Mary Crane, 12.19.06, 12:00 PM ET Savvy entrepreneurs can smell business opportunities that others don't--even ones that lurk under a pile of trash.Take Patrick Fitzgerald. When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to save a few pennies back in 2002 by doing away with plastic and glass recycling, Fitzgerald--then a law student at Fordham University--started sniffing. On its face, Bloomberg's decision was understandable: While people claimed to be recycling, the trucks that hauled the garbage were coming back only a quarter full; meanwhile, the city had to cover the costs to keep them running. It's little surprise, then, that recycling has traditionally been the domain of governments and nonprofit institutions, as well as large, diversified companies such as Waste Management (nyse: WMI - news - people ) (market cap: $19 billion), Republic Services (nyse: RSG - news - people ) ($5.3 billion) and Allied Waste Industries (nyse: AW - news - people ) ($4 billion) that boast enough scale to make the economics work.
How to get more people to recycle? Fitzgerald's answer: Pay them.
Before the Flood? Economic Risks and How to Prepare
Ocean levels have been consistently rising in the United States, so maybe people should reconsider buying that beachfront second home, right?
It turns out the rising ocean levels have many more implications on the US economy, particularly in regions such as California, according to eye-opening new studies cited in a series in The Contra Costa (California) Times.
Studies show ocean levels have risen seven inches off the California's Golden Gate in the past century, after rising about two inches per century since the last ice age. With melting glaciers and ice caps throughout the world, the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating in the upper range of what has been previously predicted.
Top Ten Sustainability Stories for 2006 The year of 2006 in review from the perspective of sustainability in state and local government, presented in order of importance. Though we have been doing this blog only since May, so much has gone on since then that we are overwhelmed by the evidence that the nation is experiencing a collective tipping point. As Old Abe used to write--to wit:
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