The city of Arlington will introduce new, more expensive recycling carts for residents on Monday.

New 65-gallon recycling carts will replace the 22-gallon bins Arlington residents currently use.

“It will be a little more convenient, so I like the idea,” said resident Chuck Lyle. “I probably would not have voted for it if I had the chance but I'm okay with it.” 

Lyle says he would have liked to have had input in the 94-cent per month, per household increase – an increase he is willing to overlook since the wheeled carts mean no more lifting and mean fewer trips to the curb.

“I can put my recycling stuff in there and I won’t have to take it out but every couple of weeks,” Lyle said.

Residents can begin using the carts as soon as they are delivered to their homes, a process that the city expects to run through the end of June.

The city said, after June, they will no longer pick up recycling placed in the 22-gallon bins if they’re placed on curbs, rendering them obsolete.

But residents can recycle those bins. The city advises people to place the old bins inside the new carts and take them to the curb. Sanitation trucks will handle it from there.

Some residents are opposed to the idea of recycling carts.

“I think the bigger carts are hard to store. I don't mind the dollar a month – I think we ought to be recycling. But the big carts I don't think here's anywhere to put them,” said Cleta Richmond, another Arlington resident.

While convenience was a factor, so was efficiency.

“It will be easier for our residents to recycle and they'll be able to recycle more content and material,” said city spokesperson, Sana Syed.

“Now we go from a system where we have a manual pickup, and now you're switching over to robotic arm pickup,” said Syed about the new sanitation truck system that will allow workers to do less lifting.

The list of items residents can recycle will be expanded beginning Monday.

You can find the list on the city's website.
 

If you're in the market for a new appliance, you could save money if you wait until Memorial Day weekend to buy.

The state's annual Energy Star Sales Tax Holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, May 25 and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, May 27.

A number of energy-efficient appliances qualify, from air conditioners to dishwashers and there is no limit to the number of appliances that can be purchased during the holiday.

"Texans can save twice when purchasing energy efficient appliances during the Memorial Day weekend," Texas Comptroller Susan Combs said in a news release. "Shoppers are expected to save about $2.9 million in sales tax during the holiday, and the energy efficient products will also help them save on their utility bills."

While some items may be rated as Energy Star appliances, only the following appliances and household equipment are eligible:

• Air conditioners priced at $6,000 or less
• Refrigerators priced at $2,000 or less
• Ceiling fans
• Incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs
• Clothes washers
• Dishwashers
• Dehumidifiers
• Programmable thermostats

For more information, visit Texas Comptroller website

The Princeton Review has named the University of North Texas among the “greenest colleges” in the US.

The Denton-based school made the cut for the third year in a row due to the many sustainability efforts underway on campus.

"It's been very nice and very refreshing to see this, said Francisco Guzman, Chair of UNT’s Sustainability Council. “It's a very proud thing for us who believe in this."

Among some of the many improvements made UNT has added 3 large wind turbines outside the new energy efficient Apogee stadium (1 of 4 LEED certified buildings on campus), expanded their recycling program to take in more than 600,000 plastic bottles annually, and converted almost half of the school’s energy use to renewable sources.

"We do have some of the highest sustainability rankings in the state and in the country,” said sustainability Assistant Director Lauren Helixon adding that the school also made the GreenMetric Ranking this year and has been recognized as high as 7th greenest in the country on different lists.

UNT’s green efforts are inspiring students and staff to go green.

Along with the hundreds of bikes traveling campus, UNT staff photographer Brad Holt stands out cruising around in his new Tesla electric car.

"They're totally electric and this one can go about 300 miles on a charge,” said Holt.

Holt was inspired to make the $100,000 investment in the Tesla due in large part to the environmental benefits of the car and the long-term savings of not having to buy gas for his daily commute to and from Dallas. He says the fact that UNT recently added six electric car charging stations to campus made the purchasing decision easier for him.

"It's so comforting to know that I can come and be at UNT and be able to charge up and I can go anywhere from here,” he said.

