Birthday edition! There’s lots of good news this week, from an expanded bike sharing program to an increase in T ridership. But up first: your fruits and vegetables have fewer vitamins and minerals than those that your parents ate.

• Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious? – Scientific American. This is why organic agriculture is so important: it builds nutrient-rich soil, which translates to nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables.
• Hitchhikers Green Guide to Boston – Green Light Distrikt. I like to think that I’m part of a larger green community, but there are a lot of groups in the Boston area that I didn’t even know about.
• My three year solarversary! – Boston Gal’s Open Wallet. Boston Gal tracks her electric bill after getting solar panels.
• T shows 5 percent surge in ridership – Boston Globe. Highway use also increased, but only by 2 percent.
• Bike-sharing program spreads to Somerville – Boston.com. People will be able to pick up a bike in Boston and return it in Somerville, or vice versa. (Thanks, Danielle!)
• Can hemp clothing save the planet? – Slate. I guess it depends on which is most important: energy use? water use? petroleum use?
• Red Sun Press’ Matt Osborn on Printing for Peace, Justice and a Sustainable World – JP Patch. This local printer has been on the environmental bandwagon from the beginning. (Thanks, Lesley!)
• Limits on biomass energy proposed – Boston Globe. The proposed plants would no longer be eligible for renewable energy credits.

Now I’m off to enjoy the day. As always, if you find anything interesting this week, send it along.

While I haven’t been paying attention this month, there’s been a lot of good bike news.

• Impossible Bike Lanes in the Works – Harrumph! This stretch of Mass. Ave. is the worst part of my commute—and apparently has some of the highest accident rates in the city. It looks like there will finally be bike lanes there by the end of the year!
• Hub set to launch bike-share program – Boston Globe. I wish this had existed when I was thinking of getting my bike; it’s reassuring to try them out for a while first.
• Making a living unchaining the bicycle – Boston Globe. Speaking of bicycles, I’m really drooling over these shaft drive bikes. Has anyone tried them?
• Green Buildings: The Cambridge Public Library – Sustainable Cities Collective. An in-depth discussion about the new Cambridge Public Library’s cool double-skin wall system. (Thanks, Sharon!)
• America’s energy use, in one nifty chart – Grist. You may have seen this before, but it’s a great visualization.
• Homeowners Continue To Waste Green Home Improvement Money – Treehugger. I love the pyramid of conservation they refer to. It’s a great visualization of the fact that solar electric, wind, and window replacements should really be the last things that homeowners do.
• Replacing our LAST two incandescent lights with LEDs – Green Lifestyle Consulting. I haven’t tried LED light bulbs yet, but it sounds like they’ll be overtaking CFLs soon.
• U.S. Army Launches Plan to Make All Military Bases Net Zero – Inhabitat. Way to put a good use to giant military spending. This could mean not only a huge reduction in carbon consumption, but also major financial support for energy-saving programs and technologies.
• Let Us Eat Fish – New York Times. I’m still not going to start eating fish, but this is an interesting take.

As always, if you come across anything that I might be interested in this week, send it my way.

The Minuteman Library Network now has Kill-A-Watts available for check out. If you live in the Boston area, just request one to be delivered to your local library and pick it up at the front desk. It’s a great idea, because it’s the sort of thing that you only use once, and then maybe when you replace a large appliance, which doesn’t happen that often. (Thanks, HEET!)

Or you can always borrow mine. It’s been kind of lonely lately.

I’ve had three different types of shower curtains in my life—vinyl, glass doors, and cloth—and the cloth is my favorite by far. It’s also a more environmentally friendly choice.

Okay, so the curtain can only do so much for my ugly bathroom...

I couldn’t use vinyl curtains anymore because Ask Umbra’s mantra—no vinyl, that’s final—runs through my mind whenever the word comes up. The reason for it is that the manufacture of vinyl (or PVC) produces dioxins. These chemicals can cause cancer and disrupt reproductive systems. There’s some talk about the curtains’ off-gassing being bad for your health—think of the dintinctive smell they give off—but the real issue is dioxin pollution around factories that produce vinyl. (Also, have you ever tried to clean them? Impossible.)

The glass doors are probably a very good choice for the environment (very durable), but cleaning them can be a pain, and they seem to build up soap scum at a much faster rate than shower walls. Or maybe it’s the same rate, but you can just see it better through glass.

Cloth curtains, on the other hand, can just be tossed in the washing machine if they’re starting to get dirty. I get a little pink mold sometimes on the bottom of my polyester one, but the makers of hemp curtains even claim that they’re naturally mold-resistent. (I wish I’d know that before I bought mine three years ago.) Anyone ever tried these? Are the claims true? As a bonus, the cloth curtains look prettier, too.