By Helen Venada
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. Environmnental 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!
I agree! I’ve discovered a site that let’s you easily stop CATALOGS. We get pounds of them, all for no purpose, because we shop online.
What will it take for us to look at the waste that we are producing
There is so many ways that we can reduce our impact but we are so caught up in doing things without looking at the consequences of our action
Reducing waste is easy, it just as to do with changing what we are used to doing without thinking about the consequences of our actions.
So how or where do we start ?
We have to change the way we do things and how we teach the next generation
The most important R of the 3 R’s is reduce, reuse, recycle
So what can we all do to reduce our impact on the environment
If we look at our wasteful habits and make a choice to change things then we can have a positive effect
Buy from your local farmers
Use a reusable bag for shopping
Do you know how many paper and plastic bags that you use in one year ( do you care ) ?
Buy a stainless steel water bottle ( how much money have you spent on bottle water ) ?
And it goes on and on
Being green saves green
So let’s start a movement “