UNT’s office of sustainability was created in 2008 to help kick the University’s green-energy push into high gear. They say the school’s eco-friendly ways go back to the 1930s when they first began water research in North Texas.

The college is also getting students involved with their 1-year-old “Zero Energy Lab” located in Discovery Park – the only one of its kind in Texas.

The small building uses solar, wind and geothermal energy sources to keep power coursing through the center and even has a V-shaped roof to collect rain water for drinking.

"That's very exciting for them and it's a very unique opportunity, and not many other Universities will provide that,” said Engineering Department Chair and Zero-Lab Director Young Tao.

Campus sustainability leaders say their programs are really only the beginning.

"There are several student orgs that are dedicated to sustainability initiatives on campus and making this campus more green,” said Nicole Cocco, outreach coordinator at UNT. "Even if our students don't have electric cars the fact that they see this infrastructure here it makes them really rethink the world around them." 

Among the fun and activities at the Earth Day Oak Cliff festival held Sunday, there was talk of banning plastic shopping bags. 

Barbara Macleod's organization "Keep Oak Cliff Beautiful" is frustrated with the number of plastic bags that are littered throughout the city. 

"We want to encourage people to bring reusable bags instead of relying on plastic bags that have a shelf life of 30 minutes -- that end up in a tree or in a landfill," Macleod said.

According to environmentalists, one trillion plastic bags are used on an annual basis worldwide and it takes many years to decompose.

“They disintegrate, so instead of one bag they become 18 pieces of trash," Macleod said.

That's one reason why Macleod’s organization spent Sunday gathering signatures for a petition to do away with the bags for good.

This past week, Dallas council member Dwaine Caraway presented a draft ordinance to the city council that bans plastic bags.

Such an ordinance won't be a first in the state; cities like Austin and Brownsville already have set plastic bags bans in place. 

But national campaigns such as "Bag the Ban" are trying to fight plastic bag taxes and bans. At the state level, Representative Drew Springer from Muenster in Cook County has filed a bill that would ban all current and future plastic bag bans.

Those people who see the convenience of using plastic shopping bags will find there’s opposition to that point.

"You know also there was also the convenience of dumping your trash in one receptacle and now everybody is separating and doing their part, so now and so we need to do more," Tim Maloney, a petition signer said.

Earth Day is two weeks away, but thousands have volunteered to clean up Fort Worth this weekend.

The 28th annual Cowtown Great American Clean-Up on Saturday is expected to be a record-setting event.

The Ridglea North Neighborhood is like many in Fort Worth, a relatively quiet and pristine place to live.

"It's a very large triangle and a very diverse triangle, but all of it needs trash pickup once in a while," resident Andy Bradshaw said.

Bottles, cardboard and plastic car pieces are all about to be picked up thanks to Bradshaw and a handful of his neighbors.

"We try to do the big things at least once a year," he said, saying the neighborhood regularly cleans up after itself.

"We've been doing it for several years now," Hagen Haentch, of Markum Ranch Estates.

Haentch and his family will patrol his neighborhood's streets once again in what he says is a fun weekend event.

"We like our neighborhood to be clean, but it's also a good time for the family to work together. It's a good time to connect with your neighbors," he said.

Neighborhoods and parks will be especially busy with a record 5,200 registered participants. Hundreds more showed up to pick up gear on Friday, the last day to do so.

"We've hovered around 4,000 for the last several years, and this year it jumped," said Debbie Branch, Keep Fort Worth Beautiful coordinator.

Branch said it took a little longer to find spots to send some volunteer groups, but it's a good problem to have -- as is having few T-shirts, gloves and trash bags left to give out.

She said she hopes that even after 28 years of cleanups, volunteer numbers continue to rise.

"I want those young people to be involved in it, because I feel that young people that participate in community cleanups are going to grow up and they won't litter," she said.

It's a concept Haentch and his family have endorsed.

"We've got five kids, so we've got a lot of little workers," Haentch said. "We'll try to keep them on the right side of the road."

