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California Ranked 3rd Greenest State; Bay Area Cities Top List Too

No state recycles more of its waste than California. However, Fresno and Bakersfield are not eco-friendly at all.

When it comes to green living, almost no one does it better than California.

According to a new study by MPHOnline.org, a leading source in public health, California is the third greenest state in the nation, only trailing Kansas and Washington.

Click on the map above to see how each state ranked. 

California's strongest suit is its recycling, which ranks first in the country. According to the data, 68 percent of waste is recycled in California. In comparison, Utah, ranked 51st (including Washington, DC), recycles only 1.98 percent of its waste.

Other strengths for California include renewable energy sources (ranked third) and gasoline consumption per capita (ranked eighth). 

However, California really falls short in annual Co2 emissions, where we are ranked 50th, beating only Texas. 

In 2008, POPSCI ranked America's 50 greenest cities. Although they used a different methodology than the study above, they still found California dominating the list.

The following California cities were included in the top 50:
2. San Francisco
4. Oakland
7. Berkeley
13. Sunnyvale
21. Irvine
23. Santa Rosa
28. Riverside
37. Pasadena
38. Norwalk
43. Concord
44. Fremont
47. San Bernadino
48. Thousand Oaks
49. Stockton

However, FirstToKnow.com also points out that several cities in California are not yet on board the green train. They rank the following cities as the least eco-friendly in the country:
2. Fresno
4. Bakersfield

How do you think South San Francisco could become more green? Tell us in the comments!


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