Christmas Morning Mimosas- "The Aftermath"

I understand that I am the "green investment" guy around this blog however I decided to go a different route with my post today. Especially with the financial markets in a holiday coma.

So I just completed another holiday week in which my brother flew in from Boston and my sister drove over from Orlando. We proceeded to pah-ty wicked hard, as my brother's fellow Bostonians would say, for the better part of a week. If I had to guess 4 bottles of champagne, 10 bottles of wine, and several hundred bottles of beer were consumed by ourselves and friends during that time. I mean who am I to change the family tradition of waking up Christmas morning to presents, stockings, and delicious Mimosas for breakfast!

All of this got me thinking- what the heck happens to all of that glass? So I jumped on the fancy interweb this morning and began googling glass recycling and the like. Wouldn't you know it, up popped this wonderful article written by Kate Galbraith for the New York Times.

The Fate of Recycled Christmas Wine Bottles

Now if somebody could come up with a way to begin wrapping our Christmas presents in recycled glass we would really be onto something!

Green Business Idea: Fresh Food Fast

As most of you guys know, I am a vegetarian. According to a University of Chicago study a vegetarian diet can lower your carbon footprint by as much as 1.5 tons. Unfortunately, I know that a chain of fast food vegetarian restaurants would not succeed, outside of perhaps a few niche cities like San Fransisco.

Perhaps though a chain of Fresh Food Fast restaurants could succeed. The idea would be that the basic assembly line method that has made restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King successful would be utilized, but coupled with local produce. Local franchisees would partner with local suppliers of meat, dairy, eggs, and seasonal vegetables. The economies of scale that McDonald's has would be lost, so prices would of course be higher. I for one, and I think a lot of educated folks who go out and drop $25-$30 at a sit-down restaurant, would be more than happy to pay $15-$20 to get great food while foregoing the sit-down service.