After the cleanup, an Earth party for volunteers will be held at Sundance Square's Gateway parking lot from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.

There is still a way for those who didn't sign up to participate. For more, click here.

The unassuming ATM-like kiosk at some North Texas malls may offer consumers instant cash for their old mobile phones.

The kiosks are called ecoATMs, and they are a way to safely recycle mobile devices, MP3 players and even some tablets for the instant gratification of greenbacks on the spot. The machines will pay out as much as $250 for some newer model devices like hot-selling iPhones and Androids.

However, for really antiquated clunkers, consumers may get no money. Instead they get a feel good message where the company will offer to plant a tree and donate money to a charity.

NBC 5's Consumer Unit tested the machine with several phones at Fort Worth Hulen Mall. For an iPhone 4, with cracks on the back, the machine offered $90. For an old Blackberry, the going rate was $4.

EcoATM is the brainchild of a San Diego-based start-up company founded in 2008. Since that time, the company said it has paid out millions of dollars to hundreds of thousands of customers.

"We collect thousands of used phones a day nationwide," said Ryan Kuder, the company's marketing manager.

There are more than 300 kiosks nationwide and about a dozen in the DFW area (listed below).

"For about 60 percent of the phones we collect, we're able to find a second life as a phone," said Kuder, saying they're refurbished and resold.

For the other 40 percent of collected phones, Kuder said they are smelted down. The precious metals are reclaimed and then put back into the supply chain.

There are other places to recycle an old phone. Some companies have buy-back options or consumers can donate to charity. In all cases, experts recommend to erase all personal information before the devices is pitched.

If consumers choose an ecoATM, the machine talks them through the step-by-step process with an adorable animated robot whose got some of the lovable qualities of Star Wars fan favorite R2D2 and Disney's Wall-E.

The machine identifies the phone and even spouts out eco-friendly facts during its inspection process. But one message ecoATM makes very clear is that this machine is not the place to pitch stolen phones.

In order to recycle a phone, a person needs to be 18 years old, have a valid driver's license and provide a thumb print. Plus, a consumer's face is matched to his ID and verified remotely via camera. The company also works with local police and law enforcement.

Robert Rivera walked up to the ecoATM kiosk at Hulen Mall hoping to walk away with some cash for his phone. But the machine said all he would get would be two bucks, less than the $30 he anticipated. So he left with his old phone in hand and no cash.

Mandy Vincent brought three older phones to the same ecoATM. She was offered $1 for one phone and $2 for the second. For the third, the machine could offer no cash value.

In the end, Vincent chose to recycle all three and said she thinks she got a fair price.

"I have three extra dollars from when I walked into the mall," Vincent said.

In North Texas, ecoATMs can be found at the following locations:

• Collin Creek Mall
• Grapevine Mills
• Hulen Mall
• Irving Mall
• La Gran Plaza de Fort Worth
• Ridgmar Mall
• Stonebriar Centre Mall
• The Parks at Arlington
• The Shops at Willow Bend
• Town East Mall
• Vista Ridge Mall

This week's rain is great for area lawns, lakes and rivers, but litter always comes to light when the rainwater recedes on the Trinity River.

Trash is as common of a sight on the Trinity as birds and turtles but is something no one cares for or wants to see.

"I can see cigarette butts, I can see paper, I can see Styrofoam -- just little pieces of trash," said Mark Olson, Tarrant Regional Water District conservation and ceative manager. "And then you just have dozens and dozens of these plastic bottles, and this is just recent."

This week's rains raised and then dropped the river levels -- although not by much. It exposed trash, but not as much as seen after past storms.

But the trash can't be missed.

"I can't believe people really tube in it," Tiffany May Johnson said.

Olson said studies show most of the trash is no more than four inches in length.

"It's really incredible, but it's a really easy fix," he said. "And it's a problem that we're responsible for, so we're also responsible for being the solution."

