Editor,
The proposals facing this island regarding waste disposal are clear. They represent a meaningful turning point for our community.
One alternative means more and more trucks leaving the island with “waste” slated for entombment in massive landfills on the dry side of the Cascade Mountains. This solution is quick and simple. It moves the waste out of sight, out of mind and quickly solves a problem. Experience has shown such a system, fueled by profit in the disposal of waste will cost more and more in the future. Fees will rise. In the future recycling will decline.
The proposal by The Exchange/Orcas Recycling Services builds on 30 years of conservation experience here on Orcas Island and offers to expand an array of recycling and reuse programs. Their proposal, in the words of the evaluation team, offers a “robust” array of services.
Year after year, they will recycle, reuse and repair more and more of what we throw away. Unused appliances, computers and tools will be offered to the community and be available for education, training and eventual reuse. Students may have access to a computer, others will experience the pleasure of returning a cranky piece of equipment into a useful tool again. Their proposal will result in fewer trucks crowding our ferries.
The Exchange has long provided opportunities for this community to work, volunteer or just to experience the pleasure of a low key treasure hunt. Anyone can experience the rewards of converting something no longer useful into a found object at the Orcas bargain exchange. These are tangible benefits to sustainable living, to a community. This proposal offers to increase recycling and adds many more benefits in the future.
Significant financial resources will also remain here on this island. Hard earned cash is saved in the Exchange process. Valuable resources will be available for reuse here, not buried out of sight for generations. In the process hundreds of residents, new and old become part of this community conservation effort. Donors, volunteers and bargain hunters, all gain value and meaning in this practical aspect of sustainable living.
Under the Orcas Recycling proposal leaves, food waste and organic yard material will be composed and returned to the build the thin soil of this island, a process nature started after the last ice age. It makes this island more livable. Composting aids gardens, small farmers and local restaurants promising home grown food.
My claim that the alternative to Orcas Recycling Services will in the future cost more and waste more is based on experience. I directed a large and complex program of waste disposal, including food, medical, radioactive and chemical and other hazardous waste at the University of California, Davis. I experienced first-hand the increasing cost of what seemed simple disposal problems. Community and campus based recycling programs were always cheaper and brought a wide array of benefits to everyone involved.
Later as the director of the large five county Portland Metro solid waste program I had the same first hand experience. Shipping waste is a deceptively simple choice. It is grows more expensive and is the enemy of conservation and the sustainable use of resources.
Bern Shanks
Deer Harbor
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Bern…thank you for your articulate, experience-based, forward thinking assessment of the implications of the upcoming decision on dealing w/ SJC’s waste stream. I hope that our representatives who will be making that decision have the courage to look ahead…to take the long-term view…to recognise that, as a community, we stand at a crossroads on this issue…and do some real soul-searching before committing us to an ultimately unsustainable, short-term, “solution”.
Bern Shanks, thank you for your letter, which means a lot, with your considerable solid waste management experience to back your claims that Orcas Recycling Services/the Exchange’s proposal will be the best for our community. Many of us believe that too, so it is good to hear from someone who has the experience to back our public trust.
In the depression when times were so hard, people were forced to think outside the box, use every scrap of everything, and ultimately, their resourcefulness led to solutions that were forward-thinking and benefitted all. That time is here again now and we need forward thinkers and doers. I believe in the people who have put forth this proposal, and I believe in the community who will help grow this vision. We will all gain and the lovely planet and island we call home will gain.