One thing volunteers and members of Pick Up America do not have to worry about as they trek along our nation's highways is trash falling from the sky, although I've always wondered what happens to the things flushed down an airplane's toilet... While the state of airline recycling is not nearly where it should be, the 800 million pounds of waste generated each year by the airline industry is at least being contained until the end of each flight and not ending up as litter along the road. What's not gravy boats is that 75% of this waste could be recycled, and only 20% is currently being reclaimed. A significant portion of the remaining 25% could be composted as well.
ResponsibleShopper.org, Green America's consumer watchdog group, released a report last month entitled "What Goes Up Must Come Down: The Sorry State of Recycling in the Airline Industry," which outlines these findings, and evaluates airlines on the current and future status of their recycling initiatives. The report found that airlines could recycle nearly 500 million more pounds of waste each year if they simply instituted standard recycling practices on the ground. These would include employee and passenger education, efficient hauler-airport partnerships, and collecting recyclables that fit within current single-stream guidelines. Implementing such measures seems like a simple task; common airplane items like aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles, paper and magazines are all fairly easy materials to collect. However, coordinating a hauler to pick up recyclables at every airport and training employees on proper collection methods would probably take a few years to get down smoothly.
The report used a grading system to evaluate airlines on the state of their recycling, with Delta receiving the highest grade of B- and United flunking completely with an F. As it is, "no airline recycles all the major recyclables: aluminum cans, glass, plastic, and paper. No airline has a comprehensive program for minimizing or composting food waste or waste from snack packages, provides good public information about their recycling program, or reports out on progress in relation to any stated goals. In addition, all airlines provide over-packaged snacks and meals and none of the airlines are working with manufacturers to reduce this waste."
This may be changing as you read this since this report will hopefully stir some within the industry to boost their material recovery performance. Consumer pressure always helps, and it wouldn't hurt to ask the flight attendant the next time you fly, "Is this Dr. Pepper/Pinot Grigio/water bottle going to be recycled?" Then, depending on the response, engage with them about the need for recycling and that you've been hearing nasty rumors about the sorry state of airline recycling. You can also fill out a report to Green America to make the airlines accountable for what they say they are doing: http://www.greenamericatoday.org/takeaction/airline/airline_recycling.cfm
The good news is that airlines can have a huge impact on decreasing waste that goes to landfills, about 500 million pounds of impact annually, and they are starting to get saavy with the cause. Midwest Express Airlines claims to have the first on-flight bins dedicated to recycling, and some airlines are following suit. Some airlines do seperate recyclables from trash in-flight but if an airport doesn't have a recycling apparatus, then these materials all end up in the same place. Airport Recycling Specialists, which set up the first independent MRF at the Fort Lauderdale airport and claims the highest recycling rate for an international airport, is helping other airports set up recycling solutions. Seattle, Portland, Denver and Boston airport authorities are all engaged in considering different waste management solutions. While there is no standard for airports to follow, almost all airports are finding themselves subject to new municipal solid waste guidelines and legislation, and if that isn't enough to change the modus operandi, almost all airports are revamping their waste management strategies to include more recycling because of ever-increasing waste disposal costs due to decreasing landfill space. The possibility of energy generated from airline and terminal waste is also an option for airports.
Major airports have sizable operations and autonomy comparable to a small city, so it is vital that resource conservation be a staple of day-to-day operations. According to research published by the Natural Resource Defense Council, annually, airlines throw away 9,000 tons of plastic, enough aluminum cans to build 58 Boeing 747 jets, and enough newspaper and magazines to cover a football field 230 meters deep. The energy savings from recycling this waste would represent a contribution by the airlines to reducing their environmental impact in the face of the considerable climate impact of jet fuel, including 600 million tons of carbon dioxide per year pumped into the atmosphere by commercial jets alone. In order for clear skies to emerge, we must start with the facts on the ground.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Offshore Drilling A Bad Idea
President Obama's proposal to remove the twenty year-old moratorium for some regions on offshore drilling and to expand it in existing drilling areas is ill-conceived, dangerous and inconsiderate to the millions of young people who helped elect him. When the world, especially America, is looking to decrease its dependence on a dirty fossil fuel in favor of cleaner, renewable energies, the expansion of drilling in the Gulf Coast, Arctic and newly-opened Atlantic seaboard to eke out only a few years worth of fuel is ridiculously unsustainable.
Regardless of numbers, the environmental hazards involved are enough to make a sensible person reject such proposals. Hurricanes, which have increased in strength and number over the past few years, roll through the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Ocean with enough frequency and force to almost guarantee a future oil rig disaster. Oil rigs can blowout on their own if their drill ruptures, a possibility backed by historical reality when an oil platform in the Pacific blew out in 1969, leaking 200,000 gallons of oil that eventually covered an 800 square mile area. The possibility of ships crashing and spilling oil in the water and on beaches is also backed by historical examples, need I remind you of the Exxon Valdez spill in the 90s.