That solution is public education and outreach across North Texas. TRWD is joined by the cities of Fort Worth, Dallas, Arlington, Mansfield and Denton in creating the Reverse Litter campaign. The campaign is aimed at teaching people that their litter -- whether on a field, in a parking lot or down a drain -- likely ends up in the rivers and creeks. And those rivers and creeks lead to lakes, where North Texas gets its drinking water.

The Reverse Litter campaign also wants and needs the community to be involved. TRWD is asking for businesses, schools, communities and individuals to spend a few minutes every Tuesday picking up at least 10 pieces of trash and recyclables and putting them in trash or recycle containers.

The campaign will soon have a place for such groups to public commit to helping the environment.

"If we get 5,000 people to pick up 10 pieces of trash every week on Tuesdays, after a year, we're talking about wiping out 2.6 million pieces of trash," Olson said.

And that's something park goers can get behind.

"It's a start," Johnson said.

The Reverse Litter program is funded by the water district and the cities of Fort Worth and Dallas. The program intends on adding more outreach this spring.

A McKinney brewing company is using new, environmentally friendly technology to draft its signature beverage.

Franconia Brewing Co. has installed a micropower-generation system that provides all of the brewery's power from the property.

"The plan for us is definitely to get off the grid," owner Dennis Wehrmann said.

The system uses a variety of renewable energy sources, from solar panels on the roof of the brewery's carport, to natural gas and even waste from vegetable oil.

"You're not just working with one energy source like solar or just wind -- you can put different energy sources into one," Wehrmann said.

It is the first commercial installation of the technology, which was developed by fellow McKinney company Perfectly Green Corp.

"This is the first deployment of a new technology," CEO Eric Barger said.

He said the use of a variety of energy sources to complement each other takes away one of the biggest complaints about renewable energy: inconsistency.

"A solar PV panel is a lovely technology, however, a cloud may come over or the sun might set," he said. "What this will do is provide a consistent power by making up that energy that the cloud just took away."

The system even offers potential to pump power back into the larger grid itself.

Perfectly Green has several contracts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including other businesses in McKinney that have signed on to create a similar self-sustaining system.

Wehrmann said that while his small business was already energy-efficient, he has always prioritized finding new ways to use alternative energy sources.

"It's something that, if the technology is there, everyone should do it," he said.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said winter winds that brought low temperatures also contributed to a wind power generation record.

At 3 p.m. Christmas Day, 8,638 megawatts of power was provided by Texas wind farms.  ERCOT said 6,600 mw were created in West Texas windfarms and another 1,600 were created along the Texas coast.

"This output represented nearly 26 percent of system load in ERCOT at the time. This new record is 117 MW higher than the previous 8,521 MW record set on Nov. 10," ERCOT said in a news release Wednesday.

ERCOT said wind power generation can vary dramatically due to weather conditions and that ERCOT is learning how to better harness that power when available.

"ERCOT has more than 10,000 MW of wind power capacity, with more than 20,000 MW of additional wind generation under review. The completion of high-voltage transmission projects in Competitive Renewable Energy Zones by the end of 2013 will improve ERCOT's ability to move wind power from West Texas to the metropolitan areas where demand on the grid is highest," ERCOT said.

One MW is enough electricity to power about 200 homes during periods when electric use is highest and about 500 homes during periods of typical consumption.

A 18-year-old college sophomore has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the energy field for the second year in a row.

"It made me realize that I'm doing something big, and that I can have a big impact with my research," Param Jaggi said.

The Vanderbilt University student and Plano East graduate has also been featured in Popular Science magazine and has won a national award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for an algae-filled contraption he invented that fits over a car's tailpipe and is designed to turn carbon dioxide emissions into oxygen.

Since then, Jaggi has founded his own company, EcoViate.

He's also started work on a thermovoltaic wind system, another renewable energy product. It is meant to turn energy waste into new energy.

The recognition is a major validation of years of hard work, he said.

"If you think about it, you only know a handful of inventors from history, but you can list off hundreds of celebrities and hundreds of athletes," he said. "It gives a reason to what I'm doing."

