Earth-Friendly Friday

Recycling is up, garbage is down - at least in Portland, Oregon.

The city uses blue and green roll carts that are used to collect unsorted recyclables. Now, with this one simple change, which makes recycling easier, Portlanders are recycling and composting more. For example, since last year recycling and yard debris material increased by 14 percent which is the equivalent of 10,000 tons or 20,000 pounds. Not bad for one year.

This one change helped residential garbage decrease by almost nine percent or 9,000 tons - which is 18,000 pounds of garbage that isn't going into the landfills.

Overall, the city says that Portland's households and businesses are recycling and composting 67 percent of the waste that they generate. The goal is to stop growth in the waste stream and raise recycling to 75% by 2015. This is one way to reach that goal.

Plus, if you're looking for some green gifts, check out this site: www.ecometro.com.