Isla Earth Radio

Are you wasting your waste? A company called RecycleBank says: maybe! So they've come up with a high-tech way to encourage people to recycle...by paying them!

RecycleBank co-founder Ron Gonen figured that more people would recycle, if they just had some motivation. So he added a computer chip to curb-side recycling bins, the kind that garbage trucks pick up. When a truck picks up a RecycleBank bin, it weights it and records how much that household recycled.

The heavier the bin, the more coupons and gift certificates a household earns, useable at local retailers.

RecycleBank has even made recycling extra-easy: households can toss paper, plastic or metal all into one bin.

The program is running in communities in the Northeast, and will expand to Dallas and Minneapolis soon.

Does it work? Gonen says middle-income neighborhoods usually see a 100 percent boost in recycling, while low-income neighborhoods see about a thousand percent increase. Retailers like it for obvious reasons, and cities like how it's saving on landfill space.

But the biggest benefit might be psychological. Gonen says when residents get rewarded for recycling, they realize they can make a difference.

Script by Gail Davis

If you can't stand the heat...hang in there?

That's what some species are doing in response to climate change.

It might sound obvious. But until recently, common wisdom held that climate change prompts native species to migrate, or die. Now, instead, scientists are finding that some species not only adapt to change, but thrive.

The star example is humble grassland vegetation in northern Britain. Researchers at Sheffield University studied slow-growing herbs and shrubs there, some more than 100 years old.

They marked off plots of the grassland, and over the course of 13 years, manipulated their environment every which way they could: Fake summer floods, drought, nutrient shortagesthey even buried heating cables to simulate winter warming.

By the end of the experiment, the grassland should have altered dramatically. But the plants were unruffled. They hadn't died off, and other plants didn't take their place.

Why? No one's sure. The plants might be slow to react, or maybe the genetically sturdiest of each species took over. Scientists say it shows the closer we look, the more it's clear that we barely understand just how complex ecosystems are.

Script by Gail Davis

Is it 'hip,' or 'cool,' to be environmentally sustainable? That's a question that some of the biggest companies are asking about the world's most popular products and the answer is 'sweet.'

Take Dell. It recently held an "ideas competition" for environmentally sustainable computing. Two of the finalists were a PC that runs on hydrogen fuel cells, and another with a shell made of processed corn!

Then there's Nike. It recently launched, "Trash Talk," a high-performance basketball shoe made from scraps off its factory floors.

iPods are going greener too. Apple's latest contain no mercury and are sheathed in recyclable aluminum. Apple also collects old iPods: Customers bring them in; Apple recycles them via sustainable practices, and gives customers a discount off their next purchase.

Does it pay to be green? Time will tell for some of the newer product lines, but it's already paying huge dividends towards a healthier planet though. Last year Apple collected 21 million pounds of electronic waste, keeping it out of landfills. And they report that at their Ireland plant, just a partial switch to wind power should eliminate 2,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.

Now that's something to get 'amped' about.

Script by Gail Davis

Which is better? A picture perfect golf course, or a wild and wooly prairie? Well, when it comes to ecosystem health, the more native plants -- the better.

Scientists at the University of Minnesota and Nebraska went out to the Cedar Creek research area and created a hundred and sixty eight test plots. In some, they planted a single species of grass -- kind of like a golf course.

In others, they planted a variety of native grasses and flowers -- anywhere from four to 16 species. What they discovered was fascinating. Those plots with multiple species did a lot better. They were more stable and up to two hundred and forty percent more productive.

Also, the diverse plots needed no tilling, fertilizers, or pesticides. And because we're talking about perennials here, it's a plant-once mow-once-a-year kind of proposition.

While mixing grass varieties wouldn't make for an easily manicured and maintained golf course green, your garden could benefit. And, maybe there are some open spaces in your neighborhood that could go a little wild?

Mother nature will thank you.

Script by Dan Maxwell

Sometimes, creating a preserve can help endangered species fast, like South Africa's Cape penguins. Until recently, this endangered bird, and the only African penguin, had a hard time finding food.

That's because South Africa's once abundant sardine and anchovy populations had declined dramatically due to over-fishing. That forced the penguins to search farther for food, often causing exhaustion and leading to death. In fact, in just eight years, their numbers dropped 60 percent.

But in 2008 the South African government, along with scientists and the South African fishing industry, decided to give the birds a hand. They fitted 91 penguins in two colonies with tracking devices to record their every move. Then after measuring baseline behavior they closed fishing in a twelve and a half mile radius around one of the colonies.

Three months after the closure, the scientists described the results as "striking." Birds from the colony still open to fishing showed no changes. But birds from the colony closed to fishing were able to get their daily supply of fish 30 percent faster, reducing their daily energy expenditure by 40 percent.

Now that's fast food that could save a species.

Script by Gail Davis