Jaggi's father, Pawan, said it's difficult to express how proud he and his wife are of their son.

Even as a child, his son was always captivated by taking things apart and learning how they worked, he said.

"I've seen him at four o'clock in the morning reading," Pawan Jaggi said. "I didn't do that when I was 18 years old. I'm excited about the potential he has to change the world."

But Param Jaggi is more modest, saying he hopes maybe to make a "marginal impact."

"It's something that I love doing, and I don't even realize that I'm doing it. ... You have to be crazy to change the world," he said.

Jaggi currently holds a patent for his algae-based invention.

More: EcoViate

City leaders say the tree canopy in Denton is smaller than the national standard, and they want to buy property to save trees.

Denton wants to create more spaces like the park around Donald Welch's home.

Welch said the trees around his home have kept him planted in his community for more than 12 years.

"This looked so nice, I couldn't resist it," he said. "My wife and I can come out in the mornings and drink coffee and watch the squirrels or whatever animals are running around; same thing in the evenings."

But creating such park spaces is challenge in a city where development often overshadows trees. Denton's urban forester, Angie Kralik, said the city's tree canopy is 19 percent.

The national standard is 30 percent or more.

"It is not necessarily a negative impact at this point," she said. "We certainly don't want to go below that point."

Kralik said the city hopes to strike a balance between nature and urban growth.

Denton is looking at ways to save the resource, such as planting new trees and buying private property that will be protected from development.

The land would be purchased with money from the city's tree fund. Developers must pay a fee when they cut down certain trees, with the money going into the tree fund.

"We have spent very little of it," Kralik said.

The City Council may appoint a citizen's committee to help identify land that will be purchased to save trees. Denton residents who are interested in such a committee should contact their City Council representative.

If you enjoy the outdoors, you may want to head out to the North Texas Greenbelt this weekend. The Greenbelt Corridor is a wilderness area in Denton County with approximately 10 miles of multi-use trails. Greenfest is taking place Saturday to raise money and awareness for the park.

"I'm riding because this is the best place to ride," Denton County resident John Rutan said. "It's just so beautiful here. You see the wildlife here. It's quiet . It's really, really enjoyable."

Rutan calls the Greenbelt a hidden treasure in North Texas. He rides his horse on the equestrian trails multiple times a week. The Greenbelt is located in Denton County and stretches from Lake Ray Roberts to Lewisville Lake.

"You can kayak and canoe on the river. We have equestrian trails. We have bike trials. You can hike," Texas Parks and Wildlife Park Superintendent Chris True said. 

True helps manage the Greenbelt and is helping organize Greenfest.

Greenfest is the first annual festival to raise awareness and money for the park. It will take place on Saturday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. near the Lake Ray Roberts Greenbelt access point. There will be outdoor activities, live music, food, and entertainment for the family.

"We have several projects planned on the greenbelt that are outside of the scope of our main operating budget," True said.

True is hoping residents come out to Greenfest and enjoy a piece of wilderness in the middle of North Texas. All of the proceeds from the festival will go towards park improvements.

An Irving library with parking spaces designated for electric and hybrid vehicles recently was upgraded a couple of the spaces with Level 2 charging stations.

The city of Irving has been providing places for electric vehicles to plug in when visiting City Hall, the convention center and the West Irving Library.

The library, a net-zero LEED building, has 40 parking spaces with 110-volt outlets for electric and hybrid vehicles. All of the outlets are solar-powered during the day.

ECOtality North America replaced two outlets with faster Level 2 charging stations in May. The San Franciso-based company received a $230 million grant from the Department of Energy and installed 10 Level 2 stations throughout Irving.

ECOtality spokesman Dave Aasheim said the company is also installing hundreds more throughout Dallas-Fort Worth.

"We're in our final phase of installing," he said. "We've got about 250 of these chargers installed throughout the Metroplex -- libraries, grocery stores, department stores."

The two new charging stations at the West Irving Library were used 18 times in the past four months.

Fran Witte, city community outreach coordinator, said she hoped more drivers would take advantage of the stations in the future.

