When Al Gore sounded an alarm about global warming, everyone became aware that mankind (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) must preserve itself and the environment. If we are to survive, we must waste nothing and, like the Corleone and Soprano families, we must enter the business of waste management. Still, it's not normal for people to practice abstinence, restraint, even self-denial, no matter how much we hear about the planet's impending demise, unless some marketing genius can make thriftiness more appealing.
"You can threaten children with dire consequences if they don't clean their teeth ... But give them a toothbrush with a Chompy the Caterpillar handle and some multi-colored toothpaste and you've begun to make tooth-cleaning more than just a resented necessity. You've begun to make it attractive," said Jeremy Bullmore, former head of J. Walter Thompson Ad Agency.
Unless Mr. Bullmore has a predilection for parsimony, he must have been born south of the border, where nothing is ever wasted. Not shards of broken glass, yesterday's newspaper, soda can pop-tops, bits of leftover string, or even methane gases released into the air from flatulence. Now Grandpa will feel needed when we refer to him as a gasbag.
Landfill gas facilities in Mexico (Guadalajara and Monterrey) capture methane and use it for power generation. An off-grid renewable energy supply at a poor community in Nuevo Leon is expected to be completed by 2010. So just as you're about to dig into those cheese-draped beans, think about powering an entire town with the results. Makes you feel good all over, and relieved as well. Rush Limbaugh alone could power Manhattan and Los Angeles combined.
And what about old candy and gum wrappers? What do we do with them after they've been torn off? We toss them into a trash can and sometimes, if we're slobs, we just drop the wrappers in the gutter, except in Mexico where a beautiful something rises out of an ugly nothing. In Mexico, they simply use the wrappers to make purses like these, one for day and one for night.
New World Women, Taxco, Mexico http://artcamp.com.mx/nwwblog/
Broken Glass? Besides incorporating them into works of art, shards of glass are cemented into the top of walls, points up. This is way cheaper than an alarm system and seems to do the anti-pillaging trick.
In Brazil, creative new designers are coming up with great ideas, like a useful cell phone pouch made of soda can poptops by Neide Ambrosio.
http://www.novica.com/itemdetail/index.cfm?pid=126379
Yesterday's newspaper was once used to wrap fish. Today we eat the fish, use the bones for calcium, and recycle the paper. With the trend of getting news from The Huffington Post and other internet pubs, it may be time to spurn Louis Vuitton, Judith Lieber, even Coco Chanel, in favor of Brazil's ecosmart designer Roseana Rocha. We now know what to do with old Bill Kristol columns.
http://www.novica.com/itemdetail/index.cfm?pid=140578
"What about string?" you may be thinking. If you're smart, you'll keep old bits of string in one drawer, and rubber bands in another - even those fat ones from bunches of broccoli. This is the opposite of Conspicuous Consumption; this is Conspicuous Frugality. First we tried to save trees by using recycled plastic grocery bags instead of paper bags. Then we learned that the plastic bags weren't any more biodegradable than are disposable diapers. What about eco-friendly, guilt-free string bags? They expand when full and collapse into your palm when empty, and they're reusable. If crocheted or knitted from string bits you've saved, they won't be as pretty as the picture below, but they'll be serviceable.
As to rubber bands, instructions on how to make a rubber band ball are at http://rubberbandman0.tripod.com/ or, if you'd like to donate some, contact RubberbandMan0@hotmail.com. 
Humans are gloriously ingenious when it comes to inventing things, which may be what got us into this mess in the first place. Here's what I figure --we must either invent alternative sources of energy and products that we can enjoy as much as what they're replacing, or we can just do as our southern neighbors do. Waste is a terrible thing to mind.
If we don't take heed now and prepare for the future, never mind saving the yellow-bellied sapsucker, the most endangered species will be us.
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