What do you get when you recycle 80,000 pounds of aluminum cans, or approximately 2.7 million cans? Well, evidently $5,000 dollars and a national award for the City Recycling Challenge. Mayor Will Wynn accepted the Cans for Cash prize on behalf of the City of Austin at the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting taking place last week....

We've only ever had fake plastic trees for Christmas - which, invariably, stay up till August - but those of you with giant pinetrees rotting away in your living rooms might consider dropping them off at Zilker Park. Come mid-January, they'll be recycling the lot and grinding them into mulch, which you can then get ahold of for free. But exercise some caution when handling the fetid fertilizers, says the City of Austin: Christmas......