"As the oil prices continue to go up, I think it's going to encourage people to look at an alternative to fueling their car," she said.

According to the North Central Texas Council of Governments, there are 1,359 electric vehicles in Texas, with 562 in the North Texas region.

Plastic bags will be a hot topic of conversation among Dallas city leaders Tuesday.

Dallas’ Transportation and Environment Committee is scheduled to debate whether or not to ban plastic bags in the city.

"We have become a throwaway society and a part of that throwaway society is the use of plastic bags for everything," said Wendel Withrow chairman of the Sierra Club Dallas.

The group is thrilled to hear the city talking about such a ban. "Certainly even the fact that we are even having this briefing is wonderful. We've taken a huge step forward that the city of Dallas is going in the direction," said Withrow.

The idea is mentioned in broad strokes as part of a plan to significantly reduce waste in the city.

There aren’t any detail of when it would start, if it will be phased in or will be just an outright ban.

In the city's proposal it's not deemed to be mandatory until 2021, but considering this is the first of any discussions anything can change.

The hope is that people use reusable-cloth bags instead.

"A canvas bag just like this can hold as much as 3 or 4 plastic bags," said Withrow.

Outside the Dallas Farmers’ Market where almost all the bags given out are plastic we found Ronnie Foster who is no stranger to the disposable sack.

"I've got probably, I don't know, 300-400 plastic bags at home and when you get them you know you just kind of stuff them in each bag," said Foster.

He’s in favor of the ban for environmental reasons.

"If the wind is blowing you can kind of see them blowing across the freeway or whatever," said Foster.

A group of East Fort Worth volunteers are asking for your help to find stolen garden beds.

The beds are part of a community garden part of a project called, "embRACE the STREET." The project is part of a larger plan to revitalize the neighborhood.

"It's about creating the street, the area you want it to be it's a commercial corridor showing the kind of businesses that could be in empty building, a new streetscape," Debby Stein, the project organizer said.

On Saturday, the volunteers learned that ten garden beds that they had been working on for more than a month--disappeared.

Each four by eight foot wooden garden bed--stolen from a lot on the 28-hundred block of Race street.

"We just couldn't believe that someone would steal from the community. You know we're coming together to try and make riverside a better place and even just thinking about it now makes me a bit sick," said project volunteer Dana Harper.

All of the beds were custom painted by neighborhood residents and families.

"They had their own personality on them and sort of the personality of the community and they were gone," Stein said.

Now as the group moves on and starts from scratch, they have a simple message to whoever stole the beds.

"Please deliver them back they mean a lot to the people who worked on them. I don't know if they are of any value to anyone else so we would just like to have them back," Stein said.

The community garden with new beds will open to the public on the second weekend of September.

Arlington is considering curbing the 22-gallon recycling bins currently used by residents in favor of 65-gallon bins on wheels.

Republic Waste Services said the larger bins would be convenient because of the wheels and would encourage people to recycle more.

The plan has been mulled over, rejected and tweaked a few times since it was first proposed last fall.

Not all residents agree that bigger is better.

"That's horrible, horrible," said Dave Hill, of North Arlington. "I don't want it; take it away. Where am I going to put this great big dang thing for the rest of the week?"

Cleta Richmond agreed that the larger bins, which would cost residents an extra 94 cents per month on household bills, would take up too much space.

"I like what we have now," she said. "I think the bigger carts are too hard to store. I don't mind the extra dollar -- I think we should be recycling. But the big carts -- there's no place to put them. I don't want to have to roll them all the way out and then back in."

But Dezerea Oates said she favors the larger carts because they have wheels.

"We do need those," she said. "It would make it easier to pull them up to your house and pull them down."

Some residents said the wheels would be too loud when people pull them up and down driveways.

Republic said the wheeled bins would make working conditions safer because sanitation crews would handle fewer items. The sanitation trucks' automated arms would lift the bins.

The City Council will consider the proposal Tuesday night. The floor will also be open to public input about the new carts.

