Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Green starts with YOU!













Recycling in communities. This is a frustrating issue. Waste Management keeps showing off how green they are in their TV ads but have a system in place that dates from the 60's. If you want to get ahead you must change and adapt. Cities and companies like WM must help us change things as well. Imagine that there is only one company that will even consider green waste management and recycling in Scottsdale, AZ. Imagine how long it took to change people's minds in our community's HOA to give it a try. Imagine how many people, after the fact, came out of the dark and
 applauded the recycling program. Where were you when we needed your voice and support. It takes more than just words to change habits. It takes your time and actions.
A recycling company like WM, that offers only one antiquated system, that throws everything in one green bin and complains to the people of that community, when there are a few items that "contaminate" the trash (wow, contaminated trash, that's a new one), that they cannot pick up the green bin, they will have to send a "normal" trash truck to pick it up and dump it into landfills, the very thing we're trying to avoid, is not a program that works.

We cannot monitor every individual. We will never have a 100% "uncontaminated" trash, which sounds ridiculous to me anyway; trash, contaminated, how can that be? They should have a system that can handle the contamination. People are people, they will always contaminate to a certain extent. Oh, and did I mention that glass is not a recyclable item to them. So now residents should have how many different bags in their kitchens and garages to separate and make this thing work???

I hope our mayors (Mary Manross), government officials and company owners that "claim" to be green in attitude, realize that if they don't develope and adapt our systems to the real world and provide one that works, the program will fail. They should be eager to get into the glas recycling business as well and have extra bins for that. Either have bins for everything or have many bins for different items. Then the bins could be smaller too.
I keep saying, just pay a four week visit to Germany and copy their system. No rocket science, no reinventing the wheel. Bingo, you will be ahead of the WM pack in no time. I'm also tired of hearing "it can't be done". That only means "we're just too lazy and uninterested to make it happen." We have been flying to the moon and mars for heaven's sake. Then we can solve our trash problems. It's all a matter of will.


America the beautiful? C'mon, we can do better than this.

Have a junk, pollution & trash free day. (Wherever that is)


"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared to believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance."
- Bruce Barton