California’s wine industry is going greener. While wrestling with the contradictions inherent in ‘green wine-making,’ many wineries are experimenting with a variety of sustainable practices, from harnessing solar power, to reducing reliance on large machinery, to releasing ladybugs for pest control. But many see a risk in making wholesale changes to established practices that might affect the wine and the vineyard ‘experience,’ as vineyards become less “pristine and pretty with neatly mowed rows and chemically controlled weeds.” As Deborah Grossman writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, “the goal of sustainable winegrowing is to create an environmentally sensitive, socially responsible and economically feasible product,” but what that means exactly seems to be in the eye of the beholder. more…

In an effort to conserve water, many college campuses across the U.S. are dropping the use of trays from their cafeterias. Faced with severe droughts, schools like Georgia Tech and University of Florida have joined the growing list of schools experimenting with no trays. Georgia Tech, with a student body of 18,000, claims to be saving 3,000 gallons of water a day. Similarly, University of Florida, with an enrollment of 50,000 students, predicts its annual savings will be as much as 470,000 gallons that would otherwise have gone to washing trays. Proponents of the ‘tray drop’ say the benefits go beyond water conservation and include reduced waste, reduced over-eating and reduced pollution (from detergents and other cleaning by-products). Here’s a piece by John Raby for The AP.

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