If there were plastic bottles on the Mayflower when it came to America, they still wouldn't be broken down. Bottles Up Glass Bottles are beautiful glass bottles that solve the plastic bottle problem. One was recently given to me, and I thought it was so pretty that I took some pictures.

I’m fortunate to come from a rural part of New Jersey about midway between Philadelphia and New York. It’s easy enough to work or play in the city and nice to come home to quiet farmland—especially in the summer. Horse country is prime bike-riding territory, and it’s much nicer than inhaling the summer city stench. Since I’ve become more aware of the single-use-disposable problem, I’ve begun noticing all of the trash along my route. Plastic bottles, soda cans, and fast food bags abound where turtles, grasshoppers, and butterflies ought to be. These pictures are from the first 5 minutes of my ride last weekend. But what really gets my goat is that all of these items are single use disposables. No one throws a reusable water bottle out the window when they’ve quenched their thirst, and no one throws tableware out the window once dinner is over.

On a beautiful Sunday, one side of Union Square was cordoned off for the Lower East Side Ecology Center's Electronic Waste Recycling Day. Electronics are designed to be used more than once. And technology develops and improves rapidly--so rapidly that we should send software engineers to the Olympics for the 40 meter dash. One of the downsides of this rapid development is how quickly our devices become obsolete, either by design or by functional capabilities. And let's be clear as a brand new monitor screen: advanced technology is one of the greatest things about our country. The problem is that many of the devices are designed for the dump. Fortunately, we're not without our ways of recycling our old electronics--and getting some sunshine in the process.