I can't lie; I only became really concerned about this issue when I learned my stretch of the Atlantic Ocean would be included in new leasing. Say goodbye to the pristine coasts of the Outer Banks and Assateague Island; the dolphins will probably have to migrate (or worse) since the noisy underwater drilling will fuck with their sonar and give them headaches. The seagulls, herons, pelicans and other seafaring birds will live in fear of their habitats getting covered in black ooze, and will see their food supplies diminish. Humans swimming close to oil rigs will enjoy an increase in cancer and other mysterious diseases. And the sea turtles are simply too old for this shit anymore.
Solutions on halting this potentially destructive practice abound, but to stop a fast-moving train, you'll probably need the consent of the conductor. While Obama did state his position on offshore drilling during the campaign, he did not outline this specific proposal clearly, and it comes as a slap in the face to many environmentalists. I have heard that most drilling won't start until 2012 (get your clean beach time in while you can!), but this doesn't excuse Obama from continuing where the Bush Administration left off (and I thought we were voting for change in how business was done!). Perhaps state legislatures will actively try and prevent this, or the states in affected regions will band together and pass congressional bans on new leasing in their waters. Or the people will mobilize in enough numbers to make Obama reconsider. Whatever the case, action must be taken and the word must be spread that the future of our beaches and coastal waters is in danger all because of our reliance on oil, imperial budgeting and corporate greed.
Regardless of numbers, the environmental hazards involved are enough to make a sensible person reject such proposals. Hurricanes, which have increased in strength and number over the past few years, roll through the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Ocean with enough frequency and force to almost guarantee a future oil rig disaster. Oil rigs can blowout on their own if their drill ruptures, a possibility backed by historical reality when an oil platform in the Pacific blew out in 1969, leaking 200,000 gallons of oil that eventually covered an 800 square mile area. The possibility of ships crashing and spilling oil in the water and on beaches is also backed by historical examples, need I remind you of the Exxon Valdez spill in the 90s.
I can't lie; I only became really concerned about this issue when I learned my stretch of the Atlantic Ocean would be included in new leasing. Say goodbye to the pristine coasts of the Outer Banks and Assateague Island; the dolphins will probably have to migrate (or worse) since the noisy underwater drilling will fuck with their sonar and give them headaches. The seagulls, herons, pelicans and other seafaring birds will live in fear of their habitats getting covered in black ooze, and will see their food supplies diminish. Humans swimming close to oil rigs will enjoy an increase in cancer and other mysterious diseases. And the sea turtles are simply too old for this shit anymore.
Solutions on halting this potentially destructive practice abound, but to stop a fast-moving train, you'll probably need the consent of the conductor. While Obama did state his position on offshore drilling during the campaign, he did not outline this specific proposal clearly, and it comes as a slap in the face to many environmentalists. I have heard that most drilling won't start until 2012 (get your clean beach time in while you can!), but this doesn't excuse Obama from continuing where the Bush Administration left off (and I thought we were voting for change in how business was done!). Perhaps state legislatures will actively try and prevent this, or the states in affected regions will band together and pass congressional bans on new leasing in their waters. Or the people will mobilize in enough numbers to make Obama reconsider. Whatever the case, action must be taken and the word must be spread that the future of our beaches and coastal waters is in danger all because of our reliance on oil, imperial budgeting and corporate greed.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Hard-to-Recycle Item #7: Asphalt Concrete
There has been some recent speculation over whether recycling is the best answer for reducing our global carbon footprint. While I agree reduction and reuse are the stronger of the three R's, recycling makes economic sense while simultaneously slowing down the Earth's aging rate by cutting down on the use of limited virgin resources. This is becoming more and more evident in sectors of the economy you wouldn't originally think would be down, like transportation, specifically road construction. While this article isn't a spirited defense of recycling over other green practices (stay tuned for that, this one's supposed to be about asphalt), I will say that recycling creates profits out of what would be trash, creates six times as many jobs as landfilling, and cuts material acquisition costs for production companies anywhere from 30 to 50%. When reducing and reusing fails, recycling provides the safety net for materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill, or worse...
As the green paradigm shift begins to be actualized, many industries are realizing the economic and environmental benefits of recycling. If we must make something, we should defer and prefer to defer to making that item with recovered materials. The haunting notion of necessary evil seems to reoccur throughout America's history: indigenous displacement, Hiroshima, the death penalty, defense spending and every war we've fought, preemptive strikes, voting for a major political party, etc. In an overwhelming amount of the cases, the situation could have been avoided through more constructive solutions, but the reactionary political machine and special interests of groups within that machine spun the necessity of action as greater than inaction. With the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United essentially granting corporations the same rights as individuals, this trend is even more disturbing.
Recycling is not a necessary evil; it's necessary but not evil no matter where you stand on green issues, no matter how much you hate the smell of wet cardboard. My point is that if we must grow as part of our national economic stability, we should do so in the most sustainable, efficient and organized ways possible. This isn't a call for Big Brother mandates and cap-and-trade legislation. Institutionalizing sustainability measures throughout industry on a volunteer basis is already steamrolling its way to corporate boardrooms and legislative bodies as simple matters of bottom lines and future existence. Let's explore one of these volunteer partnerships between industry and government more thoroughly through an example: the asphalt concrete industry (finally getting to the crux!).
