Solid Waste Matters

Bam!  Back again...

It's been a while, I know, but it's not because I'm not doing Good work out there, folks.  Oh no...I've been quite busy, actually.

So my next idea has to do with carrying on a community conversation regarding garbage.  I like to call it Solid Waste Matters.  The intention is to get people to share ideas and start to come together on solid waste ideas before it gets heated and people entrench themselves.  The forum would be open to anyone and facilitated by SWAC.  

Any one have any thoughts?

Sustainable San Juans Event

Sustainable San Juans greening your business discussion today went over some of the activities we’ve engaged in at Roche Harbor, especially in the Lodging Division.  Here’s a brief summary of what I mentioned:

 

Three simple steps:

 

1)    Awareness—involve your guests, customers, clients, employees, managers, vendors, partners, collaborators, and community groups when letting people know what’s going on with the business activities you are engaging.  Also, don’t forget to create awareness  in yourself, by educating yourself on the many opportunities out there in this community.

2)    Action—Programs must be simple, systems-based and make sense/cents.  Do not make things too complex, too grandiose.  Stick to low-hanging fruit.  Don’t create a program around one person, even if it’s you.  You must create a value-based approach that will carry into everything the company plans and decides.  And remember that if it doesn’t pan out financially in the long run or is just too difficult to implement, don’t even start it.

3)    Assessment—You must create baseline data and then measure against that at regular and frequent intervals.  You need to see where improvements/successes/failures have been made or found.  React to data, not emotions.

 

And the bottom line, find ways to TURN OFF THE SWITCHES!!!!

Update to the Climate Change Resolution

Well, we got word back from the county on what kind of progress they've made in the past 13 months on the climate change resolution.

The general tone of the presentation was hurried, joking and non-specific.  The information was not very detailed and lacked few benchmarks to measure against past or future numbers.  Nearly a third of the action items had not been addressed, and we reported to be too difficult or expensive to do in the foreseeable future.  

All in all, disappointing.  I do feel that the Green Team that will be created soon by the administrator is going to be a good, grass-roots effort for the county to see what can really be done by committed individuals.  This is the only hopeful item from the presentation.

I'll keep everyone posted next year when I ask for the update, again.

Family Gardening

Maybe you missed it, but the Obamas have recently converted some of their South Lawn into a vegetable garden.  The hope is to inform and excite the kids' hands with the process of gardening and therefore motivate them to explore a fresher menu of food choices.

What a wonderful idea and, even better, action!

Do you have a place for a garden this spring??

WasteWise

The EPA has a wonderful program called WasteWise that offers partnerships to businesses, communities and institutions that want to aggressively decrease waste generation.  The program takes 5 minutes to sign up for, costs nothing, and requires only one, two-page form completed each year.

The goal of the program is to offer support and resources to groups willing to take action on them.  I've only recently become involved in this program, but so far the breadth and depth of the information, suggestions, and resources is tremendous.  

Find more information at www.epa.gov/wastewise/about/index.htm

What's stopping you from joining up and giving it a shot?

Solid Waste

Here's some interesting thing to note about solid waste in the San Juans or elsewhere:

National recycling rate: 35%

San Juan recycling rate: 21%

The San Juan recycling rate has actually fallen since the inception of the Solid Waste Management Plan.

In Portland Metro, 70% of the trips to transfer stations are made by self-haulers.  Only 20% of the waste deposited is from these self-haulers.  

Portland claims the reasons for their 60% recycling rate is curbside pick up in free recycling containers every time the garbage is picked up.  

The San Juan Solid Waste budget is so far the only solid waste budget that I have found solely funded by tipping fees.  Nearly all are funded by some kind of special tax assessment or portion of property taxes collected by the region.

We, as a country, do not charge people for the opportunity to pollute our ground with solid waste.  We only cover the costs of burying it.

The Nantucket Diversion Rate is close to 80%.

San Juan County pays more 10% of its Solid Waste budget on debt and landfill closure costs.

San Juan County has no ordinances banning solid waste materials like recyclables in its waste stream, mandating a recycling rate from business or residents, or franchise curbside recycling requirement.

Compost Happens! on San Juan Island

So I ventured off to a workshop this afternoon on composting.  SJC Public Works and WSU Extension put on a wonderful show today for about 50 people.

We learned about the "art" of composting and a bit of the science, too.  Fascinating, really.  Our instructor discussed several methods and resources, everything from big piles you rotate to garbage cans in the ground that use the natural worms to compost the waste scraps.

If you're anything like me, the whole thing seems pretty simple, mystical and useful.

I bought two stand alone units for composting for $27/each.  One of them for the home, the other for the office at work.  And we're going to try the Homemade Food Scrap Digester, as well, at home.

If you want a great summary of the opportunities for home composting, check out: www.seattle.gov/util/services/yard.  Doing this at home is such a great way to keep hundreds of pounds of your own waste out of the flow to landfills.

Compost Happens!

I'm in!