economics correspondent paul solman has the story as part of his weekly take,ofmaking sense" inancial news. >> reporter: it's trash day in cambridg massachusetts. ery week, meera singh dutifully totes her recycling ind compost to the curb, t care of most of the family's waste. >> thiis two weeks worth of trash. >> reporter: tt's two weeks? >> and what it has is plastics, these are flower sleeves.o i try alwaysll them i don't need a flower sleeve when you buy flowers. >> reporter: uh, huh. >> but sometim i'm not quick enough.gs i compost te. so this is the string, and because it has a staple, so it shouldn't go into thost. so that's a string off the teabags. >> reporter: really? >> the teabags, yes, i'm very anal about t >> reporter: so are you kind of a recycling fanatic? >> i wish there was a word like o.c.d. for recycling. >> reporter: since the average american chucks a hefty four and a half pounds of trash a day, and we generate almost a third of the world's waste with barely 4% of its population, singh's discipline seems heroic, if not angelic. >> these should not go in recyclin

this is econics correspondent paul solman at mr. money mustache headquarters in longmont, colorado. >> woodruff: now a program note: with the mid-term elections just days away and several political contn the state of florida still very close, on monday we will present b florida: a special edition of the pbs newshour anchored from tampa. >> campaigning is almost done. stop sanctuary cities. can the democrats take the house? >> i am pro uon, i was a member of the union. >> will publicans hold the senate? >> some of the policies that he has established have been very s good. >> iss a collision course in one state. >> but at the enthe day, real change is brought from voting. >> a special edition of the "pbs newshour," battleground florida only on pbs. oodruff: on the newshour online right now, accumulating human-made debris in space threatenthe lives of astronauts and the functionality of essential satellites. on our web site,sible solution pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. eren us online and agai

for the pbs nehour, this is economics correspondent paul solman reporting from in and around cambridge, massachusetts. >> woodruff: next, we turn to another episode of our weekly series, brief but spectacular. r,night, we hear from journalist, profesnd author walter isaacson. his biographies of influential figures range from leonardo da vinci to ada lovelace. isaacson believes that those who thrive at the intersection of onarts and sciences are th who will become a part of history. >> i had a mento sin new orleant of a family friend, great novelist, walker percy anhe said there were two types of people come out of louisiana, preachers and storytellers. he said, for heaven's sake, be a storyteller. the world has too many preachers. i like to take on subjects for my biography that stand in the intersection between the arts and the sciences, because whether it was benjamin franklin or steve jobs or leonardo da vinci, i think that's what gives creativity. steve jo, whenever he did a product launch which shows street signs, showing that intersection of the arts and sciences. that's what leo