Recycled Cars, Green Cemeteries, Frog Watchers and Joni Mitchell This Weekend on Sustainable Georgia

Junkyards, scrapyards, auto salvage yards--You might not think so, but they were recycling before recycling was cool. In fact, automobiles are recycled at a rate higher than paper, plastic, aluminum, glass or electronic goods. This week on Sustainable Georgia we talk with Steve Levetan, Senior Vice President of Pull-A-Part, a ten-state automobile recycling operation. Levetan, whose family started in the scrap iron business in Atlanta in 1919, has worked for nearly 40 years in business and in public policy to create solid waste policies in Georgia that have left us with less clutter and a more pleasing environment to look at. For that and more, Levetan was named the Keep Georgia Beautiful Man of The Year. We'll talk with him about recycling, solid waste, and the future of the automobile in our car-culture.
On Earth News we talk about Georgia DNR's search for frog surveyors to help count Georgia's frog population. T. Boone Pickens is slowing down his alternative fuel plan now that oil is cheap again. And Josephine Bennett reports that if you want to be buried in a 'green' cemetery, then don't plan to rest in peace in Macon.
Our shout out goes to the Live Oak Library System, based in Savannah, which is building a green LEED-certified building at their newest branch.
Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi was too hard to resist as a recycled music cut. We hope the public radio audience can tolerate a single, just this once.
Sustainable Georgia airs Saturdays at 12:30p, Sundays at 4:30p and Tuesday nights at 1:30p. You can also listen on demand online by going here.

You Don't Need A Weatherman To Tell Which Way The Wind Blows-Wind Power Pros and Cons This Week on Sustainable Georgia

Sustainable energy and alternative fuels can be a thicket of lofty promises and unanticipated consequences. Much has been made in recent times about the possibilities of wind-generated energy in America. T. Boone Pickens is the most recent high profile convert, filling up commercial media with messages about harnessing the energy of America's Midwestern 'wind belt.' At the same time, over half of our states have passed laws or plans mandating increasing percentages of alternative energy production going forward, most of those leaning heavily on wind energy. While Georgia is not expected to be a major player in wind (biomass alt-fuels are our best bet), we need to watch this issue closely.

Our feature interview this week on Sustainable Georgia is with The Atlantic Magazine Staff Editor Matthew Quirk, who has an excellent piece on wind energy in the October issue of the magazine (John McCain is on the cover). Quirk discusses the major issues affecting the success of wind energy initiatives, mostly centering around challenges of transmission and the innate variability of wind. His cautionary message for T. Boone Pickens and the rest of us is that just like the corn ethanol boom, bust, and unintended consequences, wind energy has definite pluses and definite minuses.

In Earth News this week we check in with the PATH Foundation, which has extended the Silver Comet bike trail all the way to the Alabama border to link up with that state's Chief Ladiga trail. GPB's Edgar Treiguts attended the opening celebration of the linkup and lets us know about this great resource in Northwest Georgia.

Our Shout Out this week goes to Fort Benning, which evades military stereotypes by winning a major award from the State DNR P2AD Program for being a good, sustainable, green citizen in Columbus.

Recycled music features Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band with the title track from his 2000 release The Mountain, a song about Appalachian coal miners. Let us know what you think about the show, suggestions for a Shout Out to your community, or good interview subjects. You can post here or email us at gogreen@gpb.org.