sustainability
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In-Depth
How Madison County Residents Successfully Lobbied Legislators Over Pollution Concerns
The law-altering conversations about air pollution in Georgia did not originate in the Capitol building chambers that hosted them. They started between a group of friends in a living room in the small Madison County town of Colbert, Georgia. Eight months of lobbying later, Governor Brian Kemp’s signed a…
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Athens-Clarke County
Spread of Sustainable Restaurants in Athens: How Composting Is Making Local Restaurants Greener
The last Maepole customer stands from their table and makes their way to a compost bin on the verge of overflow from the day’s diners. After another bustling dinner service, staff began their nightly routine of scrubbing down the kitchen, breaking down seating, sanitizing equipment and taking out the compost;…
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Environment
Navigating the Pros and Cons of the Leather Industry
“The consumption of leather products by the humans is very common and used almost every day,” according to N.M. Sivaram and Debabrata Barik in Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation. The debate on whether to invest in real leather or its artificial, faux counterparts is a…
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COVID-19 Coverage
UGA Green Roof Garden Coping with COVID-19 Harvest Loss
Due to the mandated University of Georgia campus closure in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Abbie Dillon, the Office of Sustainability’s Urban Agriculture intern working to maintain the Green Roof Garden, was barred from campus and forced to abandon numerous crops. As a result, the Green Roof Garden…
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Environment
Volunteers Take Out The Trash At 35th Annual Great Lake Allatoona Clean Up
More than 100 volunteers from all over the state come to Acworth, Georgia, for the annual Great Lake Allatoona Clean Up at Red Top Mountain State Park each year to remove solid waste by foot and by boat. Red Top Mountain State Park hosted their 35th annual Great Lake…
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Environment
Can You Recycle That? An AI Bot Can Let You Know
Greasy pizza boxes, single-use coffee cups and plastic bags are commonly used items, and people often wonder whether these types of items can be recycled. Now, an artificial intelligence bot on social media may be able to answer the question—“Can I recycle this?” Misplaced materials are common, and these incorrectly…
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Athens-Clarke County
Locavores Unite: How Athens Restaurants Utilize Local Food In Menus
Visit any Athens restaurant and you’re likely to be hit with a board of specials, often containing a multitude of locally sourced ingredients. Differentiating itself from mass produced ingredients, local food is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed. Just as carnivores and herbivores eat strictly meat…
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Athens-Clarke County
How Local Trash Disposal Affects Climate Change
Approximately 300 tons of material is disposed of in the Athens-Clarke County Landfill daily. The average dump truck holds 12 to 14 tons of waste, so approximately 23 dump truck loads of garbage are dumped into the 289-acre landfill per day. Yet, not all of it should be garbage. “About…
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Athens-Clarke County
Athens Takes ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ To New Level
If you assume your trash today gets collected and sent off to one of the “dumps” you see in cartoons, you’re sadly mistaken. Dumps haven’t existed since the 1970s; rather, the increasing amount of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Americans create gets sent to landfills where local governments like Athens are…
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Athens-Clarke County
Consumers Lead Change in Backlash Against Fast Fashion
As a young girl living in a small town outside of Normandy, Germany, Sanni Baumgärtner’s love for clothing and apparel developed first with vintage fashion. She fondly remembers rummaging through her mother’s closet and borrowing her grandfather’s coat. Baumgärtner also frequented flea markets in search of pieces like ’70s-era leather…