Grand Canyon bans bottled water sales, March 10

Grand canyon

Plastic used in bottled water is one of the biggest wastes created by humans. Despite efforts to recycle the material, an enormous amount of plastic waste causes handling problems.

Our national parks are having their own share of headaches due the plastic bottles brought and discarded by people visiting these parks. 

The National Park Service (NPS) will ban sales of bottle water in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, starting March 10, 2010. NPS has spent about

outdoor smoking banned in New York city

Effective Monday, May 24, 2011, outside smoking will be banned in most public places in New York city.  The law passed and signed in February, makes smoking illegal in New York City's 1,700 parks, on the city's 14 miles of public beaches and pedestrian plazas like Times Square. The law is intended to prevent second hand smoking and the violators could be fined $50.

With this law, New York city joins 105 municipalities (in states including California, Hawaii, Massachusetts and New Jersey) to ban smoking on public beaches and 507 municipalities that ban smoking in public parks.