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Waste Done Right

- by Ruth Tyson, Energy Justice Network
 
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"547","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"367","style":"width: 450px; height: 367px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"450"}}]]In 2012, Americans disposed of 251 million tons of trash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Story of Stuff Project neatly lays out the way materials move through our economy from extraction to production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. Most consumers don’t think beyond the “consumption” step. Once the undesirable mess is tossed from households, it might be considered “out of sight, out of mind” as long as it’s not seen or smelled. But where does it all go? Where should it all go?
 
With the finite space for landfills running out, discovering ways to deal with our waste problem is imperative. The trash incineration (a.k.a. “waste-to-energy” or WTE) industry would like to persuade the public that they're the answer. However, incinerators cause more problems than they solve, and are the most expensive way to manage waste or to create energy. Incineration reduces every 100 tons of trash to 30 tons of toxic ash that must be disposed of landfills.
 

One Bin for All?

- by Melanie Scruggs, Texas Campaign for the Environment

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"396","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"216","style":"width: 216px; height: 216px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"216"}}]]Right now, the City of Houston is expanding its two-bin or “single-stream” recycling program to finally cover all the nearly 350,000 homes that it services. As an avid zero waster, you may be thinking two things: 1. It is fantastic that Houstonians finally have access to a curbside recycling program; and 2. It’s quite embarrassing that the nation’s fourth largest city took so long to extend curbside recycling city-wide. Those two thoughts are both true, but unfortunately Houston is considering trashing the progress it has made by investing in a boondoggle project that would eliminate real recycling altogether.

The proposal known as “One Bin for All” is a misguided plan designed to eliminate curbside recycling and direct all residents to go back to putting both trash and recyclable materials in the same bin—hence the name—which would then be sent to a new waste facility known as a “dirty MRF”(Materials Recovery Facility) where the recyclable materials would supposedly be separated out after the fact. This plan has met stiff resistance locally and across the nation for the past two years, and rightfully so—it’s a terrible idea, and not a new one either. Dallas and Austin officials have considered this proposal and rejected it within the past three years.

In Houston, however, the technology has been hailed as the “next revolution of recycling.” Mixed signals are coming from officials in the Mayor’s Office about whether or not they actually plan to invest in the program, especially considering the recent and significant investment in source separated recycling. Still, the official plan under consideration is to give everyone in the city a curbside recycling bin, then take away their old garbage bins and tell residents to put all their trash and recyclable materials together in their nice, big, green recycling bin. Presto, now it’s all getting recycled thanks to the magic of “One Bin for All!” But not really—in the real world, similar programs have been shown to send most of the mixed-together materials straight to a landfill or incinerator.

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