20 June 2007
18 June 2007
Chapel Hill and Mont Boron - Part I - Recycling
Mont Boron, France - I just made a note to myself to remember to put out the recycling on Wednesday. If I were back in Chapel Hill, I'd be doing the same, but where we live, a reminder to put out the blue boxes on Tuesday.
Here on Mont Boron, a hill that makes up the southeastern corner of the city of Nice, we are big on recycling, except for "mixed paper" as we call it in Chapel Hill. The newspapers and magazines here go into a conainer that's a five minute walk from our front door. Ditto with glass of all kinds.
The rest - and I mean virtually everything that won't "spoil" (excluding mixed paper....something I am seeking to clarify, but also including cardboard, plastic bags, etc.) - goes into a city-provided rolling cart with a smart yellow lid. Once a week, they come by in the late evening and empty those containers up and down the street. We put it out early evening and bring it in the next morning.
And, just as in Chapel Hill, everything we can possibly compost goes into the composter.
What's still surprising to me is that now that we have far less "all other" garbage than goes into our yellow-topped cart, another truck still passes our house 5 nights a week to collect any garbage that we put out.
But that's just our experience and what I see and hear from our French neighbors.
Another day it would be even more interesting to see how we compare overall in how much garbage we are producing here on Mt Boron and back in Chapel Hill and what the recycling trends are.
Here on Mont Boron, a hill that makes up the southeastern corner of the city of Nice, we are big on recycling, except for "mixed paper" as we call it in Chapel Hill. The newspapers and magazines here go into a conainer that's a five minute walk from our front door. Ditto with glass of all kinds.
The rest - and I mean virtually everything that won't "spoil" (excluding mixed paper....something I am seeking to clarify, but also including cardboard, plastic bags, etc.) - goes into a city-provided rolling cart with a smart yellow lid. Once a week, they come by in the late evening and empty those containers up and down the street. We put it out early evening and bring it in the next morning.
And, just as in Chapel Hill, everything we can possibly compost goes into the composter.
What's still surprising to me is that now that we have far less "all other" garbage than goes into our yellow-topped cart, another truck still passes our house 5 nights a week to collect any garbage that we put out.
But that's just our experience and what I see and hear from our French neighbors.
Another day it would be even more interesting to see how we compare overall in how much garbage we are producing here on Mt Boron and back in Chapel Hill and what the recycling trends are.
17 June 2007
16 June 2007
Following Chapel Hill news from out of town.....
Local news that interests us, individually, does not cease to be of interest even though we may be out of town. It's a little like the tree falling in the forest and does it make a sound if no one is listening? Well, news happens whether we are in Chapel Hill and neigboring communities or not.
Each of us probably has come up with our own way of doing this, and I hope to expand my experience to include those of others.
Even when I am in Chapel Hill, I find it a challenge to follow the local news of interest to me. I read newspapers, visit websites, subscribe to e-mail and try to keep my ears open. Even with all that, I miss a lot sometimes briefly and sometimes forever.
When I am out of town, my choices are considerably reduced and I am reliant on someone contacting me by one communications tool or another to tell me some news and the internet - both for those e-mail subscriptions and for websites.
Studies show over and over again that most of us are most interested in the news closest to us geographically. (Sure, big news from elsewhere in the US and around the world can catapault into a position of great importance, but day in, day out, it is the local stuff that touches us in some way that always seems to be the most important to most people.
I live in Southern Village. How do I follow any news relating to Southern Village, downtown Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, the three places most local to me? Each of us has our own definition of news and that will be clearer after you look at the list below; some of the sources on the list may surprise you!
There is no one solution that does the job, but here are some that I have tried and some that I continue to use. I'll start the list (not necessarily in order) now and come back and add more and some comments on each:
Each of us probably has come up with our own way of doing this, and I hope to expand my experience to include those of others.
Even when I am in Chapel Hill, I find it a challenge to follow the local news of interest to me. I read newspapers, visit websites, subscribe to e-mail and try to keep my ears open. Even with all that, I miss a lot sometimes briefly and sometimes forever.
When I am out of town, my choices are considerably reduced and I am reliant on someone contacting me by one communications tool or another to tell me some news and the internet - both for those e-mail subscriptions and for websites.
Studies show over and over again that most of us are most interested in the news closest to us geographically. (Sure, big news from elsewhere in the US and around the world can catapault into a position of great importance, but day in, day out, it is the local stuff that touches us in some way that always seems to be the most important to most people.
I live in Southern Village. How do I follow any news relating to Southern Village, downtown Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, the three places most local to me? Each of us has our own definition of news and that will be clearer after you look at the list below; some of the sources on the list may surprise you!
There is no one solution that does the job, but here are some that I have tried and some that I continue to use. I'll start the list (not necessarily in order) now and come back and add more and some comments on each:
- Chapel Hill News
- Herald-Sun
- Carrboro Citizen
- WUNC
- Chapel Hill Wine Shop
- Carolina Inn
- Acme
- The Independent
- Chapel Hill Magazine
- News & Observer (The best option on the website is to go to the Orange County section; most, if not all, of the Chapel Hill stories that appear in the N&O are accessible here.)
- Southern Neighbor
- Daily Tar Heel
- Southern Village Listserv
- Sally GREENE
- Chapel Hill Town Listserv
- A Southern Season
- Google News
- The New York Times (I have chosen "Chapel Hill" as one of the key words that triggers an e-mail link; I have rarely seen any local news via this route of intense interest to me.)
Some general comments:
- It has been a long time since I recall getting a news "alert" related to Chapel Hill that I considered to be local news important to me.
04 June 2007
03 June 2007
"Inland, more rain may not quench thirst" - News & Observer
What are the "numbers" in Chapel Hill that give us some meaningful indication of future water supply? This News & Observer story talks about likely challenges for the Triangle and notes that Orange County is asking for help from a UNC geography professor, Larry BAND. The current issue of US News and World Report carries a cover story on the water crisis here.
02 June 2007
"Southern Village may gain city flair" - News & Observer
Here's a story on the upcoming "charrette" to help developers decide what, if anything, to do with the parking area in downtown Southern Village.
"Looking to be greener" - News & Observer
This is a report of action by the Hillsborough Town Board in pursuit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7% from 1990 to 2012. Hillsborough, according to the N&O report, is one of four local governments in Orange County to subscribe to the "U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement". The other three are Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County.
01 June 2007
"Gump Joins CCJ Team as Print/Online Director" - Committee of Concerned Journalists
UNC's Journalism and Mass Communications School graduates play some valuable roles outside NC. This release reports the selection of Deborah GUMP, who received both a BA and a Ph.D. from UNC, to an important post with the Committee of Concerned Journalists in Washington, D.C.
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