How NOT to do environmental advocacy: www.angrygreengirl.com

The owners of Central Landfill in Johnston, R.I., had a problem: Local all-terrain vehicle (ATV) and dirt bike enthusiasts were illegally trespassing on the 1,200-acre property and using the landfill and surrounding woods for off-road riding.

The solution? Fight four-wheelers with four-wheelers. Using $17,000 in federal Homeland Security funding, two Johnston police officers were furnished with ATVs of their own (complete with shotgun holsters) and put on patrol to take down those no-good, dump-jumping motorheads.

The plan has helped curb the municipal waste motocross. Since instituting the patrols, half as many illegal off-roading incidents have been reported. One suspects those riders are too busy applying for jobs with the Johnston Police Department.

Source: The Providence Journal

Cats may be many things, but they are not joiners. So it is little surprise that one finicky feline effectively sabotaged her owners’ attempt to set an environmental example. Oregon residents Amy and Adam Korst had the best of intentions: Live for a year sending no more than five pounds of waste to the landfill. They found ways to recycle everything from toothbrushes to home electronics and sacrificed foods that came in packaging that could not be recycled or reused (their efforts are documented at www.greengarbageproject.com). The endeavor was going swimmingly — until the Korsts’ eight-year-old cat Lexy decided her part of the arrangement simply would not fly.

Lexy had grown accustomed to her environmentally-unfriendly kitty litter and simply refused to use the biodegradable substitute. Eventually, the Korsts excused Lexy from having to participate in the project, conceding to The Guardian newspaper that they “do not have a green cat.”

Source: guardian.co.uk

Waste industry folks will recognize something in these impressive photos by Chris Jordan that may not be immediately apparent to the layman (as evidenced by the subsequent comments): While, the images of so much waste are disturbing, the fact that these materials have clearly been separated means they are destined to be recycled, not landfilled. Still, it’s an effective commentary on consumption and disposal. Plus the photos themselves are beautifully shot.

I think the more interesting question here is why we so rarely are allowed to see these kinds of pictures. As Jordan admits, many of his photographs were taken clandestinely, since the processing facilities would not give him permission to shoot the material. Why? Certainly there are safety and legal issues to be considered, but those can be easily accommodated (they do it for Mike Rowe, after all). What is the inherent reticence in allowing Americans see the end product of our current consumption habits?

There’s a great op-ed in the New York Times this week by Bharati Chaturvedi that looks at how the collapse in recylables markets has impacted those at the far end of the recycling food chain. Trash pickers, or as the author defines them, “sorters, traders and reprocessors who extricate paper, cardboard and plastics from garbage heaps and prepare them for reuse,” live essentially hand-to-mouth and have been devastated by the wallop to their livelihood. While many waste-handling companies and recycling processors are feeling an impact on their bottom line, these people lose their only source of income and support.

This is not a crisis limited to third-world countries and slums. Every urban area supports (and is supported by) trash pickers. Chaturvedi suggests government subsidies to keep recycling going in lean times along with some sort of federal registration so that these people don’t fall through the cracks. But both ideas strike me as wishful thinking. What can be done?

Last year, my wife and I did a partial renovation of our kitchen that involved buying a new refrigerator. The existing refrigerator was a relatively new, energy efficient model, but it was small and did not fit the reconfigured space. But rather than get rid of it, we did what a lot of people do: We moved it into the basement for extra cold storage.

Unfortunately, a lot of these back-up fridges and freezers are much older models that may use three times as much electricity as current models, padding electric bills and placing a strain on the power grid. In addition, they’re more likely to release chlorofluorocarbons — potent greenhouse gases. Even if you want to get rid of that old fridge, it’s hard to know how to dispose of it responsibly. So what to do?

The New York Times’ Green Inc. blog reports on refrigerator recycling programs instituted around the country that offer cash incentives for people to turn in their old iceboxes. An added benefit is that the programs make environmentally conscious mincemeat of the appliances they collect:

As part of the Vermont program, Jaco Environmental will reuse about 95 percent of the appliances’ contents, including foam insulation (which is burned, and its heat used to generate electricity), according to Mr. Sirkin. Steel and plastic may end up in new products like cars or refrigerators, and the tempered glass shelving may wind up in asphalt or helping to aerate some potting soils.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which we’ve discussed before, is a gyre of floating garbage in the Northern Pacific estimated to be twice the size of Texas. Project Kaisei is a nonprofit group of scientists and ocean lovers who set up to study the North Pacific Gyre and the plastic debris that has collected in this oceanic region, to determine how to capture it and to study possible processing techniques that would allow the recycling of captured materials into diesel fuel. With funding from the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), the project launched its first research expedition, comprising two boats, which set sail on Aug. 2nd and 3rd from San Diego and San Francisco.

“We are very excited to be supporting Project Kaisei’s first research expedition to the North Pacific Gyre,” said Dominique Maguin, BIR President. “The Project Kaisei team has ambitious plans, which are fully in line with BIR’s mission to increase recycling and recyclability. Our members across the globe are providing industry with nearly 50% of the raw materials needed, and we can still increase this figure. The collection of waste can be improved and the recycling activities are indispensible for saving energy, gas emissions and natural resources. It is of paramount importance to leave a safe, clean and welcoming planet for future generations. Project Kaisei represents an innovative constructive approach to addressing a problem that would not have been there if recycling had been promoted and implemented by all nations. We believe that by collaborating together it will bring benefits to both of our organizations, as well as for the whole planet.”

“We are very fortunate to have garnered the financial support of BIR and we are delighted that they have become one of our main sponsors,” said Doug Woodring, Project Kaisei’s Co-Founder and Project Director. “Together with the scientific endorsement and ongoing collaboration of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, BIR’s sponsorship provides us with the necessary resources to carry out our mission this summer. We hope to be able to come back with answers to the many questions surrounding the large volumes of waste in the ocean, the damage it causes to the ocean ecosystem and the ways to fight it.”

You can follow the expedition via Google Earth.