Norfolk, Neb., Sept. 23, 2009 – The Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) is the recipient of a $48,082 Rural Business Enterprise Grant awarded by USDA Rural Development.   The grant will help fund a kiosk and associated software for the Energy Innovation Project, which will focus on energy education at the utility’s new Norfolk Operations Center.

You already know TechWare Recycling for electronic recycling, but to help the needs of the community, TechWare is now starting to collect waste oil.  Recycling the motor oil from your car, truck, motorcycle, boat, RV, or lawnmower is one way that you can demonstrate your commitment to protect the environment for future generations while conserving energy resources.  Waste oil can be brought to 1835 W O St. between the hours of 8am and 4pm Monday through Friday.

Sister Monica Okon doesn't consider her recent lunch at Omaha's College of St. Mary a miracle, but she does see it as an opportunity to perform an environmentally moral act. The nun scooped her mashed potatoes and salad into a reusable, biogradable to-go container that she planned to wash and return to the cafeteria the next day.

"We're trying to make a difference, even if it's just a little one,” said College of St. Mary student Juana Acosta about recycling efforts.

Plastic foam, that hard-to-recycle enemy of the environment often used for to-go containers, is now banned in the college's cafeteria. The ban is one of several new green initiatives being pushed by the school's president and supported by a student-led environmental group.

Wind turbine sales in the U.S. are projected to grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7 percent to reach an annual production volume of almost 8,000 turbines with an average capacity of greater than 1 megawatt by 2015, according to a new report from Pike Research.

We love getting new gadgets, but what do we do with the old ones that they replace? Besides handing them down (or up) to someone else so that they can get more use out of it, the next best thing would be to recycle them.

Recycling items of any sort shouldn't have to have its own perks and incentives, but who is to turn away getting something back for your old junk? San Diego-based ecoATM last  month installed its first "Automated eCycling Station for eWaste" at a Nebraska Furniture Mart in Omaha.

During the school year, energetic and creative college students rally together in countless important movements, from renewable energy to LGBT rights to recycling fraternities' notorious red plastic cups. But as soon as summer arrives, students disperse ... and the good work they've been doing takes a vacation, too. Who can blame them? I know that, personally, I need to make enough money during the summer to pay for school in the fall, and volunteering to plant community gardens doesn't always do the trick.