Taylor Bates, 18, will be among the youngest delegates at the Democratic National Convention — and one of the greenest. He earned a spot among Vermont’s 23 delegates and four alternates by pledging to offset the carbon emissions of their trip to Denver.

“I understood that it was sort of an indulgence to pay for your carbon sins,” Bates said in an interview.

The $200 that Bates paid for his delegation will help fuel green power projects at a family farm in Minnesota, a small school district in Colorado, a Pennsylvania dairy farm and an Illinois landfill — a renewable energy mix selected for the Democrats by a carbon-offsets provider.

Democrats have vowed to make the Denver gathering Aug. 25-28 “the most environmentally sustainable political convention in modern American history.” Andrea Robinson, the Democratic National Convention Committee’s director of greening, said organizers are doing everything they can to reduce waste and carbon emissions.

NORTH YORK, Ontario — Truckloads of food scraps, diapers, animal waste, paper products, pet food and other rubbish from Canada’s largest city come to a sprawling industrial facility here every day and leave as compost for gardens and parks.

Toronto’s 6-year-old “Green Bin” organic waste program keeps almost a third of the city’s residential garbage out of the dump, creates a potential source of electricity and reduces landfill emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 23 times as potent at warming the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

The stars at the Dufferin Waste Management Facility are bugs, anaerobic trash digesters that reduce biodegradable rubbish to compost and methane and — perhaps most important for residents of this Toronto suburb — keep the stench of rotting garbage from escaping the plant’s fence.

While soaring gas prices have stopped some motorists from making Independence Day forays, others are venturing out for road trips that don’t involve expensive stops at the petroleum pump.

Bicycle enthusiast Rebecca Jensen, 23, is planning to spend the day on a bike trip with her parents, “winery hopping” around Walla Walla, Wash., in the southeast corner of the state.

Jensen doesn’t own a car and travels almost everywhere on her bicycle. She commutes to her job at a coffee shop on her bicycle and started a program at a community center teaching others how to fix their own bikes. She said since gas prices have increased, she has seen more bikes and “definitely more two-wheeled vehicles in general” out on the road with her.