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The Hot Buttered Rum String Band, a San Francisco area bluegrass group, is committed to using its music as a vehicle to encourage grassroots environmental, social and political change. Even the band’s tour bus carries an environmental message.

Hot Buttered Rum String Band’s Bio-Bus is a diesel school bus that has been converted to run on recycled vegetable oil. The band bought the bus from students at Vermont’s Middlebury College on the Internet auction site Ebay in late August of 2003.

While the Bio-Bus may evoke images of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters Psychedelic Bus and the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, the Hot Buttered Rum String Band has a more sober vision. The band’s members hope to educate and to empower people to consider using alternative fuel. And they appear to be in good company, as Neil Young’s and Bonnie Raitt’s bands have also chosen bio-diesel fuel for their tour vehicles.

"We oppose the environmental degradation resulting from fossil fuel use, yet our musical goals necessitate continuous travel around the country," band member Zac Matthews says. "The Bio-Bus enables us to remain true to our values and to show people a sustainable alternative to conventional transportation."

The band has been touring in support of their latest CD In These Parts, which was released in December 2003.

The Detroit Pistons—NBA champions and home team for the Metropolitan Detroit area—generated a basketball frenzy that has not been seen in Detroit since the team’s back-to-back NBA championships in 1989 and 1990.

The Piston’s home games also generated tons of recyclable materials. And while everyone else was watching the action on the court, RecycleMax Inc., Dearborn, Mich., was quietly removing the fans’ castoffs.

RecycleMax pulled 14.2 tons of recyclable materials from the Palace of Auburn Hills during the Piston’s home playoff games from first round play April 18 against Milwaukee through to the June 15 final against the L.A. Lakers. This amount is equal to the weight of 21,562 NBA-regulation Spalding basketballs.

RecycleMax is the official recycler and waste hauler for the Detroit Pistons. The company is responsible for providing timely collection of recyclabes and waste at the Palace.

Good Point Recycling, Middlebury, Vt., has made public its new provisional patent, which was filed last fall and registered in March, for "recycled-content" gold wedding bands.

"We started off just looking at ways to make computer recycling less expensive and that led us to recovery of gold and copper from the computers," Robin Ingenthron, founder of Good Point Recycling, says. "When we found out how much cleaner recycled gold is than mined gold, we were determined to do more and more of it."

Ingenthron continues, "If Americans make this one environmental purchase, the free market will steer recycling back where it should be."

The 24-carat gold must be alloyed with post-consumer recycled copper or something similar, he says, in order to produce the bands. "We are discussing finding the right artisan to do that."

He adds that the lead content in the rings is slightly higher than what he would like, describing it as "tiny but measurable."

American Retroworks Inc. owns and operates Good Point Recycling.