmental achievements by the U.S. Postal Service. These include recycling (220,000 tons in 2009), using electric vehicles, reducing energy consumption, and achieving Cradle-to-Cradle certification for packaging. To read the full article, click here.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has featured Columbus among its “2010 Smarter Cities,” in recognition of the city’s investments in green power, energy efficiency measures, and conservation. In total, 22 cities are highlighted by the project. Among large cities (those with populations greater than 250,000), Columbus is joined by Austin, New York, Chicago, Seattle, [...]

A recent New York Times video, “Toxic Waters: From Air to Water Waste,” examines growing concerns about health hazards linked to buried wastes from coal-fired power plants. A number of Ohio landfills accept such wastes, termed coal combustion wastes (CCW), produced by plants such as the AEP Generating Station in Conesville. To watch the NY [...]

A recent report by The New York Times details growing opposition to mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, focusing on resistance to proposed mining at Coal River Mountain by Massey Energy. Local residents are proposing a large wind energy project in place of the controversial plans for a mountaintop mine. To learn more, visit NYTimes.com.

“In a letter to the editor published in the August 2010 Columbus CEO magazine titled “LEED Program is Another Sham,” LEED denier Bruce Wingfield compares LEED to “Climate Gate.”  So, by Mr. Wingfield’s logic, the U.S. Green Building Council, whose Central Ohio Chapter includes many of the most well-respected local contractors, engineers, architects, facility managers, and other building professionals [...]

According to a new report by the Cincinnati chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), writes Allyson Wendt of BuildingGreen.com, the LEED for Homes rating system and the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) developed by NAHB have many similarities, but maintain import differences in the area of energy efficiency. For example, unlike LEED for [...]

According to a recent article in the Coshocton Tribune, a planned expansion of the American Electric Power (AEP) Conesville Generating Station landfill has been approved by the Ohio EPA. The solid waste permit-to-install will allow the landfill, located approximately three miles south of Coshocton, to increase its disposal capacity by three to five years. For [...]

Jefferson Paris Councilman Chris Roberts, in a CNN interview, accused BP of sending temporary workers to Grand Isle, Louisiana, for President Obama’s Friday visit. According to Roberts, the workers went home once Obama left. He said the company had recruited 300-400 workers for the visit, while (aside from their brief stay) no more than 20 [...]

An op-ed by Alec Appelbaum in yesterday’s New York Times casts doubt on the LEED Rating System’s ability to guarantee long-term energy performance: “…some certified buildings end up using much more energy than the evaluators predicted, because the buildings are more popular than expected or busy at different times than developers forecast, or because tenants [...]

Software Advice is currently hosting a survey on LED fluorescent tubes vs. traditional fluorescent tubes. In particular, they are hoping to gauge whether LED tubes are ready for widespread commercial use and whether they will replace fluorescent tubes. The survey is part of a series of articles Software Advice has written on green construction. To [...]