Self-Haul v. Franchise Haul

The County Council is currently considering eliminating the self-haul option from the SJI transfer station. Reasons for doing so include reducing operating costs and facility expansion costs. Seems good on the financial side, right?

It is.

On the environmental side, we'll see real benefits from 1 packer truck servicing the same waste as 100 self-haulers. This means much-reduced carbon emissions from vehicles driving to and from the transfer station. Also, island-wide curbside recycling would run earlier than expected, because the local franchise hauler would be able to introduce this service with the expanded and more frequent vehicle routes.

Write your local councilmember to let him or her know what you think about eliminating the self-haul option. And even better, ask you neighbor or friend what they think of it!

Sustainability Defined

I'm sure out there some where is an agreed-upon definition of sustainability. I'll put down, then, the general idea of what it means to me:

Sustainability: Meeting both environmental and financial needs.

Too often environmental ideas become stalled because they don't make business cents.

Too often businesses or their ideas don't get support because the don't make environmental sense.

Sustainability is the idea that brings these two parts together into a cohesive solution, a balance between the two. We must be careful not to throw too much onto either the environmental or the financial for risk of unbalancing the equation.