Office Paper

SYKESVILLE - Though the town's month-old recycling program is off to a sluggish start, organizers hope to follow in the footsteps of other successful efforts in South Carroll.Residents haven't been flocking to the Sykesville recycling center, which opened its doors Oct. 13 at the town's new maintainance building off Sandosky Road.But town administrators are planning a December information campaign they hope will motivate would-be recyclers into action, said Maxine Wooleyhand, a member of Town Council and the recycling committee.

Well, are you ready to get started on a yearlong environmental project?You sent thousands of cards and letters, and you picked one subject for us to work on -- although it certainly wasn't unanimous. You voted for alternative energy, for convincing Congress to take ozone depletion more seriously, for regulating junk mail. One person even voted for saving resources by forcing cereal companies to make their boxes smaller.A lot of you expressed a sense that there's so much to tackle, it's hard to know where to start.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- You're typing at your computer, and the phone rings. You stop working and answer the call. When you return to the computer, the screen has a picture of a fish in water and a message that says: "A leaky faucet that will fill a cup in 10 minutes will leak 3,000 gallons a year."Now where did that come from?It's out of the mind of Russ Mumford, who has created a software program called Green Screen. The program is an unusual new use for the time when computers "rest."Screen savers are programs that turn a computer terminal blank or display a moving image if no key on the keyboard has been pressed for a set period of time.

ROCKVILLE -- His highly publicized recycling program in ruins, an angry Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan yesterday demanded an apology from those he holds responsible: the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, the County Council and his own advisers."

In Baltimore City Board approves final formal step for biotech-park loan The Board of Estimates approved the final formal step yesterday for obtaining a $21.2 million federal loan to help finance a redevelopment effort in East Baltimore centered on a biotechnology park. The loan will be used to pay for demolition, acquiring properties and relocating residents whose homes are purchased by the nonprofit organization rebuilding the area north of Johns Hopkins Hospital. "It's a big step," said Jack Shannon, president and chief executive officer of East Baltimore Development Inc. "It's another key milestone."

Remembering the Holocaust The annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) service, presented by the Jewish Federation of Howard County and the Howard County Board of Rabbis, will be at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Columbia Jewish Congregation, the Meeting House, 5885 Robert Oliver Place, Columbia. Chic Paper, a veteran of World War II and a liberator of the concentration camp at Dachau, will speak. An interactive program with Holocaust survivors for teens in grades seven to 12 will be held from 6:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Called Dor L'Dor (Generation to Generation)

Those paper-pushing county Circuit Court employees have gone environmental.No longer will they throw away used white and computer paper to be burned at the nearest incinerator or dumped at the local landfill.Circuit Court Clerk H. Erle Schafer said the courthouse will join the state's recycling program by Oct. 1. It will become the first circuit courthouse in Maryland to recycle."We hope this will be a pilot program for the rest of the circuit courthouses," he said.The Circuit Court clerk admitted he decided to make the move only after employees suggested it."

In a back room at Klein's Super Thrift Market in Bel Air, a cardboard crusher moans, groans, whines and wheezes as it devours an endless buffet of boxes.The greasy, 30-year-old machine, which quickly flattens up to 1 ton of boxes before they are shipped to a local recycler, hardly qualifies as advanced technology.Yet county administrators are looking to such processes used by industry to play an important role in the modern-day recycling movement.Boosting recycling efforts by Harford business and industry is a critical -- if overshadowed -- aspect of the county's plan to reduce by 15 percent the garbage entering the county landfill, said Robert Donald, director of the Harford Department of Public Works.

The County Commissioners are encouraging citizens to participate in recycling programs that will help meet the state recycling law.The following information will assist you in joining the countywide effort.A. Carroll County Recycling Center: Route 97 near airport; 848-CANS, 848-4124 or 857-2177; open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; drop off available at all timesAccepted items:* Aluminum cans: (purchased from you by the pound)* Cardboard: (corrugated, flat, clean; includes cereal boxes)

A military humvee, the workhorse of Desert Storm, came in handy in some very different conditions in Western Maryland.Two National Guard soldiers cruised Interstate 70 during the height of Saturday's blizzard, picking up stranded motorists in white-out conditions. Sgts. Randy Hope and Michael Freushour set out from Hagerstown and motored along at 10 mph, making their way toward Frederick.The guardsmen first came upon a massive accident on the westbound lanes near Myersville just after it occurred about 1 p.m."