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Five SoCal Must-Reads: A Metal Lighter than Styrofoam & More

By Zach Behrens
November 18, 2011
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  • Bakersfield Californian: A composting facility that apparently processes close to a quarter of California's compostables had its permit pulled by Kern County supervisors this week after two worker deaths--they happened to be brothers--in addition to various land use violations. Now grocers and others must instead send millions of pounds of waste a day to landfills.
  • KEYT (video): In addition to not funding a study on poverty, Santa Barbara County supervisors rejected spending $15,000 to study the effects of plastic bags on the environment, a step that must be done to consider banning them.
  • San Diego Union-Tribune: UC Irvine engineers have created a metal "that's about 100 times lighter than styrofoam."
  • The Atlantic: "A new [Los Angeles] city ordinance will allow small farmers' markets to operate in residential areas, enabling backyard growers and small-time farmers to sell their crops in their own neighborhoods."
  • Zócalo: What movie best captures Los Angeles? A number of local notables, from author Daniel Hernandez to County Supervisor Gloria Molina, chime in with one rule to keep in mind: go beyond Chinatown.

Photo by ve®onica, a contributor to KCET's Southern California Flickr Pool.

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