Gardens are taking root in unlikely places.

Ryan Crocker has turned his passion for urban agriculture into a business in Denton and is teaching others to do the same.

"It's the best of both worlds for me," he said. "It feels like the country, but we are really in the middle of the city."

Crocker has turned his passion for gardening into a business called Earthwise. He sells produce at local markets and is opening a shop that will give other local growers a place to sell.

The smaller of Crocker's two urban gardens lies in the middle of a Denton neighborhood. The larger garden is just a few blocks away, still surrounded by city.

Crocker said he is just one example, saying urban gardening is sprouting up across the region.

"You can do it as much or as little as you want -- containers on your back porch, a small plot on a sunny spot in your yard, or you can take over a vacant lot and do something like this where you can make a little bit of money on it," he said.

The American Lung Association says Denton, Dallas and Tarrant counties failed its annual review of air quality.

The group analyzes at state air quality data each year to compile the State of the Air report.

Dr. Sven Wust, an allergist in Denton, said the "F" grade Denton County received for ozone levels is not shocking. But he said it was concerning for Denton County residents with respiratory diseases.

"If you're inhaling poor quality air and it causes a flair up in those conditions, it can actually close off that area, and you can have an asthma attack or a COPD attack, and it can threaten your life," he said.

Ozone levels continue to improve but experts say it may take a while before they are good enough to earning a passing grade in the American Lung Association's annual report.

John Kuruvilla, a professor at the University of North Texas, monitors air quality around the state. He has a team of graduate students that study air quality in Denton. They said the failing grade is not solely Denton County's fault.

"You really don't have a critical amount of emissions in the Denton County region. However, you have quite a bit of emissions in the counties south and southeast of here," he said.

Wust agreed with Kuruvilla.

"Denton County is located downwind from major metropolitan areas, including Dallas, Fort Worth and cities further to the south," Wust said.

More: State of the Air 2012 Report

Hundreds of Grand Prairie elementary school students celebrated the city's 28th year as Tree City USA participant.

For the first time, the city had its annual Arbor Day celebration at Kirby Creek Nature Center. Every student left with a tree to plant on their own.

City horticulturist and arborist Susan Henson said it was particularly nice to host the 700 students at the city's new nature center because every student in kindergarten through fifth grade would eventually learn hands-on there. She said the program adds to the center's uniqueness.

"It is the first handicap-accessible garden in Grand Prairie, and we're very proud of that," she said.

Tonya Smith, a teacher at David Crockett 5th Grade Center, said she started teaching her students the basics.

"We try to teach them to be nice to the trees -- not swing on them or break them and try to kill them, but just to help them to stay alive," she said.

Fifth-grader Florentino Lopez said getting to learn outside has been refreshing.

"Outside, you can help the plants and, on the inside, there is nothing," he said. "Like, we study a lot."

Henson said Grand Prairie annually spends at least $2 per resident on trees.

"Every year we spend $2 at least on tree programs, planting, watering, mulching, pruning," she said.

 We've all heard the three "r's" about conservation, reduce, reuse and recycle, but now there may be a forth word to that list --- "E-cycle".

A North Texas artist is decorating storm drains in Denton to draw attention to water issues in the city.

"You don't typically see it [art] on the ground or over a drain cover," Kiba Jacobson said.

The painted canvases are the first phase of a project that's meant to be permanent. The pictures are meant to make people slow down and think about what's going down the drain.

"We want the art to surprise [people], and they see it and say, 'Wow! What's that?'" said David Hunter, city watershed protection manager.

The storm drainage system is a vital part of the city's infrastructure, but the only thing highlighting that are small signs on top of the drains.

"Water is one of our valuable resources. It's one of our most valuable resources," Jacobson said.

Hunter helped come up with the idea of putting art on the storm drains to show instead of tell.

"If we think about it, I can talk about regulations and chemistry and biology and ecology until I go blue in the face, and a lot of people's eyes are going to glaze over," he said. "Art, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. If we have a really cool picture, it is going to be worth even more."