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This is the nicest sign we’ve seen in a long time. Our reporter snapped this pic a few days ago in Burbank, CA. Ikea started charging money for their plastic bags in the US in March 2007. In the UK, the company managed to reduce plastic bag consumption at their check-outs by 95 percent.

Today, the L.A. Times printed an editorial that is in favor of governments putting a fee on plastic sacs – which is currently illegal in California, due to an idiotic bill passed in 2006 (AB 2449) that was meant to promote in-store recycling. As long as that weird provision is not repealed, discouraging customers from using disposable bags is up to the stores. Go, Ikea!

Read why plastic bags are worse than you ever thought here and here (PDF from Healthebay.org). And here:

A recent staff report for the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (PDF) about carryout bags in L.A. County mentions the hidden costs of plastic bags for consumers. The average shopper makes the store spend $18 per year to provide him with free plastic bags. And the store will make sure to get those $18 back via increased product prices. In other words, we all pay 18 bucks per year for this nation’s bad bagging habit. What a mess.

(photo: Backhouse Images)

This is the most beautiful and most common sense front yard we have so far seen in all of Southern California. We found it in Pasadena, just South of Caltech. The owners planted drought tolerant vegetation like agaves, cacti and sage. They water about once a week in summer, and almost never in winter. They promise that their yard will look even more stunning when the California poppies start blooming in January. We hope to be able to get a shot of that, too.

The mystery:
Why is this pleasant semi-arid landscape surrounded by a gazillion unsexy lawns? And why are the latter the standard front yard solution all over the city?

We don’t have the answers. But we know this:
The council of Pasadena has just declared that the city is threatened by a serious water crisis and has implemented “Water Shortage Plan 1.” Among other things, it bans the hosing down of sidewalks, limits landscape watering to once every three days and demands that people turn off their sprinklers from 10 am to 5 pm. Adherence to the plan is voluntary. If Pasadena Water and Power becomes aware of water wasters, they will send out a so called “conservation reminder”. If you’d like to become a snitch on a particular water hog (which we absolutely encourage), you can fill in a form online.

Talking about anti hog measures:
The City of Long Beach, also in L.A. County, implemented similar methods in September. Since then, water consumption in town has dropped drastically, hitting a ten-year record low in November (pdf).
Of all Southern Californian cities, Los Angeles has so far shown the most astonishing way of dealing with the crisis. According to the L.A. Times, City water officials said earlier in December that they plan to wait for several more months – yes: months – to see if the situation improves. We wish them the best of luck.

(photo: Backhouse Images)

This good-looking, smart and environmentally friendly pull-cord generator (PCG) will be available in the US starting in summer 2008! The yoyo look-alike allows you to generate electricity by pulling its cord. Hence the name.
It was invented by the whizz-kids at Potenco, a company founded by MIT graduates and headquartered in Alameda, CA. So far, their primary focus has been to bring electricity to developing nations with patchy power grids. That’s why Potenco forged ties to Uganda and Bangladesh, where the PCG will serve as an energy source for electric lights and cellphones. It also powers the XO Laptops of the One Laptop per Child Project.
Now the PCG is going to hit the American market! “We hope to make it available in the US next summer,” Potenco’s CEO Colin Bulthaup told Ecomorons. It will also go on sale in Europe, but the time frame is less definite. The human-powered generator will come with a USB port for charging devices. Projected cost: $50 to $100.
So what can this gadget do? The PCG is able to charge batteries of small gadgets like cell phones, cameras and even ultra portable laptops like the Eee PC. One minute of pulling generates about 20 minutes of talk time on a cell phone, and three hours of play time on an iPod shuffle. It is not suited to provide juice for ordinary laptops, though. “They are very power hungry,” Bulthaup said. “You might be pulling for one minute and it would only give you energy for two minutes of laptop use.”
What about powering my fridge? Not a good candidate, either. Those large energy-gobbling appliances are too greedy to be human-powered at the moment.
Why does Potenco make us wait till summer?
“We are now doing a large market research study,” Bulthaup said, “and the results will be known in spring 2008.” The study will determine what features exactly the PCG is going to come with, i.e. what it will be able to connect to. Before spring, these details remain a secret.
Well, almost. Colin Bulthaup already gave us some idea about the markets his company is most likely to target: “camping”, “emergency preparedness” and “the gadget geek traveler market”.
Sounds real nice. We are waiting.

PS: For updates about the arrival of the PCG, visit this website or subscribe to the Potenco newsletter.

(photo: Potenco)