Time to reduce/recycle/reuse!
Posted October 13, 2011 at 2:20 pm by Ian Byington
Save it!
Just got this note from Helen Venada, who is the Waste Reduction and Hazardous Waste Coordinator for the County….what can you do to reduce the island’s landfill overloading? Here’s more:
Reduce/Reuse/Recycle more on the Islands…
Whether voters in the Islands decide on Plan A (parcel-based solid waste user charge) or Plan B (route collection), I hope we don’t lose sight of the over-arching goal to reduce the amount of waste going to the landfill!
We’re fortunate to be living in such a progressive state as Washington whose solid waste management plan, the “Beyond Waste” plan, emphasizes as its first priority that we stop throwing things away without thinking. Our choices affect the quality of our air, water, and food, as well as environmental and human health, for generations to come.
Preventing waste is a lofty goal but the state’s recent report card indicates that Beyond Waste’s strategies are succeeding! Industry is doing better but households are not. The one area of waste generation that has actually increased is the per person pounds…we Americans are creating MORE garbage than ever (in part due to increased packaging in the market).
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 55% of solid waste generated in our country is buried in landfills; 32.5% is recycled, and 12.5% is burned…not a very good report! Our use of landfills has doubled since the 1960s.
To me, to landfill or not to landfill comes down to personal and community values and sense of responsibility. Americans use too much stuff: consumption of 25% of the world’s resources by 5% of the world’s population; more shopping malls than high schools!
There are lots of reusable and recyclable materials in our local waste stream that don’t belong in a landfill. We need LOCAL programs to respond to new recycling markets and reuse opportunities and we need to inform the public of them so that we’ll be shipping less to the landfill. Along with the disposal savings to you and reduced costs to a well-planned county-wide solid waste system, waste prevention would cut down on the use of fuel, while reducing vehicle pollution associated with the long transport to the landfill and methane (greenhouse) gas produced by landfills.
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, expressed a larger view when he said, “…heedless consumption of resources is a global suicide pact.”
Use less; conserve resources for future use; make less garbage!
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Categories: Around Here
One comment:
One comment...
In reading this piece, it saddens me to think that the voters will be voting on a parcel fee to keep doing the same thing we have been doing. If the county had linked this fee to recycling yard waste, reusable construction debris, and recyclable metals (like steel) I would suggest that it would get a lot better reception. Other counties are doing this sort of thing–and even cashing in on some of it.
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