We here at the Windy Citizen believe in the importance of the weekend. These precious forty-eight hours should be embraced and worshipped. Waking up should be a dragged out, day-long process and going to sleep should happen only once a certain fun threshold has been crossed. In short, life should just be easier. With that in mind, we've put together The Weekender, our look back on the week's biggest news. Now even keeping informed is almost as easy as staying in bed.

The boom in alternative energies is creating new growth opportunities for Midwest law firms willing to expand their expertise into the so-called clean energy sector.

Jim Greenberger, a Chicago partner at the law firm Reed Smith LLP who has practiced private equity law for more than 30 years, made the leap into clean technology. He and his team financed a large-scale wind farm in central Illinois and are currently working with the developer of the largest solar power energy project in California.

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In 2007 Chicago rolled out its Blue Cart recycling pilot program, replacing the widely criticized blue bag program for 80,000 residences in seven wards. The results are good, but citywide expansion is slow going.

The Blue Cart goal in 2008 is to expand to 80,000 additional residences, though no official statement will be made until the city budget has been approved.  
 
"[Blue cart recycling] is a success in the seven wards, but . . . it hasn't expanded fast enough," said Betsy Vandercook, former Chicago Recycling Coalition board president, who in April 2006 co-authored the most recent "White Paper" report that advocated for residential curbside source-separated recycling.

According to the report, the blue bag program yields less than 10 percent of recycled products from the waste stream.

"It is pretty obvious that blue bag recycling doesn't work," said Katy Groves, a Logan Square resident. "The bags break, and I can't find them at the stores where I shop."

On the other hand, Chicago's Blue Cart program generated about 18 percent total recycling, including yard waste, from roughly 99,600 tons of refuse collected last year, according to the 2007 results released by the city in December.

Ald. Flores (1st ward) disseminated Blue Cart information through e-mails, city and 1st ward websites, literature available in the office, and "recycling block captains," who volunteer for the city to inform neighbors with questions about blue cart recycling, according to Raymond Valadez, the alderman's chief of staff.

It takes time for people to learn how to sort recyclables, but it's a simple learning curve, Valadez said.

But during a budget crunch there are other government services that come before recycling initiatives, according to Matt Smith, a spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation.

"Since Sept. 11 there is not a lot of money for all government services," Smith said.

Indeed, the cost efficiency and recycling method of blue carts compared with blue bags have not justified citywide expansion. The 2007 Blue Cart results "are good, but not staggering," Smith said.

Although 15 new drop-off recycling sites were also introduced with the pilot program, residents still are confused about Chicago's municipal recycling process, according to Vandercook. 

Awareness is a problem, said Vandercook, who believes that Chicago's piecemeal effort for blue cart recycling hampers its ability to broadcast public service announcements about best practices for recycling in Chicago.

"We got a confused city here," Vandercook said.

When asked by beginners how to recycle in Chicago, Vandercook's advice may vary:  It depends upon where a person lives, if it's a high-rise or a single-family home, if the person owns a car. People fall into different subsets that require different recycling procedures because Chicago's recycling system is mixed up, she said.

Smith argues that blue bag recycling suffers from a "perception issue," not a pragmatic issue.

"Any environmentalist that tells you [source-separated recycling] will pay off is not accurate," Smith charged. "Whether it's a green cart, purple cart or plaid cart, it doesn't matter if people aren't participating." 

When you decide to buy an eco-friendly car or even a house you are making a conscious choice to help the environment, but what if your green purchases are not so green after all.

Eco-friendly building practices are popular, but some experts say that the ratings systems that determine whether a building is green can be misleading to the consumer.

Green is the new gold standard of marketing; it's ubiquitous and in the now.

Everywhere you turn, cars are hybrids, organic local foods pervade the aisles at the grocery store and new buildings promising green living are advertised to the hip and eco-conscious. But how can you tell whether what you're buying is actually green?

This is a problem, and some experts say a serious one concerning constructing green, eco-friendly buildings.

The benefits of a green building are many: Lower energy costs, recycled building materials and especially greater marketability. There are also tax breaks that give builders incentive to take the greener road to construction.

Yet with a boom to build green, some worry about the risk involved. Some of this risk pertains to a rating system that determines whether a building is green.

The LEED system, which is the most widely used and marketed rating system, uses a point system to determine whether a building is green.

The system was created by the U.S. Green Building Council. The different levels of certification are silver, gold and platinum depending on the points achieved upon certification. Builders get points for a variety of eco-friendly add-ons, including oddly enough installing bike racks.

The problem with the system according to Frederick Butters, an attorney with Thomas M. Keranen Associates P.C. in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who is also an architect, is that sometimes LEED certification is not reflective of the energy usage within the building.

Butters says that this push to go green has many potential liabilities.

Butters recently spoke at a conference presented by the Real Estate Center at DePaul University, which was about managing risk in sustainable buildings.

"You can't suggest to a client that a building is energy efficient, and not follow through," Butters said.

A criticism of the LEED system is that once certification is attained there is no follow up. This means that a building that is LEED certified could be operating with higher energy outputs than a regular building.

Butters said this is due to the sophistication of the systems involved in green building.

In some cases these systems need regular maintenance by qualified technicians. If appropriate maintenance is not done, the system can lose its efficiency and actually put out more energy.

"Some building owners pursue green as a marketing tool," Butters said.

George Sullivan, the principal and CEO for Eco Smart Building, a consulting practice located in Chicago, said that he doesn't even use green building as a term.

His buildings are rated on their energy performance at different points in time to make sure that they continue their efficiency. The reason for this is the unreliability of the term actually meaning what it promises.

"If I go into a LEED building I assume it's energy efficient," Sullivan said. "Then the energy bill gets there, and it's even higher, that's a lawsuit."

Sullivan said that with the LEED system he could get a gold rating on a building without doing any energy efficient work on the property. As Sullivan points out, the LEED system is very lose in its definitions.

"I could even get a platinum rating without doing anything spectacular," Sullivan said.