Twitter Roundup – August 27: Banning plastic bags in Mexico, renewed land conservation efforts in the US, and the Internet saves a few soles
Search for the hashtag #socent and you’ll find wide-ranging interest in social entrepreneurship on Twitter. Here’s a roundup of a few thought-provoking tweets from the last week:
From the city that brought you gay marriage last year comes another progressive decision this week. According to TriplePundit.com (@triplepundit), Mexico City is banning free plastic bags within city limits. In the future, stores will have to charge for plastic bags, which must be biodegradable. It’s planned to go into effect next year, to give merchants there an opportunity to find cost-efficient options for compliance. This move comes a few years after San Francisco made the same decision — can more North American cities be far behind?
Tomorrow at the Venice Biennale, a team of researchers from MIT will unveil a prototype for a new oil spill-cleaning device. The low-cost, energy-efficient robotic devices skim spills in droves, communicating with each other using wireless networks and GPS, ensuring an even clean. The team estimates a fleet of 5,000 could clean the Gulf in a month’s time.
For the first time in four years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (@usdafsa) has opened enrollment for its Conservation Reserve Program for farmers. That’s a lot of words to describe a simple idea — the government offers subsidies to farmers for land used as wildlife conservation areas. The program is controversial, but it definitely makes for a lot more conservation land. You can read more about the program and its difficulties here.
Last week, Nathaniel Whittemore (@socialentrprnr) wrote a piece for Change.org about a startup called Feelgoodz that makes eco-friendly flip-flops. The fledgling startup ran into trouble this summer when an enormous shipment of its flip-flops was two months late in the wake of the BP oil spill. Because they couldn’t sell them, Feelgoodz was not going to be able to repay its venture loan, jeopardizing the young business. The piece on Change.org garnered so much attention, though, that Groupon contacted Feelgoodz about a nationwide deal, and by the beginning of this week, Feelgoodz had made back the money needed to repay the loan and sold out its shipment.
Did you come across any other notable #socent tweets this week? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @dowserDOTorg.
