The BBC has a strange story on the fight to clean up the streets of Belfast:

Caroline Briggs from the council’s cleansing department said it was “a never-ending job”.

“We spend approximately £60,000 a year to remove chewing gum,” she said.

“However, we could spend 10 times that amount and still not really crack the problem.

Is chewing gum on sidewalks really that much of a problem? Another story discusses solutions at the front-end of the process.

New polymers being developed by Revolymer Ltd can be incorporated into chewing gum which may stop it cementing itself to the ground when dropped.

And here is a story on penalties that attempt to dissuade chewers from littering…

Chewers will be offered pouches to deposit their gum in pedestrian areas, while specially trained wardens in the trial areas will issue fines from £50 up to £75 for persistent offenders. […] Local authorities have said previously that it costs £150m a year to remove discarded chewing gum from the streets.

Special gum wardens? That seems strange to me. I can see wardens for real risks, but is chewing gum really the most pressing disaster facing urban areas?

What if the price of chewing gum included the costs of cleaning it up?

Usually duty-free is far overpriced compared to the market, but on a hunch I purchased a bottle of 2003 Kavaklidere Kalecik (red wine) for 15.50 Euros. Aside from the transportation security antics I had to go through (since Turkey is not in the EU the european airports refuse to let you carry a bottle of sealed wine on-board the aircraft) I found upon return home that the retail price on this wine is US$49.99. Shocking, and also neat to read that the grapes are somewhat rare, but on their way back again:

The Kalecik Karası grape of Central Anatolia which was on the brink of extinction due to the negligence of long years, has taken its deserved place in viticulture as a product of Kavaklidere thanks to the long term efforts of Turkish and French experts of Kavaklidere Wines Inc. and Ankara University Faculty of Agriculture. This special prestige wine has the color of a ruby stone, it is rich, well-balanced, and has a lasting and charming aroma of red fruit, vanillin, and cocoa. It has a light, fresh, and elegant finish. It can be aged for another six years in the bottle.

There really are some superb Turkish wines worth tasting, if you can get them out of the country without the “security” hassles.

The water quality risk, caused by the externality of the chemical herbicide and pesticide industries, as well as other weakly regulated industries that dump waste on people, may also become known as the mercury poisoning of America. The AP has a telling story today about the lack of awareness that not only allows companies to continue poisoning and evade cleanup accountability, but also the susceptibility of consumers to harm on a daily basis:

“We don’t test a lake or river and not find some level of mercury,” [environmental scientist for the North Dakota state Health Department] Ell said. “It’s pretty widespread across the state. We don’t have levels that are high enough to issue any kind of bans, but some lakes have concentrations where, in some species of fish, we just advise people to limit their consumption to smaller fish.”

Mercury is a toxic metal that can cause nerve damage in humans and is particularly dangerous to children, developing fetuses and women of childbearing age.

Lists are starting to emerge from the private sector watch groups as the US government lags not only in stopping the causes, but addressing the symptoms and regulating dangerous levels of mercury sold over the counter:

Oceana says that without in-store signs, most consumers lack the knowledge for good choices.

Its report says stores in Hawaii, the District of Columbia and Alaska are doing the best job of educating consumers, and it put 15 companies on its “green list,” including Safeway, Trader Joe’s and Albertson’s.

Most of the grocery chains that serve West Virginia were on the more than 50-member “red list,” including Kroger, Food Lion, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, IGA, Giant Eagle and Save-A-Lot.

Jeff Lowrance, spokesman for North Carolina-based Food Lion LLC, said there is no state or federal law requiring supermarkets to post such information.

Thanks to weak environmental (read: infrastructure security) regulation, sustainability will decline as the cost of living increases dramatically. In other words, if you are in America, don’t touch the water and don’t eat the fish unless you bring a chemistry set to identify the toxicity; or just outsource your supply to someone who understands the risks.