For nearly 140 years, the United States has continually developed a system of paved roads and highways, which blows the accomplishments of the impressive (for its time) Incan road system out of the water. Nearly two million miles of roads exist in the United States with 94% of them paved by asphalt concrete (PtD in Motion). While the ever-increasing concrete jungle has decreased the amount of green jungles (there are more roads in our National Forests than the entire interstate system according to the National Forest Protection Alliance), and has led to unsustainable community development based around a car economy, readers will be surprised to learn that asphalt is the number one reclaimed material in the United States by tonnage and percentage, with a recovery rate around 90% responsible for recycling 100 million tons each year (PtD in Motion). Even with this staggering fact, according to Blount Construction, only 3% of roads are recycled, again underlining the immensity of our road system.
Asphalt is a petroleum product, a thick liquid that is a byproduct found in crude oil, which makes the importance of recycling it paramount. Incentives need to be increased for companies bidding on transportation projects that pledge to use recycled materials. The Nevada DOT alone has saved $600 million over 20 years using recycled asphalt (Roads & Bridges). The voluntary introduction of warm-mix technologies (rather than hot-mix) and better ventilation systems in work site machinery have improved working conditions and cut down on toxic fumes emitted at the work site. The higher the temperature asphalt is mixed at, the more fumes are produced, so cooler temperatures make it a cleaner product to use. Warm-mix has also proven to be a longer-lasting grade of pavement, cutting down on the use of resources and improving the quality of roads (PtD in Motion).
As Pick Up America makes its way along our extensive highway system, they can appreciate the fact that the surface they walk on is being continually upgraded through recycling, cleaner technologies and public funding. While many of us environmentalists would prefer communities in the future to have less roads, more green spaces and easier public transportation options, the necessary evil of road construction and improvement is vital to our current infrastructure. One wonders what future historians will note about our road system, whether it was too extensive and ill-advised or whether it was a solid and durable accomplishment for a fast-growing civilization becoming ever greener, or both.
As the green paradigm shift begins to be actualized, many industries are realizing the economic and environmental benefits of recycling. If we must make something, we should defer and prefer to defer to making that item with recovered materials. The haunting notion of necessary evil seems to reoccur throughout America's history: indigenous displacement, Hiroshima, the death penalty, defense spending and every war we've fought, preemptive strikes, voting for a major political party, etc. In an overwhelming amount of the cases, the situation could have been avoided through more constructive solutions, but the reactionary political machine and special interests of groups within that machine spun the necessity of action as greater than inaction. With the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United essentially granting corporations the same rights as individuals, this trend is even more disturbing.
Recycling is not a necessary evil; it's necessary but not evil no matter where you stand on green issues, no matter how much you hate the smell of wet cardboard. My point is that if we must grow as part of our national economic stability, we should do so in the most sustainable, efficient and organized ways possible. This isn't a call for Big Brother mandates and cap-and-trade legislation. Institutionalizing sustainability measures throughout industry on a volunteer basis is already steamrolling its way to corporate boardrooms and legislative bodies as simple matters of bottom lines and future existence. Let's explore one of these volunteer partnerships between industry and government more thoroughly through an example: the asphalt concrete industry (finally getting to the crux!).
For nearly 140 years, the United States has continually developed a system of paved roads and highways, which blows the accomplishments of the impressive (for its time) Incan road system out of the water. Nearly two million miles of roads exist in the United States with 94% of them paved by asphalt concrete (PtD in Motion). While the ever-increasing concrete jungle has decreased the amount of green jungles (there are more roads in our National Forests than the entire interstate system according to the National Forest Protection Alliance), and has led to unsustainable community development based around a car economy, readers will be surprised to learn that asphalt is the number one reclaimed material in the United States by tonnage and percentage, with a recovery rate around 90% responsible for recycling 100 million tons each year (PtD in Motion). Even with this staggering fact, according to Blount Construction, only 3% of roads are recycled, again underlining the immensity of our road system.
Asphalt is a petroleum product, a thick liquid that is a byproduct found in crude oil, which makes the importance of recycling it paramount. Incentives need to be increased for companies bidding on transportation projects that pledge to use recycled materials. The Nevada DOT alone has saved $600 million over 20 years using recycled asphalt (Roads & Bridges). The voluntary introduction of warm-mix technologies (rather than hot-mix) and better ventilation systems in work site machinery have improved working conditions and cut down on toxic fumes emitted at the work site. The higher the temperature asphalt is mixed at, the more fumes are produced, so cooler temperatures make it a cleaner product to use. Warm-mix has also proven to be a longer-lasting grade of pavement, cutting down on the use of resources and improving the quality of roads (PtD in Motion).
As Pick Up America makes its way along our extensive highway system, they can appreciate the fact that the surface they walk on is being continually upgraded through recycling, cleaner technologies and public funding. While many of us environmentalists would prefer communities in the future to have less roads, more green spaces and easier public transportation options, the necessary evil of road construction and improvement is vital to our current infrastructure. One wonders what future historians will note about our road system, whether it was too extensive and ill-advised or whether it was a solid and durable accomplishment for a fast-growing civilization becoming ever greener, or both.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
